A few months ago, we broke the story that the ‘Christian‘ band Relient K came out as pro-LGBTQ after inviting open and unrepentantly gay musician Semler to join them on their upcoming tour. Semler is a queer artist and is a newcomer to the Christian music scene, gaining some publicity after her profanity-laced album briefly held the top spot on iTunes Christian and Gospel charts.
Semler has openly advocated for LGBTQ allies to shout out “gay rights” during Christian concerts to force the bands to comment publicly and confront their views on the issue. She recently made news after doing this same thing at a Switchfoot concert, resulting in lead singer Jon Foreman Releasing a pro-LGBTQ TikTok video.
Seemingly on a quest to catch the eye of every Christian Band out there, she received a word of thanks from Reese Roper, frontman of the group Five Iron Frenzy and Brave Saint Saturn, after giving his music a shout-out on the EleventyLife Podcast. Roper let her know that he and the band were on her side and that they were good with the gays.
Five Iron Frenzy pioneered Christian Ska in the 1990’s, joining bands like the Insyderz and the OC Supertones as mainstays on every playlist. Formed in 1995 and breaking up 2003, they’ve grouped for a few shows here and there, even releasing new music in the last two decades. With albums such as Upbeats and Beatdowns, Our Newest Album Ever!, All the Hype That Money Can Buy, and Electric Boogaloo, they became known for their off-the-beat lyrics, frenetic energy, and eventual increasingly commitments to social justice causes and themes of society breakdown.
These causes have blossomed.
In a 2020 interview with IVM, Roper explains that he wrote ‘Fahrenheit’ in 2000 for and about gay people, but became angry at himself for chickening out and adding a line about hating the sin and loving the sinner, betraying his belief at that time that “love is love” whether it be straight or gay.
More importantly, it was time to write a song for LGBTQ people, and not care what the Christian Booksellers Association felt about it. I chose myself as the person to point the finger at, and Fahrenheit was born. At the time- this was far past the envelope for a band in our position. I tried. Where I was in my faith at that point, was coming to term with accepting and loving my friends and family members who had come out as Gay, Lesbian, and Trans.
I wanted to speak from love, and say I was sorry for my own sin of homophobia. Please don’t forgive me for this, because it was the most we could say at the time, or because I was still growing in my faith. I knew that it was wrong when I wrote that words “Love the sinner, hate the sin”, and I did it to slowly edge into the volatility of the Christian market.
It was cowardly, and I know this. But, I was working through it, and that song was born. I could have left that line out, but some failure of my moral compass sought to pacify both the Evangelical Church, and what I knew to be right. Love is love, people.”
Over the years his belief that homosexuality is perfectly normal and acceptable has not waned but only increased, tweeting out support for PRIDE on several occasions.
More than this, Five Iron Frenzy has several members who are no longer Christians, having renounced their faith a long time ago. Joined with Reese, they began to manifest the fruit of their deconstruction, releasing a song decrying those who would “vote to stop abortions” as rancorous and poisonous; a theme Roper would come back to repeatedly, particularly in light of the overturning of Roe v Wade, which has him frequently fired up.
Sadly, they are not the first band to apostatize like this, and they won’t be the last.
