An openly gay artist has taken the top spot on iTunes Christian and Gospel charts, sending reigning champion Laren “I don’t know if homosexuality is a sin or not” Daigle’s album “Look up Child” to second place, just three above Chris Tomlin’s newest worship album.
The new number one spot is occupied by Semler and her album “Preacher’s Kid.” Semler is a newcomer to the scene and is the performing name of Grace Semler Baldridge, a butch lesbian who’s married to a woman while purposeful altering her appearance to look like a man – giving the impression she’s about one upper chest surgery from becoming transgendered.
Baldridge is overjoyed at what this means for LGBTQ acceptance, telling the Huffington Post:
It’s just been so encouraging and heartening. I keep thinking about how this would have meant so much to me when I was 13 or 14 years old, to see an openly queer artist talk about being queer and struggling with faith and being hopeful with God and being mad with God sometimes.
I’m so grateful to be part of what I think is a movement towards inclusion within a faith community that has been largely exclusionary…
“Preacher Kid” contains 8 tracks and has a “Parental Advisory” warning on it, due to obscene language that some progressives swoon over but we find tacky, blasphemous and tragic. One example is from her Bethlehem song:
I’m saying ‘F-ck a saviour’
And if she can’t take it then she’s small
I’m gonna ask a lot of questions
Because I’m giving this my all
You know the people preach now
Well they’d be putting us through sh-t
And if you don’t sanction that then why are you rewarding it?
Baldridge herself is a real-life preacher’s kid – in this case, the daughter of an Episcopal priest. Throughout the album, she rants about the church’s refusal to embrace LGTBQ ideology, as well as her experience growing up in the mainstream evangelical experience, with all the goofiness that frequently comprises it.
With stripped-down production and an acoustic vibe she touches on the excesses of youth group lock-ins, short-term mission trips, and this pervasive doubt she seems to experience about God’s existence and her own salvation. Much of her ire is well directed, though only to a point.
Though some may see this as a sign of the times, others are more bullish. Given that she’s not trending on other lists, such as Billboard, it is speculated that LGBTQ audiences are “Gamestopping'” her in order to catapult her to that position, sending her “to the moon” in order to capitalize on the lulz, clout, and memish delights.
