“Christians are called to  “have the ministry of reconciliation,” Jernigan stated during the post-screening discussion. Yet Jernigan draws the line at allowing a homosexual cousin to bring his partner to the Jernigan home in order to protect his family. A “real possibility” cited by Jernigan in Sing over Me, meanwhile, is that “hate speech” accusations will come “just for telling my story.” “The pressure is these days to be quiet.”

“I wish somebody had…said, ‘Change is possible,’” popular Christian songwriter Dennis Jernigan reflected upon his past while receiving the Courage Award for Former Homosexuals at the Second Annual Ex-Gay Awareness Month Conference. Jernigan and about 60 attendees at this October 3-4 event in an undisclosed Washington, D.C. location expressed profound appreciation for deliverance from deeply destructive and disturbed homosexual desires.

An evening with Jernigan and his biographical, 90-minute documentary Sing over Me opened the conference. “The core issue for every human being…is identity,” Jernigan says in the film while discussing his troubled upbringing in the country town of Boynton, Oklahoma. The “emotional kid” Jernigan enjoyed drawing and music unlike many other male peers and subsequently endured school bullying as a “fag,” thus inciting desires for undisturbed loneliness.

Other factors such as a man exposing himself to a terrified five-year old Jernigan in a public restroom caused him to question his sexuality. “If I performed well,” meanwhile, Jernigan considered the only basis for obtaining his father’s love. “I had my dad’s affection all the time, I just never realized it,” Jernigan would only later learn in an adult reconciliation with his father, who likewise had a distant father.

“I liked the attention…the affirmation” in secret homosexual explorations with other boys, Jernigan therefore recalled. “Core places of deficit” can incite homosexuality, recalled Reverend Stephen H. Black his personal experience on the subsequent Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays & Gays (PFOX) panel.   Therefore the “stronger, and the more powerful, the more attractive” men were for Black.

Yet church sermons about “homosexuals going straight to hell” along with other overheard condemnations made Jernigan depressed, Sing over Me recounted. “God messed up on me, I’m a mistake,” a college-aged Jernigan ultimately felt as he entered a relationship with a man who similarly told Jernigan “you need to admit… this is just the way you are.” Feelings of “being used,” though, continued to mark his homosexual experiences and Jernigan contemplated suicide.

A tombstone marking where the “old Dennis was buried…died to sin” and “born again” on November 7, 1981, however, notes Jernigan’s conversion. Jernigan went on to wed his wife Melinda, also present at the conference, and father nine children in a happy marriage. The Jernigans now offer their Oklahoma home as a “hospital” for people like a Spanish man, who discussed in a video conference with Jernigan, trying to escape “sexual brokenness” to enter marriage and fatherhood.  Figuring out “How to rise up in masculinity” likewise challenged Black.

In this “safe place” where people “can be honest,” Jernigan can “just listen to people” and “not…cast a stone at anyone.” Angry homosexuals’ “defensive detachment” necessitates a therapy “safe space,” concurred Voice of the Voiceless (VV) President Christopher Doyle during a later presentation by fellow former homosexual and VV advisory board member Robin Goodspeed. “Come to me with all that baggage and I will help you,” a man in Sing over Me says of Jesus and turning away from unwanted same-sex attractions (SSA). “My particular sin, God hates more than others,” contrasts as a false message the man learned at his church.

Christians are called to  “have the ministry of reconciliation,” Jernigan stated during the post-screening discussion. Yet Jernigan draws the line at allowing a homosexual cousin to bring his partner to the Jernigan home in order to protect his family. A “real possibility” cited by Jernigan in Sing over Me, meanwhile, is that “hate speech” accusations will come “just for telling my story.” “The pressure is these days to be quiet.”

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