Reverend Jide Macaulay is an openly gay church minister who wants to marry his boyfriend.
But, in doing so, he risks losing his position as a clergyman in the Church.
Can the conflict between faith and same-sex love ever be resolved?
The plan for most people’s lives is simply laid out by society and is generally expected to be followed. Go to school, work for a few years, get married, have babies, and live happily ever after.
Jide fully intended to follow this route, until he found out that he was gay.
His is a story fraught with pain and confusion.
"As a young boy, I was shy and felt more comfortable relating with girls. My father was a clergyman who ensured they went to church and followed the scripture to the letter," he tells the British broadcaster BBC.
ADOLESCENT
Things got worse as adolescence approached. After he was circumcised, the community’s expectation was that the subsequent “natural” step for the young man would be to show more interest in girls in preparation for courtship and marriage.
It did not occur to anyone that Jide, unlike his age-mates, felt no desire to follow this mapped route. Instead, he was grappling with an addiction to masturbation.
“I prayed and fasted, but the attraction increased alarmingly. It got to a point where I could not sit next to a man in class without feeling uncomfortable. Then I became a youth leader in my church and the guilt multiplied tenfold,” he said.
MARRIED A WOMAN
As Jide rose through the ranks in his church, the pressure to get married increased.
“It was expected of me, but I did not want it. I did not want that lifestyle, the heterosexual lifestyle. But I mistakenly thought I could ‘cure’ myself if I just did what everyone said I was supposed to do," he narrates to BBC.
"That was what was required of a church leader. There were a number of girls vying for my attention because I was a good catch. I was not only prominent in the church, but also seemed to have most of the qualities that church-going girls look for.”
I’m very happy with both sides of who I am, but I’ve arrived at a crossroads. As a minister, I can be openly gay, but actually having sex with my partner is strictly forbidden.
He was eventually compelled to marry his girlfriend at the time, whom he admits that he did not love.
Three years after getting married, Jide suffered a breakdown and came out to his wife, which led to an 'acrimonious' separation.
CHURCH MINISTER
Jide,47, moved to England and currently, serves as the Reverend in the Church of England.
He says the church allows him to have a boyfriend, but we have to remain celibate.
"We can never get married in the church, and if I go ahead and marry him anyway, I won’t be allowed to keep my job as a clergyman," Jide told the BBC.
He says that is a great disservice and discrimination against same-gender-loving individuals.
"I was determined to pray my homosexuality away but I'm born," he said.
The deacon’s same-sex partner currently lives in Nigeria, and has not been named for his own safety because being openly gay 'could cost him his freedom or even his life'.
The Bishop of Buckingham Alan Wilson of Church of England told the BBC that he hopes gay marriages will be accepted in church soon.
“I very much hope that one day it will be [accepted]. If a life of stability and love and commitment is good for human flourishing, why would it not be good for you, because you’re gay? I don’t get that at all," he adds.
Jide admits that views don't change overnight.
“Things won’t change overnight, especially in an institution as old or as powerful as the Church of England I know I am not too gay for God, but perhaps I am too gay for this religious institution,” he says.
Jide said Churches must be places of welcome for everyone, irrespective of their age, ethnicity, gender, sexuality or anything else.
“If we put ‘gay’ into an acronym, ‘G-A-Y,’ it simply means God Adores You. God Admires You, God Accepts You, God Accommodates You, God Anoints You."
