‘They made me feel like they thought I was demon-possessed’

“It’s something I’ve thought about every day since I was 13, and now I’m 35.”

Vicky Beeching has had plenty of time to consider her decision to come out. As a singer whose livelihood depends to a large part on the revenue from her songs being played in evangelical churches in the USA, her choice has not only an emotional but a potential economic impact on her life.

As a teenager the experience of being prayed over after she spoke about her sexuality left her feeling “fractured”: “they made me feel like they thought I was demon-possessed”, she recalls.

Having chosen to work in the US Bible Belt, where the Christian culture is deeply conservative, Vicky Beeching says “I don’t think the solution is to walk away.”

“I felt a lot of peace when I was flying – we were all in-between, and in-between is lonely, but when I landed there was no place called home.”

Speaking on Channel 4 News, Evangelical Pastor Scott Lively said that he was very sorry Vicky had “given in” to being a homosexual – adding that this was a temptation that he said his own sister had “overcome”. Mr Lively insisted that being gay “was an identity that you adopt”, rather than a god ordained.

In response, Ms Beeching said there were many ways to read the Bible, which she described as “my favourite book.”