[09.15.08] Dove award-winning gospel artist, Ray Boltz, well-known for his 1988 smash-hit “Thank You,” which is a narrative about a Christian thanking their Sunday school teacher for leading them to Christ, announced recently that he is living as a homosexual Christian, according to the Washington Blade. 

 

Boltz, 55, said that for the duration of his 20-year gospel career, which produced 16 albums and 12 No.1 Christian radio hits, he has struggled with his sexual orientation.

 

He said he’d tried to fight his feelings in numerous ways, including ex-gay therapy, though he admits that he’s never attended an ex-gay formal seminar or camp. 

 

“I’d denied it ever since I was a kid,” he told the Blade. “I became a Christian, I thought that was the way to deal with this and I prayed hard and tried for 30-some years and then at the end, I was just going, ‘I’m still gay. I know I am.’ And I just got to the place where I couldn’t take it anymore.’”

 

In 2005, Boltz separated from his wife, Carol. Their divorce was finalized earlier this year. Boltz told the Blade that he and his wife had a mostly happy life but that he felt throughout the marriage he wasn’t able to be himself.

 

“It wasn’t something that manifested itself in that we never had sex … but how can you truly be intimate with someone when you don’t know who they are, when they won’t reveal themselves to you,” he told the Blade. “I thought if I can’t say this to the people I love, then what kind of life is this?”

 

He said he clearly remembers the day, Dec. 26, 2004, when he told his wife and four children—three daughters and a son—that he had been struggling with homosexuality.

 

“It’s hard to say I came out because I didn’t have all the answers. I just admitted what I was struggling with and what I was feeling. It’s hard to go, ‘This is the point where I accepted my sexuality and who I was,’ but I came out to them and shared with them what I’d been going through,” he told the Blade.

 

In 2005 Boltz moved to Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., where he had anonymity and could “just be [himself].” 

 

He told the Washington paper that he is now dating men and lives a “normal gay life.”

 

He occasionally sings at gay-affirming churches, but says he does not want to be a spokesperson for gay Christians. 

“I don’t want to be a spokesperson; I don’t want to be a poster boy for gay Christians; I don’t want to be in a little box on TV with three other people in little boxes screaming about what the Bible says; I don’t want to be some kind of teacher or theologian…I’m just an artist and I’m just going to sing about what I feel and write about what I feel and see where it goes.”

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