 As I look back, I see that the devil deceived me and he deceived many, many thousands and thousands of others into believing that we could be happy. You know, that's the deception that this is a happy life. This is a gay life. This is a gay pride. We are happy. None of that is true. None of that is true. I began to organize social events for lesbians of color at the time. Myself and I had two other business partners and we were a perfect fit. We would rent restaurants and invite women to come and sort of a male list. And women would come from all over the region. And on any holiday night, the group was called Hospitality Atlanta. It would not be odd to have seven to eight hundred women exclusively packed into a beautiful restaurant with, we hired police at the door and would not let a man in. And from those events, we had softball leagues and softball teams and major, you know, picnics and whatnot. It was just a great, at that time we thought organization, we made a lot of money. And we did that for nearly 10 years. And when we got older and decided we didn't want to do it anymore, you know, decided what are we going to do with this male list? And from that male list, I decided to launch a magazine. The gay and lesbian political community began to pay attention to the fact that we could bring numbers of black lesbians and gays together through the work that we were doing. And then when the magazine was launched, surely we began to get contacted by HRC, Human Rights Campaign, and the Victory Fund, and many of the gay organizations who were doing a lot of work right now. And we were, it was a very important part in the early 90s of the work that they were doing because at that time they were being told by local politicians or regional politicians and national politicians that, okay, you guys are rich. You guys are a group of rich white gay men. And you wanted to change laws just for you know. We don't see a coalition of people here. So it was important then to be able to raise up or show a Charlene Catherine or a Venus magazine to say, oh no, there's a huge vibrant black gay community. Look at that through the pages of Venus magazine. So we were important part of what they were trying to present. The strategy is always to get one little foot in the door when in fact the plan means we're going to take over the whole thing. Well, why don't we just get a statement, Mr. School Board President, in your school board policy that you simply acknowledge the fact that we will not fire a gay teacher or that there may be some gay students that we're going to be okay with trying not to be prejudiced toward them through our policy. We just want one little statement in the booklet when in fact the plan is to take over the whole school system as we see now 15 years later is happening. There's always just, you know, that's the strategy just to get in under the wire and then once you get enough of our people in, then to do some major work. I was asked to help with domestic partnership, get the domestic partnership bill passed in Atlanta, Georgia. And they helped to train me to go in and speak with council people and to speak with the mayor. And of course they chose not only people of color but also people who were landowners. Of course I owned a home at that time and people who had a good strong voting record. That was also very important. And so we would go in under the wire and basically what we were trained is that don't talk to anybody else about this. All we want to do is get in, talk to the council people. We don't even want the church folk to understand that this vote is coming up soon. We want to be able to fill the auditorium on vote day with all gay and lesbian landowners so that the politicians will say, my God, we kind of have to do this. That's the strategy. That's the strategy. They were able to infiltrate media. And even people, you know, I look at people who started out even with my small publication. People who started out with Venus Magazine and were able to take, you know, tear sheets from our book are now working for some major newspapers. Working for Bloomberg, working for the New York Times, working for Kandey Nass. And so it's so true. It's like they, you know, they, gays and lesbians run major media in this country. They just do. And I'm not sure how many, the church really read. Well, maybe the evangelical church realizes that. But gays and lesbians really are at the forefront of major media decisions. And so then sitcoms, every sitcom they, you know, I've heard that every sitcom is going to have a gay character and it's coming true. It really is. And of course now gay characters have major talk shows. They really have taken over media. Why? Because media speaks directly into the minds of young people. And that's how you change society by changing the mind of the youngest person. I hadn't planned on shifting out of it. I was doing just well. You know, I had a magazine that was on automatic pilot. I was doing very, very well. And at the top of what I thought was my career, my mother passed away. And that chain that was the beginning of the change that God was setting up for me because I'm the oldest of two. And now my grandmother, who is Alzheimer's, becomes my responsibility. Here I am in the middle of a 10-year relationship with another woman. And we're living together in New York. And my grandmother is now living with us. And my life changed in so many ways. I wasn't able to get to all those functions I used to run and go to. I was barely getting Venus out. But God was showing me what eternity looks like. Because when I had to bury my mother, I had a decision to make about a plot to buy, OK? My mom, my grandmother is my responsibility. And then I've got to go, you know, unmarried, you know, whatever. But I bought a three-grave plot in our family cemetery. And it was a huge reminder to me when I would go and put flowers on my mother's grave that that's where my mother's going to be. That's where my mother is. This is where my grandmother's going to be. And this is where you're going to be. And when you look at, you know, your mortality, it really forces you to think about what's beyond this grave. And I was forced to think about that and having, again, that seed of righteousness that was way down in me from, again, that 12-year-old God's-save experience. And being forced now at 42 to say, where are you really going to spend eternity just getting buried in this ground? It's not it. It's not over. What's going to happen after that? And that may come sooner than you think. That began to change just the way I saw the gay life. Now did I continue to publish the magazine? Yes. And I went to some, you know, events, yes. But I saw that people were not paying attention to the ever after. In fact, they avoided it. And I could never, I was never one to go to a gay church, you know, that just never sat well with me. I knew it wasn't real. I knew that was not the God of my understanding, the only God there is. And I could not get in line with that. So I just didn't go to church very often, except to a family gathering a function. But facing my mortality, looking at my mortality, forced me to begin to think about things that are spiritual. And then there were times, you know, in my soul that I wanted someone to share with me how I could get out of this captivity that I was in. I mean, it certainly I had the knowledge of Christ, but I did not know that I could be free in my flesh again. I always struggled with that. Can I ever be free in my flesh? Can I ever not want a woman? Can I ever not look at a woman and desire her? Can I ever break free of that? That is how I struggled. And one day, again, here I am in New Jersey, and a pastor happened to call me on the phone, wonderful woman of God. And she asked me, she said, surely, you know, we discussed our business and I guess there was just something that prompted her to ask me, where are you in the Lord? And I said to her, you know, in my spirit, I wanted her really to help me with this dilemma. How do I get free in my flesh? I said, but if you discuss the flesh with her, the kind of flesh you're talking about, this woman-woman thing, this woman is going to run and hang up the phone and never talk to you again. But that's not what happened. That's not what happened. She listened to me go on. And then something, my pride kicked in. And something said, well, just tell her about all the accomplishments you've also made as a lesbian. You've published. You've traveled. You've done this. You've done that. And let her know that even the money you make from your gay publication is what allows you to do the small community publication for them. It's gay dollars that support it, you know, so all of that kicked in. And she allowed me to go on and on. And she said, let me tell you something. She said, I can see in the spirit that you want to come back to Christ, but you can't figure out how to be, you know how to get free, but you can't figure out how to stay free. And you feel as though God can't use you because you've been so public about your lesbianism. She said, God intends to use all of that. And something began to unlock and unravel just at that time. And just that stony ground began to break up so she could get some word in me. God just sort of shut me up. I was speechless for several minutes. I could not speak. All I could do was listen and tears just flow down because she just hit something that was so true. I wanted to be free in that moment. You know, God said to me, look, you're going to choose this day who you're going to serve. And even as an unsaved person, I recognized the hand of God moving. My God, that had to be God. I couldn't have done that myself. You know, particularly after my mother died, you know, several things happened that were just a setup. I know that it was God. And I'm like, God, why? And I thought to myself, he's doing this for grandma. You know, it was never for me because I certainly didn't deserve it. But God showed me it was me doing that. And that's how he wins us by the loving kindness and compassion he has toward us. And I said, no, I'm going to choose you today, God. And of course, the enemy is speaking in the other ear. Well, what about, you know, what about your income? You can't stop publishing Venus magazine. You know, all of my debt loo was built on, you know, a certain income coming in every quarter from the publication. I have mortgages. You know, car notes. I have all the debt that is associated with your income. And I said, you know what? I don't know. I don't know how I'm going to do it. All I know is I've got to trust God in this moment and I've got to choose God in this moment. Oh, yeah. Well, what about the speaking engagement that you're already been paid to go to New York City to the Schaumburg, New York City Gay Pride? You're going to have to do that. What are you going to go there and say, you can't get saved today? Is what the enemy kept saying, you can't get saved today? And I'm like, you know, I don't know what I'm going to go there and say, but I know that I'm going there as a safe person because I'm choosing the Lord today. And, you know, it seems like after I just gave the enemy the last blow, he just said, OK, well, let me go bother somebody else. And then tears just began to flow. And I felt the overcoming of the Holy Spirit in me like I have never felt before. The very next thing after getting saved that Tuesday was that I went on to Schaumburg. And this was about two weeks later. I went on to the Schaumburg, I didn't call ahead and let them know that I was going to have some, you know, I had a change of life. I just said, you know, God, you're going to show me. And he'd already shown me in just a passage of scriptures that, you know, don't worry about what you're going to say. I will give you the perfect timing and I will give you the perfect word to share in the perfect moment. And then, but on the other side of my mind, I'm like, yeah, but I know the gay and lesbian community. I'm like, oh, my goodness, they're going to have a fit and I have some kind of fit on me. And I won't I won't say that I wasn't frightened because I was. Now I was part of a panel discussion. I wasn't a keynote. And these were all publishers. These were people who I had traveled with before every time we would go to a session, you know, we knew who each other. There was a book publisher and the magazine publisher and the one who just got a new book out. So we're all sitting there. We're all sharing about our experiences. And the host, of course, would ask a series of questions. I think the first set of questions was how did you all get started and certainly shared how Venus got started and everybody else did. And how did you gather the audience that you have now? So I was able to share that. But when he the last question he closed with was where do you see your publication going now? And I knew that that was that the door that got open. This is where you tell them. And so I began to say, I said, you know, the direction of Venus is going to change 180 degrees. We're going in totally in an opposite direction. Our mission up until now has been to encourage gays and lesbians to stand up and be who they are, you know, in the community and come out of the closet and be proud and let your parents and neighborhoods know we're going down the opposite direction. We want to let gays and lesbians know that this is not what God intended. And I tell you that you could hear a pin drop. In that auditorium, the host, the other I wouldn't look to the left or the right at my friends and I tried not to see faces. You know, I try like Jeremiah, I don't even look at their faces. Just say what God says and let it go forth and let the chips fall where they may. And I said, this is not what God intended. And Venus is going to now instruct people on how to get out of homosexuality and not only that, but you can't just get out on your own that it takes a committed relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. And this is what he's done for me. And, you know, it was time for all of us to speak. But it was like, you know, it took a while for the silence to break up. And I just I let it sit. You know, there's nothing wrong with silence sometimes. And I didn't say anything and they didn't say anything for a minute. And the host, when he finally got over the shock of it, went on to the next speaker. But then a little fright set him because, of course, there was a reception immediately immediately afterwards. And I thought, oh, my God, get out of here. Don't go to the reception. Run to your car and to get back to New Jersey real quickly. Don't take any questions. Just go. And the Lord began to say, you know, if this is your ministry, then this is where you begin. You're going to stay and you're going to you're going to take whatever, you know, comes. And I thought, OK, well, they're going to be pretty ice cold to me. I'm going to be, you know, pretty isolated, you know, at this reception. And, you know, you're going to be standing here and the rest of the crowd are going to be over there kind of looking at you like she's lost her mind. But that didn't happen either. As I stood at that reception, one by one, a person would come over to me and say, you know, I used to go to church and I'm not happy in this life. And I want to get out, too. I had another woman come over to me and say, you know what? I used to be a minister and I backslid. And that's the only reason I'm in this life. One by one, souls begin to come and say to me, thank you. For sharing that, for saying that, for being bold enough to say that in this setting. And I knew then what God had in store that he was going to raise up. Not only mine, but there are many. He's raising up a new nation who has experienced this thing. And so now these people can't look at me the same way they might look at a Baptist preacher or a Pentecostal preacher who's not walked in those shoes. They can't look at me and say, she doesn't know what she's talking about. She's just being prejudiced against me. They know I was in the same thing that they were in. They know that I was stuck in the same flesh, you know, struggle that they were stuck in. But I am free. There's a song that my pastor is teaching right now in our choir. It's called The Lord is in this place. Oh, my soul. Oh, my soul. He's in this place. And it's not talking about a building. It's talking about this place of your soul. He's filled up what was an empty, dark place in my soul. And so I can say now, oh, my soul, Christ came in and filled up this empty place. And so he will only come into a clean place, a place that you allow him to clean. And so and I say that because I have in mind those gays and lesbians who believe that they can be Christian and gay at the same time. That is one of the lies that Satan is keeping people trapped in. That is an untruth that the Lord has sent me to tell you about. You cannot be Christian and gay at this or lesbian at the same time. Unrepentant to say you can't be an unrepentant gay person. You cannot be Christ can't live in you while darkness lives in you at the same time. It can't happen. But and I want you also to know the other the other lie he wants to say to people who understand that is that Satan wants to say you can never be free. You can never stop wanting women. You've been going with women for 30 years. I stand as evidence. That the Holy Spirit can and will change you if you give God your whole heart. When you when you pray, pray that God will come in to your whole heart and change your heart, not just to take the gay thing away, not just to take the lesbian thing away. It doesn't work like that. You have to give God all of you. He's changed many things in my life, not just the lesbian. Is I have, you know, an anger problem. He's, you know, he's he's had to break that up. So many things that we have in our lives that have to be turned over all of us. Give God your whole heart and you will he'll put you back together again. I had a woman write me and say, you know, I think you're so wrong. You know, I applaud your change of life, but I think you're wrong because I know that God loves me just like I am. And I said, I agree with you, sister. He does love you. I remember feeling that God loved me even when I was lesbian. I knew he loved me, but I also knew that I was sending. He loves you just like you are. But he's waiting for you to love him just like he is. He is a certain way. He is holy. He has created an order and whether we like it or not, that's the order he created. He's waiting for us just to love him just like he is. And when you decide, choose, and that's a wonderful thing he gave us choice. When you choose to love God the way he is and simply follow his order and his word, he will come in and just change you and do such a put in you such a joy, such a piece. That's what I have. I have a piece that people don't understand. I don't understand myself. I have a piece and a joy that was not there before. I have a piece and a joy that that people want after having watched me and people who knew me years ago. I got letters from people early on when my testimony first came out. I actually ran my testimony on the cover of Venus Magazine. I figured Oprah could be on her own magazine. Every issue I could certainly put myself on the cover of one. But so when my testimony came out there, people wrote some very angry letters. And one woman says, you know, how dare you harm our community? You know, you've been, you know, you financed your life for the last 13 years from the backs of gays and lesbians. Now you're going to, you know, harm our community like this. That same woman two years later wrote me back and said, I never thought that I would be the one writing you back this letter to let you know that I decided to come out of lesbianism and to give my life to Jesus Christ. And that makes the whole suffering worth it all.