Singing for God and gays

If Queer as Folk’s Justin took up singing and fell in love with the Wallflowers’ Jakob Dylan, the result might resemble gay Christian pop duo Jason & deMarco. Jason, 29, the Randy Harrison look-alike, says he answered God’s call to minister through his music when he was still a child in Baltimore; in the 1990s he toured with Christian groups Truth and the Sound. That ended in 1998 when Jason came out as gay, although he has continued to include music from those groups in his solo projects. In 2001 he met fellow singer deMarco.

But Jason declined to leave behind his ministry, a determination shared by deMarco, who grew up in an Italian-Canadian home singing songs he’d learned from the Roman Catholic nuns who schooled him. On their first date—July 4, 2001—Jason says, “we connected on a spiritual plane that was much deeper than sexual attraction.”

Three years later, Jason & deMarco (both use only their first names) are in the middle of their third national tour. Including stops at many Metropolitan Community Church locations, the open-ended tour will promote their second self-distributed CD, financed with donations solicited via their Web site. They call their music “spirit pop,” a sound that blends melody and message to engage the soul and a phrase that gives their new album its title. “It’s not Christian music,” Jason says. “It’s pop with a spiritual message. It has nothing to do with religion; it’s about love, life, and the journey that we are all living. It’s about one’s own spirit.”

Advocate contributor Bruce Simpson, who also serves as archbishop of the Benedictine Order of St. John the Beloved in the gay-friendly Old Catholic Church, caught up with Jason & deMarco in a recording studio in Los Angeles, where they live.

Simpson: Jason, what effect did your evangelical Christian background have on your music?
Jason: I wouldn’t be where I am today if it were not for the evangelical music. My Pentecostal background forms the foundation of my morals, spirituality, and ideals. I have always loved music that had a message that crosses over boundaries—it could be you singing to God or you singing to a loved one. Being from an evangelical background has also enabled me to understand the hardship people have when it comes to reconciling their sexuality with their spirituality.

Tell me about that.
Jason: I knew since I was a child that God had a plan for me, and when I realized that I might be gay I thought it was a ploy from Satan to prevent me from [pursuing my ministry]. I felt I needed to get past this thing and just fight it, and for years I lived that way. I finally realized that I couldn’t fight it and accepted that this is who I am. I fell in love at 21 and realized then what being gay was all about and the purity of that love. When I was with [deMarco] I never felt any perverted feelings or nasty feelings; I felt it was right.

deMarco: I never had to reconcile my faith and my being gay because I never cared what the Catholic Church thought about my being gay. My relationship with God was not through the church but was very personal.

Do you have any regrets over giving up your previous careers to work in this ministry with your life partner?
Jason: It has been hardest for me in some ways because I created this ministry as a result of having been kicked out of a Christian singing group that I traveled with when they found out I was gay. Suddenly bringing a partner into [my ministry] was really difficult. I had to let go of total control.

deMarco: I could never do this by myself; when we do this together, it’s like having a piece of home with you wherever you go and it makes you feel safe. People have told us in e-mails and in person that separately we were good, but when we come together and sing we go to a whole different level.

Jason: It’s amazing how well we get along together.

Is there a central message to your music?
deMarco: Love. It is the most powerful thing that God can give to you and that we can give to each other.

Jason: And first and foremost, that we can give to ourselves. If we can see ourselves as children of God as whole and complete with all of our faults—and, through our music, if others can see that they are still loved by God—then our message has gotten through.

What effect do you hope your music will have on the GLBT community, and especially on GLBT youth?
deMarco: It’s not just the music, it’s who we are—we are an out couple who are singing pop music. We want to be an example to gay and lesbian youth that it is possible to be gay, out, and have a career; it’s possible to be spiritual; it’s possible to love yourself and be in a relationship and function within society. People come up to us after our concerts [and they’re] filled with hope, and that’s what we hope to share.

Jason: I wish the gay community could realize that it isn’t God coming against them but humankind coming against them on the gay issue.