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Christian music star Jennifer Knapp says she is a lesbian

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AJMELBOURNE
 
Joined in 2009
April 14, 2010, 14:11

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – A rising star on the Christian music scene is returning to the public eye with a new identity after a mysterious seven-year absence spent mostly on the other side of the world.


Jennifer Knapp is not only coming out with a new album, she is also “coming out,” a term the Grammy-nominated singer/songwriter considers “very bizarre” as she nervously relaunches her career.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100413/music_nm/us_knapp





Anthony Venn-Brown
 
Joined in 2005
April 14, 2010, 17:45

Download her new song for free here http://www.jenniferknapp.com/music.html


Its called inside…….listen to the words and telling me what you think she is saying.



Anthony Venn-Brown
 
Joined in 2005
April 14, 2010, 17:55

here is a longer report in the chrisitian post


http://www.christianpost.com/article/20100413/jennifer-knapp-returns-to-christian-music-scene-confirms-her-sexuality/


Award-winning Christian music artist Jennifer Knapp has returned from a seven-year hiatus with a bang.


Aside from touring with provocative singer-songwriter Derek Webb and preparing for the release of a new album, Knapp is confirming what some had for years suspected – she’s gay.


In interviews with The Advocate, Reuters, and Christianity Today – all published Tuesday – Knapp spoke openly about her sexuality while making it clear that she is not a pro-gay activist or even a self-described lesbian despite being in an eight-year relationship with a woman.


“I’m just a normal human being who’s dealing with normal everyday life scenarios,” Knapp told Christianity Today.


“As a Christian, I’m doing that as best as I can,” she added. “The heartbreaking thing to me is that we’re all hopelessly deceived if we don’t think that there are people within our churches, within our communities, who want to hold on to the person they love, whatever sex that may be, and hold on to their faith. It’s a hard notion.”


Though not the first Christian music artist to “come out” as gay, Knapp is arguably the most prominent.


Knapp’s impressive history includes over one million albums sold with her three releases to date – Kansas (1998), Lay It Down (2000), and The Way I Am (2001). In 1999, Knapp won her first Dove Award for Best New Artist. The Kansas-born musician later scored a Grammy nod in 2002 and another Dove nomination in 2003.


“She’s like a fine cabernet. She only gets better with age,” commented John Huie of Creative Artists Agency, Knapp’s booking agent.


In September 2002, however, Knapp decided to leave the music scene over a number of issues – her “crazy” and exhausting schedule, for one – and has for the past seven years been spending time and soul searching in Australia as well as traveling throughout Europe.


It wasn’t until the last year that Knapp picked up a guitar again and came out with a couple of new tracks that led to her return to the United States last July.


After a few sessions in the studio, it became clear to Knapp and her team that it was time to make music again, and so Knapp officially moved back to the states in August together with her partner, whose identity Knapp is adamant about protecting.


Now, the finished product, titled Letting Go, is slated for a May 11 release and will be the first test of her fans’ loyalty given her sexuality confirmation.


While the decision to “come out” one month before her new album’s release is a risky one, The Advocate said Knapp chose to do so partly because she didn’t want people to love her music and then discover that their own values won’t let them sing along full-throated.


“I think it’s going to be shocking and feel like a betrayal to some people who live their spiritual lives through the music they listen to,” Knapp told the LGBT publication.


Furthermore, the move provides Knapp a chance to be “wholly myself.”


Currently, Knapp is on tour with former Caedmon’s Call member Webb and will be until at least the end of April.


On Monday, Knapp turned 36.


April 14, 2010, 18:12

and this one http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=10364584


Christian Music Star Jennifer Knapp Says She Is a Lesbian

By Dean Goodman

Reuters


LOS ANGELES


A rising star on the Christian music scene is returning to the public eye with a new identity after a mysterious seven-year absence spent mostly on the other side of the world.


Jennifer Knapp is not only coming out with a new album, she is also “coming out,” a term the Grammy-nominated singer/songwriter considers “very bizarre” as she nervously relaunches her career.


The 36-year-old Kansas native, who dated men during her college days, is braced for a backlash from religious fans who faithfully shot down whispered rumors about her sexuality over the years. On the other hand, she said in a recent interview with Reuters, “I’m definitely getting a lot more friendly winks from the girls (at her concerts) than I have in the past!”


No other singer of Knapp’s renown in the Christian music genre is openly gay. In the past, the industry looked dimly on those who deviated from the straight and narrow. Radio stations and retailers quickly dropped Sandi Patty and Michael English after they admitted to (separate) extra-marital affairs during the 1990s. Amy Grant was also blacklisted when she went through a divorce later that decade. All have since been forgiven to varying degrees.


Knapp is taking a preemptive stand anyway. She has recorded a mainstream album, and is not specifically targeting Christian radio stations and retailers.


“I just wouldn’t find it respectful at all to say, ‘Hey, this is something that you want in your store next to your Jesus statue,'” she said. “It would just be disingenuous to try and convince someone that they needed to do that.”


BORN AGAIN, AGAIN?


Still, Knapp considers herself a “person of faith” and recoils at the suggestion that she is turning her back on the church, an accusation that dogged the likes of Sam Cooke and Aretha Franklin when they left gospel for pop stardom.


As a mainstream act targeting the adult album alternative niche — alongside the likes of U2 and fellow lesbian Melissa Etheridge — it is suggested to Knapp that she is now born again, again.


“Maybe that’s what I should have called the record,” she said. Instead, Knapp opted for the equally forthright “Letting Go,” which will be released May 11 through Sony Music-owned independent distributor RED.


It will mark her fourth album and first release since 2001’s “The Way I Am,” which received a Grammy nomination for best rock gospel album.


Knapp has sold about a million albums since releasing her 1998 debut “Kansas.” She toured relentlessly, and was part of the lineup of the 1999 Lilith Fair tour. She also won four Dove Awards, the gospel music industry’s top honors.


But increasingly exhausted and dispirited, Knapp lived the fantasy of many working stiffs by dropping out and traveling the world. She ended up in Australia, became a citizen, and now drops the friendly appellation “mate” into the conversation. She plans to spend most of her personal time Down Under.


But Knapp’s time in the wilderness was not all about shrimps on the barbie and Vegemite sandwiches. She underwent an early midlife crisis of sorts as she reexamined her faith, sexuality and career. Making music was the furthest thing from her mind.


Before Knapp met her girlfriend in the United States, she was celibate for 10 years, which she says is in line with the general expectation for unmarried members of the evangelical community.


“Anyone who has a decade of celibacy has ‘complete loser’ written on their back,” she joked, although she still respects those who do abstain.


Knapp’s new sexual identity is clearly a major talking point, but she does not view herself as a crusader in the gay community. She jealously guards her privacy and that of her girlfriend, who “doesn’t want to be famous in any way whatsoever at all.”


While fans will inevitably scour the songs for clues about her new love life, Knapp says she never writes songs about specific people. But she pulls no punches in the first line of the track “Inside,” singing: “I know they’ll bury me before they hear the whole story.”


“I hope that the defiance does come across as humble,” she explained. “If there’s any frustration, it’s trying to politely break the yoke of being asked to be something that I just can’t be, and with all humility go: ‘Just please be kind when you discover the truth.’ It’s kinda all you can do.”


(Editing by Jill Serjeant)


(To read more about our entertainment news, visit our blog “Fan Fare” online at http://blogs.reuters.com/fanfare/)


Copyright 2010 Reuters News Service.



gettingthere
 
Joined in 2008
April 14, 2010, 22:32

I’m so happy to hear this! I remember listening to some of her music and really enjoying it. So happy to hear that she has reached a place where she can be open! That must feel so great. I respect her so much and wow, major kudos to Derek Webb for supporting her. He is really a man who practices what he preaches. 🙂



orfeo
 
Joined in 2007
May 28, 2010, 13:35

ABC online (as in the Australian ABC, not the American one) has posted a really good interview with Jennifer today.


You can read it here



Ann Maree
 
Joined in 2008
May 28, 2010, 14:57

Hi orfeo


Great to hear from you again! We’ve missed you.


That was a really great article. Thanks for posting it. From what I’ve read of Jennifer, I really like and respect her. I can’t imagine how difficult it’s been as a successful Christian artist in the US, now out as a gay woman.


Anyway, how are things with you?


Blessings,


Ann Maree


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