American Idol Season 7 runner-up David Archuleta announced on Instagram Saturday that he is a member of the LGBTQIA+ community, urging Christians and Mormons to accept such sexual identities as compatible with their faiths.
“I like to keep to myself but also thought this was important to share because I know so many other people from religious upbringings feel the same way. I’ve been open to myself and my close family for some years now that I am not sure about my own sexuality,” the 30-year-old singer-songwriter posted on Instagram.
“I came out in 2014 as gay to my family,” he continued. “But then I had similar feelings for both genders so maybe a spectrum of bisexual. Then I also have learned I don’t have too much sexual desires and urges as most people which works I guess because I have a commitment to save myself until marriage. Which people call asexual when they don’t experience sexual urges.
“There are people experiencing the same feelings of being LGBTQIA+, (i know that’s a lot of letters that a lot of people don’t understand, but there are a lot of unique experiences people feel and live that make them feel isolated and alone that are represented) who are wrestling to follow their beliefs that are so important to them, just as I have,” he went on. “Idk what to make of it and I don’t have all the answers. I just invite you to please consider making room to be more understanding and compassionate to those who are LGBTQIA+, and those who are a part of that community and trying to find that balance with their faith which also is a huge part of their identity like myself.”
Archuleta further urged acceptance of his sexual identity within the Christian and Mormon faiths, continuing his thoughts in the post’s comments.
You can be part of the LGBTQIA+ community and still believe in God and His gospel plan… I think we can do better as people of faith and Christians, including Latter-day Saints, to listen more to the wrestle between being LGBTQIA+ and a person of faith. There are more than you may realize going through that wrestle after all the misunderstandings that come with it,” Archuleta wrote. “I don’t think it should come down to feeling you have to accept one or the other… I’ve tried for almost 20 years to try and change myself until I realized God made me how I am for a purpose. And instead of hating what I have considered wrong I need to see why God loved me for who I am and that it’s not just sexuality.
Archuleta did not define what he considers to be God’s “gospel plan,” according to the Bible. Christians believe that God plans to reclaim the world He created and establish His unchecked rule over every inch of it, which means He will dethrone and destroy every person and celestial being that are in rebellion against Him on a future day of his choosing. However, before that day of judgment, He has provided a means of amnesty in the execution and resurrection of Jesus Christ (whose name, more directly transliterated “Yeshua,” means “Almighty God is salvation”).
Anyone who agrees with God that they are in sinful rebellion against Him, that Jesus — though sinless — took the penalty they deserve, and that Jesus was then proven to be God Himself by rising from the dead will be forgiven for their insurrection and made a citizen of God’s eternal kingdom. No amount of sin, nor any type of sin, is insurmountable for the atonement of Jesus Christ, but this redemption requires that men first affirm that the atonement was necessary — not that they are inherently righteous and acceptable before God.
UPI contributed to this report.