Social media blew up this week with people expressing anger over drag performer and Christian musician Matthew Blake's attendance at the Dove Awards ceremony on Tuesday, which was held at Lipscomb University in Nashville, Tennessee.
The spectacle was courtesy of Derek Webb and Matthew Blake, musicians with direct and indirect ties to the controversial song “Good Day” which topped the charts earlier this year. Blake, who goes by the name “Flamy Grant,” identifies as a “drag queen” and is the artist behind the music. The video of the hit song featured Webb, a singer with Caedmon’s Call, getting a drag-inspired makeover from Blake.
Some context may be helpful.
Matthew Blake, a.k.a. “Flamy Grant,” is a former worship leader who began identifying as same-sex attracted at the age of 24, and who began performing in drag at 37. The “Heathen Happy Hour” – a Blake YouTube creation with others – was a product of the pandemic.
“Flamy is how I free myself and, it’s turned out, how I connect with other people who need a little liberation,” Blake has said. “If my sexuality and identity hadn’t been so repressed by toxic religion, I’m sure I would have found drag earlier — but I have no regrets.”
Like Blake, Derek Webb, 49, is a former pastor and Christian songwriter who slowly and then all at once departed from biblical Christianity. After attending last week’s Dove Awards in a dress, the singer defended himself on social media:
“Why did I wear a dress to the Dove Awards?” Webb wrote. “As a cis, straight white man, I walk into a room like that, and any room, with an incredible amount of advantage and privilege. If I’m attending as an ally of friends and colleagues, I should do everything possible to surrender that privilege at the door. If the way you look at my loved ones isn’t the way you look at me, I’m not truly standing with them.”
Webb proceeded to quote progressive Christian pastor Stan Mitchell, who has said, “If you claim to be someone’s ally but aren’t getting hit by the stones thrown at them, you aren’t standing close enough.” Webb then concluded his video, which now has more than 2.4 million views, by saying, “Plus, I have amazing legs.”
Earlier this year, Webb released what he described as his “first Christian and gospel album in 10 years,” which featured a song with Flamy Grant, titled “Boys Will Be Girls.” In the lyrics of the song, Webb sings, “I heard Jesus loved and spent his life with those who were abandoned by proud and fearful men / So if a church won’t celebrate and love you, they’re believing lies that can’t save you or them / ‘Cause you’re so beautiful by any name.”
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