| ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE ARTICLE
BY HEATHER HAHN
Mary Lou Wallner’s spiritual journey began with her daughter’s suicide in February 1997.
Nine years earlier, Anna Wakefield had written her mother from college to confide that after a long struggle she realized she was gay.
Wallner wrote back that homosexuality was something she could never accept in her daughter.
“I feel it is a terrible waste, besides being spiritually and morally wrong,” Wallner’s letter said. “For a reason I don’t quite fathom, I have a harder time dealing with that issue than almost anything in the world. I do and will continue to love YOU, but I will always hate that, and will pray every day that you will change your mind and attitude.”
From then on, the relationship between mother and daughter was often stormy. They still visited and spoke to each other, but infrequently. Wallner still believed homosexuality was a sin against God when Anna died at 29.
But in the decade since her daughter’s death, Wallner said she has gradually come to view homosexuality very differently.
Wallner, who now lives in North Little Rock, shares the story of her emotional pilgrimage in the documentary For the Bible Tells Me So, which opens Friday at Little Rock’s Market Street Cinema. The film seeks to reconcile homosexuality with Christianity.
“It takes a lot of courage for someone who’s been through what she has based on her belief system to really re-examine that same belief system,” said Daniel Karslake, the producer, director and writer of the film.
“It would be a lot easier, I think, to go deeper into your faith. ... But she instead said, ‘I need to know I was right about this; I need to know what I heard from the pulpit was true.’”
Wallner, 62, grew up in St. Louis attending a Plymouth Brethren congregation, part of an evangelical Protestant denomination that traces its roots to 1820s Britain. She described her home and church as very conservative. As a youngster, she was not allowed to dance, go to the movies or play cards.
“Homosexuality wasn’t talked about a lot,” she said, “but it was known that it was a sin because of the Bible.”
Wallner and her first husband provided a Christian upbringing for their two daughters — Anna and her younger sister Becky. As the family moved around the country, they would attend Southern Baptist churches and other theologically similar congregations that taught that homosexuality was a violation of Scripture.
As Anna entered adolescence, Wallner noticed her daughter formed deeper attachments to girls than boys. Still, she said she was caught off-guard by her daughter’s letter.
“Even though in the back of my mind, there was always that thought that maybe it was true, seeing it on paper was difficult,” Wallner said. “I immediately went to the bathroom and threw up.”
Anna went on to graduate magna cum laude from Southwest Missouri State University in Springfield and become a licensed social worker with a master’s degree from the University of Kansas. Wallner met a couple of her daughter’s partners.
But Wallner said Anna, like many in her family, struggled with depression. Wallner believes her daughter had a genetic predisposition toward the psychological condition, but she also blames herself for contributing to her daughter’s unhappiness.
“I think she really didn’t like herself because everybody said [homosexuality] was wrong,” Wallner said. “Her mother and father — we were divorced by then — but each of us in our own way made sure she knew we didn’t approve of her quoteunquote ‘chosen lifestyle.’”
After her daughter’s death, Wallner said she wanted answers, and she began reading all she could about homosexuality and Christianity.
She said she began wondering whether homosexuality wasn’t a choice when she read Stranger at the Gate: To Be Gay and Christian in America by the Rev. Mel White, the former ghostwriter for the Rev. Jerry Falwell.
She corresponded with White, and he invited her to a meeting in Lynchburg, Va., where she spoke to 200 gay Christians.
“They had to put up with me saying not once but three times that ‘Maybe being gay wasn’t a choice, but why can’t you be celibate?’” she said. “And they loved me anyway.”
The turning point came in 2000, she said, when she and her husband, Bob, read From Wounded Hearts, a compilation of faith stories from gays, lesbians and transsexuals.
She now believes being gay is no more a choice than being lefthanded, and that homosexuality is not at odds with the Christian faith. She and her husband regularly attend New Beginnings Church of Central Arkansas — a congregation that according to its Web site seeks to be inclusive of people from all walks of life.
Wallner, who makes her living as a nurse, is also an outspoken advocate for greater Christian acceptance of homosexuality. She has written a book titled The Slow Miracle of Transformation
and travels the country sharing her story. In that time, she and her husband have developed friendships with a number of gay people.
Robynne Sapp of Washington state credits Wallner with saving her life. For years, Sapp said she had tried to “pray away the gay,” but at the age of 36 concluded that she could no longer live a lie.
“I decided to give myself a period of time where I would study everything I possibly could about being gay and Christian — from both sides,” she said. “I decided that if, at the end of this journey, I came to the absolute understanding that the Bible does condemn homosexuality ... I’m going to kill myself because I cannot go on living as someone I am not. I was not willing to live my life without God.”
Sapp heard Wallner speak in Denver and in that moment, she said she realized suicide “would never be an option for me.”
The two women have been friends for six years. Wallner even introduced Sapp to Dotti Berry. Sapp and Berry fell in love and eventually got married in British Columbia.
“Anna’s death was a tragedy,” Sapp said. “It will always be a tragedy. But because of Anna’s death, Mary Lou and Bob were changed. And because Mary Lou and Bob have committed their lives to making sure this doesn’t happen to other families, countless numbers of lives have surely been saved ... mine included.”
Wallner said she still misses Anna but knows she did not die in vain.
“She was my heartbeat,” Wallner said. “But would I want her back and be the same way I was then? No. I am glad to be where I am now.”
For The Bible Tells Me So will be shown at 2, 4 and 7 p.m. Friday through Dec. 13 at Market Street Cinema, 1521 Merrill Drive in Little Rock. There will also be showings at 9 p.m. Friday and Dec. 8. Daniel Karslake, the filmmaker, and the Wallners will be at the evening screenings on Friday and all screenings Dec. 8. General admission costs $6 for matinees and $7.50 after 6 p.m. More information about Wallner’s work is available at her Web site www.teach-ministries. org
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