Jeffery Hale: ‘I have to be brave’

Winchester res­i­dent, teacher, and busi­ness own­er Jeffery Hale is no stranger to con­tra­dic­tions. Unlike many gay peo­ple, who have eschewed reli­gion, Jeffery ful­ly embraces his Christianity—although his prac­tice dif­fers sig­nif­i­cant­ly from the dom­i­nant form that seems to get all the air in today’s America.

Jeffery describes him­self as “a sim­ple man try­ing to live in God’s love.” Yet his rela­tion­ship with God and his per­son­al spir­i­tu­al prac­tice are any­thing but con­ven­tion­al. He has found a way to ignore the often-homo­pho­bic atti­tudes of many evan­gel­i­cals while retain­ing his love for “Spirit”—his per­son­al name for the Christian Trinity (God the Father, Jesus the Son, and the Holy Spirit.)

Coming out as a gay man and embrac­ing his vision of Spirit while reject­ing parts of Christianity has required courage at times.

“As a mar­gin­al­ized per­son, I have to be brave,” says Jeffery.

Last week, Lisa Bush sat down with Jeffery in the cozy con­fines of Mason on Main, the down­town shop Jeffery runs with his hus­band, Mason Rhodus. In a reveal­ing and inti­mate 30-minute video for The Voices of Winchester Podcast, Lisa and Jeffery explore the many facets of his roots in Eastern Kentucky up to the present day.

This episode is the sec­ond install­ment of a three-part series of inter­views Lisa is doing for us explor­ing the lives of three very dif­fer­ent LGBTQ+ peo­ple in Central Kentucky.

Watch now!