Queer Eye connects to the Christian community through service

Queer Eye is here to mend the demeaning worldview of LGBTQ people and achieve reconciliation with the church through showing Christians what true servanthood looks like.

Queer Eyeseized a new and exhilarating format for their season 2 premiere on "Netflix." The "Fab Five" broadened their mission from season 1 to serving only straight men to serving all people deserving of their expertise, including a church-going mother and a struggling trans man.

As Justin Kirkland explained in Esquire, “it aims to leverage its five experts to find the goodness that already exists in their makeover subjects.”

The “Fab Five” is comprised of Tan France the fashionista, Antoni Porowski the food expert, Bobby Berk the interior designer, Jonathan Van Ness the hair stylist, and Karamo Brown the cultural expert. These five men come into strangers’ homes to positively affect and empower their lives.

The show is more than a simple home improvement, but rather a focus on their entire lifestyle through revamping their wardrobe, redecorating their house, and offering guidance for personal grooming, cooking habits, and personal issues.

Tyler Kihm, a gay viewer said, “The show does a great job of representing the intersectionality of sexuality, race, and class. Plus, seeing a group of diverse gay men go into the lives of people from all walks of life with the goal of improving their lives is inspiring.”

Before watching season 2, do yourself a favor and pull out your tissues, lots of tissues.

The “God Bless Gay” episode features Tammye, an African-American breast-cancer survivor church-going mother of a gay son. Her son Miles feels betrayed by the church, and he hasn’t returned to church since he came out. Tammye needs help remodeling the unfinished community center for the homecoming service in remembrance of her mother, who co-founded the church.

With advise and love from Karamo, the cultural expert, Miles works towards opening up about the rejection he has felt from the church and the community in order to appropriately deal with his emotions.

Miles isn’t the only gay man dealing with rejection from the church throughout the episode. Bobby Berk, the designer, will not enter the church because of his religious background.

Berk explains that he struggled with being gay since he was a child, “I grew up really religious, there wasn’t a day I wasn’t in church,” he tearfully continues, “I knew from a young age that I was gay, and I’d be down there at that alter every Sunday just crying and begging God to not make me gay.”

Berk had spent so much time within the church, but when it came out that he was gay everyone he loved turned to judgment instead of acceptance.

Tammye explains the point of the homecoming service is for people like Bobby to come home to God. She wants people that haven't been to church for a long time to finally feel welcome to attend their special service.

Jonathan Van Ness, the grooming expert, said, "The church is what I feel alienated by, not God. I feel completely loved and accepted by God and Jesus. It's a lot of the politics of the church.” He continues to explain to the “Fab Five” that the church has hurt him because they loved him but they didn’t accept his lifestyle.

When the remodeling finishes, Tammye returns the favor to the “Fab Five” by sharing her words of wisdom as they look at their finished community center. “Before He gave the vision [for the church], he already made previsions because He knew you guys would end up together even before you were formed in your mother's womb.”

I told you to bring the tissues.

Queer Eye has deeply impacted both Christians and gay people. Kihm said, “Seeing the struggle of faith and sexuality on television in a way that wasn’t anti-gay was something I never thought I would see, but one that was so important to me and my life.”

As for myself, the show had a personal conviction to take a look at the internal judgments I had been hiding from the world. By looking at someone else’s struggle with faith because of their lifestyle, I felt guilty. The people that should be most accepting and loving have lost sight of the true message- “love your neighbor as yourself.”

Queer Eye set my sights straight and transformed myself into a more welcoming and loving person.