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Anti-Gay Midland Minister Caught On Grindr, Quickly Resigns

Jason A. Michael

MIDLAND – A minister known to have made anti-gay remarks was outed last week after being caught on gay hookup app Grindr. Rev. Matthew Makela, an associate pastor at St. John's Lutheran Church and School since 2010, resigned just as gay news website Queerty broke the story. Queerty posted photos of a shirtless Makela, who is married with five children, as well as screenshots from conversations wherein Makela identified himself as a "bicurious guy" who "loved making out naked" and was also into "oral and massage."
Queerty claimed in the article it published that Makela confirmed the screenshots were authentic but did not offer comment. Since then his phone has been disconnected and his Facebook account deactivated. Likewise, St. John's Facebook page has disappeared and its website features only an "open letter to the Midland community."
In the letter, St. John's Senior Pastor Dan Kempin confirmed that Makela had resigned Sunday, May 17, saying it was no longer appropriate for him to serve. Then, two days later, the story began to unfold.
"Beginning on Tuesday, the details of his sin broke public, and the contradiction between what he proclaimed in public forums and what he was involved in personally became a national story," Kempin's letter read. "What could we do but grieve at the legitimacy of the accusation, and grieve still more deeply at the way in which his failure was relentlessly and repeatedly brought home to him. We want to be clear that we bear no resentment to those who have reported or commented on this story. But we hope you understand that to us it has been more than a news story — it has been a very real grief."

History Of Anti-Gay Remarks

Makela's very public fall from grace was full of bitter irony. In its initial story, Queerty showed many examples of anti-gay remarks Makela had made throughout the years. They included screenshots of Facebook comments and a reply Makela gave to an editorial in the Midland Daily News written by Dan Dickerson, another local pastor. In his reply, Makela said that "sexual attraction to the same sex is a sinful temptation."
In yet another example of his homophobic statements, Makela once compared being gay to being an alcoholic.
"I love people who have same sex attraction, and so does God," Makela wrote in reply to an anti-gay column. "We don't tell a person born with tendencies to abuse alcohol to keep on giving in to his innate desires because he can't help it. We try to help him in his struggle."
Now it is Makela who needs help in his struggle.
"We stand by Matt as a fallen but repentant brother and by his family as they seek to recover from this," Kempin said in his open letter. "He may not, of course, stand in the pulpit any longer, but he is welcome at the altar. We do not believe that public shaming is helpful to anyone, and we pray for their healing."

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