Yes, Lonnie Frisbee was gay & he died of AIDS in 1993. Before and during his evangelism career, he worked as an evangelical preacher as well as a gay man. According to Frisbee, homosexuality was always a sin in God's eyes, and both denominations outlawed gay sexual behavior. He was married to Connie Breeden and the couple divorced in 1978 after his involvement in the gay community.
Jon Erwin and Brent McCorkle's Jesus Revolution, a 2023 American Christian drama film follows Greg Laurie (Joel Courtney), Christian hippie Lonnie Frisbee (Jonathan Roumie), and pastor Chuck Smith (Kelsey Grammer) as they participate in the Jesus movement in California during the late 1960s, based on the book of the same name. Lionsgate released the film in theaters on February 24, 2023. It grossed $17 million and received mixed reviews from critics while being well-received by audiences.
Hippies loomed large in the American imagination both then and now. The American public was both horrified and captivated when these young idealists descended on the Bay Area in California during the 1967 Summer of Love. Film footage of mostly white 20-somethings from the suburbs who had abandoned social conventions in favor of long hair, bare feet, and a search for peace and enlightenment through drugs, sex, and rock 'n' roll.
Greg Laurie is a teen who lives with his mother, Charlene, in the film. During the Hippie Movement of the 1970s, he and several other wandering youths arrive in Southern California to spread the truth and seek liberation. Greg meets Lonnie Frisbee, a dynamic street preacher, and Pastor Chuck Smith, who welcomes them and all the kids into his church. What follows is a nationwide countercultural revolution dubbed the greatest spiritual awakening in American history.
Lonnie Frisbee, whose memory is being revived through a brilliant portrayal by actor Jonathan Roumie, is one of the most captivating and distinct characters in the biopic. Furthermore, the realistic portrayal of the 1970s and religious movements makes fans wonder if Lonnie Frisbee was gay. Let's find out the truth.
In the earlier episodes, we took a look at Erik Rubin's and Jackson Mahomes' sexual orientation.
Yes, Lonnie Frisbee was gay. He worked as both an evangelical preacher and a gay man privately before and during his evangelism career. This is in contrast to his statements in interviews that homosexuality was never anything other than a sin in God's eyes, and both denominations prohibited gay sexual behavior.
Frisbee was married to Connie Breeden. Frisbee's religious conversion led to their meeting in the early 1970s. Breeden was also a Jesus People member, and the couple fell in love quickly. They married in 1971 and shared three children. Connie Breeden was instrumental in Frisbee's ministry.
Connie traveled with him frequently and supported him in his evangelistic efforts. Their marriage, however, was marred by difficulties, including Frisbee's homosexuality and infidelity. Frisbee moved to San Francisco, where he became involved in the gay community, after the couple divorced in 1978.
Both churches later disowned him due to his active sexual life, first removing him from leadership positions and then firing him. He was shunned and omitted from official histories. His work was criticized as a result of his exclusion from his former churches, but he forgave those who tried to discredit him before dying of AIDS in 1993.
Lonnie Frisbee, born in 1949 and fully immersed in the hippie movement of the 1960s, was a quintessential baby boomer. He was in San Francisco during the famous 1967 Summer of Love, and even at the age of 18, he was a compelling figure, winning awards for his painting and becoming known in the gay underground for his dancing, bohemian attitudes, and drug use.
The evangelical preacher identified as a nudist, vegetarian hippie. His rootlessness could have been caused by a difficult childhood. He was raped at the age of eight, ran away from home frequently as a child, and was in and out of school so frequently that he barely learned to read or write.
However, Frisbee did not fit the strong, virile image of a great leader that traditional churchgoers expected—he was small in stature and appeared frail. Nonetheless, his guru-like hippy shirts, long, brown hair parted in the middle, full beard, and leather sandals gave him the appearance of a classic portrait of Jesus.
But, growing up in a dysfunctional family, Lonnie had the devil on his back from a young age. His parents were both in their teens when they married, and as a child, he was exposed to sketchy characters. As previously said, an adult neighbor sexually assaulted him. This led him astray as he dove headfirst into drug culture during his adolescence.
Lonnie, a gifted artist on scholarship, attended college but soon dropped out to join the hippie movement, ingesting hallucinogenic drugs and dabbling in occult and mystical practices. Lonnie, like thousands of others, went to San Francisco's Haight Ashbury district to tune in, turn on, and drop out during the Summer of Love in 1967.
San Francisco was the place to be at the time. Lonnie Frisbee frequented hippie teahouses, where people sat drinking tea, smoking marijuana, reading poetry, and debating the new youth revolution. He frequently observed Janis Joplin walking her seven dogs. He met Jimi Hendrix, George Harrison, Jerry Garcia, and Charles Manson, who posed as both Jesus and the devil to everyone.