Oral Roberts' Grandson Asks for 'Political Healing' in Minnesota

When Randy Roberts Potts was 5 or 6, he remembers watching “The Dukes of Hazzard” on TV, and developing a crush.

He wasn’t the first boy to do that. But his crush was on both Bo and Luke – John Schneider and Tom Wopat – rather than Catherine Bach, who played Daisy Duke.

“I learned very early on that my crush on these two TV characters was wrong,” Potts said. “Daisy Duke would have been OK. If I’d watched Daisy, my parents and my grandfather would have clapped me on the shoulder and said, ‘She sure is pretty, isn’t she?’ They wouldn’t have accused me of inappropriate thoughts.”

Potts’ story takes on multitudes of added dimensions because his grandfather was televangelist Oral Roberts, and his parents – and most of his relatives – were, and are, strict evangelical Christians who quit inviting Potts home for holidays when he came out at 30.

Potts spoke Wednesday night to a crowd of about 60 in . His appearance was arranged by Andrew’s Round Table, an organization made up of opponents of the so-called “marriage amendment” that will appear on Minnesota ballots in 2012. 

Potts’ visit to Minnesota, which also included talks at churches in Winona and Minneapolis, was arranged by Jeff and Lori Wilfahrt of Rosemount, whose son, Cpl. Andrew Wilfahrt, was killed in February in Afghanistan by an insurgent’s bomb.

. When he joined the Army in 2009, he went back into the closet so he wouldn’t run afoul of the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, which was permanently abolished last month.  

Since their son’s death, the Wilfahrts have become outspoken critics of the proposed amendment, which will ask voters to make it a permanent part of the Minnesota Constitution that marriage be defined as being between a man and a woman.

Potts took up that cause in Minnesota, telling his audience that it’s time for “political healing.”

“We could sit and debate endlessly about whether God sees homosexuality as an abomination,” he said. “He said, ‘Love thy neighbor as thyself,’ and we could sit and talk for years about whether this love extends to homosexuals.

“We could have that debate. But meanwhile, this same group, these gay men and women, will be begging for political healing. They will be dying too often from suicide, unwilling to live in a world where debate is more valued than their well-being.”

The reality is that because same-sex marriage isn’t allowed in most of the country – and because states like Minnesota want to define marriage in their Constitutions – those who will be most affected by such laws will become secondary considerations to a political conflict, Potts said.

“I disagree with much of what my grandfather taught, but he was right about one thing: Healing is simple,” Potts said. “It’s about establishing a point of contact between the source of power and a person in need. There’s a need for men and women of all faiths and orientations to reach out in healing to their gay brothers and sisters, and welcome them as equal citizens with equal rights.

“I ask everyone here tonight: Is your door open to everyone? Are you prepared to say yes when your gay neighbor or co-worker comes to you and asks if they can marry the person they love? They may not be brave enough to ask you, so I’m asking for them. Please.”

Randy Roberts Potts' Story

Potts described his grandfather Wednesday night as a “complicated man.”

“He became famous for a lot of things,” he said. “A lot of people think of him as a TV preacher, his hands outstretched, asking for God’s help – and also for donations. But that was only part of his story.”

Potts, who repeatedly heard his grandfather and others in his family refer to homosexuality as an abomination, married at 20 and had three children. But a decade later, he told his family the truth.

“My family thinks I’m making a choice, and I’ll be going to hell, and if they facilitate that choice they’ll go to hell too,” he said. “I try to be compassionate and not angry. The best I can say is that our relationship is tense, but I try to make sure it’s loving.”

Potts attended his grandfather’s funeral after he died in December 2009 at the age of 91. But he wasn’t asked to sit with the family. He hasn’t been asked to come home for family holiday celebrations since 2004.

Potts spent his childhood and youth growing up, variously, in Denver and on the Roberts family compound in Tulsa, Okla.

“My parents tried to change me,” Potts said. “I remember them gathering up all my stuffed animals – I used to line them up in the living room and have tea parties with them. We put them in trash sacks and took them to Goodwill.

“But I kept a stuffed koala named Jerry. He was my brother’s favorite. We kept Jerry hidden in the closet so my parents wouldn’t find him. My heart, like my brother’s koala, was hidden away in a closet, ashamed.”

Potts’ Uncle Ronnie, his grandfather’s youngest child, was also gay – an open secret in the Roberts family, but one that was never discussed.

Ronnie Roberts came out to the Rev. Troy Perry, founder of the Metropolitan Community Church, in late 1981. Six months later, Ronnie drove himself to an Oklahoma country road and shot himself in the heart.

“I’ve read that a gunshot wound to the heart is not an easy and instant death, but a long, prolonged, painful one,” Potts said. “He must have lain there bleeding in that car on that country road for quite some time, the same way he lay in his apartment night after night.

“That day in June 1982 was not the first day his heart was torn in two.”

Shortly after Ronnie’s suicide, Potts remembers walking with his mother in Denver, talking about inconsequential things. He said he told his mother that he thought Strawberry Shortcake was “really gay.”

“My mother had just lost her gay brother to suicide,” Potts said. “My parents knew I was showing signs of being an awful lot like my Uncle Ronnie. She asked me if I knew what gay meant.

She described to me what it was, "and that God hated it so much that he burned up two cities because of it. Then I knew exactly how God felt about a little boy like me.”

Potts had never told his story publicly until February.