Chely Wright has said her mother
believes she's going to hell for being gay.
Two years ago, Wright became the first
commercial country music artist to come out gay.
The 41-year-old singer on Friday will
accept a Lavender Heart Award from the Miami Gay & Lesbian Film
Festival. Wish Me Away, the film which documents her coming
out, will be screened at the festival on Saturday.
Half of the tickets will be given away
to LGBT youths.
“They need to understand they're not
alone and that they too can walk this delicate path, this nuanced
path, and show it to their parents,” Wright told The
Miami Herald.
“With my dad, it's great,” Wright
said of her current relationship with her father.
“Not with my mother. She's not
supportive. She thinks I'm going to hell.”
Wright, who married
her wife Lauren Blitzer-Wright in Connecticut last year, earlier
this year opened her Like Me non-profit's first
gay community center in Kansas City. She is also a board member
of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN).
“There's so much work to do,” she
said. “If 80 percent of what I talk about is gay issues – I
didn't come out to shut up. I came out to talk.”