Nancy Heche

Nancy Abigail Baker Heche (/heɪtʃ/; née Prickett, born March 10, 1937)[4] is an American activist. She is the mother of actress Anne Heche.[5] In 2006, she published a memoir, The Truth Comes Out.

Nancy Prickett Heche
Born
Nancy Abigail Baker Prickett

(1937-03-10) March 10, 1937
EducationBS, Education, 1959, Indiana University[1]
MA, Pastoral Counseling, 1996, Loyola University Chicago
DMin, Counseling, 2003, Garrett–Evangelical Theological Seminary, Northwestern University[2][3]
Occupation(s)Pastoral counselor, author, activist
Years active2005-present
Spouse
Donald Heche
​
(died 1983)​
Children5, including Susan Bergman and Anne Heche

Biography

Prickett is the daughter of Marietta Susan (Tukey) and Richard Carleton Prickett.[4] As a child, she attended a Methodist church and was raised in Indiana.[6]

She met her future husband, Donald Joe Heche, in high school. Her husband co-founded a schismatic fundamentalist Baptist church. They lived with their children on an isolated compound in the Amish country near Burton, Ohio from the early 1960s until 1971. Heche stated that "I didn’t read a newspaper or watch television or listen to the radio for nearly 10 years. Don’t ask me about Top 40 songs or news events in the late 1960s or early 1970s. I never heard them."[7][8]

In 1983, Donald Heche died of AIDS.[6] Upon learning of the diagnosis, Heche became aware that her husband had been a closeted gay man.[9] Three months following the death of her husband, Heche's 18-year-old son Nathan was killed in a car crash.[9]

Since 1997, Nancy Heche has been a Christian pastoral counselor. As of 2022, four of her five children are deceased.[10]

Relationship with Anne Heche

In 1997, Heche's daughter, Anne, publicly announced her relationship with comedian Ellen DeGeneres. Heche said, "She became sort of the poster child for coming out and bringing the whole homosexual issue into the public eye and even glamorizing and humorizing it, laughing about it, making it just another kind of love relationship".[11] Heche said her daughter's sexuality was "like a betrayal of an unspoken vow: We will never have anything to do with homosexuals."[6] After reading the Old Testament book of Isaiah, Heche became convinced that sexual orientation change was possible for her daughter, and likened what she believed would be their eventual reconciliation to the parable of the Prodigal Son.[12]

Heche became estranged from Anne after the latter confronted her about her father's alleged sexual abuse.[13] In her 2001 memoir Call Me Crazy, Anne wrote that when she contracted genital herpes as an infant, her mother insisted that it was a diaper rash and refused to take her to the doctor.[14] Heche vehemently denied her daughter's allegations, responding on an internet forum, "I am trying to find a place for myself in this writing, a place where I as Anne's mother do not feel violated or scandalized. I find no place among the lies and blasphemies in the pages of this book." Heche's daughter Abigail added, "I would like to point out that Anne, in the past, has expressed doubts herself about the accuracy of such memories. Based on my experience and her own expressed doubts, I believe that her memories regarding our father are untrue. And I can state emphatically, regardless of Anne's beliefs, that the assertion that our mother knew about such behavior is absolutely false."[15][16]

Anti-LGBT activism

Since 2005, Nancy Heche has been an activist on behalf of Love Won Out, a group with ties to Focus on the Family, about "overcoming homosexuality".[3][17] Heche believes that homosexuality is a sin and that through faith in Jesus Christ people can change their sexual orientation, noting that she is not attempting to "convert" gays.[9] She speaks in many areas of the country, often at churches and other organized events, about "leaving homosexuality". Speaking about Heche's activism, Melissa Fryrear, a self-described "former lesbian" and Focus on the Family's director of gender issues for their government and public policy division, said, "It's wonderful because she obviously offers two unique perspectives, one that she is the parent of someone involved in the homosexual lifestyle and as a spouse whose husband led a secret life."[9]

Heche has been a speaker for Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays (PFOX).[18] On September 8, 2006, Heche was the "Back of the Book guest" on the Fox News show The O'Reilly Factor.[19] She appeared twice on the Christian Broadcasting Network's Engaging your World in December 2006.[20]

Heche adheres to the Bible's "mandate that Christians must love, gays and lesbians included". She has said, "We are supposed to be known by our love. So to categorize it or think it's going to be different for someone who is living homosexually is a misconception. We just show love."[9] Heche has been criticized by other Christian activists, both those who believe that a person's sexuality is determined by God and those who believe that homosexuality is a sin.[9]

In 2009, Anne Heche told the New York Times: "My mother's had a very tragic life. Three of her five children are dead, and her husband is dead. That she is attempting to change gay people into straight people is, in my opinion, a way to keep the pain of the truth out".[17]

Published works
  • Heche, Nancy (2006). The Truth Comes Out. Revell. ISBN 9781441225221.
  • Dallas, Joe; Heche, Nancy (July 1, 2010). The Complete Christian Guide to Understanding Homosexuality: A Biblical and Compassionate Response to Same-Sex Attraction. Harvest House Publishers. ISBN 978-0-7369-2507-5.

See also

References
  1. Staff (June 3, 1959). "I.U. to give degrees to 113 from county". The South Bend Tribune. p. 24. Retrieved August 30, 2022. Mrs. Nancy Prickett Heche, B.S., education
  2. Garrison, Greg (December 12, 2009). "Nancy Heche speaks on faith, sexuality". AL.com. Birmingham, AL. Retrieved August 29, 2022.
  3. Heche 2006.
  4. Heche 2006, p. 10.
  5. Kennedy, Dana (August 13, 2022). "Anne Heche's mom Nancy survives four of her five kids; took 'poppers' and married lovers". New York Post. Retrieved August 14, 2022.
  6. "Nancy Heche: When the Truth Comes Out". Cbn.com. Retrieved August 6, 2012.
  7. Bergman, Susan (1994). Anonymity (1st ed.). Farrar, Straus and Giroux. ISBN 0374254079. Retrieved August 29, 2022. p. 66. "After Cynthia died, we moved out to the country where the Amish people lived, and three years later, in April of 1965, Nathan was born. The pastor of the small breakaway church and my father had agreed to purchase forty acres together, on which they would build their families’ houses away from the lure of the world. They had located a site on top of a hill on which there was a clearing in the middle of a woodland parcel."
  8. Heche 2006, p. 65, 68: "Don and I bought 40 wooded acres of land outside the city and, along with five other families, built homes in a compound-like setting to keep us out of the world and to keep the world out of us. I didn’t read a newspaper or watch television or listen to the radio for nearly 10 years. Don’t ask me about Top 40 songs or news events in the late 1960s or early 1970s. I never heard them." "It was the summer of 1971. Don sold our unpainted, uncarpeted, unheated home that we had never finished building and maneuvered our family out of the Amish community of Burton, Ohio, into the sophisticated neighborhood of Cleveland Heights.".
  9. Arnold, Lori (July 2007). "Nancy Heche uses personal story to reach church, homosexuals". The Christian Examiner. Archived from the original on March 24, 2012. Retrieved November 22, 2014.
  10. "Anne Heche obituary". the Guardian. August 15, 2022. Retrieved November 21, 2022.
  11. Howard, Felicia (October 26, 2010). "Nancy Heche and the Christian Guide to Understanding Homosexuality". The Christian Post. Retrieved May 3, 2012.
  12. "Actress' Mom Says Faith Was Tested When Daughter Said She Was Gay". Retrieved May 20, 2012.
  13. Anne Heche Is Pregnant. ABC News (September 6, 2001)
  14. Heche, Anne (2001). Call Me Crazy. New York City: Simon & Schuster. p. 55. ISBN 978-0743424417.
  15. "Readers' Forum: Talk with Phillip Lopate and Terese Svoboda". PreviewPort. September 5–11, 2001. Archived from the original on February 28, 2002. Retrieved August 22, 2022. The forum was at PreviewPoint.com, a site run by Nancy Heche's daughter, Susan Bergman.
  16. Raphael, Rebecca (September 4, 2001). "Exclusive: Anne Heche Interview". ABC News. Retrieved August 30, 2022.
  17. Witchel, Alex (July 31, 2009). "Anne Heche Is Playing It Normal Now". The New York Times. Retrieved November 22, 2014.
  18. Derfner, Joel (June 16, 2009). Swish: My Quest to Become the Gayest Person Ever and What Ended Up Happening Instead. Random House Digital, Inc. pp. 183–. ISBN 9780767924313. Retrieved May 3, 2012.
  19. Bill O'Reilly (September 8, 2006). "Back of Book Segment: Anne Heche's mom speaks out". The O'Reilly Factor. Retrieved May 4, 2012. I don't think I've ever seen a person with as much heartbreak as you've had. Your husband led a secret double life as a bisexual, and he died of AIDS in 1983. You had one child die from a birth defect, another daughter die of brain cancer. Your only son was killed in a car accident, and then you had a conflict with your daughter, Anne, about the lesbian relationship.
  20. "Guests". Engaging your World. Retrieved May 4, 2012.

Bibliography

Heche, Nancy (2006). The Truth Comes Out (2014 ebook ed.). Revell. ISBN 9781441225221.

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