Nancy Heche
{{Cleanup rewrite|it is overly reliant on derivative sources, is poorly organized, and gives undue weight to the subject's relationship with her daughter|article |date=August 2022}}
{{Short description|American activist (born 1937)}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=April 2022}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Nancy Prickett Heche
| image =
| caption =
| birth_name = Nancy Abigail Baker Prickett
| birth_date = {{birth date and age|1937|3|10|mf=yes}}
| birth_place =
| nationality =
| education = BS, Education, 1959, Indiana University{{Cite news| page = 24| last = Staff| title = I.U. to give degrees to 113 from county| work = The South Bend Tribune| access-date = August 30, 2022| date = June 3, 1959| url = https://www.newspapers.com/image/515574135/?terms=%22nancy%20heche%22&match=1 |quote = Mrs. Nancy Prickett Heche, B.S., education}}
MA, Pastoral Counseling, 1996, Loyola University Chicago
DMin, Counseling, 2003, Garrett–Evangelical Theological Seminary{{Cite news| last = Garrison| first = Greg| title = Nancy Heche speaks on faith, sexuality| work = AL.com| location = Birmingham, AL| access-date = August 29, 2022| date = December 12, 2009| url = https://www.al.com/living-news/2009/12/nancy_heche_speaks_on_faith_se.html}}{{Sfn|Heche|2006}}
| occupation = Pastoral counselor, author, activist
| years_active = 2005-present
| spouse = {{marriage|Donald Heche||1983|end=died}}
| partner =
| children = 5, including Susan Bergman and Anne Heche
}}
Nancy Abigail Baker Heche ({{IPAc-en|h|eɪ|tʃ}}; née Prickett, born March 10, 1937){{Sfn|Heche|2006|page = 10}} is an American activist, author, and counselor. In 2006, she published a memoir entitled The Truth Comes Out. Heche is the mother of the late actress Anne Heche and writer and literary scholar Susan Bergman.
Early life and family
Heche is the daughter of Marietta Susan (Tukey) and Richard Carleton Prickett.{{sfn|Heche|2006|p=10}} As a child, she attended a Methodist church and was raised in Indiana.{{cite web|url=http://www.cbn.com/700club/guests/bios/Nancy_Heche090806.aspx |title=Nancy Heche: When the Truth Comes Out |website=Cbn.com |date= |accessdate=August 6, 2012}}
Career and advocacy
Since 1997, Heche has been a Christian pastoral counselor.{{cn|date=June 2023}}
Beginning in 2005, Heche has been an activist on behalf of Love Won Out, a group with ties to Focus on the Family.{{Sfn|Heche|2006}}{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/02/magazine/02heche-t.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all|title=Anne Heche Is Playing It Normal Now|newspaper=The New York Times|date=July 31, 2009 |accessdate=November 22, 2014|last1=Witchel |first1=Alex }} According to Heche, homosexuality is a sin, and people can change their sexual orientation through faith in Jesus Christ. She has spoken in many areas of the country, often at churches and other organized events, about "leaving homosexuality". Heche has been a speaker for Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays (PFOX).{{cite book|last=Derfner, Joel|author-link=Joel Derfner|title=Swish: My Quest to Become the Gayest Person Ever and What Ended Up Happening Instead|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vymWwP7hKQ0C&pg=PA183|accessdate=May 3, 2012|date=June 16, 2009|publisher=Random House Digital, Inc.|isbn=9780767924313|pages=183–}} On September 8, 2006, Heche was the "Back of the Book guest" on the Fox News show The O'Reilly Factor.
{{cite news
| url = http://www.billoreilly.com/show?action=viewTVShowByDate&date=20060908#6
| title = Back of Book Segment: Anne Heche's mom speaks out
| publisher = The O'Reilly Factor
| date = September 8, 2006
| accessdate = May 4, 2012
| quote = 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.
| author = Bill O'Reilly
| author-link = Bill O'Reilly (political commentator)
}}
{{better source needed|date=October 2020}}
She appeared twice on the Christian Broadcasting Network's Engaging your World in December 2006.
{{cite news
| url = http://www.engagingyourworld.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=7&Itemid=8
| title = Guests
| publisher = Engaging your World
| date =
| accessdate = May 4, 2012
| quote =
| page =
| author =
}}
{{better source needed|date=October 2020}}
In 2006, Heche published a memoir entitled The Truth Comes Out.
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." 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.
In 2010, Heche and Joe Dallas published a book entitled The Complete Christian Guide to Understanding Homosexuality: A Biblical and Compassionate Response to Same-Sex Attraction.
Personal life
Heche met the man she would marry, 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.{{Cite book| edition = 1st| publisher = Farrar, Straus and Giroux| isbn = 0374254079| last = Bergman| first = Susan| title = Anonymity| url = https://archive.org/details/anonymity00berg/ | access-date = 2022-08-29| date = 1994}} p. [https://archive.org/details/anonymity00berg/page/66/mode/1up 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."{{Sfn|Heche|2006|loc = 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."}} In 1983, Donald Heche died of AIDS. Upon learning of the diagnosis, Heche became aware that her husband had been a closeted gay man.{{cite web|first=Lori|last=Arnold|url=http://www.christianexaminer.com/Articles/Articles%20Jul07/Art_Jul07_01.html|title=Nancy Heche uses personal story to reach church, homosexuals|website=The Christian Examiner|date= July 2007|accessdate=November 22, 2014|url-status=dead|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20120324234437/http://www.christianexaminer.com/Articles/Articles%20Jul07/Art_Jul07_01.html|archivedate=March 24, 2012}} Three months following the death of her husband, Heche's 18-year-old son Nathan was killed in a car crash.
=Relationship with Anne Heche=
In 1997, Nancy's daughter, Anne Heche, publicly announced her relationship with comedian Ellen DeGeneres. Nancy Heche later commented that Anne "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".{{cite news|url=http://www.christianpost.com/news/nancy-heche-and-the-christian-guide-to-understanding-homosexuality-47336|title=Nancy Heche and the Christian Guide to Understanding Homosexuality|last=Howard|first=Felicia|date=October 26, 2010|work=The Christian Post|accessdate=May 3, 2012}} Heche said her daughter's sexuality was "like a betrayal of an unspoken vow: We will never have anything to do with homosexuals." 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.{{cite web|url=https://www.questia.com/read/1G1-68944646 |title=Actress' Mom Says Faith Was Tested When Daughter Said She Was Gay |accessdate=May 20, 2012 }} {{Dead link |date=August 2022 |fix-attempted = yes}}
Nancy Heche became estranged from Anne Heche after the latter confronted her about her father's alleged sexual abuse.[https://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=124024&page=1#.UXmnrCnn_IU Anne Heche Is Pregnant]. ABC News (September 6, 2001) In her 2001 memoir Call Me Crazy, Anne Heche 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.{{cite book|first=Anne|last=Heche|title=Call Me Crazy|publisher=Simon & Schuster|location=New York City|date= 2001|isbn=978-0743424417|page=55}} Heche vehemently denied her daughter's allegations.{{Cite web| title = Readers' Forum: Talk with Phillip Lopate and Terese Svoboda| work = PreviewPort| format = | accessdate = August 22, 2022| date = September 5-11, 2001| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20020228085800/http://discussions.previewport.com:8001/article.pl?sid=01/09/05/1553214 |url = http://discussions.previewport.com:8001/article.pl?sid=01/09/05/1553214 |archive-date = February 28, 2002 |url-status = dead}} The forum was at PreviewPoint.com, a site run by Nancy Heche's daughter, Susan Bergman.{{Cite news| last = Raphael| first = Rebecca| title = Exclusive: Anne Heche Interview| work = ABC News| access-date = 2022-08-30| date = 2001-09-04| url = https://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=124031}}
Anne Heche died in August 2022 following an automobile accident.{{Cite web |date=2022-08-15 |title=Anne Heche obituary |url=https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/aug/15/anne-heche-obituary |access-date=2022-11-21 |website=the Guardian |language=en}} Reports varied as to whether Nancy and Anne Heche had reconciled prior to Anne's death.{{cite-needed|date=June 2025}}
Published works
- {{Cite book| edition = | publisher = Revell| isbn = 9781441225221| last = Heche| first = Nancy| title = The Truth Comes Out| date = 2006 |ref=none}}
- {{cite book |last1=Dallas |first1=Joe | last2 = Heche| first2 = Nancy |title=The Complete Christian Guide to Understanding Homosexuality: A Biblical and Compassionate Response to Same-Sex Attraction |date=1 July 2010 |publisher=Harvest House Publishers |isbn=978-0-7369-2507-5 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YeIo5Qb3_DsC |language=en |ref=none}}
References
{{Reflist}}
Bibliography
{{anchor}}{{Cite book| edition = 2014 ebook| publisher = Revell| isbn = 9781441225221| last = Heche| first = Nancy| title = The Truth Comes Out| date = 2006}}
External links
- [http://gen.nobleco.lib.in.us/Obituaries/Hay.htm Obituary of Donald Joe Heche]
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Category:20th-century American women
Category:21st-century American women
Category:Christian fundamentalists