Move over Ricky Martin. The hunky Latin-pop singer who announced last month that he is gay has company: veteran Christian musician Jennifer Knapp. In interviews with Christianity Today and Advocate.com, Knapp, 33, a Dove Award-winning folk rock singer, acknowledges that the rumors are true: she's in a same-sex relationship.

"I don't want to come off as somebody who's shirking the truth in my life," she tells Christianity Today.

She calls the rumors that she left music for a seven-year sabbatical because she was a lesbian ...

... a straw (in my decision), but there were many straws on the camel's back at the time. I'm certainly in a same-sex relationship now, but when I suspended my work, that wasn't even really a factor. I had some difficult decisions to make and what that meant for my life and deciding to invest in a same-sex relationship, but it would be completely unfair to say that's why I left music.

Knapp says in the interview that she's "absolutely" felt pressure to choose between her faith and her gay feelings.

Everyone around me made it absolutely clear that this is not an option for me, to invest in this other person, and for me to choose to do so would be a denial of my faith.

Scripture, she adds, has been her salvation.

The Bible has literally saved my life. I find myself between a rock and a hard place -- between the conservative evangelical who uses what most people refer to as the 'clobber verses' to refer to this loving relationship as an abomination, while they're eating shellfish and wearing clothes of five different fabrics, and various other Scriptures we could argue about. I'm not capable of getting into the theological argument as to whether or not we should or shouldn't allow homosexuals within our church. There's a spirit that overrides that for me, and (that is) what I've been gravitating to in Christ and why I became a Christian in the first place.

In the Advocate interview, Knapp says she knows her coming out is "going to be shocking and feel like a betrayal to some people" who have been fans. Still, "I'm quite comfortable to live with parts of myself that don't make sense to you."

Her new CD Letting Go is set for release on May 10, and she has begun touring, but Knapp tells Christianity Today that her public revelation is not motivated by political activism.

I'm in no way capable of leading a charge for some kind of activist movement. I'm just a normal human being who's dealing with normal everyday life scenarios. As a Christian, I'm doing that as best as I can. The heartbreaking thing to me is that we're all hopelessly deceived if we don't think that there are people within our churches, within our communities, who want to hold on to the person they love, whatever sex that may be, and hold on to their faith.

Do you think Christians who publicly acknowledge that they're gay must choose between their faith and a loving relationship, as Jennifer Knapp says she's felt pressure to do?

--By Michelle Healy, USA TODAY