Cases Like Mine John Calvin Pierce

My dad is the preacher at the red-brick Southern Baptist church that I’ve attended since I was seven. It’s just down the road. Sunday school at 9:30, “big church” at 10:30. Youth Group on Wednesday nights. As the preacher’s kid, I know all the ins and outs; I’m the first one at church and the last one to leave. I used to be in the youth praise band (I’d play the piano and sing). I know all the answers, the covenant lineage, the story of Hezekiah and Obadiah and all the obscure prophets. I know the Bible verses by heart. I wore the food pantry t-shirts, the inspirational bracelets; I sang the songs, raised my hands, even cried a few times. I was the model Christian, the one who wears that "Jesus is my homeboy" shirt without any irony.

And then I got my first boyfriend.

Hear me out: I am in no way implying that gay people can’t be fully devout Christians. They, we, can. But when I heard my Sunday school teacher equate gay people with ax-murderers, when my church friends would throw around the word “faggot,” when my own father would speak so openly against the idea of LGBT rights, it hurt. A lot. When you suddenly become ostracized from the identity in which you once felt so comfortable, so at home, you look at things differently....