"I tentatively told a few friends what I was experiencing, because I couldn’t take keeping this all inside. I wanted to be known and loved, for someone to hear my story and tell me that I was going to be okay. Instead, my friends’ response was to quote Bible passages at me... God created marriage between man and woman, the Bible forbids homosexuality consistently, gay sex is a sin.

They never seemed to notice that the passages they were quoting had nothing to do with my actual situation. They’d talk about the Sodom story as an example of the sinfulness of homosexuality, despite the fact that the Sodom story is about men threatening angels with gang rape. I was a conservative, Southern Baptist virgin. Gang-raping angels was certainly not on my agenda, and frankly, it hurt that they thought passages like that were a good match for my situation.

Like the Pharisees, my friends were interpreting in the abstract, not in the context of my unique situation. They were responding to the concept of 'homosexuality,' not to me. Their response didn’t move me toward righteousness. It only made me feel dehumanized—as if, the moment I used the word 'gay,' I ceased to be a person and became, instead, a potential sex act that needed to be stopped."

-- Justin Lee