Gay Teen Worried He’s Christian!

Considering that “The Onion” is a humor website….

A friend of mine also sent me the same link. It’s kinda funny, but cuts too close for me. Thirty years ago (you do the math) I was a Christian teen who realized he might be gay. It was a personal disaster for me–confusing and very painful–and I spent the next two decades doing then undoing the damage. The social context was much different then: the Reagan era was in full swing and evangelicals had remarkable influence (Jerry Fawell and the Moral Majority come to mind). Anita Bryant was crusading to roll back a gay civil rights victory in Dade Countly, Florida. I didn’t think there was any safe place for me then, and looking back I can’t say whether one truly existed. Heaven knows I don’t need to take myself so seriously, but I wouldn’t wish that kind of inner conflict on anyone.
I thank God that things in the church are a little (perhaps ever so little) more relaxed these days, and that people like you are trying to start and maintain a dialogue between gays and evangelicals. Some corners of the evangelical church are a little wiser now, and the secular world is much less uptight about gays than it was 30 years ago. So we can have a chuckle at our own expense. And in the secular world we have all but set ourselves up as colossal targets for satire like this, on account of our own pompous self-righteousness (I can imagine the exact converse of this article in an old issue of “Moody Monthly” or the “Covenant Companion”). But I recall a recent posting here about an anguished Christian teen who called you after being attacked while away at college–I don’t think he would find this article very funny at all, do you? Didn’t think so.

As a formerly confused spousosexual, I thought it was very funny.