This is the first of a series of essays that explain how I matured from Fundy Christianist to Rationality. The subsequent articles will be posted approximately whenever I feel like it.

(For reference, this was originally written in September 2010.)

For most of my life I was a practicing Fundamentalist Christian of one stripe or another, predominately Southern Baptist or Presbyterian Church in America. Tack on whatever emotional/mental baggage you want to; most of it will probably be correct to one degree or another. I was satisfied in my own opinions (which I'd been spoon-fed practically from birth) and comfortable in my own insular little circle (which closely resembled a medieval keep). Like most people of that ilk, whenever I was confronted with evidence that ran counter to my beliefs, I would either ignore it or twist it around until it did fit - sort of - or maintain that the evidence was flawed and therefore invalid. Though I find that mindset maddening now, it was emotionally a very secure place to be, at the time.

I had a good friend in college who came out as gay just after graduation. He met someone, fell in love, and they became partners (no gay marriage at the time). After a couple of years, he was going to be passing through my town and called to ask if they could drop by. I was less than reasonable. He was very hurt. And we did not communicate for the next eleven years.

One October (as people are known to do from time to time for reasons of vanity) I was crawling the web, having googled myself to see where my stories came in on the list, and came across a reference that gave me pause. I followed the link, and found myself on my old friend's home page. He looked happy, he and his partner. He was living in Savannah. He studied genealogy, and had a website for it.

I believed at the time - and still do - that things happen for a reason. I had been getting more exposure to certain concepts that I'd simply dismissed out of hand for a long time, but that were starting to make a disturbing amount of sense. What if "being gay" really wasn't just a choice? What if genetics did have something to do with it? What was my obligation to my friend, now that I knew how to contact him? Should I call him? Leave a message on his forum? Send him an email? Or should I even call him at all? What, after all, would I say to him? Does a mummified apology mean anything, really? I waffled. Everyone fears rejection, and I had lots of reasons that he might reject my overture. But I thought about it A LOT over the next few days.

The Following Thursday I was trying to find a rake to gather leaves from the lawn and couldn't locate one. So I went to Big Lots to buy one. They didn't have one either ... but I ran into my old friend. Right there in Big Lots, in a town 500 miles from his home. I recognized him, but he didn't recognize me (I'd gotten even uglier over the years, and wasn't wearing my iconic beard at the time). I decided that this was not a coincidence, went back to him and said, "Hello ..."

And it worked out a lot better than I was afraid it would. He was very gracious. Turns out he was in town visiting a friend ... who lived just down the block from me! I invited him to the house, and he came over that evening. We talked, he and my wife and I, for hours. I learned a lot.

That was a decade ago. (Yes, I know I'm dating myself, but I don't care. I'm a geezer. Deal.)

Fast-forward to 2006. My daughter, who was a Junior in high school, had a friend whom I will call Steve. They were very close. Steve's mother was (is) a dyed-in-the-wool, spittle-flecked, raving Fundamentalist. His stepfather thought all religion was bullshit and was (is) one of the most egregious assholes it has ever been my misfortune to meet. Steve had fought against his natural inclinations most of his life. He had started feeling attractions to other boys by age nine. He tried to "pray away the gay". He tried reparative therapy (on the sly). But none of it worked; he couldn't be "fixed" because he wasn't broken in the first place. He couldn't deny who he was, and when he was seventeen he finally stopped trying. He told his mother, and asked her not to tell the stepfather, but she did anyway because she is one of these 'shadow-personalities' who can't think for herself and does whatever her Ogre of a husband tells her to do. Well, The Ogre immediately made life hell on earth for Steve. After a week of constant bashing, Steve was given thirty minutes to "clean his shit out and scram for good". He was seventeen, still a minor, and still in high school, but that didn't matter to the The Ogre. So Steve, not knowing what else to do, called my daughter in a panic. She called me. I got my truck, drove over to Steve's house, helped him gather up his stuff, and brought him back here.

He's been with us now for most of the last five years. He's almost ready to graduate from the local college with a degree in Psychology. After he moved in and I got to know him, and learned a little more about the whole "being gay" thing, we (mainly my wife) started doing some serious research on the topic. We (mostly she) read as much as we could find of the latest studies. What we discovered is that:

A] Homosexuality is found in nature ... all over the place. There is nothing 'unnatural' about it. In one species of monkey, apparently all the females are lesbian. The males have to force them to mate, and the females mate constantly with each other. About 90% of some species of giraffes are gay, with the males preferring to mount other males exclusively. And it is possible, by manipulating certain conditions prior to birth, to predetermine the sexual orientation of rams.

B] There is no "choice" involved. Sexual orientation is present at birth in the majority - the great majority - of humans. Genetics have somewhat to do with it, but the primary factors appear to be related to the hormonal make up of the amniotic fluid. Gays and lesbians (actually, anyone not at the exclusively-heterosexual end of the spectrum) make up around 10% of the population, at all times and in all cultures. It just happens. Deal with it.

C] There is no Great Evil Gay Agenda. Their "agenda", if you want to call it that, is a deep desire to be left the hell alone so they can get on with their lives. Secondarily, their agenda is to be treated with the same respect that non-gay humans are treated with. Most state laws don't.

D] Apparently there is a connection between being gay and possessing some sort of artistic talent. I'd say they're just naturally fabulous. ;-D

So. This presented me with a dilemma. If the science was accurate, and I believe it is, then there is a very large, very important piece of dogma that I'd been taught by my church which was just incorrect on its face. Some further study on my part led me to understand that Jesus never condemned anyone for being gay. In fact, one of the telling incidents in the Gospels concerned His healing of a sick servant who was, by any contemporary measure you'd want to use, the gay lover of the centurion who came to ask for the healing. And Jesus praised the centurion for his faith.

The logical progression here? If the church was wrong about homosexuals, what else was it wrong about? You see my concern?

The outcome of all this, after about a year's worth of study and meditation and agonizing over things, is that my wife left the church and became a sort-of-kind-of-in-some-respects Wiccan. Pagan, certainly. She got a big ol' "mad" going at the church and told them to kiss off. I haven't done that, and have no intention of doing it in the future. That being said, I can't in good conscience worship with a congregation that firmly believes what I know to be false. While I don't attend church at the present time, I would if I could find one that was welcoming and affirming to gays. I really think that my wife tossed out the baby with the bathwater, but that's her choice. We are all free moral agents, and we all make our peace with the Almighty in our own ways. So, I'm a Christian, but not a "Christianist" (as one of my wife's gay blog-buddies describes them). You know the type. So do I, having been one much of my life. So does Steve. He went to his youth pastor shortly after he came out, and explained the situation to him, and was basically told to go away and not come back.

The religion of love and forgiveness, right? Yeah, right.

So Steve is a pagan now, too. Yeah, I've got a Wiccan altar in my home, and a small coven that meets in the back yard to hold their rites. Steve now channels a number of the well-known spirits on a regular basis. I've talked to Apollo and Circe and several others. Some of my former friends from the church are afraid I'll burn in hell for this (and my Holy-Roller, Church of God next-door neighbor is dead sure of it) but somehow I don't think so. (UPDATE APRIL 2016: That coven thing sort of fell apart, so no more rituals or altars or anything. My wife has lots of questions with darn few answers, and she's okay with that.)

As my daughter says, "Do you think God will condemn me for loving, or condemn you for hating?" OH! That's another thing. My daughter's pansexual (at least that's the tag she's most comfortable with). And transgender, some of the time. She doesn't really fit well into any of the standard categories. Sometimes she feels like a guy in a girl's body, and sometimes she feels very girly. Her mother and I have no problem with that. She's "good people" as they say around here, and a joy to any group she happens to join. We love her, and whether she ends up with a guy or a girl (or a very open-minded couple) it won't matter. (Update as of April 2018: She and her boyfriend, a trans-guy, wedded this month! Happy life to them both.)

So. That's Stage One. Stay tuned for Stage Two.