General Discussion

Friends committing suicide, friends dying of AIDS rejected by their families, drug addictions, finding myself in a completely untenable relationship (she was trying to prove to her family and herself she was not gay)...

One of my high school classmates died of an ectopic pregnancy because she couldn't tell her parents that she and her boyfriend were having sex. Her boyfriend went into a death spiral of drug and alcohol abuse after that. Thanks to their "purity" celebrating Christian upbringing they'd both been totally naive about sex and birth control.

I used to try to excuse this sort of Christianity, if not forgive it, as people who thought they were trying to do the right thing, the most dangerous sort of naivety. But I can't do that anymore. This sort of Christian love that kills and traumatizes so many people grows from hatred of the "other," fear, and deceit.

The father of the woman my girlfriend eventually married was a big man in his church, and made a show of it. In reality he was a vile narcissist, his only concern that his wife and daughter might make him look bad. When he suddenly passed away I don't think anyone was sad except for the loss of money he gave to his horrible church and its hate spewing pastor.

I think anyone practicing "conversion therapy" ought to face a mandatory ten year prison sentence, twenty years if they do it for money.