“I call them clobber verses. There are six of them. They’re the verses that get used to hammer gay people. The funny thing is that I never felt pressured by God himself. Only his followers. But I desperately wanted God to change me. I didn’t want to be part of a group with so much shame attached to it. So I started praying in my twenties for God to make me straight. If I could have taken a pill, I would have. I joined the ministry. I got married. I told my wife that I’d had experiences with men, but I convinced both of us that I could choose to be different. I wanted to be normal. I wanted kids. I thought it was just a matter of commitment. I even tried to take reparative therapy classes—just to show her I was serious. They tried to teach me that homosexuality wasn’t real. They said that I’d just had an overbearing mother. But I couldn’t change. I kept slipping up. I couldn’t give my wife what she needed. My marriage ended. I had tried so hard but nothing worked. I got so angry with God for not keeping up his end of the bargain. But after some time, I finally realized why he wouldn’t change me. He never felt like he needed to.”