Not Queer, But Human
For reasons I will never understand, my Daoist parents decided to enroll me in a Christian school when I was six.
For our lesson one day, Mrs. Galliver read the story of Lot to our first-grade class from our children’s illustrated Bible. The people of Sodom and Gomorrah were so deeply depraved that God sent angels to smother them with fire and brimstone. God respected Lot and forewarned him to gather his family and leave without looking back. As they escaped, Lot’s wife turned back in defiance of God’s command. The Almighty, in His vengeance, transformed her into a pillar of salt. “That’s why we call them sodomites,” Mrs. Galliver noted, “because men who like other men are wicked in the eyes of God.” Her words seem inappropriate in retrospect, but so were the praise songs we were taught to sing every Friday: “Onward Christian soldiers, marching as to war, with the cross of Jesus going on before.”
I would spend recesses watching this blond boy named Stephen — who happened to be the school pastor’s son. Stephen was amazing at kickball. He was the first boy I knew to put gel in his hair. I would sit and watch it glisten in the mid-day sun. We went to the same school for seven years, but I never dared tell him how I felt. Instead, I tried earnestly to pray the gay away and vowed never to turn back.
The Destruction Of Sodom And Gomorrah by John Martin
