He called a crisis line for gay teenagers, where a counselor suggested he attend a gay support group in a city an hour and a half away. ''My mother's always saying, 'It'll be so wonderful when you meet that beautiful Christian girl and have lots of grandchildren,' and every time she said that, I was like, That's it: my life is going to be hell.'' ''I'm a Christian - I'm like, how could God possibly do this to me?'' he said. But as the truth gradually settled over him, he told me last summer during a phone conversation punctuated by nervous visits to his bedroom door to make sure no family member was listening in, he became suicidal. (He asked that I withhold not only his last name but also any other aspects of his life that might reveal his identity.) He prayed that his errant feelings were a phase. Jeffrey knew of no homosexuals in his high school or in his small town in the heart of the South. But Jeffrey is a devout Southern Baptist, attending church several times each week, where, he says, the pastor seems to make a point of condemning homosexuality. This discovery had been coming on for some time he had noticed that he felt no attraction to girls and that he became aroused when showering with other boys after physical education class. In the summer of 1999, when he was 15, a youth I will refer to by only his first name, Jeffrey, finally admitted to himself that he was gay.
