And a serious twist of irony, Anita Bryant's campaign led me to realize that I was gay. Weird? Not really, I guess. The Baptist Church I attended was fully behind her campaign, and one Sunday morning the preacher was preaching about it. He had a lot of really horrible things to say about gay people. Sitting there in the pew with my family, it finally hit me. The crush that I had on my best friend, the sweet feelings that I had for him, were sinful. Those monstrous gay people everybody had been talking about lately included me!

I had to jump up out of the pew, pushing past my family, so I could lose my breakfast in the men's room.

That moment marked the end of my happy, innocent childhood.

It took me many years to root out the self-loathing I learned that morning.