For Texas, that appears to be quite something, even for Christians belong to churches that are considered generally more liberal or progressive. I will never forget last autumn when I was working a story about a teacher in Oklahoma who was openly calling 11 year old boy students a gay slur in order to discipline them.

It turned out that teacher was also a United Methodist pastor in North Texas.

I reached out to the North Texas UMC Conference, hoping for a statement from them affirming that calling children fags is unacceptable to Christians.

They refused comment. It took me days of focused pressure to force the conference to issue a simple statement like that.

When they did, they indicated that they would be initiating disciplinary proceedings against the pastor, but after several weeks it turned out that the discipline was nothing but a slap on the wrist. The man is still a pastor, and, by the way, he's still teaching in Oklahoma despite parents demanding that he be fired.

It must be difficult being a Christian and understanding that most people who share your faith are morally revolting.

When a United Methodist conference resists declaring that calling children fags is wrong, you understand so deeply just how disgusting Christianity is.