I vividly remember that same sense of freedom and joy when I was 16 years old. I was not a Catholic at the time, though I came from a large Catholic family. My parents had converted to being Baptists, and my father was a Baptist minister. But confronted by the same anti-intellectualism, the same superstition, the same thoughtless dogma, I just couldn't do it anymore. I struggled for a while with fear, then one night, a night I vividly recall, I gave myself permission to let it all go. The joy and relief I felt were indescribable. My mother asked me a couple days later if I was in love; that's how happy I must have seemed to her.

I didn't tell her that I was happy because I felt that I was no longer a slave to ignorance and superstition. She would not have understood.