Just over a week ago, I published a heart-wrenching interview with a teenage boy and his mother. The boy fell in love with another boy in his youth group at church. People found out about it, and the boy was shamed and rejected. By his church community and even to a certain extent by his mother.

He tried to kill himself and came within moments of succeeding, landing in the hospital after an overdose of opiates.

Even after that, his mother had a hard time breaking out of her traditional thinking. She sent him to pastoral counseling where people tried to convince him that he could choose to stop being gay.

His mother allowed him to have affirming mental health therapy for a while, but then she withdrew her permission and he ended up in the hospital again, by his own hands, this time taking a knife to himself.

Finally, she broke free and allowed herself to believe that love is okay.

She and the boy are doing better, each of them in fairly intense therapy, though his suicide risk has finally been downgraded.

They told me their story, and I published it, because they want people to know that it doesn't have to be like this. They want people to stop fearing love.

Love does no harm.