Mike Pence actually had a quite negative impact on my relationship with my birth family. Or, I should say, my writing about Pence did.

I was as horrified as most queer people when Pence's wife tried to normalize bigotry by defending her work at a private Christian school that excludes queer students and students with immediate family members who are queer.

I wrote a sharply critical article, which came to my sister's attention. She's an executive with a chain of private Christian schools with nearly identical policies, and she was extremely offended by what I wrote, taking it as a personal attack.

But I stuck to my guns, insisting that discriminating against gay and trans people is an act that is grounded in irrational hatred.

To say the least, that didn't go over well.

My family are from the western Ohio rust belt rather than Appalachia, but some of our issues are quite similar.