This is so important to talk about. I just wrote a story about a 12-year-old boy in Tennessee who killed himself after being taunted at school about how his being openly gay doomed him to hell.

I wrote the story to highlight the fact that the children who bullied the boy were imitating respected loved ones and leaders in their lives. LGBTQ bashing is pervasive in Tennessee, and the Evangelical adults who religiously disparage gay and trans people are heroes in their communities.

I wrote the story as a plea to Baptists and other Evangelicals to emulate Jesus and accept people whose values are different from their own. Tragically, I don’t expect the boy’s death last week to make any real difference in how people think. In the boy’s community, his suicide is being framed as bullying problem and not as a gay-bashing problem.

I’d love for a story like this to grab national attention, but it won’t. Stories like this never do. Hell, I can barely get anybody on Medium to read it.

The issue really does center on exactly what you just observed: conservative religious people insist that everyone live by their values, accusing people who choose to live differently of attacking their values.

Obviously, the same can be said for Christmas, a holiday I love even though I’m not even a Christian anymore. When I greet people in a way that includes other winter holidays, I’m not attacking anyone’s values, I’m just being inclusive. It’s hard to understand how people can’t respect that.