Your story speaks to me strongly, as an aging gay man rejected by church and family as a young person because of my sexual orientation.

You know, the story of Abraham nearly committing human sacrifice horrified me as a child. Every loved adult in my life was full of praise for Abraham for being willing to follow God's commands no matter what they were. For being willing to stab his son to death!

That Bible story prompted nightmares in me even before I knew being queer made me a fit subject for ritual sacrifice, before I actually was sacrificed on an altar of heterosupremacist Christian ideology.

I grew up believing the world was inherently and inevitably cruel, run by a sadistic god who delights in torturing people, except for the few good people in the church who say all the right magic words in their hearts.

Because of that experience, I have internalized a reality about Christianity. A very, very, very ugly reality.