Your story stirs up a lot of memories for me. I once became friends with a Roman Catholic nun who had done HIV education work in the 1990s in California about the same time I was doing that kind of work at an HIV services agency in NYC.

I met her many years after, but we shared some war stories and had a few laughs. (Humor from the trenches sort of thing.)

Anyway, she was quite active on a certain social media platform, and one day somebody asked her a question about Catholic teachings that we gay people commit "acts of grave depravity" and that we are "intrinsically disordered."

I dove into her response expecting that she would explain that she rejects those ugly doctrines. I expected that she would, in effect, defend me as a moral human being. I believed I knew her well enough to know that she wouldn't have anything to do with stigmatizing, evil religious doctrines.

I was so wrong!

She defended the teachings of the Church!

I ripped into her in public, but that was nothing compared to the dressing down I gave her via email.

She acted shocked. Told me she thought we were friends and suggested I wasn't behaving the way a friend would behave.

I ripped into her even harder and told her in no uncertain terms that I AM NOT DEPRAVED, and anyone who believes otherwise cannot possibly be my friend.

I told her that I was filled with intense personal loathing and disrespect toward her and that I would consider her and treat her as my enemy unless and until she renounced her horrifying beliefs about me as a human being.

She never did.

With "friends" like that, indeed ...

What is it about religion that can turn otherwise decent people into monsters? I ask myself that a lot.