Yup. Based on reality. A few days ago, an Oklahoma state senator was addressing an audience at a community event. A reporter asked him about the bullying death of 16-year-old high school student Nex Benedict, who was beaten by three girls shouting transphobic slurs.

Many people have suggested that an excessively hostile political climate in Oklahoma contributed to Nex's death, and the reporter wanted to know what the senator thought about that.

We are a Christian, moral state, the senator replied, leading me to believe he was about to call for compassion and decency.

But that's not what he did.

Instead, he said (paraphrasing) that moral Christian Oklahomans don't want "this filth" in our state.

By "this filth," he meant queer people. He didn't explicitly call Nex filth, but he he might as well have.

The kicker? Almost half the audience of self-declared Christian stood up to applaud and cheer the senator. (A few people did have the good grace to remain seated and look slightly uncomfortable, but not a single one of them stood up to object or call the senator out for his evil statement.)

We queer people are well aware that most Christians consider us to be filth, but we rarely hear it stated so clearly.

And yeah, this is wxacry why young people are increasingly leaving Christianity. It's because so many Christians really are this deplorable and repugnant.