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From 1997 to 2000 I worked as a part-time youth minister at a small Southern Baptist church in Eastern Kentucky. I was simultaneously working as the college outreach leader for a large Southern Baptist church in Lexington. I loved serving God, serving the church, and working with youth and encouraging them in their faith.

However during this time period I was also trying everything I could to repress something that I had known for a long time - something that I was taught from early on was so bad that I could not even make myself say the words, "I am gay."

It is a terrible place to be, in that valley of confusion and despair that comes from being given two core truths and then being told by everything that surrounds you that those two things are polar opposites.

The first truth was that I wanted to live a life that was centered on what Jesus said was most important: Love the LORD your God with all your heart, soul, and mind and love your neighbor as yourself.

The second truth was that I was gay.

I was not strong enough to understand the grace and acceptance of God and so I confused it with the acceptance of other Christians - in my case, Southern Baptists.

"Spiritual Violence" is exactly the right phrase to describe the hurt I felt. And I knew the precise place where I hurt, with as much precision as if I had broken my arm, or cut my leg, or been punched in the stomach. I hurt in my soul. My spirit wilted like a flower that was being nourished with water mixed with poison.

To their credit, my Southern Baptist brothers and sisters instilled in me a love for holy scripture and a call to ever study the scriptures. It was through the scriptures that I found great evidence of the inclusive Spirit. The same Spirit that worked against the established religious order of the day as recorded in the book of Acts is the same Spirit that fought against the institution of slavery. It is the same inclusive Spirit that worked to end the socially accepted practice of segregation and it is the same Spirit that proclaimed the call of women to ministry. It is the same Spirit that is moving for the full inclusion and acceptance of gay people today. I believe with all my heart that it is the Spirit of God - the Spirit of the radical Christ!

My dear Southern Baptists, the exclusive spirit of the Pharisees has enveloped your denomination. And though you lift high your view of scripture, you have actually embraced injustice, and intolerance, and oppression, and untruth!

Southern Baptist Convention! I believe with every fiber of my being that if you continue to fight against the full inclusion and acceptance of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people you will find that you are not fighting against a movement of human origin but rather you will find that you are fighting against a movement that is being driven by the very Spirit of God!