Church, and it eventually led to Matt and Frances leaving the church after Stephen's death. In the almost 20 years since, the Nevels have become leaders in the local Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays. The Nevels recently decided to return to the church where they raised their children, with hopes that the new pastor will prove less damning of homosexuality.

The events confused and hurt Stephen, but he said he had always been attracted to men. He was born gay, he said.

Still, Stephen told his father, he believed he was a born-again Christian.

Matt had believed another narrative about sexual identity. He had heard that homosexuality was a choice to ignore God's design. Ministries that worked with what they called the formerly gay said it was a phasecaused by abuse, absent fathers and overbearing mothers. The cure was repentance, sometimes celibacy, a hope that the desires could quiet with help from the almighty.

But when Matt thought about the stories his son had told him in the hospital that weekend -- stories of friends turned out of their families and churches, stories about bullying by people who knew their secret, stories of double lives and failed marriages -- he couldn't help but wonder who would choose to be gay.

He read and reread the Bible's passages on homosexuality. Then he read and reread different interpretations of the Scripture. He wondered if the verses mentioning homosexuality were meant to condemn rape or pedophilia and not love relationships between two men or two women. And holes started to form