''His own church was saying to him that, as a homosexual, you can't go to heaven,'' Frank Schaefer said. ''That's not necessarily what the church would officially say, but that's what he heard, and it devastated him because faith had always been very important to him. I remember how I said to him: 'It's so obvious you did not choose this for yourself. This is who you are, and this is who God created you to be. You are created in the image of God, just like everybody else.' ''