In the Bible Belt, Acceptance Is Hard-Won

A lengthy 2004 Washington Post article follows the struggles of a gay teenager from the Bible belt of Oklahoma. It describes in part the uplifting efforts of an unusual congregational ministry of the College Hill Presbyterian Church of Tulsa in support of teens like Michael Shackelford.
 

Part I

Michael Shackelford slides under his 1988 Chevy Cheyenne. Ratchet in hand, he peers into the truck's dark cavern, tapping his boot to Merle Haggard's "Silver Wings" drifting from the garage.

Flat on his back, staring into the cylinders and bearings, Michael fixes his truck like he wishes he could fix himself.

"I wake up and I try so hard to look at a girl," he says. "I tell myself I'm gonna be different. It doesn't work."

Michael is 17 and gay, though his mother still cries and asks, "Are you sure?" He's pretty sure. It's just that he doesn't exactly know how to be gay in rural Oklahoma. He bought some Cher CDs. He tried a body spray from Wal-Mart called Bod. He drove 22 miles to the Barnes & Noble in Tulsa, where the gay books are discreetly kept in the back of the store on a shelf labeled "Sociology."...