GfS, since you are thicker than jug of molasses that's been buried in a glacier in the Antarctic for a couple of centuries, let me clarify what I mean when I said, "I was told about these two, whom I had met on a couple of occasions, by people who knew them very well. . . ."

The occasions upon which I met them (one man and one woman) were at a number of congregational meetings of Central Lutheran Church, when Central was in the process of deciding to adopt the "Affirmation of Welcome" statement, which includes welcoming people of different sexual orientations as well as those of different races, nationalities, and economic classes.

These two were not members of Central. But they came to the meetings to argue against including the "gender orientation" clause in the Affirmation. Apparently, this was what they did:   go to different churches in the process of adopting the "Affirmation of Welcome" as written and try to talk them out of accepting the gender orientation clause.

Since these were meetings of the Central Lutheral Church congregation, and these two people were not members of the church, the fact that they were being so vocal about Central's policies raise a lot of questions as to who they were and why were they there, trying to influence the policies of a church to which they did not belong.

Their claim was that they had been homosexual, but when their church discovered this, their church insisted that they submit themselves to both psychological and religious counseling and, with the help of the church, be "cured of their perversion." They claimed that they had, indeed, been cured, and that churches in general, rather than welcoming "perverts," should deny them admission until they have been cured.

Very "Christian" of them!

I talked with them quite a bit and I made my own evaluation. Then, I (and others in the congregation) talked to several other people who had been friends and acquaintances of these two since well before they had "taken the cure." And they described how these two, and their lives, had changed—not, everyone agreed, for the better. Where they had been leading reasonably happy lives up until their church (quite conservative and leaning toward fundamentalism) learned of their private lives and jumped on their cases. We were told that after being talked into "taking the cure," they had become two obviously unhappy and angry people. Their main method of renouncing their "perversion" was to give up sex entirely.

No, I do not know them personally, but I had a very good chance to assess their personalities and attitudes face to face. Not people I would care to associate with. Too hostile. Not to me in particular, but to life in general.

I thought I would explain that further, GfS, before you go off on another toot and make up yet another whole fantasy novel about me, as you seem to have a penchant for doing.

Don Firth