Casey is my dearest and unlikeliest of friends. In college she was assigned to live in the dorm that I shared with five Christian women, in a suite affectionately known as the “God Pod.”  Casey was openly gay and openly hostile towards Christianity.  After the things some Christians had said to her — that God hated her, that she was going to hell, that she was an abomination in God’s eyes — who could blame her?

During the year that we lived together, Casey was curious about the fact that we worshiped God and that we respected her, that we loved Jesus and also loved her.  She joined us at our Christian fellowship meetings and tagged along to church.  We even did Bible studies together so she could learn more about the real Jesus, not the hateful God she had heard about.  But as Casey came to believe that Jesus was God and that He might even love her, we had to confront one final, urgent question: Could she be gay and Christian?