Summary

During winter break, Conley went to a church service at his parents’ church to watch his father become an ordained minister. While there, Conley contemplated the general repressive atmosphere of the church and its doctrines, and he pondered the things that many of its congregants were likely repressing in themselves. In conversation with Conley, several congregants seemed to comment upon the idea of college education as strange, foreign, and useless. One part of the ordination ceremony was that Conley’s father had to state that he unequivocally viewed homosexuality as a sin. The narrative then shifts forward a few months. Conley returned to college, but his parents planned to place him in LIA as soon as possible. On weekends, Conley had to attend gay conversion therapy sessions. Two of Conley’s friends were Dominique and Charles, who were liberal, African-American students at the college...