I’m hoping that as our society becomes more gay-friendly, teens and youth will never have to learn “how to be gay.” I hope they’ll learn how to be good friends and family members, good lovers & future spouses, good citizens and community members, leaders with integrity and faithful members in whatever faith tradition from which they’ve come.

I think that’s ultimately where we want to go, right? A society that holds up honesty, love, kindness and forgiveness; a society that doesn’t really care if you’re gay or straight or what-have-you, but one where a 16-year-old kid never has to be afraid to tell his or her parents about their significant other, no matter the gender; and a society that respects people for who they are.

Besides the fact that we are facing, in about 10-15 years, waves of “homeschooled” (i.e., uneducated) Southern illiterates trying to enter the real-world workforce, we will also see significant numbers of gay youths and 20-somethings who will have no idea how to be gay in an increasingly gay-friendly, or at least gay-tolerant, non-Jesusland America. They’re going to need a new kind of support system, quite different from what we have been erecting in non-Jesusland thus far.