When the teenage son of one of my best friends (a pastor) announced he was gay, I knew I had to read Mel White's book. Today, White is one of the most important activists in the gay Christian community. How he came to that place is a fascinating story. Mel White hailed from two generations of stalwart Christians, and his entire life was lovingly and gladly given to their fundamentalist cause. Instead of using his scholarship to attend Stanford, he went to a Bible College, and I suspect enthusiastically so, such was his Christian ardor. As a film maker and ghost writer, he served most all the best known names of conservative Christianity — Francis Schaeffer, Billy Graham, Pat Robertson (to whom he sent money for their ministry to gays), Jerry Falwell, Jim Bakker, D. James Kennedy, and WA Criswell. His two children attended Maranatha Christian High School. "But from the beginning, I had only same-sex desires and fantasies. I didn't plan it. I didn't choose it. I didn't desire it. And no one forced it on me. I wasn't recruited, raped or abused. No one is to blame" (p. 29). That is to say, White did not have a voluntary preference to be gay. Rather, he had an entirely involuntary orientation to be gay, and he tried as vigorously as any human might struggle to sublimate and eradicate his homosexual orientation through counseling, therapy, electric shock treatments, endless prayer and exorcisms, and Valium. All of which, after about twenty five years of marriage, led to a near nervous breakdown. In a loving foreword, his wife of over two decades sets the table for her former husband's story. If you want a short, second hand account of Mel White's story, see the chapter on him in Philip Yancey's book What's So Amazing About Grace.