It's not the color of your state...

... but the content of your Christianity. By way of a lost referer (and I've looked and looked!) comes this touching story of a small Oklahoma town and its fundamentalist churches, with a new twist. When one of their own (a boy struggling with whether his homosexuality was an unforgivable sin) became the target of an intolerant Christian sect, the locals pulled together to defend both him and the wideness of God's mercy.

A burly man with a crew cut gave Michael a thumbs-up. "Man, you be who you are," Shannon Watie said, holding his Bible. "We got your back."

They're still praying that he sees the light, but they're not willing to throw him to the wolves (or to presume that they need to do all the judging down here). It's a place to start . . .