Two roommates are not praying the gay away--they're praying the gay will stay.
Braxton Tanner, junior in environmental design focusing in pre-landscape architecture, and Samuel Maddox, junior in architecture and interior architecture, are religious and openly gay.
Maddox and Tanner said they both grew up in Evangelical Christian homes and struggled with their sexuality in high school.
"I always knew I was different growing up," Maddox said. "All my friends were girls. I was more of a momma's boy, more of an indoor kid ... I had a different social life from all the guys I grew up with."
Maddox said when he was 16 a relationship with a friend felt different than any friendship he'd had before, and the pair decided there was some attraction between them.
"The conversation went something like, 'I think I love you,' 'I think I love you, too.' 'Does that make me gay?' 'Yeah, I think so,'" Maddox said. "I had been afraid I might be gay, but I didn't really even admit that fear to myself."
Like Maddox, Tanner said he felt different growing up and was afraid of admitting he was gay because of the way he was raised.
"For me the fear was definitely religion-based," Tanner said. "My parents growing up donated to an anti-gay recovery program that our church conducted ... I was in the closet until I came to college."
Tanner said his sexuality is still a source of conflict in his family.
Maddox said he also had fears, but his parents were more accepting of homosexuality.
"I think my fear was maybe a little bit societal as well as religious," Maddox said. "I knew it would be a taboo. There was a fear of thinking that it wasn't supposed to be this way."
Both Tanner and Maddox went to private Christian schools. Tanner said his school would have expelled him if he let his secret slip.
Despite the struggle with religion, both Maddox and Tanner said they are still strong in their faith.
"I'm still very highly religious," Tanner said. "I just got to a point, really, where I just got tired of lying to myself, and then once I was able to open up to people, come out of the closet, admit that I was gay--it then gave me the freedom to really reshape my faith and rethink the way I thought about things."
Tanner said he teaches a gay Bible study at St. Dunstan's Episcopal Church, and the church is very accepting of him.
He thinks homosexuals who stray from religion are his ministry because of a friend from high school who felt the need to choose between his faith and his sexual orientation.
"He had never heard before someone else tell him that he didn't have to give up his faith to be gay, and it really saddened me," Tanner said. "From that point on, hearing that friend say that, is when I felt like that was something I needed to help."
Like Tanner, Maddox said he has held on to his faith.
Maddox said he kept his homosexuality secret for six months before his parents found out by reading a journal of his they found. By the time they knew, Maddox said, he was able to answer their religious questions with religious answers.
"In those six months I was able ... to understand how Christianity and homosexuality are not completely opposed."
Both Tanner and Maddox also said marriage is something traditional Christianity should not prevent homosexuals from enjoying.
Maddox said although marriage has religious rites, he believes it is still an institution of the state.
"I think it's really wrong for anyone to say that if it doesn't line up with Christian principles, you can't get married in our state," Maddox said.
Tanner said he does not think the South is quite ready for gay marriage.
"There still needs to be change, and there's still work to be done."
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