You might consider looking into the history and purpose of the Metropolitan Community Church. I do think that we need safe church spaces for those of us who don’t believe we will be safe inside an evangelical church. For some of us, the issue is too far gone, and we can’t consider a return to church at all. But for many, church is too big a loss — and so when others do not accept us, we make our own. The MCC is one beautiful example. Learning more about them might be a next step on your journey. It’s a rough ride, especially as you dive into the early days of the AIDS crisis and learn that it was our pastors who said that AIDS was God’s punishment and that gay people who had it deserved their deaths. The MCC stepped in to say something very different. There were also underground Catholic priests who would give last rites. All of this was denigrated by our evangelical pastors. So it’s life-threateningly scary to come out, still today, and some of us have to put many thousands of geographical miles between us and the hotbeds of evangelicalism we grew up with, just in order to feel safe. It’s going to be a very long time before enough healing happens for many gay Christians to go back to that world. In the meantime, some of us are relieved to be free of the burden of evangelicalism, but others need church. So those folks made a church that stood with them, sat with them, and walked with them through the valley of the shadow of a death that the evangelicals said was their due. It really is OK for us to have our own spaces. And, it’s a great gift that you give, finding space in your heart for your friend and his friends, and their friends, and on and on. Thank you and carry on.