Out actress Heather Matarazzo writes about the day she was taught to fear God by a teacher in school

I find myself checking out Huffington Post’s new Gay Voices section each day and have been very impressed with some of the first-person columns that have been posted in recent weeks.

This one by out actress Heather Matarazzo really struck a cord. The column begins this way: I don’t remember the day that I was taught to fear God, but I do know that I was taught.

Heather later writes of making Welcome to the Dollhouse when she was 11 years old and becoming aware of gay people: Now, I had always been attracted to women, but I could never put a name to it until that summer of 1994.

Here is the part of the column I found the most stunning:

When I finished Dollhouse I was back at school and those religious education classes. In class that year was a woman who was our teacher, and she shall remain nameless. I don’t remember when exactly it came up, or how exactly it did, but what I do remember was this: she had stated boldly, “God sent AIDS to gay people to punish them for their sins.” I was aghast. I was shocked. I was sickened. That couldn’t be true; it simply couldn’t. She was talking about my friends. She was talking about me. Right there, I made a decision: if this was God, then I wanted no part of it.

Here is a LINK to the entire piece. I applaud and thank Heather for sharing her story.