NCWN

Nothing Pink by Mark Hardy

Pages: 112 List Price: 16.95
Cover: Hardcover
Published: 11/1/2008
ISBN: 1-932425-24-1
ISBN-13: 978-1-932425-24-6 , For Grades 9 and up, For Ages 14 and up.

Mark Hardy Vincent has  always known, deep down inside, that
 he was gay. He was fine with that. The problem was that his faith told
 him he was a sinner and damned to hell. Every Sunday after Vincent's
 father preached his sermon and called on his flock to come to the altar
 and accept salvation Vincent tried but it never helped. And then, the
 first Sunday at his father's new church, Vincent meets Robert and what
 was previously a spiritual crisis becomes all too temporal. Vincent's
 parents can't do much about the time Vincent spends with Robert, whatever their suspicions and fears. But when Vincent's mother discovers the copy of a magazine in Vincent's room which makes the unacknowledged truth blatantly obvious, Vincent's nature and faith collide.

"If I were a single cell, homosexuality would be my nucleus...I've never so
 much as held hands with a boy under a blanket at a footbal game. I've
 never kissed a boy behind my open locker door, or slow-danced to a
 Commodores song at a sweetheart dance. I've never lied to my teacher and said I have to go to the bathroom and instead slipped a love letter through the slots in another boy's locker. So why am I going to hell? If I go down to the altar, what do I repent? ...I've never committed a single
act with a boy, but I know if God doesn't save me, if I die before he
 rips the queer demons out by their roots, I'm going to burn in hell for
 eternity. I know all this. But so far not one of my trips to the altar has changed me." 
                              From the book Nothing Pink