I met Leroy Aarons over 13 years ago at a book signing put on by one of those downtown L.A. gay/lesbian mixers.  Aarons, an award-winning journalist and playwright, had produced a remarkable book that looks at a fundamentalist Christian family with compassion and sympathy.  Bobby Griffith was a nice clean-cut American boy who discovered, much to his mother’s horror, that he was homosexual.  She tried desperately to change him, shame, him, pray him, force him into repenting of this terrible sin — as she saw it from the perspective of her religious stronghold, a very conservative suburban Califiornia church.  (And you thought only fringy-kooky liberals inhabit the Golden State?)

Bobby did two notable things which made Leroy Aaron’s book possible, and his Mother’s transformation imperative.  First, he kept a journal, a diary, of his pain, progress and setbacks in trying to understand himself and God.  And second, he took his own life.

Prayers for Bobby has just come out as a Lifetime Networks/Once Upon a Time Films production starring Sigourney Weaver, and is being screened at the Gindi Auditorium of the American Jewish University, on Tuesday, January 13, 2009.    The release poster doesn’t seem to have a website, so I’m posting it here.  You have to call for reservations by January 12.  Don’t miss it.

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles