on the lawn of a house on Cape Cod, against the backdrop of an ivy-covered fence. And although 8o people came, his mother and father who are strict Southern Baptist, didn't Jeff homosexual feelings surfaced while he was attending a Christian high school. To suppress these feelings he dated women when he attended

ike him been put through, and in God's name no less? But Jeffs own story makes me hopeful. It's one of grace. He still attends church, though not a Southern Baptist one. He's patient with his parents; they're struggling, too. His mother actually plans to visit, and stay with, him and his husband this summer. "I

t Side, her dad a pipe fitter and her mother a maid, both Irish immigrants. Another national reporter, Stephanie McCrummen, whose grandfather was a Southern Baptist preacher, was reared by a mother who worked for Bell South in Birmingham, Ala. And Dan Eggen, a political editor, is the son of a Lutheran minister