Sam Donndelinger is lead designer and journalist for Uncloseted.

Posts By This Author

The Lesbians Coming Out After Years as Conservative Christians

Angela Thompson married a youth pastor when she was 17 under pressure from her Christian evangelical church.Ian Curcio/The 19th. Used with permission

Angela Thompson soaked in the garden tub of her new apartment in Columbia, South Carolina. With a freshly cut bob and a lease penned in her name, she reflected on the 30-year marriage she had just left behind. “I put down a deposit, I got the utilities and I furnished the [apartment] off Facebook Marketplace,” she told Uncloseted Media and The 19th

At just 17 years old, Thompson married a youth pastor six years her senior due to pressure from a non-denominational evangelical church she described as “close to a cult.”

“The message from my church was: ‘You find a man, you marry a man, you have his babies, you stay married forever, whether you're happy or not,’” she says. “Look around and pick a man,” they would tell her.