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CT senior writer Wendy Murray Zoba and Salon.com journalist Dave Cullen were both covering the Columbine story when they went head to head over Cassie Bernall. Cullen broke the story that introduced doubt about whether Cassie's killer asked her if she believed in God ("Behind the Littleton Investigation," Salon.com, Sept 23, 1999). Zoba challenged Cullen's reporting, citing multiple witnesses who heard the exchange and stood behind their account ("Cassie Said Yes, They Say No," CT, Dec. 6, 1999). In the story's aftermath, they began a dialogue that has resulted in camaraderie united by the intensity and complexity of covering Columbine.

Where Zoba and Cullen intersected over Cassie Bernall, Cullen and pastor Bill Oudemolen of Foothills Bible Church outside Littleton intersected over the role of the Devil. In another Salon.com article, "I Smell the Presence of Satan" (May 15, 1999), Cullen expressed his surprise at the emphasis evangelicals placed on the role of Satan in the Columbine shootings (the article's title came from one of Oudemolen's sermons).

Cullen, who is gay and a former Catholic, segued into the world of evangelicals with reticence. He was prepared to despise them. He was surprised: he liked them, and they liked him.

Cullen, Oudemolen, and Zoba have all been challenged by what they discovered about each other and their differing worlds. The three met in Littleton in April and talked about how evangelicals and gays perceive one another--and how they can move toward greater understanding.

Zoba: Dave, being a member of the gay community and--as you put it--a lapsed Catholic, what were your thoughts as you began covering evangelicals for Salon?

Cullen: I didn't know how to approach this because I didn't know who these people were. People who are outside that world, like me, tend to view them all as Tammy Faye Bakker types. In the religious world I come out of, the Catholic tradition, they're all singing from the same sheet of music. If you see one, you pretty much get the story. So I see a couple of evangelicals on TV, I'm thinking, OK, that's who evangelicals are. It never occurred to me that they're coming from different places and that you--Bill or Wendy--are not responsible, for example, for what Jim Bakker said or did.

Isn't that a form of stereotyping--the type of thing gays criticize evangelicals for doing to them?

Cullen: You're right. And I've come to see that.

Oudemolen: When you wrote your article for Salon, I thought it was critical. But for some reason, I wasn't offended by you. As you know, there were six or seven things I thought weren't right. But you laid out a challenge: you said something like, "If the evangelicals who accepted me so warmly during my Columbine research knew who I really was [gay], I'm not sure I would have had the same response from them." I remember thinking, He's got to give us a chance.

Cullen: I would write it a bit differently now, by the way. Do you think, Bill, the image projected to those outside the evangelical subculture, rightly or wrongly, is that of an exclusive club with certain rules, and if you want to join the club you have to obey the rules?

Oudemolen: The challenge in Dave's piece was clear to me: Can evangelicals love someone they disagree with? For me, that's what I'm called to do. Jesus said the way the world will know we are his disciples is if we love each other. That's the number-one thing that's supposed to mark us. My perspective on the gay lifestyle and my theology on homosexuality has not changed since Dave and I met. But I can look at him and say that I love him and value him as a human being.

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July 10 2000, Vol. 44, No. 8