The heroine is Mary (Malone), whose mother Lillian (Parker) has recently been named the town's No. 1 Christian Interior Decorator. Mary's boyfriend is Dean (Faust, an interesting name in this context). One day they're playing a game that involves shouting out secrets to each other while underwater in the swimming pool, and Dean bubbles: "I think I'm gay!" Mary is shocked, bangs her head, thinks she sees Jesus (he's actually the pool maintenance guy) and realizes it is her mission to save Dean. That would involve having sex with him, she reasons, since only such a drastic act could bring him over to the hetero side. She believes that under the circumstances, Jesus will restore her virginity.
Jesus does not, alas, intervene, and Mary soon finds herself staring at the implacable blue line on her home pregnancy kit. Afraid to tell her mother, she visits Planned Parenthood, and is spotted by Cassandra and Roland.
Cassandra: "There's only one reason Christian girls come downtown to the Planned Parenthood!"
Roland: "She's planting a pipe bomb?"
You see what I mean. The first half of this movie is astonishing in the sharp-edged way it satirizes the knee-jerk values of Hilary Faye and her born-again friends. Another target is widower Pastor Skip, who is attracted to Mary's widowed mother; she likes him, too, but they flirt in such a cautious way we wonder if they even realize what they're doing.
At the time Mary sacrifices her virginity to conquer Dean's homosexuality, she's a member of Hilary Faye's singing trio, the Christian Jewels, and a high-ranking celebrity among the school's Jesus boosters. But the worldly Cassandra spots her pregnancy before anyone else does, and soon the unwed mother-to-be is hanging out with the gay, the Jew and the kid in the wheelchair. They're like a hall of fame of outsiders.
Dean's sexuality is discovered by his parents, and he's shipped off to Mercy House, which specializes in drug detox and "degayification." Once again the screenplay, by director Brian Dannelly and Michael Urban, is pointed: "Mercy House doesn't really exist for the people that go there, but for the people who send them," says Patrick, who is having his own rebellion against Pastor Skip, and casts his lot with the rebels.
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