'I'm Thankful for Lady Gaga': Comedian Zach Zimmerman on Embracing Queerness and Atheism

Gay stand-up comedian Zach Zimmerman grew up in Virginia with Evangelical parents and attended a school that taught the Bible instead of history and expelled any student found to have watched an R-rated movie. Zimmerman has journeyed far from their roots, having transformed from a “straight, meat-eating Christian conservative to a queer, vegetarian, atheist socialist.” We talk to Zimmerman about religious guilt, love and comedy and their new essay collection “Is it Hot in Here: Or am I Suffering for All Eternity for the Sins I Committed on Earth?”