You never really know what the lives of others are like until you walk in their shoes. Or at least that was the premise of Timothy Kurek (pictured above center) who had graduated from Liberty University, in my opinion a Christianist blight on the Commonwealth of Virginia. Kurek did something unthinkable for most Liberty graduates: for a year he pretended to be gay telling family, friends and others and getting to see society from the eyes of a gay man and getting a taste of the hate and vitriol that were face daily from "godly Christians." In his book, "The Cross in the Closet," Kurek recounts his experience and had a conversion, if you will, and came to recognize the humanity of LGBT individuals - something lost on most of the Liberty University crowd, including Matt Staver and Matt Barber who pump out anti-gay lies virtually daily and make a strong case why one would not want to be a Christian. Kurek says that the experience strengthen his faith even though it lost him many "friends" he had known during his days at Liberty University. Here are excerpts from The Guardian that review Kurek's book and his experience:
Timothy Kurek grew up hating homosexuality. As a conservative Christian deep in America's Bible belt, he had been taught that being gay was an abomination before God. He went to his right-wing church, saw himself as a soldier for Christ and attended Liberty University, the "evangelical West Point".
But when a Christian friend in a karaoke bar told him how her family had kicked her out when she revealed she was a lesbian, Kurek began to question profoundly his beliefs and religious teaching. Amazingly, the 26-year-old decided to "walk in the shoes" of a gay man in America by pretending to be homosexual.
For an entire year Kurek lived "under cover" as a homosexual in his home town of Nashville. He told his family he was gay, as well as his friends and his church. Only two pals and an aunt – used to keep an eye on how his mother coped with the news – knew his secret. One friend, a gay man called Shawn – whom Kurek describes as a "big black burly teddy bear" – pretended to be his boyfriend. Kurek got a job in a gay cafe, hung out in a gay bar and joined a gay softball league, all the while maintaining his inner identity as a straight Christian.
The result was a remarkable book called The Cross in the Closet, which follows on the tradition of other works such as Black Like Me, by a white man in the 1960s deep south passing as a black American, and 2006's Self-Made Man, by Norah Vincent, who details her time spent in disguise living as a man. "In order to walk in their shoes, I had to have the experience of being gay. I had to come out to my friends and family and the world as a gay man," he told the Observer.
Kurek's account of his year being gay is an emotional, honest and at times hilarious account of a journey that begins with him as a strait-laced yet questioning conservative, and ends up with him reaffirming his faith while also embracing the cause of gay equality.
Along the way he sheds many friends, especially from Liberty, who wrote emails to him after he came out asking that he repent of his sins and warning that he faced damnation. He does not regret their loss. "I now have lots of new gay friends," Kurek said.
However, there was a cost to the experiment. In order to gauge his mother's true reaction to the news that her son was gay, Kurek read her private journal. In it he found that she had written: "I'd rather have found out from a doctor that I had terminal cancer than I have a gay son." But Kurek's journey also became her own. Eventually she too was won over and changed her views. "My mom went from being a very conservative Christian to being an ally to the gay community. I am very proud of her," he said.
Kurek also experienced firsthand being called abusive names. Though he himself had once called gay protesters at Liberty "fags", he found himself on the other side of the fence of insults. During a softball practice session in Nashville, a man walking his dogs called Kurek and his team-mates "faggots".
Kurek also said that he felt his experience not only should show conservative Christians that gay people need equal rights and can be devout too, but that it can also reveal another side of evangelicals to the gay community. "The vast majority of conservative Christians are not hateful bigots at all. It is just a vocal minority that gets noticed and attracts all the attention," he said.
I am sure that there are many decent conservative Christians. However, as long as they remain timid and fail to loudly reclaim the Christian brand from hate merchants and professional Christians like those at FRC, AFA and other registered hate groups, they are little better than the "good Germans" who allowed Hitler to come to power and then silently allowed the Nazi atrocities to occur. When you fail to act and stand up to hate and untruths, you become part of the problem. Sadly, those who most need to learn the message of Kurek's book are those least likely to ever read it. Indeed, I am certain many will condemn Kurek for his new found advocacy for LGBT equality.
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