By Dan Merica, CNN
Washington (CNN) - Timothy Kurek’s motivation to spend a year pretending to be gay can be boiled down to a simple conviction: it takes drastic change to alter deeply held religious beliefs.
The experiment began after a lesbian friend opened up to Kurek about being excommunicated by her family. All Kurek, an avowed evangelical Christian, could think about, he says, “was trying to convert her.”
This story bothers me, and I'm typing these words in exploration of my own feelings on the situation. In a nutshell"
- Buddy is upset at his treatment of a gay friend
- Decides to pose as a gay person for a year to live in their shoes
- Learns and experiences both what the gay community lives like, to a point
- Experiences what his evangelical community's response is
- Writes a book and presumably sells a lot of copies
When you get right down to it, he lied. He lied to the gay community, to his lesbian friend whom he was sorry he hurt, to his family, and to his evangelical community.
The last I heard, Lying was considered a sin. He has hurt the gay community, he has hurt his family, and he has hurt his evangelical community.
Yes, there are swaths of prejudice against gays that need dismantling. He was wrong, his family was wrong, and his church as a whole was wrong. But you can't fix wrongs with wrongs. Two wrongs don't make a right is not a simple literary cliché. It is truth. In no way do I respect Buddy for lying to everybody.
For his next experiment, I suggest sitting alone on top of a mountain for fifty years.
I agree that his methods were questionable (and seriously, only part of the proceeds to helping homeless LGBT youths?) but suggesting he does the equivalent of “eff off and die” (fifty years would put him at around 76 by the time he was done, if he even lives to reach that age) is pretty harsh. :shocked:
I hope I wasn’t implying anger on my part, but there’s nothing about this story that makes me feel good.
I think I’m probably being too black and white here. Life’s lessons are learned through living.