It's not often you hear about someone who makes a conscious decision to understand something that you have been taught to believe the absolute polar opposite of. But that's exactly what 26-year-old, Nashville-native Timothy Kurek did. After a lifetime diet of judgment and condemnation about homosexuality, and after Timothy shut out a friend of his who he held in the highest regard for no other reason than she just happened to be lesbian, Kurek had a religious A-ha moment. He decided that he would walk in the shoes of a gay man for one year and decide for himself what his opinion on the matter should be.
His experiment resulted in a book that came out on October 11 which, not surprisingly, coincided with National Coming Out Day:
"Now 26 and no longer homophobic, Kurek writes about his journey -- one that included hanging out in gay bars and facing the disappointment of his family and rejection of his friends -- in his memoir, "The Cross in the Closet." He chose today, National Coming Out Day and LGBT National History Month, to launch book sales and has pledged to give some of the proceeds to a charity that helps LGBT youth who are homeless."
But before, like the video made by ABC News below, we cue the gauzy camera lenses and the sentimentality, we need to know more. We need to know how Timothy's religious views have changed. We need to know how he has reconciled his faith in his Lord and savior Jesus Christ with the people who challenge the very foundations of the church he believes in.
The piece is short on details and long on violin strings but we need to know more on how we are going to listen to each other if we're going to listen to each other in the long run.
© 2012, Victor Hoff. All rights reserved. Menofcolor.blogs.com
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