Interesting story!
Wow. That’s brave.
I wonder what would be my equivalent…spending a year pretending to be a conservative christian?
That would probably be mine. 
A year as a member of Westboro.
While I don’t share his belief I do appreciate his willingness to challenge portions of it and learn about a group of people his church believes are sinners. It should be an interesting book if nothing else.
Wouldn’t it be just as good to just make gay friends and accept them as equals? That’s really all he did anyway since he didn’t go “all the way”. Tricking gays doesn’t seem necessary.
He “came out” to his mom. That’s a pretty big deal.
I think that dealing with the reactions of his family, his friends, and his church was an essential part of what he was trying to do.
Right. From what I read in the article, “tricking gays” wasn’t the main point, the point was learning what these “strange, evil people” were really like - and learning what it was like to be part of such a demonized group. It showed him how hateful people (whose opinions he had formerly respected) could be. It showed his family that there are worse things than having a child turn out gay.
He also was part of a group that was called “faggots!” by a passer-by and it really affected him emotionally. Especially since he had been guilty of the same sort of harassment in the past.
I’m wondering how his new gay friends reacted to his second “outing” at the end of the experiment.
In the article, he mentions losing friends from college, but says it’s ok because he “has lots of gay friends now”. Sounds to me like they’re generally cool with it.
He didn’t trick anyone. A gay friend was in on the ruse and acted as his boyfriend when they were in public, so he could plausibly turn down any passes. The ruse also gave him the chance to experience life as a gay person (without the sex, of course, but socially).
It’s really quite similar in concept to Black Like Me,
This guy did a semester at Falwell’s Liberty University. I enjoyed the book. I think he does a pretty good job of being even-handed. He definitely had some positive experiences and some negative ones.
I really enjoy these sorts of books. I’ll probably read the Gay Like Me one as well.
I love this. Major props to this guy.
reminds me of Gentlemen’s Agreement looks at being Jewish
From the description it seems like he is a christian though?
I was also thinking that it wouldn’t really be the same: I don’t really hate christians or anything, I just think they’re wrong. Of course the Westboro gang might be closer, because I probably would shout nasty things at them if I ever came across them. But then, when you see the Theroux docu, I doubt it would change my mind in any way.
I’m not sure there is an equivalent way for me to experience change of heart by walking a mile in someone else’s shoes… Not anything I can think of…
I’ve also read The Unlikely Disciple, and the author is a Christian, but from a very different denomination (he’s a Quaker, IIRC) and had a very different upbringing than most of his classmates during his year at Liberty.
This part seemed particularly “turn the other cheek:”
Shouldn’t there be some sort of “come to Jesus” moment when you discover your belief in universal love makes you want to beat the hell out of someone?
Are you a guy? You could try dressing up like a convincing woman (if you can pull it off) - I think your eyes would be opened to how being a woman in North America is a very different experience than being a man.
I’m a bit torn on this guy’s actions - it was almost like he was playing a mean prank on his family and friends, but I get why he was doing it. I don’t like any mean pranks, though, so that could be colouring my opinions on the subject.
My husband was absolutely flabbergasted when I told him of some of my experiences. He was outraged when our daughter described some of her experiences. Then I told him to ask his sisters and coworkers about their experiences, and he wondered how this could have been going on all this time.
I know that I’ve seen and heard things that shocked me when I hung around some black friends, way back in high school (I don’t think that we HAD any blacks in my middle school).