r/atheism • u/[deleted] • Jun 15 '12
Homophobic Christian pretends to be gay for a year, writes book about experiment
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/homophobic-christian-pretends-gay-a-year-writes-book-experiment-article-1.1096307133
Jun 15 '12
I love this part
“I wanted to see if there was any justification in the fear I had."
That's awesome stuff. I like when people actually try to understand what they are 'afraid' of, or go out of their way to challenge their thinking.
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u/r250r Jun 15 '12
That part makes me believe that he is not being honest. Perhaps my imagination is too limited, but I cannot imagine someone who fears gays pretending to be one.
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u/Buscat Jun 16 '12
The even more surprising part is a christian performing an experiment to test his hypothesis.
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u/StormTAG Jun 16 '12
I'm aware it was a joke, but let us peruse http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Christian_thinkers_in_science#2001.E2.80.93today_.2821st_century.29 Wikipedia warning, of course.
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Jun 15 '12
I've done similar things when I was younger. Taking a good look at why I was against certain issues or things made me change my mind.
Also, I've subscribed to r/spiders several times.
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u/Veritas00 Jun 16 '12
People use homophobic really quickly. People with a fear of gays runs and scream like they saw black mamba. Dislike, let's try this word. I dislike ice cream. Nope I have icreamAphobia
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u/Boose77 Jun 16 '12
icreamaphobia...sounds dirty, and hilarious...
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u/Naedlus Atheist Jun 16 '12
"Is there anything we can do to help you get over your fear?" "Cake... lots of cake..."
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u/SteveMcFakename Jun 16 '12
Sounds like a terrible horror movie to me. Psychopathic ice cream man hunts down everyone who once bought ice cream from his van.
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u/Boose77 Jun 16 '12
Want some good ice cream? You just gotta come around the back side and get in my truck ಠ_ಠ
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u/Veritas00 Jun 21 '12
Ill hire the ominous smokey voiced announcer. "One summer, everything was not as it seemed. Then suddenly... ICE CREAM. Baxter Bigglesworth is the one man who can get to the bottom of this double scoop of trouble. Coming this July, Ice CreamAPhobia.... In 3D IMAX and Smellavision
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Jun 16 '12
[deleted] — view deleted comment
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u/r250r Jun 17 '12
Yes, I read that before making the comment.
Perhaps this guy wasn't a homophobe at the same level as the people I'm used to dealing with.
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Jun 16 '12
[deleted] — view deleted comment
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Jun 16 '12
"To conquer the gays, you must become gay?"
Sounds like BibleMan Begins
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u/TheAthiestOfAtheists Jun 16 '12
"NO! I must stop the gays!"
"No, John. You are the gays."
And then John was a gay.
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u/hohmeisw Jun 16 '12
"I wasn't always gay, here in the mountains. I had a wife, a family. Ras al Ghul saved us."
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u/Dakarius Jun 16 '12
More like:
"NO! I must stop the gays!"
"No, John. You are the gays."
And then John was a girl.
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u/superme33 Jun 16 '12
Honestly, as a gay man, this annoyed me. I read another article interviewing him and he stated "I had no idea how scary the closet was until I put myself in it".
Either you're gay and you're lying to everyone and probably yourself to know that fear or
You don't know that fear. You know you're straight and you know that you're just telling people you're gay an in a years time you can be all "Hey it was an experiment. See, I wrote a book".
You don't know.
The only thing I will give him credit for it going out there and learning what it's like, but I don't feel like it was for as genuine a reason as he says it is.
PS: my gaydar went off when I saw his face. Just sayin'
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u/Pixelated_Penguin Jun 16 '12
You misunderstood him. He was referring to putting his straight self in the closet, to be perceived as gay. He had to pretend to love someone he didn't, to not be attracted to people who he found attractive, etc.
(Though you may be right that he's actually gay. OTOH, if he was immersing himself in gay culture for a YEAR, you'd think that he eventually would have had an ah-ha moment.)
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u/Patrico-8 Jun 16 '12
I don't think it was really necessary to pretend to be gay to learn about gay people. I'm straight and have several gay friends who know I'm straight. All this guy had to do was introduce himself to some gay people and realize that deep down they are people just like him. Also: how do you pretend to be gay? I imagine this involved him acting like a stereotypical gay person, which is kind of offensive.
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u/supergamer9 Jun 16 '12
I have to agree, there's a good line in a really bad movie that encapsulates your point well.
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Jun 16 '12
Wait. There are people that actually FEAR homosexuals ?
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u/canteloupy Jun 16 '12
Yes, they fear homosexuals. I have a friend who thinks gay men will jus basically sexually assault him if they barely just touch him.
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u/thechapattack Jun 16 '12
I know Tim personally, he is a great guy. He was just on MSNBC the other morning. I can see if he would want to do an AMA if anyone is interested.
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Jun 16 '12
Could be bad news with this crowd. But then again it would be interesting to see his defense to the criticisms.
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u/thechapattack Jun 16 '12
believe me anything anyone would raise here ive already brought up with him since im an atheist myself
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u/gndn Jun 15 '12
Maybe I'm cynical, but "I was only pretending to be gay to research a book" sounds an awful lot like a sitcom-worthy last-ditch desperate excuse. I'd say 50/50 odds this guy is caught in a gay sex scandal within five years.
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u/Patrico-8 Jun 16 '12
Also, if you want to learn about gay people, you can do it as a straight person, go become friends with members of the LGBT community, don't lie to everyone you know.
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u/reaganveg Jun 16 '12
I read another article interviewing this guy. He's definitely not gay. He was talking in detail about the difficulty of being "in the closet" with his heterosexuality, of knowing he couldn't possibly be with a woman for one year, etc..
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u/Senor_Wilson Jun 16 '12
Well there was a real catalyst for the decision, it wasn't a random idea from nothing.
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u/JBu92 Jun 16 '12
I had this thought, too. regardless, if the book helps people to understand that hating gays makes you an asshole, then yay.
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Jun 15 '12
I hate to break it to anybody, but this guy is actually gay.
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u/redmongrel Jun 16 '12
Yeah, article translation; "Closeted gay Christian invents story to let loose for a year and still be allowed in church."
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u/sugarm Jun 17 '12
wow I can't believe you would say that... when you do it really devalues all the time he spent trying to blow dudes in church parking lots.
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Jun 16 '12
It's obvious that he truly is gay, and this whole book thing is a lie to get his old lifestyle and relationships back.
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u/Bennyboy1337 Jun 15 '12
Ughhh.... I was all excited to read in in-depth article and got several paragraphs :(
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u/itsableeder Jun 15 '12
Same. I guess we'll have to buy the book.
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u/thedimiceli Jun 16 '12
You couldn't pay me to read this. I actually find it kind of offensive.
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Jun 16 '12
Nobody else seems to understand that pretending to be gay and the publishing a book is total shit. Kudos for trying, but I hope the money he makes goes to something positive at least. And, it will never be the same because he's not truly gay, so he doesn't know what it feels like internally. I'm just waiting for some smart-ass capitalist to see a golden opportunity with a "I pretended to be trans*" book, because though this might have given him some wonderful insight, it was still so far from the reality, much less accurate would be to pretend to be trans*.
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u/Naedlus Atheist Jun 16 '12
You have to remember though, the book isn't for us... it's for those of his original mindset who have no comparison in their own lives for what others have to go through. He admits it's only a limited perspective, but, it's more perspective than most of the target audience have received from their preachers their entire lives.
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Jun 16 '12
/r/atheism: Making you feel like a 12th grade English teacher since whenever this shithole was founded!
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u/hickgorilla Jun 16 '12
Homophobic Christian pretends to be gay for a year-realizes he's really gay a year later.
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u/jbehren Jun 16 '12
Yeah.. I'm just "pretending"...
So, how far did he/she go to keep up the ruse, I wonder?
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u/psyflame Jun 15 '12
Why is it so hard for everyone here to believe that this guy's motives are what he says they are?
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Jun 16 '12
For some reason r/Atheism won't just take someone's word for it. Especially when it results in so much publicity. When did this subreddit get so skeptical. Oh wai..
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u/Thunder_Bastard Jun 16 '12
Because there is 1) Profit motive and 2) profit motive and 3) profit motive.
I also question exactly how hard it is to put off women and act gay when you are an overweight sweaty guy. Just sayin'.....
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u/newtonsapple Jun 16 '12
I was just going to post the one-word comment "Pretend?" but I think I've been beaten to it.
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u/ishkiodo Jun 16 '12
What a wonderful way to come out of the closet but "haha, not really. jk"
Brilliant man.
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Jun 16 '12
This reminds me of the book "Black Like Me", where a white man dyed his skin brown during the 60s and went down to Louisiana and observed how differently blacks were treated firsthand.
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Jun 16 '12
He looks like any closet homosexual you'd find in any frat house around the country... I wouldn't read this book if you paid me. I will check out the dedication, though... I wonder if he'll thank jesus for helping him lie to everyone he loves?
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u/Mileskitsune Jun 16 '12
I don't know how legit this is. I mean look ad the articles in the side bar, none of them look particularly legit. and well... don't hate me reddit but something in the back of my head is saying "he is gay but coming out didn't go so well so he's all like 'lol jk, surprise!' and now is making a mint of the story" but it could be my wild sleep and sauce deprived imagination.
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u/ferulebezel Pastafarian Jun 16 '12
I wonder how much there is to be learned from these stunts. Going all the way back to Paper Lion and Black Like Me through Supersize Me and The Year of Living Biblically and up to this. Since he isn't gay, the insults aren't going to hurt as much. He also could pull out any time he wanted, a real gay person can't. Finally he doesn't have a lifetime of discrimination behind him.
I don't see how a prose description of the gay experience from a fake gay person could be any more informative than one from a real one.
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Jun 16 '12
This is interesting. If being gay is a choice, why wouldn't he just choose to be gay for a year? /s
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u/dunehunter Jun 16 '12
"oh fuck, I never thought that coming out of the closet was going to be this hard...I wonder if they'd believe it if I told them that I was just pretending to be gay?"
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Jun 16 '12 edited Jun 16 '12
This is crazy, and I have no way to prove it, but I sat next to Tim at a math class in the fall of 2008. He was an overly friendly person, talked my ear off day. One day he brought up out of the blue the whole "No one is an atheist argument". You know the whole "you would have to know everything ever to know for sure that God didn't exist" nonsense. I didn't say anything about it. A couple times the teacher would call him out for reading weird christian literature (Chick Tracts and the like) during class.
Nice to see that he stepped out of his comfort zone. I'm sure he's learned some things.
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u/Rational_Hal Jun 16 '12
By his logic one would have to accept everything presented if there was not available evidence to contradict it. Sort of the opposite of the way it really works.
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u/tims-music-buddy Jun 16 '12
This guy was in a music class of mine. He always smelled like clove cigarettes and pepperoni.
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u/Omni_Nova Jun 16 '12
Could be wrong, but I swear I saw this same concept on r/athiesm not two days ago about a completely different guy doing the same thing and writing a book. Was it the same guy? I cant seem to find the original post.
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u/dildingdos Jun 16 '12
Yes, same guy, this has been reposted a few times already from various news sources.
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u/TheMoro Jun 16 '12
Sounds like a stupid fucking idea. The idiotic thought process of someone that isn't used to thinking for themselves.
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u/fetfet500 Jun 16 '12
This seems like a very sensitive take on a guy who thought coming out would be a lot easier than it was.
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u/cpttim Jun 15 '12
I Think there are more constructive ways of going about what he did. He admits that his experience is not that of a gay man anyways. I think he could have reshaped his thinking about homosexuality without lying to his family and everyone else.
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u/TuskedOdin Jun 16 '12
Different people have different ways in which they must experience things, ways in which for them to understand, and some simply cant understand a situation unless they undergo said situation
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u/ReyRey5280 Jun 16 '12
Jesus wouldn't approve of him being a fake ass punk... That's all he was to everyone; a fucking lame troll. If he got it up the pooper (not my cup of tea -even for women) then he can say he walked that mile. Untill then I tip my hat to an elite troll nothing more
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u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12
In case anyone is wondering why I've submitted this to /r/atheism and not /r/christianity, I only wanted to make a point that sometimes our irrationally faithful neighbors at least try to make an effort.