I Hooked Up With a Gay Evangelical Christian -- Here's Why I Outed Him

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/gender/i-hooked-gay-evangelical-christian-heres-why-i-outed-him



Ever since I outed an up-and-coming evangelical leader named Jonathan Merritt on my blog on July 23, one sentence has been running through my mind: I might have destroyed his life.

It’s not all the angry emails that made me doubt myself – although some have been wildly disapproving. One, from a longtime supporter, said, “Your actions are arrogant, insensitive, and nothing more. There is nothing brave, honorable or noble about what you’ve done. I am parting ways from you ashamed of you and what you have become.” Others called me a self-promoter and a bully. But their criticism is not what bothers me. As RuPaul once said, “What people say about me behind my back is none of my business.”

No, what bothers me, what overwhelms me with guilt, is the concern for what I’ve done to a person I care about. But then I think of how hypocrisy must be exposed. And I think of this: The truth sets you free.

In 2009, I emailed Jonathan Merritt to simply say I found his Op-Ed in USA Today to be interesting. He is a Christian whose writing on religious and environmental issues has been featured in two books and a variety of publications, from the Atlantic tothe Washington Post . Along with frequent appearances on “The O’Reilly Factor,” “Fox & Friends” and “CNN News,” Merritt has become a star among young people of faith. Oh, and his dad is the former president of the world’s largest Protestant denomination, the Southern Baptist Convention.

Jonathan and I exchanged a few emails, and a year later, in April 2010, we exchanged phone numbers. One night, we started text messaging one another. At this point, I perceived Jonathan to be a heterosexual male. Male he was, but not heterosexual. Jonathan’s text messages became flirtatious, and I became confused.

[awoke_in_2003]

1. As an evangelical leader...

he has spent his life making people believe gay people are evil. To hell with him- he got what he had coming.

[GodlessBiker]

2. I have no problem with Azariah outing him. It was an act of self-defense, if you ask me.

[MNBrewer]

3. Nobody ruined Jonathan Merritt's life except Jonathan Merritt

In fact, the outing might just have saved his life.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

4. i dont think celebs should be outed unless they are preaching hate

in which case it's fair game. this imo was fair game.

[closeupready]

5. The Guardian's Jason Farago sums it up well, IMO.

>>Faith writer Jonathan Merritt is the Paul Ryan of homophobes – an ambitious, not very bright self-promoter who has cottoned on to the media's desperation for "balance" and has made a handsome career out of it. When some Christian fanatic rails that gay people should be thrown in jail or penned behind electric fences, you can count on the tsk-tsking Merritt to serve as the polite face of bigotry. Just because gay people face eternal damnation doesn't mean we all can't get along!

So in the midst of the debate surrounding the bigotry of the Chick-fil-A president, he must have seemed like a godsend to the Atlantic's editors, who published his op-ed defending the good old American way of non-ideological fast-food consumption. When it comes to gay rights, the evangelical boy wonder intoned, "we must learn to have level-headed disagreements". Self-styled moderates everywhere nodded sagely.<<

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/aug/14/homophobe-jonathan-merritt-deserves-outed

[Marrah_G]

6. It makes me really sad that people still have to hide

Not everyone is courageous.
I can't imagine what that guy had to grow up with.
Maybe now he will be able to find a new life that let's him be who he is.

[closeupready]

7. His behavior went beyond hiding, IMO. Hiding is passive and benign;

deflecting is active and hostile, when expressed in terms of homophobia and bigotry.

Further, it's unclear to me that he was obligated to hide his sexuality.

Anyway, Marrah, I share your unhappiness with how much bigotry still exists in the US.