Ex Homophobic Passes for Gay to Learn Empathy

 

Timothy Kurek was raised to deplore the gay

 lifestyle,

 but after watching a lesbian friend break down

 in tears after herfamily 

shunned her when she came out, he decided

 to learn about

 empathy the old-fashioned way: Walking a

 mile in the other guy’s shoes,

 or, in this situation, spending a year frequenting

 bars in the "gay-borhood" of Nashville and

 fakingout his family

 with a faux "coming out" speech. Whether 

you suspect that Kurek 

was actually flirting with the gay lifestyle and

 then recanted, or this

 was genuinely a prolonged social experiment conducted by 

someone with no credentials, it's yielded a 

forthcoming book Kurek 

calls his "apology" to the LGBT community.