I’m famous!

[martasfic]

Originally published at Faith Seeking Understanding. You can comment here or there.

… well, sort of.

A while ago I posted a comment on “The Anxious Bench” blog. The historian John Turner wrote about a controversy in how some American colleges regulate religious student groups. The question is whether groups are officially recognized by the university, and sometimes but not always whether they get a cut of the student fees the university collects; I talked about how funding and recognizing the groups seemed reasonable, but only if those religious groups were also willing to recognize and fund groups they disagreed with.

It’s a topic I’m interested in as a perpetual student, and my comment went on a bit long. But I didn’t seriously expect people to read it, except the other folks who read that blog post. Imagine my surprise when a friend recommended a new blog for me to follow, and in working my way through older entries, I found a whole post devoted just to my comment.

http://iloveyoubutyouregoingtohell.org/2013/05/24/pay-your-enemies-the-new-front-in-campus-culture-wars

It looks to be a neat blog, and not just because the author had the good sense to shine a spotlight on me. Mainly I’m chuffed to get a bit of recognition, and gratified someone thought my idea was worth drawing attention to.

In other news (and this is crossposted from FB, with minor tweakage):

Tomorrow is my friend Timothy’s birthday, and I’d like to introduce a few of my friends to his book as a gift to him. And of course as a mathom to you – in the best hobbit tradition, I want to share something I’ve enjoyed with my friends.

Tim was an evangelical Christian (and heterosexual) who decided he needed to learn what it was like to live as a homosexual. This book is a personal memoir of that year. At first I had my problems with the premise, but the way he presents it – not as a journalistic expose, but something he felt like he needed to do in order to truly love his gay neighbor – convinced me that this is a book worth reading. It’s not for everybody – if you look at the premise and think there’s no way you could ever accept his course of action, then I wouldn’t recommend it for you. (And no judgment on that count, as we all have different things we find more objectionable than others.) But if you can imagine someone presenting himself as gay and that seeming like a needed or even good experience in some cases, I’d say it’s definitely wroth a read. Tim is a good storyteller and his experiences are compelling.

Check out the book at Amazon (http://amzn.to/10RMr7u), and if you’re interested email me privately at mlayton-AT-fordham-DOT-edu. I’ll be purchasing Kindle versions for friends to support Tim, and Amazon will email you an access code you can use to download the book.