It took sometime for me to finish Garrard Conley's Boy Erased. It was just too close to home that I couldn't bear continuing it and at some point, I didn't want to read anymore.
Well, it is a personal memoir of Mr. Conley when he had to undergo gay conversion therapy as a young college student.
I did finish it when I learned to detach myself from what was happening to him in the book.
If this book were set in Brunei, Iran, Uganda, Russia or any other country with strict anti-gay legislation, it would've been easier to read.
But it is set in small-town Arkansas, right in the middle of the Bible-belt of America - where often, the Christian right is at its most fundamentalist - making it no different from other fundamentalist groups of other organized religions.
Poor Garrard, whose father was a pastor, was forced to undergo gay conversion therapy and what he had to endure, I do not wish on any other human being.
It is just sick, revolting and violates the most basic human right. To be who you are.
I am just glad that that movement has since been discredited because it had driven so many young men and women to suicide, self-loathing and insanity.
I still have to see the movie version, directed by Joel Edgerton, who also directed Loving. This guy doesn't shy from difficult subjects!
Australian A-list actors Russell Crowe and Nicole Kidman are the parents, Lucas Hedges plays Garrard. Troye Sivan is also here. Maybe he plays JT, I am not sure.
This book is for people with strong stomachs because what they did to him is just cruel. It's like making fun of autistic children, or humiliating dyslexics or poking fun at children with Down syndrome.
It's putting down a whole group of minority people just because of some stupid interpretation of the Bible.
I don't think Jesus ever preached about hate or subjecting other other human beings with humiliation and self-loathing, just because they are different.
