 |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
“I’m as close as you can be to a practicing Mormon without being one.” December 2005 Rafe Judkins is the 22-year-old gay Mormon from Providence, R.I. who became a TV celebrity as he survived week after week in the popular CBS reality show. Judkins came very close to winning the game, but ended up in third place instead. In the following excerpt from an interview with Bob Adams of Advocate.com, Judkins talks about the show, his family, and the Mormon Church. We saw from your bio on the CBS Web site that you were born into a large Mormon family. Are you still a practicing Mormon? I’m not a practicing Mormon, but my whole family is. I’m as close as you can be to a practicing Mormon without being one. The Mormon church is notoriously antigay, and yet we saw from seeing your mom briefly on one of the episodes and from the message your family left for you that was played after you were voted out that your family is very supportive of you. Has your sexuality posed any problems with them, particularly given that they are Mormon? At first it was really difficult, because in my entire extended family I was the first gay person they’ve ever known. For my mom, I was too. And they had so many associations in their heads of what gay meant, and thought that since I’m gay I must be all of those things as well. A great thing about this show is that, for my extended family, it really gives them a chance to see who I am and help fight some of those ideas they may have about gay people.
|
www.affirmation.org