Is Response to Dan Pearce's 'Christian/Gay' Blog Post Real?

'I'm Christian, Unless You're Gay': Is Mom's Response to Dan Pearce's Blog Post Real?

Writer Dan Pearce posted an essay titled "I'm Christian, Unless You're Gay" in November 2011. The blog post, which discussed Christianity's consistently-demonstrated problem with gay people,  caused quite the stir for daring to suggest that religiosity and kindness are not the same thing. 

The furor, such as it was, died down after a week or so, and effect of the internet's short attention span took hold.

'One Proud Mom' Responds to 'I'm Christian, Unless You're Gay': Most Likely Fake

Fast-forward to April 2, 2012. Dan Pierce posted a follow-up to the original article, sharing an email that supposedly came from a mother whose son was asked to write an essay about "I'm Christian Unless You're Gay" for school.

The follow-up, titled "A Teen's Brave Response to 'I'm Christian, Unless You're Gay",  purports to tell the story of One Proud Mom, a mother who finds out the hard way that her son is gay, and changes her homophobic ways to embrace her child for who he is.

We'll leave the issue of the weird stock photo alone, since the original article also uses a stock image; Dan Pearce uses stock photos all the time (why?). Instead, we'll just look at the response itself, which we think is fake.

Proud Mom's email reads like an after-school special. That a lifelong homophobe would have such a change of heart after reading one post from a daddy-blog just rings false. Nope. Real-life people don't behave like that: a core characteristic of an ultra-conservative Christian would surely be "unwillingness to change".

Mother and son both write with the same voice, a Hallmark-card voice at that, though the son throws in a few "like"s as punctuation.

Also, we have a real tough time swallowing that a schoolteacher would use such a controversial topic for a class assignment. 

For his part, Dan Pearce says that he really did receive the email from One Proud Mom, and for some reason thought it was real:

Well, yes, it matters whether or not the email is legit. Just ask Mike Daisey, whose The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs was proven to be made-up.