My life in the Exclusive Brethren

“My life in the Exclusive Brethren”

"I talked to the world leader - what he says goes. I said I was gay. He told me to 'never accept myself for who I was, and to always fight against myself'."

20-year-old Craig Hoyle, like his whole extended family, was brought up in the Exclusive Brethren Church.

Notoriously isolationist and conservative, the Brethren started in the UK in the 1820s but it only arrived in Invercargill in December 1992. It now has around 160 members in NZ's southern-most city.

The eldest in a family of seven children ranging down to nine years old, he until recently worked in his dad's Invercargill tyre shop. Craig's whole life, from his day to day work and leisure through to his lifetime prospects, were mapped out inflexibly, and enforced by, the church.

Perhaps it might have been a bearably conformist life if Craig wasn't gay.

In his own words Craig, comfortable with being identified by his real name and background, tells his remarkable and inspirational story to GayNZ.com's Matt Akersten.

http://www.gaynz.com/articles/publish/36/article_8207.php

ENDS

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