Rory Feek’s Faith Was Challenged by Daughter’s Coming Out
Rory Feek is practically the poster boy for rock-solid Christian faith, but the singer-songwriter admits that he was forced to reexamine his beliefs after his daughter, Hopie, came out to him in 2016.
The former Joey + Rory singer tells CBS Sunday Morning that just days after his wife and musical partner Joey died of cancer at age 40 on March 4, 2016, he could tell that his daughter had something on her mind that she wanted to share.
“I said, ‘Just tell me, Hopie,’” Feek recounts. “And she went on to tell me that her friend Wendy was more than her friend, that Wendy and her had been dating for almost a year. And that she was in love.”
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Feek makes no secret of his deeply conservative Christain beliefs, and he admits that he was stunned by the revelation. His daughter had been hesitant to share her truth because she feared he would judge her, and "even more than that, she’s asking me, ‘Are you still going to love me?’" he shares.
His initial reaction was not one of acceptance.
"And my first reaction, honestly, was I don’t think so," Feek admits. But he began to wonder, "Am I supposed to shun my child now and say, ‘No, you can’t be in my life until you come around to thinking like I’m thinking?'”
The singer-songwriter says he has come around to a different way of thinking over time.
“The only thing I try to keep in mind is, it’s her life, it’s her choice, it’s her faith, and my job is to love her even when it’s hard," he says.
Feek made headlines all over the world for his rock-solid faith as Joey valiantly battled cancer for the last year of her life, and he later chronicled their story in a book titled This Life I Live.
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