– They just have to get on with their perverted actions, but why should they force their way into our church? Words do not come from a bad person. They come from a friend of Tor Håkon Eiken. The year is 2012 and Tor Håkon, who has previously been a youth pastor, is at a Christian summer camp with his wife and three children. It is not the first time he has heard such statements. The friend continues, now with a slightly louder voice. – What will be next? To recognize pedophilia? Tor Håkon’s one daughter, Emilie, has just turned 14. She sits right nearby and hears everything, but her father doesn’t think about that now. At this point, he doesn’t quite know what he himself means, and he chooses not to say anything. Not this time either. He will regret it later. A heavy should Time passes and with it Tor Håkon and his wife Beate are increasingly worried about their daughter Emilie. She has become 17 years old and is clearly affected by not feeling well. She mostly doesn’t want to talk to them and prefers to just stay in her own room. Finally, her parents get her to say what’s bothering her. They steeled themselves. But when Emilie finally says what it is, it breaks for father Tor Håkon. She’s queer. He grinned and grinned. Not out of grief, but because he is light. Easy because there is nothing worse. – We love you anyway, is all he manages to say. Now they get to experience joy – both Emilie and the parents. But along with the joy, there is sadness in Tor Håkon. Grief over all the times he hasn’t said anything, when people around him have spoken disparagingly about queers. Emilie and her parents got a stronger bond after she opened up about her orientation. Here is dad Tor Håkon and daughter Emilie on a camping trip. A strange life Tor Håkon begins to think back on an incident in the early 2000s, on a youth in the Pentecostal-charismatic society he was once a part of. The conversation he had with a young boy of 18. The boy has been to a camp in the USA to “get well” again. He has fasted and prayed to be freed from his queer feelings. Now he has become sickly thin. – I want to give everything for Jesus, he says, with a total absence of joy. Tor Håkon thinks that this cannot possibly be right. – Maybe you should stop fighting against yourself, he hears himself saying. The meeting makes a strong impression on Tor Håkon. He stops being a pastor. The former pastor remembers how young people’s psyches were destroyed in an attempt to be something other than who they are. Today, Tor Håkon works as a priest in the Church of Norway. Photo: Tore Zakariassen / news Shameful feelings Even though Tor Håkon no longer works as a pastor, the attitudes of a conservative believe in him. Believing that special events in growing up can make people queer will not let go. Tor Håkon changes pastures and becomes manager of an interior design shop. One day in 2013, he is sitting with a colleague at lunch. It dawns on him that the person sitting in front of him is queer. – It is because of people like you that life is so difficult for people like me, says the colleague. Then comes a story about shame and self-loathing. Then something happens in Tor Håkon. That someone should despise themselves for being something other than what they actually are suddenly feels very sad. Tor Håkon often wears clothes and shoes with the rainbow symbol. He wants to be a visible support for queer young people. Photo: Tore Zakariassen / news Believing queer When his daughter talks about her orientation in 2015, Tor Håkon acknowledges that being queer is just as right as being straight. The guilt is great for all the times he has kept silent about negative comments about queers. – I’m so unbelievably embarrassed that I didn’t say no, says Tor Håkon From then on, he gets involved. In conversations with young people who are Christian and queer, Tor Håkon understands that it is not easy to be queer in the Christian environment, and that it is difficult to be a Christian in the queer circles. In 2019, he contacts the organization FRI and gets help to start Skeivt Kristent Nettverk Tor Håkon still meets young people who are struggling with their own orientation. The last time he sat in on such a conversation, it occurred to him that the young people thought that Tor Håkon was also queer. – Then I realized that I don’t need to say that I am heterosexual, says the former youth pastor. He wants people to believe what they want. In Kompass, you can hear Emilie and her father Tor Håkon talk about how they experienced it when Emilie told her parents that she was a lesbian.
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He was a pastor in a faith community that denied homosexuality. Today he dresses in rainbow effects. – news Trøndelag
