Will Yurman for The New York Times  Mike Fleck outside his home in Three Springs, Pa., on Sept. 19, 2013.  ORBISONIA, Pa. â MIKE FLECK, wholesome country boy, cruised to a second term in the State Legislature in 2008, running unopposed in both the Republican primary and the general election. He got 100 percent of the vote in a largely rural, religious, conservative district.  It was the same two years later: 100 percent. And the same again in 2012.  But for 2014, primary opponents are circling. Some supporters are fleeing. Heâs in trouble.  And while nothing has changed â not his deep roots in the farmland here, not his degree from an evangelical Christian university founded by Jerry Falwell, not his fondness for hunting or his pride in the bear pelt from one of his kills â everything has. At the end of last year, he announced that his marriage of 10 years was over. And that heâs gay.  Plenty of people figured that heâd exit state politics after that. But on Monday heâll announce his campaign for a fifth term. This time, it will almost certainly be a campaign, with rivals and an uncertain outcome, hinging on whether he can persuade his constituents that heâs the same politician they embraced before, the same man, apart from a reality owned up to, a truth embraced.  Their acceptance or rejection of that will be an unusually clear-cut referendum on attitudes about homosexuality in rural America, or at least in this verdant stretch of the heartland about 75 miles west of the state capital of Harrisburg. Fleck, 40, hasnât changed his position on issues like gun control, of which heâs skeptical. (He owns a pistol, two rifles, one muzzleloader and 10 other firearms.) He didnât come out of the closet in a swirl of scandal. There was no news about an intern, no talk of an affair. He just came out, because his marriage had unraveled, because the toll of staying in was too steep and because he saw an opportunity to challenge the bigotry in his community by presenting its residents with something that he certainly never saw when he was growing up here, an openly gay man who doesnât conform to the sorts of stereotypes that are especially prevalent far away from metropolitan areas.  But his re-election bid isnât just about what people in places like central Pennsylvania are ready for. It also poses the question of how they are supposed to change in the absence of examples like Fleckâs. If most gays and lesbians in rural areas stay silent or bolt for the city, thereâs no one and nothing to push back at ingrained prejudices. âWill & Graceâ and Ellen DeGeneres can do only so much.  âI love this area,â he told me. âI think itâs going to catch up. But itâs never going to catch up unless there are people like me out there. And thatâs true not just of here but of the Bible Belt and a whole lot of America.â  âThese are good people,â he added. âTheyâve just never had to think about this.â  During several meetings with him over the past two months, I was struck by his determination to believe that and his refusal to accept that one wrinkle of his identity could suddenly change the esteem in which his community holds him, override his familyâs long history in these mountains and make anyone question his place and his purpose here.  âI live in the house that was my grandfatherâs,â he said, âand that was his grandfatherâs.â It has grown over time, but the original part, more than 170 years old, is constructed of logs. It sits between the towns of Orbisonia and Three Springs on Fleck Road, named for his ancestors, and most of the few houses within a three-mile radius are owned by relatives. A stoneâs throw away is the tiny hilltop cemetery where aunts and uncles and his father and a sister who died young are all buried, and he took me there one morning without any warning or explanation. I think he just wanted me to see and understand the hold that this patch of earth has on him, and the claim that he has to it.  âHe really is truly a son of that community,â said Bob Bomersbach, a friend of Fleckâs who grew up there and now lives in New York. Heâs also gay but has family in Three Springs and returns all the time. He told me that while many gay men and women from rural areas âfeel as if one piece of themselves means they have to abrogate their ties to their history, their ties to their land, people like Mike and me say, âThese things belong to us as well. This is part of our heritage.âÂ â
Mike Fleck, a four-term state representative in Pennsylvania, hunts, prays and comes from a family with deep roots in his verdant stretch of the heartland. Will being gay nullify all of that?