Weekly Column
If you want to know why the “ex-gay” industry is gradually losing its appeal, all one has to do is look to Hong Kong, which hired quack therapist Hong Kwai-wah to cure gay people by urging them to take cold showers when aroused.
Equally ridiculous is the Pentecostal preacher Damon Thompson who casts demons out of gay and lesbian youth. According to Ex-Gay Watch, Thompson leads The Ramp ministry in Hamilton, Alabama and “employs every trick in the spiritual abuse playbook to coax his young congregation into outing themselves as gay and then stepping forward to be exorcised of their demons.”
One of the more peculiar theories emotively shouted at this anti-gay revival, is that people become gay after getting attacked by bullies. Because these individuals are made to feel bad for feeling different, they falsely perceive themselves to be gay, which opens the door to allowing gay demons to infest their bodies.
This weekend, the New York Times Magazine featured “ex-gay” Michael Glatze, who transformed himself from gay activist to “Christian” anti-gay activist following a health scare. His first step to becoming heterosexual was writing on his computer screen at the gay rights group he worked for: “I am straight. Homosexuality = death. I choose life.” This was an odd assertion, because Glatze was very much alive and up until his meltdown, he appeared quite happy to those who knew him.
Glatze fits the quintessential profile of a chameleon-like lost soul who tries on new identities like normal people try on new shoes. As a gay activist, Glatze proclaimed that, “Christian fundamentalists should burn in hell.”
Now, as a fundamentalist, heterosexual cowboy going to Bible school in Wyoming, Glatze says that, “Homosexuality is a cage” in which gay people are “trapped.” Prior to his big conversion, the amorphous Glatze had a stint as a Mormon and then went to a Buddhist retreat, only to get expelled for speaking too loudly during meditation.
Glatze’s tale is reminiscent of Richard Cohen, the founder of the “ex-gay” International Healing Foundation. Cohen began life as a Jewish man, converted to mainstream Christianity in college, after graduation got sucked into becoming a Moonie, then he joined an island cult that practiced naked church therapy, next he morphed into a fundamentalist Christian who cheated on his wife with a man in New York City, and finally settled (for now) into his latest incarnation as an outspoken fundamentalist “anti-gay” activist. A few brainwashed people might call the journeys’ of Glatze and Cohen “ex-gay”, while the rest simply call their path unstable.
Aside from the odd personalities that end up as spokespeople, the little science that buttressed the claims of success by the “ex-gay” industry have recently unraveled.
For example, anti-gay organizations gleefully pointed for decades to Masters & Johnson’s 1979 book, “Homosexuality in Perspective”, that claimed that homosexuality could be cured. Indeed, Dr. William H. Masters and Virgina E. Johnson, the husband and wife sex research team, went on Meet the Press on Sunday, April 22, 1979, to discuss their findings that claimed that they had converted homosexuals into heterosexuals.
However, in his groundbreaking book, “Masters of Sex”, author Thomas Maier discovered through investigative reporting that the results of Masters & Johnson’s study were entirely fabricated. Virginia Johnson even acknowledged that the results were fake.
Equally significant were the findings this month by researcher Jim Burroway and CNN’s AC 360 that undermined one of the most significant ex-gay” studies. Prior to getting caught with an escort from RentBoy.com, Dr. George Rekers was the “ex-gay” industry’s most prominent therapist. Even after this tawdry scandal, Rekers research citing the alleged sexual conversion of a boy named “Kraig” was still widely cited by “ex-gay” therapists. Burroway and CNN discovered, however, that “Kraig” had grown up to be a gay man and his family alleged the therapy with Rekers may have led to his suicide.
Perhaps, the evidence has become so overwhelming that it has caused even stalwart homophobes to back off their assertion that homosexuality is a choice.
“We’ve (Southern Baptists) lied about the nature of homosexuality and have practiced what can only be described as homophobia. We’ve used the choice language when it is clear that sexual orientation is a deep inner struggle and not merely a matter of choice,” said Albert Mohler, President of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary last week in Phoenix.
Of course, denial of the crumbling “ex-gay” myth is very difficult to erase overnight, with Mohler adding, “Only the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ gives a homosexual person any hope of release from homosexuality.”
I agree that only the supernatural could alter such a natural part of a person’s being as their sexual orientation. The next logical step for religious zealots is to finally acknowledge that their inane prayers for sexual conversion seem to only work for the insane like Michael Glatze or Richard Cohen.
It’s time for the discredited “ex-gay” myth to simply go away and be rightfully viewed as an experiment that was tried and failed.
data=”http://www.youtube.com/v/qLDC5Vaegyo&feature?fs=1″>You need to a flashplayer enabled browser to view this YouTube video
data=”http://www.youtube.com/v/rI6-g5hnRmg&feature?fs=1″>You need to a flashplayer enabled browser to view this YouTube video
data=”http://www.youtube.com/v/ioQ0JP8Cgy8?fs=1″>You need to a flashplayer enabled browser to view this YouTube video
Great post. Really sums things up nicely.
But now we have to keep them from going overseas to uneducated countries as well as stop the Islamic equals.
I always believed destroying the “ex-gay” movement would inevitably lead to full-equality for gays and lesbians. That’s why we must focus on answering the Religious Right’s junk science.
Best post I have ever read on this website. It should be sent to all journalist, preachers, educators and politicians. I should know, after 20 years in ex-gay “ministries” and having spent thousands of dollars for “counseling”, I never saw a single person go from gay to straight – I saw people lie and say they were “ex-gay” but really meant that they still had gay attractions but chose to be celibate and alone. Ex-gay ministries steal years from innocent people’s lives. It is a cruel hoax. Thank you TWO for what you do to expose these liars who are destroying innocent young people in the name of God.
People…still believe in…demons?
WHUT.
Silverevilchao, I once saw an online page that described demonic possession as if it were a legitimate medical condirion, and the impression I got was the authors were completely serious.
Although I believe sexual orientation is determined biologically, the cases of Michael Glatze and Chaz Bono make me ask the question, are some ex-gays truly asexual, bisexual or transgendered and did they chose to be gay like Chaz Bono admitted to having done? (Chaz thought she was a lesbian until realizing he was a man who was sexually attracted to women.) Likewise, a bisexual could easily choose to behave as gay or straight. Additionally, asexuals, which Kinsey data measured to be 2 percent of the population, might easily feel coerced by society to choose a sexual orientation, similar to how Chaz Bono felt she had to pick one. (See my post Thomas Kraemer, “Are some ex-gays truly asexual and chose to be gay like Chaz Bono did,” posted Jun. 22, 2011)
I know of a transgendered woman who is also a lesbian. ‘He’ was always attracted to women and assumed himself to be heterosexual; but he internally ‘he’ always felt like a woman ‘himself’; eventually she transitioned and is a post-op woman who identifies as a lesbian. Life is interesting.
Another day, another conflation of sexual orientation and gender identity.
A comment by RainbowPhoenix said, “Another day, another conflation of sexual orientation and gender identity.” In my opinion, asexuality is a sexual orientation (i.e. neither sex is sexually arousing to a person). Asexuality is not a gender identity and therefore not a conflation of the two. Men who are asexual, such as many celibate Catholic priests, often feel forced to adopt a sexual orientation and this can lead an asexual person to mistakenly say they are gay, only to later say they are ex-gay when they find out gay men do not sexually arouse them. I do not think it is a conflation to recognize that society places similar pressure on gay, bisexual, asexual, intersex and transgendered people to pretend that their sexual biology, gender identity and sexual orientation are all consistent with either the traditional definition of male or female. The fact is that most people simplistically think that everybody can be classified as gay or straight and male or female, without recognizing the many permutations in real life. For gays to accept this type of binary and dogmatic thinking only makes it easier for anti-gay religious fundamentalists to further confuse and exploit people with the ex-gay myth.
Wayne,
Nice how as soon as you proclaim something as “dead,” or “fallen,” then the whole world is suppose to follow suit. I can see that you have visions of yourself as some kind of leader.
I suggest learning how to follow God, rather than you.
Michael
“Glatze’s testimony confirms what I’ve long believed about any sort of sexual perversion. That is, it’s inherently selfish, addictive, unsatisfying, and destructive because it takes a certain feeling or image and makes it into an ultimate thing. Once that pleasure or fantasy becomes an end in itself, rather than a means to an end (like loving another person), it won’t let you go unless you completely reject it.” – just one of many great comments, inspired by Truth in the New York Times article. Wayne, and company… it’s never too late to do the right thing. :)
Grow up, Mikey.
Oh, Michael — your version of God is not really God at all. It is a self-centered, delusional, spiritual sickness where you project all your neurosis and dislikes onto a conjured deity to justify your backward views. You don’t pray to God, really, but to yourself. No, thank you — you can keep your angry, self-serving, and spiritually stunted strain of God. It has no relevance to reality, nor is it particularly appealing to thinking, rational people or spiritually mature individuals.
You’re right, michael. It’s never too late to do the right thing.
Talk to some gay people, learn what their lives are like.
Talk to some gay Chrsitians– not the homo-hatin’-homo kind, but the other kind– and seee what their lives in Christ are like.
Do some real scholarship on what the bible may or may not to have to say about something which may or may not homosexuality.
Truly undersdtand that Jesus was speaking to you when he said you should not really be concerned about other people’s alleged sins when you have so many of your own to thi nk about.
And oyu might really want to read the story of suzannah and the elders so that you can understand the fundamental contradiction of the idea that any Christian has any business at all in loving the sinner and hating hte sin.
Then you can join a spiritually mature church, put away childish things, and stop seeing through a glass darkly.
It’s never too late to do the right thing.