Respecting Ex-Gays

by John Corvino on March 7, 2008

People often ask me what I think about ex-gay ministries. I have no objection to them in principle, but serious problems with them in practice.

I have no objection to them in principle because I believe we should give others the same respect that we ourselves demand. That includes giving people wide latitude about living their lives as they see fit. If you really believe that you're heterosexual deep down, and you want to take steps to help realize that identity, far be it from me to insist otherwise. I'll let you be the expert on what you feel deep down, as long as you show me the same courtesy.

In fact, many ex-gays do not show me the same courtesy. I've had several tell me, "C'mon-deep down you know that being gay is wrong." I know no such thing, and I resent it when other people tell me what I know "deep down." So let's make a deal: you don't tell me what I know deep down, and I won't tell you what you know deep down.

I'm not denying that people are capable of deep self-deception; indeed, I know it firsthand. For years I insisted that I was "really" straight, even though (1) I had gay feelings, (2) I had no straight feelings, and (3) I knew that people with gay feelings but no straight feelings are gay. (This, from someone who would later teach elementary logic.) Somehow, by not letting my thoughts "touch," I could avoid drawing the feared conclusions from them.

Maybe ex-gays are engaged in similar self-deception; maybe not. The point is that it's their feelings, their life, their decision to make. So I won't oppose their efforts in principle.

In practice, I have at least three serious problems with ex-gay ministries.

The first is their tendency to promote myths about the so-called "homosexual lifestyle" by generalizing from some people's unfortunate personal experiences. Ex-gay spokespersons will often recount, in lurid detail, a life of promiscuity, sexual abuse, drug addiction, loneliness, depression, and so on. "That is what I left behind," they tearfully announce, and who can blame them? But that experience is not my experience, and it's by no means typical of the gay experience. To suggest otherwise is to spread lies about the reality of gay and lesbian people's lives. (The best antidote for this is for the rest of us to tell our own stories openly and proudly.)

The second problem is the ex-gay ministries' abuse of science. Many of its practitioners are engaged in "therapy" even though they are neither trained nor licensed to do so; some of that "therapy" can cause serious and lasting psychological damage. Ex-gay ministries tend to lean on discredited etiological theories-domineering mothers, absent fathers, and that sort of thing. They also tend to give false hope to those who seek such therapy. By all respectable accounts, only a tiny fraction of those who seek change achieve any lasting success. Even then it's unclear whether feelings, or merely behaviors, have been changed. While we shouldn't reject individuals' reports of change out of hand, nor should we pretend that their experience is typical or likely.

The third and related problem is that many ex-gay ministries promote not merely a "change," but a "cure." "Cure" implies "disease," which homosexuality is not. Insofar as ex-gay ministries promote the long-discredited notion that homosexuality is a psychological disorder, I oppose them. ("Spiritual" disorders are another matter, but then we've left the realm of science for that of religion. Ex-gay ministries have an unfortunate habit of conflating science, religion, and politics.)

I am not at all threatened by the notion that some people can change their sexual orientation, if indeed they can. In reality, it seems that at best only a small number can do so, and only with tremendous effort. But if they can, and that makes them happy, good for them. I'm confident enough in my own happiness that I need not doubt theirs.

Nor do I feel the need to insist that I was "born this way." Maybe I was, maybe I wasn't. What I can say with confidence is that these feelings are a deep and fulfilling part of who I am, and I see no reason to mess with them. Quite the contrary.

So when ex-gays announce, from billboards and magazine ads, that "Change is possible," I say: Possible? Maybe. Likely? No. Desirable? Not for me, thanks.

123 Comments for “Respecting Ex-Gays”

posted by Karen on March 6, 2008

I very rarely agree 100% with anything that I read, but this is one of those times.

This is how I feel about ex-gay ministries, exactly. My experience is different – I never deceived myself about my gayness, telling myself at age 15 that I was “at least bisexual”, though I hadn’t sorted out exactly how I felt about guys. But my conclusions are the same.
posted by Regan DuCasse on March 6, 2008

Thank You John! Well said.

The ex gay industry rests a great deal on the insecurities and fear of, if not the gay person…those that can act as agents to pressure a gay individual into their counsel.

Parents, teachers and clergy make up such people that CAN apply pressure.

And with such real ulitmatums if not outright threats likely, that very much invalidates that a gay person seeks such therapy and change entirely on their own.

Were such pressures eliminated, only then will I believe that they even have such persuasive ability to motivate someone gay to care about changing.

And more’s the point, such change is almost entirely religiously motivated. And this again, begs the question, can a Christian call their faith just that if it requires such monumental pressure and gravitas to make a gay person trust them?

Change is possible, but the other caveats are not mentioned and THAT is what annoys me most of all.

And mostly it begs these questions too:

Why is change necessary? And what’s it to you if a gay person doesn’t?
posted by Bobby on March 6, 2008

“The second problem is the ex-gay ministries? abuse of science.”

—True, but so does scientology. So does Tom Cruise when he tells his wife not to use any painkillers while giving birth.

Still, in a free society you have to allow it. What you don’t have to do is respect them. Personally, I think Ex-gays should be watch by the Klan, wait until they “slip” and fall back into their old ways, then take a picture and post it online. Specially if you’re dealing with the leadership.

I love it when ex-gays are exposed being gay. It’s poetic justice. It helps more people believe that sexual orientation is hard or impossible to change.
posted by Emily K on March 6, 2008

Karen, I had EXACTLY the same experience as you. I came out at 15 as same-sex attracted – bisexual – until my sexual feelings got a little more sorted out, then I realized i was fully gay. Although, I PREFER the term “queer.” Because I think a lot about me can be called queer, not just the fact that I fall madly in love with women.

Unlike John Corvino, I DO feel confident I was “born this way.” I don’t remember feeling any other way than how I feel right now. Kudos for a well-written and concise article. One thing I’ve especially noticed about the stories of “what I got freedom from” is that rarely will the lesbian experiences consist of prostitution, drug abuse, disease, and anonymous encounters. And opposition to homosexual behavior always centers around anal sex and gay male acts. Why is the ex-gay industry so focused on men?
posted by Priya Lynn on March 6, 2008

Emily asked “Why is the ex-gay industry so focused on men?”.

Emily I think its because from a very young age people are trained to believe that men are sexually disgusting and women are sexually attractive. If you look at what happens on the playground its considered to a degree humiliating for a girl to admit attraction to a boy but it is not considered humiliating the other way around. I’ve talked with my girlfriends and we all agreed that it was hard to accept being attracted to men.

You can see this in the porn industry – two girls together is considered hot and two guys together is not. Boys are taught and teach each other from a young age that male bodies are gross. That’s why society as a whole is much more accepting of lesbians than gays.
posted by Leo on March 6, 2008

Good and fair assessment.

“Why is the ex-gay industry so focused on men?”.

Part of it probably has to do with the fact that the sissy boy has always been more stigmatized than the tom boy. But I imagine it’s also a simple matter of numbers. There are more gay men than lesbians, so more potential clients among men.

They don’t give these therapies away for free. They need a steady supply of paying customers coming into these programs to keep them afloat. You focus on your biggest potential market.
posted by Karen on March 6, 2008

“There are more gay men than lesbians”

Are there?

Emily, “bi now, gay later” 🙂 I think that John wasn’t so much saying that he had felt differently at some point in his life. I think he’s more saying that it’s a characteristic of his, like a food aversion, that has origins that he neither knows nor cares about. I don’t eat mustard because I don’t like eating mustard. I don’t know why I don’t, but I never have. Born with it? Well, maybe, maybe not, but it’s a part of me that I’m comfortable with and see no reason to “fix”. I think that’s what he was saying.
posted by Alpha on March 6, 2008

‘Ex-gay ministries tend to lean on discredited etiological theories?domineering mothers, absent fathers, and that sort of thing.’

One often hears that theories like this are discredited. Like most people who claim that they are discredited, John Corvino presents this claim without any evidence or reasoning. I think that this does not help his argument.
posted by cowboy on March 6, 2008

I can relate somewhat to being in deep denial about being gay. Brainwashing from birth that being a homo is pure evil was a major factor for me. I attempted to keep those homo tendencies away for a long time. But self-deception can only go so far. Going on until I realized my nocturnal dreams were of men. My focus when walking towards a nice-looking couple was not at the woman but at the man. Both, of which, are relatively unconscious (non-chosen) actions via my subconscious.

There may be such a thing as a deep heterosexual with homosexual tendencies or a deep homosexual with heterosexual curiosity. However deep you want it?but your deep core is either gay or straight?no in between.
posted by Jason D on March 6, 2008

Alpha,

Well for starters, there are plenty of gay men who have fantastic relationships with their fathers. There are plenty of gays who grew up without a domineering mother. That, on it’s face, discredits those theories.

There are also an overwhelming number of children who grew up with domineering mothers and absent fathers who are NOT gay.

Quite simply the numbers don’t add up, and theory says nothing about causation — HOW does an absent father somehow contribute to homosexuality? Just because one thing happens after another does not mean one caused the other. In fact, it could easily work the opposite way: subconsciously sensing the “differentness” of his child a father becomes more absent. In other words, gay children cause absent fathers.

However, it’s all speculation and those theories never produced any data to support them. That’s how they got discredited.
posted by Leo on March 6, 2008

“There are more gay men than lesbians”

I’m not statistician but many studies have been done, all I’m sure with flaws and biases, but most tend to support the notion that same sex orientation occurs with around twice the frequency among males as compared to females.
posted by Jorge on March 6, 2008

I think this is a fair article.

I was thinking about those ministries that are trying to preach to young gays to be something other than homosexually active. Should we give the same respect to them? Gay kids are usually more conflicted than gay adults, and some of them will not be able to go (or be sent) to anyone else.
posted by Alpha on March 6, 2008

Jason D,

That is the argument that people usually offer when they try to discredit Freudian theories of causation. It only works if it is directed against the idea that a particular environment automatically causes someone to become homosexual. It doesn’t work if it is directed against the idea that a particular environment makes the development of homosexuality statistically more likely. This is a simple distinction that people often loose sight of.

As for sons who become gay somehow making their fathers distant, maybe that does happen in some cases, but it should be obvious that it can’t always work that way. Human experience is too varied.
posted by Ashpenaz on March 6, 2008

I have said many times before that a negative experience with the gay community leads men (like me) to reparative therapy. This writer says the exact same thing. However, when I say it, the response is this: “The gay community is entirely good, from top to bottom, and no one ever takes drugs or exploits young men or even jaywalks. We sit in our suburban homes in our lifelong, sexually exclusive relationships while an evil homophobic world makes up myths about us.” If you respect ex-gays enough, as this writer suggests, to listen to their stories, you might get a less sunny picture of the gay community. Why not ask ex-gays why they have such negative feelings about the gay lifestyle? Is it possible that there are aspects of the gay community which are unappealing to those with traditional values? Is it possible that gays are not driven to reparative therapy by internalized homophobia, but by men in sleeveless undershirts throwing boxes of condoms and bags of meth at them while trying to get thing to sing along to “Love Today?” Or perhaps they are driven to reparative therapy because a man they trusted used them for sex and then kicked them out?
posted by Karen on March 7, 2008

“This writer says the exact same thing.”

No, Ashpenaz, he doesn’t.

And no, he’s not required to spend days and column inches vigorously denouncing you just because you took the liberty of putting your despicable words in his mouth.

The difference is that you insist that your experience, an experience that drives some men to ex-gay therapy, is almost universal among gay men. In reality, very few gay men enter reparative therapy for ANY reason. Also, very few gay men live or have ever lived the kind of sordid hell you think is the “gay community” norm.

In your world, gay men either run screaming into the loving, waiting arms of Exodus — or prance fabulously into a life of sordid, exploitative, drug-addled sex. And lesbians, well, we just conveniently don’t matter to you at all. There is no in between, no nuance, no actual examination of the facts and statistics (unless such “statistics” are provided by the likes of Paul Cameron, of course). No critical thought about the precious anecdotes you trot out repeatedly to “prove” your point, and what conclusions may validly be drawn from them. There isn’t even an examination of why someone might think their only option is a sordid, drug-addled world of sex.

Yours is a two-dimensional world of simple predators and simple victims. An easy, lazy, puerile analysis.

I have seen you specifically call us, the normal gay people, “the lucky 10%”. You have said that the rest of gay people are bereft of responsibility, integrity, principles, values, etc. We all know how stunningly wrong that is. You are never going to get us to live in your fantasy world where you were even a little bit justified in wasting a good deal of your life with those charlatans.

You can’t understand that if you only LOOK at the bad parts of the gay community, you will only SEE the bad parts. You can’t understand that the percentage of bad gays is not any different from the percentage of bad straights. You can’t understand that “the gay community” is a convenient fiction, not a monolithic entity (in fact, you believe us to be as monolithic as the Catholic church.) You can’t understand that having casual sex is not the worst thing that can happen to most people. You can’t understand that we don’t like you because you’re actually an annoying ass, not because you’re pointing out some kind of painful “truth” that we don’t want to face.

Go away, James. Go away and GET HELP dealing with whatever it is that happened to you.

By the way, you never answered my question from a previous thread: Where were your parents when you were an underage, sexually exploited gay boy hanging out with drug dealers and prostitutes?
posted by Throbert McGee on March 7, 2008

You can see this in the porn industry – two girls together is considered hot and two guys together is not.

And yet, some heterosexual women started writing Kirk/Spock stories, giving rise to an entire genre of “slash” fan-fiction with male/male themes, primarily for their own masturbatory pleasure as hetero-women. Evidently, these women didn’t get the memo that the male body is unsexy.
posted by Amicus on March 7, 2008

“Ex-gay ministries” are implicitly prescriptive, not pluralistic, as this article sort-of makes them out to be (or envisions them properly conceptualized).

What’s more they have little to do with “deep down feelings”.

If you read something like “Prayers for Bobby”, you understand how much the suggestion that change is possible can be a *positive* harm.

Therefore, carving out some sort of libertarian space for them seems to fall into the trap of … well, libertarianism.

There may be a time when “ex-gays” peacefully co-exist in a tolerant society with others, but, for now, I cannot see how the message that change is possible is, as it is construed and implemented, wins the cost-benefit analysis.
posted by KamatariSeta on March 7, 2008

In general, I have a real problem with this issue of “respect” in politics, as it can all too often be twisted in to a desire, or demand, that someone not be criticized whatsoever.
posted by Leo on March 7, 2008

Ash you do see what you want to see.

Nowhere in the column does John attribute his reluctance to accept his sexuality to the negative behaviors of the gay community.

He does however say:

“In practice, I have at least three serious problems with ex-gay ministries.

THE FIRST IS THEIR TENDENCY TO PROMOTE MYTHS ABOUT THE SO-CALLED “HOMOSEXUAL LIFESTYLE” BY GENERALIZING FROM SOME PEOPLE’S UNFORTUNATE PERSONAL EXPERIENCES. Ex-gay spokespersons will often recount, in lurid detail, a life of promiscuity, sexual abuse, drug addiction, loneliness, depression, and so on. ?That is what I left behind,? they tearfully announce, and who can blame them? But that experience is not my experience, and IT’S BY NO MEANS TYPICAL OF THE GAY EXPERIENCE. TO SUGGEST OTHERWISE IS TO SPREAD LIES ABOUT THE REALITY OF GAY AND LESBIAN PEOPLE’S LIVES. (The best antidote for this is for the rest of us to tell our own stories openly and proudly.)
posted by Leo on March 7, 2008

http://www.boxturtlebulletin.com/

http://www.exgaywatch.com/wp/

http://www.truthwinsout.org/

These are sites by and for ex-ex-gays.

Visit them and draw your own conclusions as to who they see as responsible for their struggles.
posted by Ashpenaz on March 7, 2008

Why don’t you ask any ex-gays you know why they chose reparative therapy? Why don’t you listen to their experience of the gay community? You might see that the gay community is responsible for the growth of ex-gay ministries because the gay community rejects those with faith and traditional values. Imagine if you will a young man, 18, who says to the first 10 gays he meets: “I know that I am gay, but my faith and values are important to me, and I don’t want to have sex until I get married.” How many of those 10 men would support him, saying, “I and my lifelong, sexually exclusive partner want to help you–let’s look for a church together,” and how many would say, “Grow up, girlfriend, grab a box of condoms, turn up the Mika, and let’s go!” Be honest. If you are honest, you will that that 10 out of 10 of the first gays this young man meets will give answers more like the latter than the former.

After those 10 answers, the young man, wanting to protect his faith and values, will likely turn to reparative therapy. And the gay community will blame the young man’s internalized homophobia rather than anything the gay community might have done.
posted by KamatariSeta on March 7, 2008

Why don’t you ask any ex-gays you know why they chose reparative therapy? Why don’t you listen to their experience of the gay community?

Why? There’s no need to. They can chose it if they want, they just aren’t entitled to have anyone tell them it’s a good idea or that it’s in any way grounded in reality. If they don’t like that, tough.

You might see that the gay community is responsible for the growth of ex-gay ministries because the gay community rejects those with faith and traditional values. Imagine if you will a young man, 18, who says to the first 10 gays he meets: “I know that I am gay, but my faith and values are important to me, and I don’t want to have sex until I get married.” How many of those 10 men would support him, saying, “I and my lifelong, sexually exclusive partner want to help you–let’s look for a church together,” and how many would say, “Grow up, girlfriend, grab a box of condoms, turn up the Mika, and let’s go!” Be honest. If you are honest, you will that that 10 out of 10 of the first gays this young man meets will give answers more like the latter than the former.

As I said above, tough. Maybe he needs to develop thicker skin and not expect coddles and asspats from everyone.

After those 10 answers, the young man, wanting to protect his faith and values, will likely turn to reparative therapy. And the gay community will blame the young man’s internalized homophobia rather than anything the gay community might have done.

If thats what he wants to do, he can do it. But if that’s his REASON, he, and the ex gay bunch, should be up front about it, and not pretend there’s some kind of science behind what they do, or that there’s any need to convince other gays who AREN’T so dissatisfied with “the gay community” that they should do the same.
posted by Clancy on March 7, 2008

Ashpenaz: The question I have is: where are you meeting those 10 guys who tell you to “get over yourself” when you mention you are a person of faith. I grew up Catholic and I still respect the church (if not it’s leaders). If you are talking to people in a bar you will more likely get that type of response. You could look for the many gay and gay-friendly churches who would more likely agree with your views on relationships and sex. There are many gay people who believe in “traditional values”. My partner is one. He was raised by the LDS church and acknowledges that he is gay and has no problem with it, but still maintains many of his faith’s beliefs.
posted by Karen on March 7, 2008

“10 out of 10 of the first gays this young man meets will give answers more like the latter than the former.”

Yeah, sure – if he goes to meat market bars and websites, or the hustlers’ street corners, and only asks 10 of THOSE gay guys.

If you even took a random sampling at a pride parade you’d find a vastly different result. Why? Because, while their floats may not be exciting enough to show up in the evening news, or scandalous enough to make the “informative clip shows” of the ex-gay “ministries”, there are groups there like the MCC, Pink Pistols, AIDS prevention groups, Dykes on Bikes, Equality Maryland, the HRC, the Gay Men’s Chorus of DC, and any number of other groups of nice, normal people – including the spectators, who are mostly wearing… wait for it… shorts and t-shirts.

I’ve been to pride parades, and even the sexier floats are just guys in skimpy clothes or drag, dancing suggestively. You’d see far more at Mardi Gras. In fact, the most explicit sexual material I’ve seen at a Pride parade were the “sodomy” stick figures on the Phelps’ signs.

Not only that, but there are many, many gay people who don’t go to Pride parades – not out of any self-righteousness like yours, but just because they’ve been there, done that, or it’s not their idea of a good time. How many straight people have never been to Mardi Gras or one of those Spring Break trips?

So if you actually took a random sample of 10 gay men, you’d find plenty of support for that guy – probably just as much as a straight guy with those values would find among a random sample of his straight comrades.

But you never realize that by only considering the worst kind of people to be “really part of the gay community”, you’re making a circular argument.

Have you answered my question about your parents’ culpability in what happened to you? Why were they allowing you to hang out with drug dealers and prostitutes when you were but a tender, underage, impressionable gay boy?
posted by Ashpenaz on March 7, 2008

My parents were divorced and I only have met my father a handful of times. My mother had a nervous breakdown after the divorce and had shock treatments. She never fully recovered emotionally. She worked two jobs. She raised me and my brother (who hated me and beat me up–you remind me of him, Karen) alone, with help from my elderly great aunts and grandmother. I am the textbook case of the homosexual family dynamic. I was even forced by my great aunt to take tap-dancing lessons–there are pictures of me dressed in my little sailor suit.

Consequently, there wasn’t much supervision over drugs and prostitution and exploitation and abuse in my world. Until I joined the church. I suspect many gay men have a similar story. They are all ex-gays or ex-ex-gays, but none of them are blind to the corrosiveness of the gay mainstream.

It is better for a young man to pursue reparative therapy and live than die as a result of suicide, drugs, or STDs as part of the gay community.
posted by KamatariSeta on March 7, 2008

I suspect many gay men have a similar story.

I don’t think you really suspect that at all.

Hell, I’m not even sure if I should believe half of whats in that post.
posted by Karen on March 7, 2008

If it makes you feel any better, James, I’m 5’2″ and not at all a tough girl. I couldn’t beat you up. The worst I can do is beat you in debate and point out your obvious neuroses – that isn’t abuse, last time I checked, especially when you’re on an internet board where I have zero power over your life and no way to force you to read my writing.

That I do gladly though – not because I hate you but because you invite it with your constant thread-jacking, and because I love being right and can’t leave things alone. That’s one of MY obvious neuroses. 🙂

You suspect many gay men have the same story, but only because you refuse to listen to all the gay men who DON’T have the same story (not to mention the lesbians, who are also gay people, but the stereotype of us is very different and not as useful to you).

You discount them as anomalies and insist that 10 out of 10 gay men are valueless sex fiends, and somehow, we and everyone we know ALL happen to be that mysterious 11th guy that the poor gay boy will never encounter because by then he will have died or gone to Exodus. It’s stupid, really.
posted by Karen on March 7, 2008

Also, your story just proves my point. It’s your family – your STRAIGHT family – that failed you, not the nebulous gay community. And after your family failed you, it was the individuals you fell in with that failed you, not the nebulous gay community, not me, not anyone here.
posted by Ashpenaz on March 7, 2008

So, you are saying my family dynamic caused me to be homosexual? Welcome to reparative therapy!

Listening to the stories of ex-gays gives you a unique opportunity to find out about the gay community from a different perspective. Perhaps listening and learning is a better response than listening, attacking, and forcing them to recant their experience. Maybe it would be worthwhile to hear from those who didn’t experience the warm, diverse, monogamous part of the gay community which you all are a part of–maybe you will be surprised to learn that there are gays who do drugs, spread disease, and exploit people. There are even gays who, unlike you, don’t have lifelong, sexually exclusive relationships! Yes, it’s true! And those gays who are driven to reparative therapy to escape this small, almost invisible portion of the gay community can tell you all about them.

P.S. Everything I shared about my life is true. I grew up without a father, with an emotionally disturbed mother, and brother who hated me, and the first gays I met were a guy who routinely raped his brother, a gay prostitute, and a gay drug dealer, all of whom were embraced by a group of older gay men who urged them on. The one positive thing is that I learned all the lyrics to all the David Bowie songs. And I knew that Lou Reed was a drag queen. And I got to meet Grace Jones. It was fun to grow up in South Dakota.
posted by ColoradoPatriot on March 7, 2008

James: “I am the textbook case of the homosexual family dynamic. I was even forced by my great aunt to take tap-dancing lessons–there are pictures of me dressed in my little sailor suit.”

That is the funniest thing I’ve read all day. Thanks for the laugh!!
posted by Jason D on March 7, 2008

“So, you are saying my family dynamic caused me to be homosexual? Welcome to reparative therapy!”

Nice try, Ash, but what she said is that your STRAIGHT family failed you, and that you got yourself involved with drug addicts and prostitutes(that just happened to be gay).

That didn’t cause you to be gay, but it obviously gave you a very skewed vision of homosexuality. If that had been my first impression AND if I REFUSED to LET GO of that bad set of experiences,(as you have done) I guess I’d be a vengeful and unhappy person like yourself.

Your family dynamic allowed to get involved in unhealthy situations with dubious people. That they were gay is secondary detail. Straight kids with your family dynamic end up with straight versions of the people you hung out with….yet somehow they don’t end up blaming all of heterosexuality for those problems. Nor do they aim their anger at the straight community at large.

“Listening to the stories of ex-gays gives you a unique opportunity to find out about the gay community from a different perspective.”

If you consider “the gay community” to be a loose collection of bars and bathhouses, then yes, that would be true. But there’s more to being gay than getting drunk and having sex. I would think that would be obvious, but apparently not.

“Perhaps listening and learning is a better response than listening, attacking, and forcing them to recant their experience.” READ WHAT YOU JUST WROTE HERE, it will work just as well for you as it might for us.

“Maybe it would be worthwhile to hear from those who didn’t experience the warm, diverse, monogamous part of the gay community which you all are a part of–maybe you will be surprised to learn that there are gays who do drugs, spread disease, and exploit people. There are even gays who, unlike you, don’t have lifelong, sexually exclusive relationships! Yes, it’s true! And those gays who are driven to reparative therapy to escape this small, almost invisible portion of the gay community can tell you all about them.”

Geez, Victim much? God, that whole blame game has GOT to get tiring after awhile. I came out when I was 23, and no, I didn’t immediately end up in a lifelong monogamous gay relationship. I met a lot of drug addicts and other unsavory characters. I spent a lot of months and years alone. I also met some happy, well-meaning but very NON traditional gays, and I made FRIENDS with some of them. See, not everyone I meet or get involved with has to share all of my values and beliefs. I’m not so easily threatened. Why is it so important to you that people you don’t intend to have sex with be monogamous, anyway? As long as they are honest with each other, and treat you with respect, what’s the big deal? I have friends who are in open relationships, I don’t understand them, but I don’t have to. Ash, once you stop judging these people and try to get along with them, maybe, just maybe, you might find they are not bad people. You don’t have to take on their values — and if your values are as strong as you claim you won’t even be tempted to change them — but it wouldn’t kill you to go out and be nice to people who aren’t like you. I don’t drink, don’t smoke, and yet the good friends of mine who do drink and do smoke respect my choices. Why? Because I respect theirs!

I’m sorry you were exploited. I’ve been exploited too. And I blame the only people responsible for that exploitation, the person who did it!!! See, I thought to myself “I’m gay, and I’m a good guy. I can’t possibly be the only one.” I stopped being angry with the gay community a long time ago for not living up to my expectations. And you know what happened when I did that? –I made friends. It’s liberating, you should try it.

You remind me of some of the dudes I ran into in the gay.com chatroom. They were sad, unhappy, and obviously disappointed in the gay community. They somehow expected to just show up and have everything work out, they felt the gay community owed them something.

Here’s a tip: stop using the words “gay community”. It means nothing. Hell, in Chicago, half the people who go to the bars and hang out in chatrooms don’t consider themselves part of the gay community. There is no governing body controlling it. It’s me, it’s you, it’s the drag queen down the street. There’s a place for you, but you have to make it, it’s not going to be handed to you on a silver platter.

Blaming gays for “forcing” you into the ex-gay industry is just a cop out. Do you ever take responsibility for your own actions? Or is everyone else to blame for your lot in life?
posted by Regan DuCasse on March 7, 2008

ALPHA!

Hi, just wanted to get your attention. I can answer your question. In fact, that’s easy. Prevailing information on single parent homes and out of wedlock births have a vast majority that are black, female headed homes.

Many black women are assertive, in some cases are compensating for going at the job of parenting alone.

And there is no higher incidence of homosexuality among black males. Indeed, the sexual orientation of black males remains on a par with the national or international average regardless of whatever parental arrangement there was in the home.

And Latino and Asian families remain male headed with the same percentage of homosexuality being apparent. And Latino and Asian cultures..or even Middle Eastern are definitively patriarchal.

So the theory of dominant mother/weak father causing homosexuality was blown wide open by several kinds of cultural trends here and worldwide.

What’s very important to the discussion is when and in what way a gay child can come out. It’s not safe in the aforementioned cultures to do so. This is what keeps the numbers of people who are gay and when they know it, chronically distorted somewhat.

The dominant heterosexual culture feeds it’s own beast by not having a climate that is accepting of a gay child’s expression or identifying themselves when they are sure.

The ex gay industry targets youth. And bases their information on inevitability.

The inevitability of being miserable, of non acceptance, of possible threat from God and their surrounding community. The incentive is powerful and at the same time floats dire consequences which can be real, at least from the community.

So the ex gay industry relies a great deal on fear tactics…and the ignorance of parents that can’t differentiate theory from fact.

This is seriously diabolical for this reason.

Even a credentialed medical doctor can’t scare a woman, for example, into having a double mastectomy because breast cancer is a risk among women. Even if the patient he’s dealing with has no family history of it, if he knew his patient was fearful and he exploited that fear to making her submit to radical surgery…HE would be stricken from every medical roster and his license taken away.

That the ex gay industry requires no licenses, has no accountability for efficacy, and can’t prove WHAT God will do or thinks, yet they are playing psychological games with the vulnerable should put them on the notice of the FEC and other agencies that require government scrutiny of commercial claims.

‘Because I believe it” is a poor defense when reaching out to the parents and communities of gay children to alter something so profoundly a part of one’s individual identity.

A surgeon couldn’t tell a parent the same scary cancer warning to a TEEN so that body part would be amputated.

So the ex gay industry shouldn’t be allowed to come at children, period.

And more’s the point, saying it’s a choice to be gay, when it isn’t is the particularly terrible part of the set up.

As if religious belief (which WITHOUT question is a choice), should trump a gay child’s option to be left in peace.

Otherwise, how COULD the ex gay industry know exactly what would happen, if they don’t allow final oucomes?

After all, any good scientist, doctor or researcher wouldn’t allow an experiment to NOT have a final outcome, or follow through with an unencumbered path to settle their question.
posted by Leo on March 7, 2008

So when did you meet Grace Jones? Is she as tall as imagine her to be?
posted by Alpha on March 7, 2008

Regan,

Where are your statistics?
posted by Ashpenaz on March 7, 2008

My main point is that many gays turn to reparative therapy because of their negative experiences with that part of the gay community which focuses on drugs and multiple partners, and which is generally abusive and exploitative. They see reparative therapy as their only escape from that world, and there is very, very little in the gay community which suggests otherwise. When someone wants to return to the gay community from reparative therapy, they are asked to tell everyone how evil reparative therapy is, how awful those people are, and how the warm, supportive, diverse gay community is so much better and healthier than the twisted, self-loathing ex-gays. There is no place where someone who has tried reparative therapy can explain those negative aspects of the gay community which made him consider the ex-gay life. Oh, no, the gay community was always good and always supportive, and he has to say he was just too self-loathing to see it. If he doesn’t toe the gay party line he gets, well, he gets treated the way I do on this board–with disdain and with calls for further therapy.
posted by Ashpenaz on March 7, 2008

P.S. Grace Jones is very, very tall.
posted by Karen on March 7, 2008

“There is no place where someone who has tried reparative therapy can explain those negative aspects of the gay community.”

If that was all you were doing, we wouldn’t have a problem. At this point, it’s too late for you to go back and pretend you’ve never insulted all of us and made stunningly false generalizations about the gay community from your experiences. We all know exactly where you’re going with this nonsense, and it’s straight to “The entire gay community is complicit in and culpable for my abuse and exploitation! There are no nice gay people anywhere, I can’t meet anyone who has any values or integrity at all! Gay people don’t deserve marriage because they don’t want to live up to the ideals of it the same way that straight people do!”

You’re kidding yourself if you really think that all you’ve done here is recount your own experiences and we’ve just bit your head off for no reason. Understandable – I’d want to lie to myself about it too, if I had said all the things you’ve said here.
posted by Craig2 on March 7, 2008

Happily, they’re nearly extinct down here. One provincial city exgay live-in session had to call off its meetings through drop-outs and lack of general interest.

As for the only NZ ex-gay group left, Exodus, it tends to appeal to only older men brought up under conservative religious conditions, and has had an intermittent existence at best.

Craig2

Wellington, NZ
posted by Ashpenaz on March 7, 2008

“At this point, it’s too late for you to go back and pretend you’ve never insulted Christians and made stunningly false generalizations about the church from your experiences. We all know exactly where you’re going with this nonsense, and it’s straight to “The entire church is complicit in and culpable for all persecution of gay everywhere! There are no nice Christian people anywhere, I can’t meet anyone who has any tolerance or compassion at all! Christians don’t deserve tolerance because they don’t want to live up to the ideals of it the same way that gay people do!”

I nearly resisted doing this, but it was just too much fun.
posted by BobN on March 7, 2008

Ashpenaz: “Or perhaps they are driven to reparative therapy because a man they trusted used them for sex and then kicked them out?” If that sort of thing led many folks to try to change their orientation, there’d be a heck of a lot more lesbian-wannna-be’s…
posted by amicus on March 8, 2008

My main point is that many gays turn to reparative therapy because of their negative experiences with that part of the gay community which focuses on drugs and multiple partners, and which is generally abusive and exploitative. They see reparative therapy as their only escape from that world, and there is very, very little in the gay community which suggests otherwise.

How ridiculously facile and caricature.

The gay experience extends so far beyond “the part” that you single out that it’s almost ridiculous. There are gay athletic leagues (one can get involved in almost any sport you want); the are gay choruses; there are groups for people who are interested in art, in cinema; there are professional groups; there are political groups; there are gay people who have their own religious groups; there are motorcycle clubs.

I mean the list of groups is so long, that to suggest that people have an either/or between sex, drug, and exploitation or “reparative therapy” is silly. For whatever reason, some people might see it that way, but that doesn’t mean their perception isn’t faulty.

I’m not going to suggest that the gay community is one, big loving spoonful, but seriously …
posted by Karen on March 8, 2008

Weak sauce, James.

For one thing, Christianity has never been my hobby horse here. I do not hijack every thread to moan about Christians, and then whine about the reaction I get. In fact, I rarely mention them, and when I do it’s in a rational and calm manner, and my opinions can be backed up with actual facts. I’m not the one who is having trouble being taken seriously, here.

Whereas you DO hijack every thread to moan irrationally about how terrible gay people are and how we completely deserve any ill-treatment we encounter on account of we all like to have loads of casual sex, and casual sex is totally the worst thing in the world OH MY GOD. And we all like to exploit vulnerable youth and kill them with drugs and suicide, or at least don’t mind when other people do, because we would never call out a fellow gay for anything. And all gay men have either run screaming into the waiting arms of Exodus or pranced fabulously into the sordid world of exploitative sex and drugs that is the gay community. You say these things ALL THE TIME. And we call you out on them, because they’re wrong, and because you clearly have some serious issues that you should deal with.

I regret to inform you that I do not consider it particularly “compassionate” for someone to believe that I ought to remain celibate because of my orientation. So the prevalence of that belief among Christians is a little problematic, eh? And I might bring it up from time to time. The generalization that many Christians believe that gay people are unrepentant sinners and that gayness is incompatible with Christianity is not the same as your generalization that at least 90% of gay people are completely without integrity, responsibility, and the rest of the laundry list of good stuff that you think you have in spades. Do you know why? Its because one is true and supported both by opinion polls and official church policies in the majority of mainstream Christian denominations, and the other is ridiculous and insulting nonsense.
posted by Karen on March 8, 2008

Amicus, I’ve tried pointing out these obvious flaws in his theories to James/Ashpenaz before. Good luck to you – he once dismissed an entire list of possibilities of places to meet nice gay folk because one of my suggestions was the MCC. He told me that the MCC was “too liberal in its theology” for him, and thus, for some reason, it and all of the other suggestions were invalid as places he might conceivably meet a gay guy with the qualities he insists he never sees in them (manliness, responsibility, integrity, good aim with a rifle.)

He doesn’t want solutions or logic. In fact, he is highly skilled in the art of ignoring both and keeping on with the ranting.
posted by Southern Decency on March 8, 2008

Could someone PLEASE ban Ashpenaz? He’s hijacked EVERY single thread he’s been posting on, changing the subject from to off-topic nonsense about his own self-loathing.

“The gay community is entirely good, from top to bottom, and no one ever takes drugs or exploits young men or even jaywalks. We sit in our suburban homes in our lifelong, sexually exclusive relationships while an evil homophobic world makes up myths about us.”

No one has said that. What has been said is that there are different kinds of gays, some monogamous, some promiscuous, just as there are monogamous and promiscuous straights, and depending on the place you look, you’ll find that more of the one or the other kind.

Stop lying about what others have said, shut up and get some therapy.
posted by Ashpenaz on March 8, 2008

I hope the irony of the title “Respect Ex-Gays” is beginning to sink in here.

I really think you should listen to the reasons why some gay men choose reparative therapy over the gay community–you’ll see there are lots ‘o gays who don’t share your rose-tinted view of the gay world, where you see equal parts monogamy and promiscuity, and just a teeny-tiny minority using drugs. I hope you will report your conversations with ex-gays to the board here so you can demonstrate your respect for them, the way you do for me.

It is really funny, after years of Christians telling me that I just need therapy to “change” to hear gays telling me the exact same thing! I have to keep jumping from one reparative therapy to another. But you know what? I think I’ll just accept myself as I am. I guess I just have a genetic, inborn orientation to ignore advice.
posted by Patrick on March 8, 2008

Yeah Ash, it’s called a thick skull.
posted by Last Of The Moderate Gays on March 8, 2008

Getting back to the article . . .

Kudos to Mr. Corvino on an very well-written article. I have always believed that sexuality is a continuum, rather than a simplistic, “black or white” orientation.

About the only thing I would quibble with Mr. Corvino on is the fact that there are some gay youths who are forced by their parents into these programs. They have no choice in the matter, and that is just plain wrong. Also, some ex-gay “therapies” involve such draconian measures as electroshock treatments, and that is obviously, blatantly cruel and harsh.
posted by DaleA on March 8, 2008

The CDC uses the figure 4.2% as the number of out gay people in the general population. NARTH, the main reparative therapy organization, has fewer than 1,000 members, many of whom are not therapists. OK, how can ‘many’ of the 12.4 million gay people seek the services of fewer than 1,000 thereapists? That is a client load of more than 12,400 per therapist. The idea is absurd.

Further, when looking at the resources Exodus lists we find that there are 3 professional consulors in California, a state estimated to have over 2 million gay people. There is a ministry in Fresno but not in Los Angeles. In NY which is known to have a huge gay population, there are 2 ministries both in Buffalo, 3 churches upstate and no professional conselors. There is no exgay service available in New York City, which has a huge gay population. Illinois has one professional conselor. And no exgay agency in the city of Chicago. Washington and Oregon home to large vibrant gay communities have no professional conselor.

On the other hand, Oklahoma has 3 ministries, no professional conselor and a small gay community. In Texas, the exgay activity seems to be centered in Waco, Abilene and other rural areas.

So, if lots of gay people were turning to reparative therapy, we should see therapists practicing where gay people live. We don’t. The idea is rubbish.
posted by DaleA on March 8, 2008

Looking further into this, testing Ashpenaz’s ideas, found this. In Canada, there are three ministries, none in a major gay center. They are out in the boonies. There is not one professional conselor in all of Canada. This is also a country where gay people have achieved equality. So, I would conclude that it is inequality that drives people to seek reparative therapy.
posted by Jimbo on March 8, 2008

Ah yes, Ashpenaz is at it again. Man, that is one sorry dude. He says his mother had emotional problems. Well, the apple didn’t fall too far from the tree then (heh, heh). Aw c’mon, Ashy baby, with all the crapfest-a-rama blather you’ve been treating us all to, you certainly can handle this little aside.
posted by Ashpenaz on March 8, 2008

Why is it you can perpetuate the myth that ex-gay therapies use electroshock therapy and I can’t state the fact that many gays use meth? It is a reprehensible lie that ex-gay therapy uses any draconian methods–it mainly uses talk therapy to sort out absent father issues. While this doesn’t cure homosexuality, it’s not particularly draconian or even harmful. When I left ex-gay therapy, I thanked my therapist for allowing me to sort out many significant issues, but I didn’t want to pursue heterosexuality, even it was possible. It was amicable on all sides. Again, talk to the people you actually know who’ve undergone ex-gay therapy and you will see a very similar experience to mine.

And since I can’t respond to all posts directed to me, let me just give a blanket response which covers all bases: I know you are, but what am I?
posted by Regan DuCasse on March 8, 2008

Alpha,

easily found through the Pew Foundation, Association of Families and Churches and other research bodies on children and families.

Pretty much the prevailing information on single parent households broken down by ethnicity and income are out there.

However, once you compare these to just about anything that anti gay or pro ex gay organizations put out, it’s not hard to see where their theories (not facts) fall apart.

Hence, since nearly 70% of out of wedlock births are black, and a slightly smaller number of that are black mothers…then what you have here is just doing math.

Ashpenaz…sometimes it’s hard to have much respect for you.

Heterosexuals who suffer similar family trauma are at risk for promiscuity, drug addiction, passing on domestic violence generationally and other pathologies.

The ex gay industry is inevitably going to blame homosexuality. And some young people, gay or not, are going to believe that gay people ONLY act one or two ways and all those pathologies are inevitable.

That’s BIGOT BAIT, and vulnerable gay person bait.

Exploiting your pain is easy for the ex gay industry.

Blaming gay people or homosexuality for it is too.

Which doesn’t much explain heterosexuals suffering from the same thing, does it?

I’m a black woman who came of age and dealt with a myriad of things before they had a name, even.

Like sexual harassment. DEALT WITH THEM…Ashpenaz.

Without falling for any pathetic excuses for not succeeding in life.

Many of us in this world are born strong. Make it because there isn’t anything else to do. I knew who I was, wanted to be and knew myself better than anyone could tell me otherwise.

It’s not any easier to be a black woman, than a homosexual, Ashpenaz.

But I’m the kind of person that if ANYONE tries to tell me I’m not worthy, that I have no value…I know how to say **CK YOU!

Hoorah for any gay kid or adult that can do the same to the ex gay industry which is their way of saying you’re not fit to walk the Earth except on THEIR terms.
posted by Regan DuCasse on March 8, 2008

Ashpenaz, I HAVE talked to many gay people who have undergone ex gay therapy.

And the few who identify now as EX GAY, don’t usually answer questions, but tend to PREACH and regale with how fabulous they all are now.

There is a VERY common behavior among ex gays though.

A pathological need to get medals and accolades for living a life I’ve lived my whole life as a heterosexual.

I think to myself: big, fat, hairy deal!

It’s tough to be homosexual, and tough out whatever risks there are to being known as one.

Being known as heterosexual is like being known as a redhead. Big whoo.

There is a difference between being on a journey that you know is tough, as opposed to being on one to AVOID the harder things.

Passing is a way of doing that.

Well, as I said, I”m also a black woman. None of which has made my life all that easy.

I could try and pass for a man, and see if my life would be easier.

But why do that?

I LOVE knowing I’m strong enough to be what I am.

That’s the difference between a gay person and an ex gay…you’re NOT so tough. You DON’T want to have to fight in the trenches with your brethren left behind and you’re willing to bear false witness to make things even harder.

At least many ex gays engage in political policy AGAINST gay people.

That’s a lot like an ex Jew colluding with anti Semites.

Would YOU be impressed by someone like that?

Not wanting to be Jewish isn’t the issue, it’s bad mouthing Judaism and Jews while doing it that shows a lack of moral backbone.

Or any backbone.

That’s why there isn’t the respect and back pats so craved by ex gays.

WE who respect gay people, and those gay people who respect themselves KNOW what you are.

It’s past annoying to try and listen to you tell us what we know you aren’t.

You dig?
posted by Alpha on March 8, 2008

Regan,

‘easily found through the Pew Foundation, Association of Families and Churches and other research bodies on children and families.’ So they have accurate statistics about what proportion of black people, and other ethnic groups as well, are homosexual? That does come as a surprise.
posted by DaleA on March 8, 2008

Ashpenaz asks; ‘Why is it you can perpetuate the myth that ex-gay therapies use electroshock therapy .’

I have known gay men who were subjected to this type of torture. They had scars that I saw. There were credible claims of this continuing published in 2000 by psychologists. Check out exgay watch for more information.
posted by Ashpenaz on March 8, 2008

I’ve known young gays who were abused by older men and I’ve seen their scars, that is, the long ones up and down their forearms–no one believes me. Why should I believe you?

How do the ex-gays you say you know describe the gay world they chose to leave?
posted by Keori on March 8, 2008

Dale,

Good God, ex-gay “conversion therapy” STILL includes electroshock treatments in 2008? I know a man who went to Brigham Young University in the 70s, and he was subjected to it there after another student outed him. He has since gladly left the mormon church. But that stuff still goes on today? Apparently the photos of Abu Ghraib don’t mean anything to some people. That’s horrible.

I would love to find this “gay community” Ash keeps talking about. I think the closest I’ve come to it was the Melissa Etheridge concert in Honolulu last night. It was a great show, by the way. Melissa is putting together her format for the next tour, and tried it last night for the first time. Good stuff! New songs! She encored with “Take Another Little Piece of My Heart.” Everyone went nuts. 🙂
posted by Bobby on March 8, 2008

“the gay community rejects those with faith and traditional values.”

—Perhaps, but they also reject fat people, republicans, ugly people. And you know what they do? They form their own little groups within the gay community. Besides, you don’t think straight women reject straight men all the time? You think it’s any easier to be straight? Hell no, it’s the same crap. I hate how ex-gays keep painting the straight world as some kind of paradise. It isn’t.

“I’ve known young gays who were abused by older men and I’ve seen their scars, that is, the long ones up and down their forearms–no one believes me. Why should I believe you?”

—So because you have met the victims of some bad gays you assume this community is full of bad people?

I’ve seen gays that where told by their parents “I’d rather see you dead than gay.” I’ve met gays who where kicked out of their homes. Evil is not exclusively gay, you know
posted by Pat on March 9, 2008

I thought the article was good as well. I also do not have a problem with a person who is not happy with their sexuality and wants to change. Unfortunately, as pointed out, change is very difficult at best, and most likely impossible. And those involved in “reparative” “therapy” clearly have no clue about sexuality to administer help. And, as Last of the Moderate Gays pointed out, I also have a big problem when these people get their claws on young gay persons. They are as bad as Ashpenaz’s gay predators that he keeps on running into in Omaha.

I think the real failure of ex-gay ministries is seen when a former “leader” in that group while still under the pretense of being “cured” stumbles into a gay bar. And also when bigoted “Christian” leaders who obviously don’t buy the ex-gay ministries and sneak around having homosexual trysts. Further, if this doesn’t show that sexuality isn’t a choice, I don’t know what else does.
posted by Ashpenaz on March 9, 2008

Reparative therapy DOES NOT involve electroshock therapy.

It is better for a young confused gay to turn to reparative therapy and live than to turn to the gay mainstream and die from drugs, suicide, or STDs.
posted by Southern Decency on March 9, 2008

Oh, god…

“Reparative therapy DOES NOT involve electroshock therapy.”

How do you know? Just because your particular therapist doesn’t use it doesn’t mean nobody uses it. Since there is no science behind “reparative therapy”, there is no single, coherent methodology behind it; hence, every reparative “therapist” does his own cooked-up thing, ranging from simple conversation, to pillow-punching, to cuddling with the patient, and in some DOCUMENTED cases, electro shocks.

“It is better for a young confused gay to turn to reparative therapy and live than to turn to the gay mainstream and die from drugs, suicide, or STDs.”

That’s a false dichotomy. And again, there is no such thing as a “gay mainstream”; what you think is “drugs, suicide, or STDs” refers to some kind of “circuit party subculture”, which only a minority of gays (and straights, think Spring Break) partake in. I could point you to relevant studies, but I guess that would be a wasted effort.

It’s obvious to me that your reparative therapist has brainwashed you quite well. Too bad not only for you, but for us — for having to put up with your claptrap.

Ban him already!
posted by DaleA on March 9, 2008

Reference for shock therapy:

http://www.amazon.com/Sexual-Conversion-Therapy-Clincial-Perspectives/dp/0789019108/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1205085839&sr=1-4&tag=igcu-20

Ariel Shidlo, Michael Schroeder, and Jack Drescher are all practicing psychologists and researchers. This book is an indepth survey and critique of reparative therapy. And, yes, they include shock therapy as part of repartive. Dr. Dresher has written at least 18 published works on gay people and psychology. Among them are 4 books examining examing the claims of exgays.
posted by Jimbo on March 9, 2008

Ashpenaz is a living, breathing display of the psychological harm that reparative therapy can do. Ash, when people are telling you to get therapy, they don’t mean the reparative kind. There are tons of counselors ready & waiting for you to have a gay-postive attitude towards society & stop being an effin self-loathing freak that no self-respecting gay person wants to have contact with.
posted by Brian Miller on March 9, 2008

The problem with “ex-gays” is not gay people refusing to respect their identity — it’s “ex-gays” (and their heterosexual oppressive “supporters”) refusing to recognize any sort of homosexual reality.

An “ex-gay” person is not “ex-gay” — rather, he is a repressed (and often oppressed) homosexual. His entire “identity” is not an identity so much as it is an anti-identity — a reactionary fiction created by others which he imposes upon himself to gain tolerance from the wickedly intolerant.

The most compassionate thing we can do for these people is point out to them that “ex-gay” is not a real identity, and that self-oppression is far more toxic than oppression from others. Reaching out to them with compassion, we can help them on the way to self-actualization (or at the very least, help them think clearly about the big old lies they’re being told to parrot to all and sundry, for the political benefit of people who care not a whit about them).
posted by Ashpenaz on March 9, 2008

It is interesting that the most homophobic Christians I know don’t treat me like this. I really wish you would look at how you respond to me, and then look at how you claim homophobics treat you. And this insistence on therapy! No fundamentalist Christian ever urged therapy on me–it was my choice based on my understanding of myself at the time. Shaming someone into therapy seems to be the tactics of the gay mainstream–if you don’t think that the gay world is the most wonderful, warm, and diverse place ever, you need therapy.

I’m not seeing the respect for ex-gays this article suggests.
posted by Patrick on March 9, 2008

Actually Ashpenaz, it isn’t really all that interesting. It is obvious, though, why they would like to have you around as you share homophobic Christians’ negative opinion of gay people.
posted by Bobby on March 9, 2008

“No fundamentalist Christian ever urged therapy on me-”

—They never told you that being gay was a choice, that your choice is wrong, that you can change?

“Shaming someone into therapy seems to be the tactics of the gay mainstream–if you don’t think that the gay world is the most wonderful, warm, and diverse place ever, you need therapy.”

—No, the gay mainstream is more likely to ignore those who don’t fit their stereotypes or who aren’t comfortable in their scene. But frankly, I don’t care. The straight mainstream works the same way.

http://freedomphobia.blogspot.com/
posted by Ashpenaz on March 9, 2008

If there is no such thing as ex-gay, how do you explain David Bowie, Lou Reed, Tom Robinson, Anne Heche, et. al.? or the new icons like Mika and Sean Hayes and Babydaddy who don’t claim any particular identity? Many gays no longer believe in a fixed orientation. They believe sexuality is fluid. If that’s the case, why couldn’t therapy help you increase heterosexuality and decrease your homosexuality? If sexuality is fluid, why couldn’t therapy help give you control of which way the fluid flows?

Why is it OK for a Buddhist to give up meat for his religion and wrong for an evangelical Christian to word to move his fluid sexuality towards heterosexuality?

(I have to stop. All this talk about flowing fluids is making me think of Brett Favre and we all know where that kind of thinking leads. :0 )
posted by julialily on March 10, 2008

Yes, according to the investigation of the online service BiLoves, there are about six per cent homosexuals, including at 3 percent gays, except lesbians and bisexuals. So gay are the most among the homosexuals.
posted by Bobby on March 10, 2008

“If there is no such thing as ex-gay, how do you explain David Bowie, Lou Reed, Tom Robinson, Anne Heche, et. al.?”

—Come on, Anne Heche? She never claimed that she stopped being straight, or that she was no longer attracted to men. She only said she fell in love with Ellen. She just did the whole bisexuality thing for fun and profit, in fact, she might not even be bisexual, she was probably craving attention and hooked up with Ellen to get it. Oh, and she never went to an ex-gay meeting. Steve Martin was right, she was an opportunist, anything to get her name in the papers. Frankly, she’s a piece of trash, I remember how she cheated on Ellen with the cameraman that was filming Ellen’s comedy tour, she also got stoned and wondered around a town naked. Us gays have bathhouses for that sort of thing.

“or the new icons like Mika and Sean Hayes and Babydaddy who don’t claim any particular identity?”

—They’re either bi, in the closet or straight guys that think they’re cool by not telling people what they are.

People don’t change, Ash, they simply pretend to be certain things.

“Many gays no longer believe in a fixed orientation. They believe sexuality is fluid.”

—Where are those many gays? Sexuality seems quite fixed, go ahead, try to get a straight man to sleep with you. Good luck at that. Dude, just because women are more willing to experiment than men doesn’t mean sexuality is fluid. It only means there’s less stigma for a woman to sleep with a woman than for a man to sleep with a man. Of course, full-time lesbians do get a lot of grief.

“If that’s the case, why couldn’t therapy help you increase heterosexuality and decrease your homosexuality? If sexuality is fluid, why couldn’t therapy help give you control of which way the fluid flows?”

—IF therapy did work, you’d be straight already. Therapy can’t change who you are, it can only help you accept who you are. You can’t control biology.

“Why is it OK for a Buddhist to give up meat for his religion and wrong for an evangelical Christian to word to move his fluid sexuality towards heterosexuality?”

—You mean hindus, only buddhist monks avoid meat. The reason it’s ok for them is because nobody is born a smoker, a meat eater, or any of those things that are choices. However, all of us are born straight, gay, bi or asexual.

If you think sexuality is so fluid, look at the catholic sex scandal. So many gays and others went into the seminaries, trying to escape their sexualities, only to find a den of iniquity, worse than the lowest s/m sex room. In fact, it’s the catholic church that has turned innocent seminarians into future child molestors.
posted by Brian Miller on March 10, 2008

I have yet to meet a single “ex-gay” who has “changed his sexuality.” Even the most radical ones simply claim they don’t act on their urges — not that the urges have changed. They’re less “ex-gay” than “enforced celibates,” often in loveless marriages.
posted by Southern Decency on March 10, 2008

Be careful, y’all, that you don’t fall into the trap set by ex-gays, who misuse the word “identity” to refer as an ontological reality.

“Identity” in its simplest form is just that: how you see yourself, how you categorize yourself. If you think you’re an “ex-gay”, that’s your identity, if you think you’re “gay”, that’s your identity. It’s as simple as that.

How you see yourself is a result of your *individual* experiences. Leftist identity politics, thinking in collectivist terms, assume gays (or blacks, or women) all encounter the same kind of “oppression”, therefore all share a similar oppressed identity. This insistence on collective oppression then, for some authors, turns into misleadingly talking “identity” in terms of an ontological reality. In other words, the collectivist mode of thought in identity politics leads to an essentialist fallacy.

Ex-gay claims, historically based in opposition to gay politics, are based on this fallacy, treating identity as a “kind of being”, and since they deny the existence of homosexual beings, they deny that homosexuality is an “identity”.

Therefore, when ex-gays claim, as Corvino writes, that “that you?re heterosexual deep down, and you want to take steps to help realize that identity,”, it is patent nonsense because there’s no such thing as a “non-realized” identity, because identity is not an independent ontological reality you can suddenly become aware of. Either you say “I’m straight”, then that’s your identity, or you say “I’m gay”, then that’s your identity, as deep-seated as the REASONS for choosing that identity may be.
posted by Karen on March 10, 2008

James, you are not an “ex-gay”, you are a gay person who once tried to be ex-gay and has since seen folly and futility of that endeavor. You are an ex-ex-gay.

Most ex-ex-gays came to that place by recognizing that the claims of ex-gays and their leaders are basically all lies and exaggerations. They realize that it is simply NOT TRUE that embracing a gay identity means wallowing in a sordid cesspool of vice. They realize that the claims that their therapy “works” – even in the loosest definition – are not true.

You have not come to ex-ex-gayness this way. As a Christian, you simply “discovered” an interpretation of the Bible that allows you to be gay. But you still accept as true some of the most basic lies of ex-gay “ministries” – that meaningful change of your sexuality is possible through prayer and their “therapy”, and that such change is necessary, not merely because of their religious belief that God has certain plans for sexuality, but because otherwise you will be inevitably trapped in a hideous, empty life of drugs and meaningless sex.

Because you believe you are so very special and unique, somehow that inevitability is not inevitable for you. But it still is for everyone else, which is why you steadfastly believe in the face of evidence to the contrary that you are one of the only gay men anywhere with such values as integrity and responsibility.

The part of ex-gay therapy that we respect is the religious freedom/personal choice aspect, not the lies. If you truly believe that same-sex intimacy is forbidden by God, and you want to commit yourself to living without same-sex intimacy and suppressing the desire for it in yourself, then I can respect that choice, as I respect the choice of Mormons not to drink coffee or Hindus not to eat meat.

You have all of the lies of the ex-gays despite ample opportunity to discover the truth – and you have none of their religious conviction against gayness, so no, we don’t respect your “choice” to come in here telling us that all gay men except you lack integrity and values.

It’s quite proper to urge therapy – REAL therapy, not fraudulent anti-scientific nonsense – for someone as out of touch with reality as you are. You’re incorrect that we think you need therapy “if you don’t think that the gay world is the most wonderful, warm, and diverse place ever”. We have repeatedly acknowledged that the “gay world”, as you put it, is not without its problems. It’s the scope and the provenance of the problems that we disagree on. You believe that a gay man just starting out in the world will encounter only the circuit party scene as examples of gay life. We know this to be as untrue as the idea that a young straight person will only encounter the straight club scene as examples of straight life.

Not only that, but you utterly refuse to acknowledge the role that religious suppression and societal condemnation of same-sex activity has played in driving gay life to the fringes and margins of society. You seem to argue that the invisibility of everyday gay people (insofar as you will even admit they even exist outside of your home), their inability to reach young people with examples of moderation and temperance and faithfulness, is somehow inherent to them, and that they would be invisible and unheard even in the absence of those shaping forces. If that young gay boy only knows about the gay circuit party scene and can’t even consider the possibility that any other manifestation of gay life exists to go looking for, you argue, it can’t possibly be the fault of his parents and his church. It can’t possibly have anything to do with the constant drumbeat of “DO NOT under any circumstances imply within earshot of my child that being gay is acceptable.” His low self-esteem and hopelessness and tendency to fall in with the wrong crowd can’t have anything to do with his broken home life, either. No, it’s much more likely that his broken home life made him gay, and THEN he discovered that the gay world was a terrible, awful place without a good crowd to fall in with, and THAT is what made him sad. Right.
posted by Ashpenaz on March 10, 2008

Here is a link to a reparative therapy website which was put together by my therapist and to which I frequently contributed:

http://www.peoplecanchange.com/

I hope this clears up the myths about reparative therapy. Read the testimonies of some of the people.

I bet if you think through all the many gay people you’ve met, you will find lots of couples made up of gay men and lesbians who surprsed themselves by falling in love. They will say things like, “I’m still gay, but I just happened to fall in love with someone of the opposite sex.” If their sexuality is that flexible, why couldn’t therapy help strengthen their heterosexual impulses and decrease their homosexual impulses? A cure would not be a 100% change, which no reparative therapist claims, but a stronger sense of heterosexuality.

No one
posted by Richard on March 10, 2008

Ashpenaz

The Ex-Gay Movement is selling snake oil to lots of loney, sad, downtrodden, confused and frustrated people. Their is a special ring of hell resereved for such people who peddle it.’
posted by Priya Lynn on March 10, 2008

Ashpenaz, if you hate gays so much and you think the people at Independent Gay Forum represent those gays you hate, why do you bother coming here? Is it just so you can bitch at the people here? Do you think you’re punishing us and that gives you satisfaction?
posted by Karen on March 10, 2008

James,

Again, the problem isn’t the idea that “people can change”. People can do many things, and changing their emotions and behaviors is certainly within the realm of possibility, even if it’s highly questionable whether or not they are really changing their “orientation” as we think of it. My problem is the assumption that frequently follows: that if it’s even remotely possible that I could change this aspect of myself with a lot of work and struggle, then a) I SHOULD change it, or at least try to and b) I certainly don’t deserve to have my relationship recognized or be protected in any way from discrimination should I choose not to. Another problem is the emotional damage – and sometimes physical – that is done to participants who are not successful. Is the rare “payoff” of being sort-of straight worth those risks? And finally, my problem is also with the lies they tell. They lie about the current state of scientific opinion – like making the APA out to be in the grip of a small group of “radical gays” – and about gay lives in order to convince people that gay life is inherently incompatible with the various things that they value, like family and monogamy and sobriety. These last are the lies that you have bought into wholesale.

My problem with YOU, specifically, is related to the really stupid and insulting generalizations you continually make about gay people, and your refusal to actually address any valid challenges to your logic.
posted by Ashpenaz on March 10, 2008

Did you go to the link I provided and read their stories? Look at their evidence? Again, I don’t agree with it, but it’s not filled with pathetic, lonely people, and there is some evidence that it works for some people.

I come here because I am an Independent Gay–apparently, I’m too independent for many of the Borg Gays who come here, but I’m holding out hope that some genuinely Independent Gays will start posting.
posted by Priya Lynn on March 10, 2008

James you assert over and over that all gays are evil so it makes no sense for you to hold out hope that “some genuinely independent gays will start posting”.

You’ve been pointed to places where you can find gays that share your beliefs yet you avoid them and come to a place where you claim no one shares your belief – you want to be miserable, you’re the epitome of dysfunction. That’s why people keep suggesting you get some therapy (and not “reparitive therapy”).
posted by Alpha on March 10, 2008

Regan,

I have a couple more questions, if you are still reading this. How exactly can I get these statistics from the organisations you mentioned? Do they have a website where this information can be found? Alternatively, can I write to them and ask for it? What are their addresses? Also, what are the names of the people who ocnducted the research that reliably established what the rates of homosexuality among different ethnic groups are, when did they do it, and where was the research published?
posted by North Dallas Thirty on March 10, 2008

And finally, my problem is also with the lies they tell. They lie about the current state of scientific opinion – like making the APA out to be in the grip of a small group of “radical gays” – and about gay lives in order to convince people that gay life is inherently incompatible with the various things that they value, like family and monogamy and sobriety.

Really?

The Senate’s legal affairs committee is studying a Harper government bill that would raise the age of consent from 14 to 16. It will almost certainly pass ? no political party has opposed it ? but queer and youth-led groups came out Feb 22 to insist on their sexual freedom.

The proposed changes will have a disproportionate impact on gays, said Richard Hudler of the Coalition for Lesbian and Gay Rights in Ontario.

“My first lover was 17 years older than me. And this is common [among gay people],” he said.

Or:

Some of the most unlikely attendees of Sunday’s kinky leather fetish festival were under four feet tall.

Two-year-olds Zola and Veronica Kruschel waddled through Folsom Street Fair amidst strangers in fishnets and leather crotch pouches, semi and fully nude men.

The twin girls who were also dressed for the event wore identical lace blouses, floral bonnets and black leather collars purchased from a pet store.

Fathers Gary Beuschel and John Kruse watched over them closely. They were proud to show the twins off……

Father of two, John Kruse said it is an educational experience for children. He said there were conservative parents against having kids at the event.

“Those are the same close-minded people who think we shouldn’t have children to begin with,” he said.

Or the Beyond Marriage petition, in which it is made clear that gays and lesbians want legalization of ALL relationships regardless of structure, including poly relationships — and which is fully endorsed and supported by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.

Finally, as is well known, gays and lesbians believe people with religious beliefs to, as I cited here, have “mental sickness”, be “facist” (sic), and have holy books that are “evil” and encourage “murders, genocide, and all manner of injustice”.

You really think the ex-gay folks aren’t aware of all of this?
posted by KamatariSeta on March 10, 2008

Cry me a river, ND30.
posted by Patrick on March 10, 2008

Joseph and Mary in the Bible lived in a time when families “arranged” marriages with the girl at 15 and the man at 30.
posted by Regan DuCasse on March 10, 2008

Hi Alpha…I was doing some creative cross referencing.

http://www.pewresearch.org, I think is the link.

If you have trouble, let me know. The other referrals come from WorldNetDaily’s articles.

I cross check them with the WilliamsInstitute or Anti Defamation League and cross check that way.

Some of this stuff I stumble on, or I get Exodus e-newletter regularly and THEY post information.

So does the Family Research Council and I cross check from THEIR sources.

Not hard to figure out who is full of shit and who isn’t.

Ashpenaz: what’s it to YOU what WE think? What do you care? You’re in a forum of people, including myself who have spent a lifetime dealing with some form of rejection.

Might be based on sexual orientation, looks or some other feature.

The point is, you’re displaying a serious symptom so EVIDENT in ex gays, you think that being or claiming heterosexuality is some magic bullet to unchallenged ACCEPTANCE.

And you can’t handle it when you’re not accepted fully for what you claim.

So?

So WHAT? What’s it to YOU?

Bobby made a good point and I’ve reiterated it here, heterosexuality is fraught with rejection, dating and sexual compatibility issues.

Don’t they tell you that in ex gay school?

Or did they tell you that gay people have some irrational hatred of ex gays?

I just said, what ex gays foment and represent is like a Soviet Jew coming around and joing anti Semites in their political agenda.

The Soviet Union was a horrible regime for Jews. I’ve met young Jews from that country that hated being Jewish.

However, being here in America they wouldn’t necessarily suffer the same isolation, but THEY would bear scars too.

So the RIGHT and HEALTHY course wouldn’t be to join a group that ALSO rejects Jews!

DUH.

The healthiest course would be to find more socially healthy and compatible gay people.

I found plenty, and I’m not even gay. So maybe in looking for a place for yourself, you haven’t had as much opportunity for healthy introspection.

I’ve had my own share of not especially liking being black or my black features.

In a world with the narrow white beauty standards for women when I came of age, that wouldn’t be a surprise.

But it’s healthier to reject those with an irrational rejection of YOU.

And you didn’t do that. You’re spending such a lot of time trying to convince US that you’re a happy heterosexual now.

Well, why do you need US for that?
posted by Bobby on March 10, 2008

“I’m still gay, but I just happened to fall in love with someone of the opposite sex.”

—And how does that help society, Ash? Don’t straight women deserve a “real man?”

What ex-gays are doing is completely against nature.

The world is already 90% to 95% straight. Some homophobes even say that we’re only 1%-3% of the population. So, do you really need to encourage more people to become straight? Don’t they have enough numbers? Aren’t they breeding like rabbits already?

Wouldn’t it be a better world if everyone embraced whatever sexuality they had and left their neighbors alone?
posted by Southern Decency on March 10, 2008

North Dallas Trinity:

“Or the Beyond Marriage petition, in which it is made clear that gays and lesbians want legalization of ALL”

Complete BS (as usual). The Beyond Marriage petition does not claim to speak for “gays and lesbians” as a group, only for its signatories. It directly criticizes the “LGBT movement” for focusing on marriage equality and thus directly contradicts your false claim.

“fully endorsed and supported by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.”

The NGLTF is well-known to be a lefty organization, which is why the Human Rights Campaign as a less ideological group was founded in the first place and thus has far more influence now.
posted by North Dallas Thirty on March 10, 2008

It directly criticizes the “LGBT movement” for focusing on marriage equality and thus directly contradicts your false claim.

That’s an interesting definition of “criticizes”, inasmuch as it praises the “progressive LGBT movement” and makes it clear that they support it.

In short, how can they be criticizing something they are praising?

And I don’t see “National Leftist Task Force”. I see “National Gay and Lesbian Task Force”. They make it clear what REAL gays and lesbians support.
posted by Ashpenaz on March 10, 2008

I am not a heterosexual. I am gay. I don’t think reparative therapy works.

Just to clarify.
posted by Felipe on March 10, 2008

“Some of the most unlikely attendees of Sunday’s kinky leather fetish festival were under four feet tall. Two-year-olds Zola and Veronica Kruschel waddled through Folsom Street Fair amidst strangers in fishnets and leather crotch pouches, semi and fully nude men.”

How unfortunate. But is such a lack of concern with decorum exclusive in gay people? When I was a kid, I remember prebupescent girls from my neighborhood dancing the “dan
posted by North Dallas Thirty on March 11, 2008

I don’t believe any of this points that there’s something in homosexual persons that makes it inevitable for them — or at least the large majority of them — to live peacefully with the customs and values they were taught. But do you, ND?

Of course not — as I have said repeatedly.

If not, why did you contest Karen’s words when she accused ex-gay ministries of lying when talking about the inherently immoral character of homosexuality?

Because the gays and lesbians I cited made it clear that their behavior is inherent to and part of their homosexuality.

And that brings us to the last:

What is your point, as a gay man, in being involved with gay activism (in you self-styled manner) if you do believe homosexuality is inevitably at odds with morality?

I don’t. That’s why I am so adamant about getting rid of the people who use their homosexuality as an excuse for immoral behavior.
posted by Alpha on March 11, 2008

Regan,

I tried searching the Pew website and did not find anything about the rate of homosexuality among different ethnic groups. The only thing I found that was remotely relevant was an article showing that whites, blacks and hispanics were almost (but not quite) equally likely to know a homosexual (http://pewresearch.org/pubs/485/friends-who-are-gay).

One can’t necessarily conclude from this that there are no differences in the rate of homosexuality between different ethnic groups.
posted by Patrick on March 11, 2008

“That’s why I am so adamant about getting rid of the people who use their homosexuality as an excuse for immoral behavior.”

What exactly does that mean “get rid of”? How do you “get rid of” them?
posted by ColoradoPatriot on March 11, 2008

What do you have against Adam Ant, ND30? And what does that have to do with this discussion?
posted by Frank C on March 11, 2008

I can respect “ex-gays” as long as they respect me and do not push their agendas on me. I disagree with ex-gay ministries as they are ineffective of changing sexual orientation and solely preying on gays and lesbians “as the miracle cure”. Even if these people become “ex-gay”, ex-gays are still faced with discrimination within evangelical-type churches and this has been noted in many religious journals. Becoming an “ex-gay” offers no more than one being gay. Gays can go to church any time—-everybody on this Earth is a sinner anyway, when it comes to sin there is no distinction between heterosexuals and homosexuals.

To ND 30—You cite the same examples ad nauseam. You sound like a one-act play. Jerry Lee Lewis and Charlie Chaplin were known for having extremely young women as wives and lovers.

Polyamorous relationships—

The Mormons are still attempting legislature in Utah for legalization and instead practice discreetly. Moslem men are allowed to marry up to 4 wives. Many animist African men have multiple wives.

Children in the gay pride parades—-How many kids are exposed to drugs, prostitution, sexual and physical abuse and this is by heterosexual parents.

You still take a narrow view of gays and remain silent about heterosexuals.
posted by Hank on March 11, 2008

Colorado, I’d compliment you for the Adam Ant comment – but then I’d get slammed for not rising up in righteous indignation at your words.

So, what you said was NOT FUNNY.
posted by North Dallas Thirty on March 12, 2008

You still take a narrow view of gays and remain silent about heterosexuals.

That would be because, just as one example, heterosexuals prosecute parents who expose their kids to “drugs, prostitution, sexual and physical abuse”.

It’s only the gay community that seems to have this odd worldview that a) as long as a gay person does it, we need to make excuses for it, and b) it’s OK for us to do it if a heterosexual ever did it.

I don’t believe in making excuses for gay people who behave abysmally because they happen to be gay – and I have zero tolerance for their claiming that being gay is what caused their behavior. To Patrick’s query, you “get rid of” people like these by refusing to enable them.
posted by Pat on March 12, 2008

It’s only the gay community that seems to have this odd worldview

Besides some in the gay community, the same is unfortunately also true for some in the religious community.
posted by Karen on March 12, 2008

“Heterosexuals” do not prosecute anyone, ND30. The public prosecutes. I.E. “The state vs. John Smith”. The public (represented by the office of the Attorney General) INCLUDES gays; gays cannot, on their own, prosecute another gay person.

This world view that you think “the gay community” has – it doesn’t exist. Nobody thinks that anything a gay person does must be excused. Nobody believes that anything a heterosexual person has ever done is OK to do. Your examples do not support such claims.

What you are mistaking for such a world view is the idea that we are scrutinized and presumed guilty far beyond the scrutiny that heterosexuals receive.

A gay person sexually harasses her employees? It’s national news, of course. But straight people get sued for sexual harassment every day without anyone blinking an eye. And if we so much as raise the possibility – the VERY REAL possibility – that the charges are trumped up or simply caused by homophobia – a nervous straight interpreting signals the wrong way, etc – then you decide we are “making excuses”. If we point out that it’s as unfair to presume that this person “represents” gay people any more than the numerous sexually harassing straight people “represent” straight people, then you decide we believe it’s ok because some straight people did it too.

We’re not. No one said sexually harassing was right or ok for gay people to do for ANY reason. No one said it was ok for those foster parents to molest their charges for any reason, either. Or for grown men to have sex with underage boys.

What we do attempt to do is caution people – including you – from drawing false conclusions based on examples. We point out that there are far more examples of NON-gay offenders than gay, and that the research does not support the notion that gay people are any more likely to sexually harass or molest or be bad parents than anyone else.

It’s not that you have ‘zero tolerance’ for people claiming that being gay is what caused their behavior. It’s that you see it where it doesn’t exist, and you give it weight that it doesn’t deserve, and you never actually DO anything about it except complain that WE are not “doing anything” about it and therefore do not deserve fair treatment or equality. We’re not enabling anything of the sort, ND30. We’re just defending ourselves from being unfairly judged from a few examples.
posted by Patrick on March 12, 2008

ND30- Then why not just write refuse to enable? I don’t think you are being candid, “get rid of” sounds sinister.
posted by North Dallas Thirty on March 12, 2008

And if we so much as raise the possibility – the VERY REAL possibility – that the charges are trumped up or simply caused by homophobia – a nervous straight interpreting signals the wrong way, etc – then you decide we are “making excuses”.

In the case of Bonnie Bleskachek, to which you are referring, had you actually bothered to inform yourself on the details of the case, you would have noted that the majority of the complaints filed were by other lesbians.

But that is typical; you automatically assumed that a lesbian was being falsely accused and that it was all the result of straight “homophobia”.

Gee, doesn’t THAT sound familiar.

“The only thing I can come up with is that this is a whole lot of homophobia and sexism.?

Bleskachek knows which buttons to push; blame straight people, claim it’s “homophobia”, and the gay community will rally to and protect you, regardless of facts. I feel for those lesbians; they’re probably treated like dirt by the rest of the LGBT community for “squealing” on Bleskachek, not just keeping their mouths shut, and thus making the “community” look bad.
posted by North Dallas Thirty on March 12, 2008

ND30- Then why not just write refuse to enable? I don’t think you are being candid, “get rid of” sounds sinister.

Think what you like, Patrick.

But I will point out the irony of your obsessing over those words when there are far more actual and obvious examples of wishing ill on other gay people out there.

And frankly, given that gays and lesbians on this site regularly claim I have an eight-year-old child chained up in my basement to molest, your insinuations are rather small potatoes in comparison.
posted by KamatariSeta on March 12, 2008

“”And frankly, given that gays and lesbians on this site regularly claim I have an eight-year-old child chained up in my basement to molest, your insinuations are rather small potatoes in comparison.””

Okay, apparently I missed that accusation.
posted by Karen on March 12, 2008

“But that is typical; you automatically assumed that a lesbian was being falsely accused and that it was all the result of straight “homophobia”.”

No, I didn’t. What I did do was not discount immediately the POSSIBILITY that such a thing might happen.

I do know the details of the Bleskachek case, as you well know. And you know goddamn well that, knowing the details, I believe that her charges were NOT trumped up and were NOT motivated by homophobia. But you act like it’s impossible that ANY sexual harassment charges against a gay person could be trumped up like that.

It’s not ridiculous to, until the details are know, be damn suspicious of such charges against one of the first lesbian supervisors in a field like fire-fighting. It’s completely reasonable to withhold condemnation and presume innocence. The most I’ve ever seen anyone do is take that too far – continuing to hold out belief in innocence in the face of evidence. No one says she was ALLOWED to harass, a point that you have repeatedly refused to concede.

As for Blescachek knowing which buttons to push: DUH. But there wouldn’t BE buttons to push at all if there weren’t a pattern of discrimination and persecution of LGBTs. And no gay person or organization that I know of is supporting her or has taken up the cause of clearing her name For Great Justice. It’s over. She’s done. The only reason we’re still talking about her is because you’re in love with her story because you think it proves something it doesn’t.

“I feel for those lesbians; they’re probably treated like dirt by the rest of the LGBT community for “squealing” on Bleskachek, not just keeping their mouths shut, and thus making the “community” look bad.”

Any evidence? No? How surprising.
posted by Karen on March 12, 2008

Katamari, he’s doing his regular thing:

Taking the absurd statement of one person somewhat out of context, and then attributing it to many, many people – perhaps “gays and lesbians on this site”, perhaps “gays and lesbians”.

He is not “regularly accused” of any such thing. He’s just a crybaby.
posted by Regan DuCasse on March 12, 2008

Alpha, it’s pro gay organizations like PFLAG and Lambda Legal that would break down gay households by ethnicity.

I took the Pew information you found and CROSS referenced it with the others by the Alliance Defense Fund, the Family Research Council.

The FRC for example keeps floating numbers from the CDC on short lifespans and higher incidence of HIV/AIDS among gay men.

And Rebecca Hagelin of the Heritage Foundation keeps saying that children suffer from having gay parents.

But when you take all the information that say, the CDC does say or the American Psychiatric Association from what the Heritage Foundation says…one can show that the HF only tells half the information and makes it look like the CDC or APA are in concurrence.

It takes a lot of work, Alpha.

And some of it I did a few years ago.
posted by Priya Lynn on March 12, 2008

Northdallass is once again lying. I told him I wouldn’t be surprised If he had an eight year old chained up in the basement to molest, I never ventured an opinion as to whether or not he actually did. Of course he then lies and claims “gays and Lesbians” accused him of this when not a single one did. It really doesn’t matter what Northdallass says, you can safely assume its a distortion at best or a lie at worst.
posted by Priya Lynn on March 12, 2008

And by the way, I made that statement after I opposed polygamy, incestuous and pedophilic marriages and Northdallass defended pedophilia responding “I’m sorry, Randi, but all of your statements are discriminatory. It should not be automatically assumed that children are incapable of consent; that’s age discrimination. It should not be automatically assumed that being related to someone prevents you from giving informed consent; that’s discrimination on the basis of lineage or family. It should not be automatically assumed that all multiple marriages are exploitive; that’s discrimination based on assumptions about private lifestyle decisions…your attitude that people should not be allowed to marry their preferred sexual partner or partners is unconstitutional”.

So, as you can see the statement was a fact, it would NOT be surprising if Northdallass did have an eight year old chained up in his basement to molest.
posted by Patrick on March 12, 2008

Obsessing? hardly. I was just peeking under your peeling veneer; so far what I have seen is appalling. You write that ?get rid of? is another way of saying ?refusing to enable?. While the latter is passive the former is certainly aggressive. If your intentions are flaccid you certainly don?t present them as such. I characterize your first statement is indicative of your attitude and your second as backtracking. I know the Nazis weren?t refusing to enable when they got rid of the Jews or that when I get rid of a sweater I am not refusing to enable my clothing. I can not think of any instance that the two would be interchangeable, maybe you could contrive one? Thanks for giving me your OK to think what I want, that was nice of you.
posted by Frank C on March 12, 2008

To Karen–great responses! ND 30 does have false notions about “this odd worldview” that gays and lesbians claim to have. He continually attacks gays and lesbians(I think all respondents in this forum realize this!) yet he never disparages straights—-it sounds alot like the “the odd worldview” for him.
posted by Karen on March 12, 2008

Priya, I really hate to defend him, but he was clearly being sarcastic in that excerpt – he was trying to make a point – a stupid point that’s been made a million times and refuted a million times, but a point nevertheless. Your remark was either over the line, or woefully blind to sarcasm.

Amusingly, though, I’ll never get credit for sticking up for him. He’ll continue to pretend that everyone here truly believes that he has an 8-year-old chained up in his basement. And he’ll continue to pretend that he’s the only gay person in existence possessing enough principles to chastise another gay person. And he’ll continue to be a little drama-queen crybaby about a stupid remark on an internet forum where he CHOOSES to come and hijack perfectly decent threads (which, granted, I enable him in. I can’t help it! He’s so wrong!)

Thanks, Frank.
posted by Alpha on March 12, 2008

Regan,

How any of what you have said shows that the rate of homosexuality does not vary between different ethnic groups, I have no idea.
posted by Michigan-Matt on March 13, 2008

While Corvino’s piece partially outlines a “live and let live” attitude toward the freedom of ex-gays to embrace transformational therapy (I can’t adopt the PC notion that it’s repairing anything, sorry) but not to advance their false scientific or qualitative claims, I’m amazed at the intolerant attitude of so many supposedly “enlightened” liberal gays here toward anyone who holds a non-orthodox viewpoint… and that’s the liberal gay orthodoxy, I mean.

Karen, Priya, FrankC; you prove that narrow minds aren’t just the province of radical religionists… you guys show some pretty narrow, intolerant and closed opinions very nicely.

I agree with Corvino… let the ex-gay folks do what they want. Let ’em be. They aren’t impacting constructively on the public square… anymore than the Right’s HomeMilitia movement folks… or the Left’s CodePink… or the moral relativists’ NAMBLA. They have their opinion; I think it’s irrelevant to me or the broader societal issues we ought to be pressing.

Pick your battles. Ex-gay claims to restorative (ugh) or transformational therapy shouldn’t be one of them.
posted by Karen on March 13, 2008

Michigan Matt,

Care to elaborate? Which of ND30’s points of view that I contested are simply “unorthodox” and not actually based on faulty logic and lies?

He’s entitled to his own opinions. He is not, however, entitled to his own set of facts, nor to his own rules of logic.
posted by Regan DuCasse on March 14, 2008

Alpha, I was trying to make a very simple point. And it was in part that proves that the strong mother/weak father theory and it’s correlation to homosexuality isn’t true.

ESPECIALLY because of the higher incidence of single parent homes headed by black mothers. (That’s on record.)

So I was reiterating that since THAT is true, then (according to those who support ex gay ministry), then there SHOULD be a higher incidence of homosexuality among black men.

And their isn’t.

That’s the point I was trying to make.

I found a book by a friend of mine, Eric Wat on the gay Asian community in Los Angeles. In his book at least he outlines how large the Asian (including all Asian cultures) and how it grew in Los Angeles in particular.

As I said Alpha…I cobbled some information together from different sources and my own results don’t square with what the pro ex gay or anti gay information tells you.

I didn’t say a particular organization or information was available that did the cobbling for me and put the results together.

In fact…they do just the opposite.

I have Armenian, Asian and Latino friends who are social scholars and they’ve done research AND they are gay. THEY tell me what happens in their respective cultures and I put it together with what the AFA or FRC says on their websites.

I said I CROSS referenced information. I don’t think I ever said that any ONE group or person was representative of doing so.
posted by Alpha on March 14, 2008

Regan,

‘there SHOULD be a higher incidence of homosexuality among black men.

And their isn’t.’ It’s still not quite clear how you know this.
posted by Regan DuCasse on March 16, 2008

One, I am a black woman very close to the trends of my own culture and demographic. I live in a big city with all manner of information and experience at my disposal. I know the trend of such mothers well in my own environment and family. The black churches, in fact are usually speaking out against this very distinct trend in the area.

Now, I’m sure…that if this strong mother/weak father trend produced and also disproportionate amount of homosexual black men, the anti gay/ex gay forces at hand would TRUMPET it from the rooftops as evidence of their being right.

It’s well known just how strong the black mother is too. REAL strong. It’s the subject of movies, books, the entire cultural lexicon of black Americans.

I’m a strong black woman myself.

It’s my whole LIFE.

Where YOU been? THAT’S how I know.

And?
posted by JohnL on March 16, 2008

What’s being EX-GAY about? It’s about the religious right trying to turn the tables on gay people and be able to point their fingers saying “See see see the gays are really the ones who are intolerant!” – all the while using and cruelly manipulating homosexuals who have been conditioned by our society to believe they face a life of misery if they don’t somehow become heterosexual. No one, absolutely no one, would choose to be gay – college women temporarily playing at rebellion until their senior year aside – in our society. As someone who dropped out of college in the 80’s and spent several years contemplating suicide before I finally understood I, a white middle class straight arrow, had been duped by our homophobic society into hating myself and putting the blame on myself, this subject simply infuriates me – even now, years later, when I generally shrug off the usual anti-gay crap.
posted by JohnL on March 16, 2008

I guess that I or anyone else shouldn’t really get too worked up over this subject. It seems that every “ex-gay” who’s made a name for himself has been caught “relapsing”. It doesn’t get much attention which I take as a sign that all but the most Bible-addled recognize the whole business as ideologically driven bullshit.
posted by Richard on March 17, 2008

It is silly to claim that a person’s race makes them more or less likely to be gay or straight.

The notion that having a ‘domineering’ mother or an absent father makes a person gay or straight is also totally without merit.

Sexual orientation may be the result of biological and sociological factors, but its not the result of our own petty prejudices about race, gender, class and sex.
posted by Alpha on March 19, 2008

Richard,

Whether people of some races are or are not more likely to become homosexual than people of different races is an interesting question that has never, so far as I know, been settled by science. Theoretically, it’s possible that blacks are inherently less likely to become homosexual than whites. No one knows enough to be sure whether this is true or not, and in this age of political correctness probably no one would be brave enough to do the research to settle the issue.
posted by Craig2 on March 21, 2008

I’d respect exgay and Christian Right pseudo-therapeutic groups more if they actually engaged in evidence-based psychotherapeutic and counselling care of their clients.

You might be interested in having a look at the Sydney Morning Herald (http://www.smh.com.au), which has been running a series of useful articles about the questionable standards of ‘care’

at Mercy Ministries, a fundamentalist run “social service” agency that “cares” for young women with eating disorders, unplanned pregnancies, past experiences of child sexual abuse, depression- oh, and lesbianism…

Craig2

Wellington, NZ
posted by JohnL on March 25, 2008

Alpha – Black men are no different from white men in regard to sexual orientation, speaking from experience and not political correctness. Obviously, however, they feel more pressure not to deviate from their “group” because of racism, hence their greater discretion and reticence. Not being openly gay is not the same thing as being straight, needless to say.
posted by libertymad on March 28, 2008

Well, I do not have a problem with ex straights becoming radical queer advocates -who would have thought?- and telling the rest of us, who never lied to anyone, what to do and what to think. They make me laugh out loud.