Post a Comment On: Vigilance

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer had a moderately interesting editorial this week, trying to turn the tables. You might know that Seattle is the site for this weekend's "Love Won Out" conference, which is geared toward promoting the concept of "ex-gays." This editorial, by a Focus on the Family official, argues that people should have the right to be "ex-gays," and that liberals want to deprive them of that right.
The ongoing controversy surrounding Focus on the Family's upcoming "Love Won Out" conference on Saturday reveals the hypocrisy of liberals who call for tolerance and unquestioned acceptance of diversity yet attempt to stifle all opposing views to their politically correct, pro-gay agenda. As a result, another liberal mantra -- the freedom to choose -- is denied to those seeking to walk out of unwanted homosexuality.

Apparently, in today's America, you can still Be Who You Want to Be -- so long as it isn't "ex-gay."

Even more troubling is the vitriol unleashed against those who dare to consider the notion that homosexuality is not an immutable characteristic. Pro-gay activists regularly charge that messages such as those shared at Love Won Out are "vile," "dangerous" and "deplorable." Much of their most virulent rhetoric is saved for the debate over the cause of homosexuality. People have right to change sexual identity
et cetera, et cetera ...

Listen, it is my impression that very many homosexually-oriented people live as hetereosexuals. "The closet" is a concept that most straight people are familiar with, and we're not surprised that they would feel the need to hide their true nature, given the hatred and misunderstanding that gays are exposed to. So, OK, an "ex-gay" is somebody who came out of the closet and then went back in: "ex-gay" is understood to be a "re-closeted" gay person.

And who cares? It seems kinda sad that a guy would have to pretend he's something he's not, but it seems to me that everybody has problems, everybody's got something to hide ... so what? I have seen only sympathy for those who have dealt with a kind of "Sophie's choice" in a way that we can all understand.

It's not "ex-gays" that we oppose. A guy who marries a woman to gain the approval of his community, OK, that's his business.

I can't speak for "liberals" as a group, and barely for my colleagues here at TeachTheFacts.org. But I can tell you what I, personally, object to.

First of all, the idea that "ex-gay" is some new kind of sexual orientation. No, even in their own literature, their own spokesmen admit that there are very few homosexuals who change their sexual orientation. "Ex-gay" men still are attracted to men. It's a change in behavior, of a self-protective type not extremely different from crossing the street in the crosswalk. Your community, for instance your church, ostracizes you if you do A, accepts you if you do B, so you do B.

Second and more important, the "ex-gay" promoters try to make embarrassed young men believe they can change, and that they should change (this is almost entirely aimed at guys). Really, they can't. Everybody knows this, on both sides. A boy reaches puberty and finds he is different from the other kids, and then some nuts start telling him that how he feels is a sin and an abomination, and they tell him all he has to do is blah blah blah and he can change. Some boys are shamed into going along with it, they ignore their true feelings and go with what they've been told is better. For them it's a choice they feel they have to make, and my heart goes out to them.

Third, as in the case with Zach who still hasn't come out of his camp, the authorities who assert that young people should change are not above simple kidnapping and torture. Nobody knows how many of these kids are sent to these terrible camps where their rights are stripped away, their dignity is demolished, they are brainwashed into agreeing that they are evil to the core. This is reprehensible, and the people who do this should be sent to prison. Including the parents who submit their children to this horror. Anyone with a heart can see that this is just plain wrong.

Personally, I would think that good Christians would look at it like this (since the "ex-gay" movement is almost always justified in terms of the church). God in his wisdom has created mankind in His image. That doesn't mean mankind "on average," it means each one of us. Sometimes there are mysteries in that image, sometimes there is something beautiful to discover in God's creation. It does not seem to me that the reverent approach would be to suppress God's creation, but to develop it in grace. Not that I have any special license to express my opinion, but it does not seem to me that there is anything holier or more sacred about forcing gays to pretend they're something they're not. That certainly doesn't mean that I don't sympathize with those who make that choice, and I think everyone on our side feels the same way. It's somewhat sad, but there's nothing deplorable about making that personal choice, as this Focus on the Family editorial writer wants you to think we think.