It’s not like we didn’t see it coming. Of course when I say “we” I mean those of us who have spent time in Reparative Therapy trying to “pray the gay away.” A prayer that simply goes unanswered, no matter how spiritual you think you are when you pray it.
The big story this week is the rise and fall of Josh Weed: the (happily) married, gay, Mormon, father of three, and darling of the ex-gay movement. For years, he and his wife have been used as “proof” that homosexuality can be cured, and that those inflicted with it can find healing and happiness in the ‘biblical’ sexual expression just as Josh has.
Yet Josh lost his way (or found his way). In separate blog posts he and his wife Lolly announced that they were not the success the religious right wanted them to be, and that Josh was not able to change as he once thought he could.
The irony is that Josh is a licensed marriage and family therapist, and therefore should have known long ago that he would be better off trying to fart rainbows than trying to change his sexuality. But he chose to believe otherwise, as he said in his blog post:
"I believed this because every mentor, every exemplar, every religious teacher, every therapist, every leader I ever grew up listening to and trusting told me that that was the only way I could return to live with God. There was an emphasis on 'perfect obedience' and yet, over the course of my lifetime, the list of things said by these trusted leaders about my sexual orientation was profoundly inconsistent and confusing."
And he’s right. I’ve spent over fifteen years in various forms of Reparative Therapy, including Living Waters, Fratelli, Metanoia Ministries, private counseling, and various church-sanctioned groups: all meant to cure me from being gay. I’ll give you odds as to whether or not it worked. The reason for these groups was simple. Christians hate gay people, and they hate these people with the vengeful wrath of a loving God. Of all the sins mentioned in the bible, including the Seven Deadly Sins, this is the issue that Christianity finds the most repugnant. Even though Leviticus uses the same word (abomination) for eating shellfish, getting tattoos, and man-on-man sex, it’s the man-on-man sex that pisses them off.
Growing up in this environment is painful, terrifying, and isolating. I knew I was “different” when I was in junior high (though I didn’t understand why), and the church I attended attacked me viciously, even at that young age, though I never understood why. It wasn’t until I was a freshman in a Christian academy in Loveland, Colorado, that I understood why. I was standing outside the cafeteria waiting for a friend to go to dinner, when one of the older guys and his friends showed up. I still remember Kevin looking me in the eye and saying with as much venom as he could muster, “faggot.”
And was my moment of clarity. Yet despite years of counseling, meetings, workshops, the desperation to change, it simply didn’t happen. Not for me, or for anyone else I met along the way. A lot of my comrades “thought” it did, and went on to find husbands and wives as acts of faith. Most even went on to have children, but it didn’t end well—for the children especially.
Gay men and women are taught from childhood to hate gay people. Homosexuality is the one thing Christians hate even more than abortion and liberals (combined). And they hate them with the fiery wrath of a loving God. Imagine the affect this has on a gay child growing up, and then later on with their families. So gay people “heal themselves” by finding mates. Sometimes they tell that mate before the marriage, but often they don’t because they’ve been “cured.” Yet no matter how hard they try, at some point it becomes clear that they cannot be romantic and they cannot provide the “love” that their partner seeks. So the marriage falls apart.
I remember a married friend: with a wife and three children. At the time the oldest was in high school, the middle child in junior high, and the youngest in grade school. We were both active in one of our groups, while at the same time trying to reach out to the church to show them that they no longer had to hate us because “we were changing.”
Ironically, though, about the same time, we both decided that it would be nice to actually be romantic with someone. So I came out—officially, and my friend ‘went’ out but never told anyone. His wife knew, but they never talked about it. After several months, the guilt finally beat him back into the closet. His wife took him back, but his kids were a mess. I know because we talked about it. They suffered even though they didn’t know what was going on. He never spoke to his kids about what he was doing, but he made the mistake of thinking that his actions weren’t affecting anyone.
And this is what Josh is in for, despite how he and his wife ended their post:
"We can continue to be the family we have always been, and we can add to that family."
While that’s a great sentiment, Mormons, more than most Christian groups, are profoundly anti-gay. Anyone who’s been affected by these anti-gay groups knows that, unless Lolly is willing to leave the church, she will eventually be forced to decide between her “faith,” or her husband. I’m willing to bet that the church will think nothing of using his children against him either, just to take their revenge for Josh throwing yet another ‘stumbling block’ into their campaign against the homosexual community.
As Lolly herself pointed out, her friends and family empathize with her and acknowledge that she deserves a romantic connection, ‘but do not feel the same way toward her husband.’
“The thing that’s so interesting to me is how few people think of Josh in this way. How few people in his life have ever thought these things about him—things that are so obvious, so clear, so emphatic when talking to another straight person.
“I mean, isn’t the same true for LGBT people? Shouldn’t we feel the exact same intuitive injustice at the thought of them deserving to be “loved like that”?
The fact that Josh was an anti-gay success story validated their anti-gay bigotry. Only now they’ve lost that lever, and it has exposed, once again, their prejudice: not just to the world, but to themselves. And if there’s one thing Christians hate, it’s seeing their own prejudice. This event is going to make them angry. These are vindictive people ready to take revenge, and it’s going to be hard on the entire family.