There is more on D.J. Butler, the teen who escaped Love In Action, on the Queer Action Committee website. I think these are links to the actual Memphis TV news reports that I posted earlier, but I haven’t looked at any of them yet because I’m waiting for something a little more detailed then you usually get from TV news. But QAC has posted something Butler said in one of them that is both heartbreaking and chilling…

The people at Love In Action brain wash, that’s what they do. They make you believe what they believe. They keep preaching until they make it seem true in your brain. I got so weak, I really was not as strong as I thought I was. They kept pushing and pushing…but thank God I got out of there before it was too late.

If this is love in action, then the mental hospitals where Stalin put his political prisoners were democracy in action. But theocrats like Smid and his religious right enablers don’t believe in democracy, any more then they believe in love. They despise both for their promise of spiritual freedom and wholeness. Tyrants know that it isn’t enough to imprison the body. You have to imprison the spirit. If you can do that you don’t have to put chains on the body. If you don’t, then chains will not long hold the body.

John Smid is gutting the heart from innocent teenagers, with no more compunction then slavers castrating their goods before putting them on the market. Many of the children who leave his prison do eventually re-establish their gay identities, but they do so wounded, and with what should have been the most wonderful, magical years of their lives an empty wasteland behind them. It is my hope that someday these kids, grown up, band together and sue the crap out of Smid and his enablers for what they did to them when they were young, and utterly at their mercy. I would contribute money to that lawsuit. I’m sure a lot of others would too.

And here’s what else I would do: I would volunteer to build the jail where John Smid can serve his time for child abuse. By hand. All by myself if necessary. Brick by brick.

[Update…] E.J. has more to say about this, in a post that includes some corrections from former LIA client Peterson Toscano.