Matthew Shepard would have been thirty years old today.

From Daniel Gonzales at Ex-Gay Watch…with an assist from Peterson Toscano. How the religious right talks out of both sides of its mouth…

But then again…if Exodus respects a person’s right to self determination, why do they oppose same sex marriage, and why do they support a state’s right to enact sodomy laws? It’s simple: they don’t mean what they say. It’s just rhetoric for popular consumption. Self determination is anathama to the religious right…and not just with regard to the rights of gay people. Heterosexuals could find themselves in an America where it is illegal to sell any and all forms of birth control, even to legally married heterosexual couples. You can tell everything you need to know about the religious right’s respect for a person’s right to self determination by the sexual abuse they’re perfectly willing to inflict on teenagers, who cannot legally say no. When the rest of us loose our right to tell them No, they’ll do the same to us, never doubt it. The ninth commandment after all, says not to bear false witness against your neighbor. It doesn’t say anything about lying To your neighbor.

On October 29 the state of Tennessee essentially washed its hands of the question of whether or not Love In Action needed to be licensed in order to treat mentally ill "clients". Tennessee agreed to pay LIA’s legal bills in exchange for their dropping a lawsuit that claimed they had a religious exemption from any department of health oversight. Tennessee is accepting the word of a man who said God could make him see blue walls were there were yellow, that he has not, and will not be dispensing drugs to his "clients".

The fact of their forcing ex-gay therapy on unwilling gay teenagers, which was what started the public outcry over LIA practices, was never at issue, unfortunately. At least one gay teen has publicly accused the ministry of forcing him to take Prozac, which he did not have a doctor’s prescription for. LIA denied it, and apparently Tennessee never performed more then a perfunctory investigation of the allegations that they were giving clients drugs, let alone that they were forcing them on unwilling gay teenagers as part of their therapy to cure them of their homosexuality. What their dangerous mix of religion and invasive psyco-therapy does to adolescents, apart from any issue of drugging them, was never even looked into. So the abuse of gay youth in Memphis will continue. Probably until some catastrophe happens, at which point everyone will be wondering why nothing was done sooner…

(From The Cartoon Page… )

A former LIA "client" and now booster takes issue with this post of mine.  Here’s my reply…

—– 

> I, having been a client at LIA (March, 2005), would like to know some of
> Lance’s horrendous experiences caused by his time there. 

A client were you?  Swell.  You know the difference between being a "client" and being an inmate…right?  There’s the beginning of the horror right there buddy, and what’s disturbing right off the bat about your comment is that you seem utterly unable to even notice it.  So you my friend, are part of the horror.

Those kids are not in there by choice.  Most of them had either made peace with their sexual nature, or were at least beginning to, when they were dragged into LIA by parents terrified from the cesspool of anti-gay propaganda that the religious right vomits into the public discourse, much of which John happily repeats.  Joe Stark was on Pat Robertson’s 700 club, mindlessly babbling that gays only live an average of 36 years.  Where the hell did he hear that claptrap, if it wasn’t John?  Even Paul Cameron isn’t claiming 36 years.  But John doesn’t seem to care where he gets his facts on homosexuality, as long as they’re sufficently ugly.

For months at least, if not longer, John was linking his LIA website to a group called The International Organization Of Heterosexual Rights, and using their bogus statistics to paint a picture of homosexuals and homosexuality that was relentlessly perverse and disgusting.  After community activists started pointing out how unChristianly it was to be linking to a hate site, John pulled the link.  But he kept their bogus fact sheet online.  So at least for a time (I haven’t been there recently), people visiting his site were still being given this crap from a hate group…only they weren’t being told who the source of this information was.  Dig it.  John responded to the accusation that he was spreading hate rhetoric, not by taking it down, but by making it harder for people to discover that the facts on his website were coming from a hate group.

I think part of the reason he does it is because he knows that it frightens parents, and that’s his last best source of clients now:  Helpless gay teens who cannot legally refuse his dangerous blend of anti-gay religiosity and junk psychology.  As more and more comes to light about the practices of these ex-gay ministries, and their spectacular rates of failure, fewer and fewer grown adults are checking in.  So the kids, who cannot legally refuse, are his last best source of income, which he needs to keep the operation afloat.  Never mind what it does to kids, to their parents, to the bond between parent and child…John’s on a mission from God, and Gods don’t feel shame.

Imagine a teen who is left handed.  Imagine they’re told that their left-handedness is unnatural, perverse, a God condemned abomination.  Imagine sending that kid to a place that claims to be able to treat left-handedness through prayer and counseling, and establishing a closer relationship to Jesus. They claim that left-handedness is a form of addiction, that using your left hand to do things like writing is no different from people who use their hands to rob, assault, and murder, people and animals.  Imagine that left-handed kid being forced to sit next to grown men who’ve used their hands to do all manner of cruel and perverse things to animals and humans alike, while the staff of this treatment facility is telling him, perhaps not so much in word but sure as hell in deed, that he’s no better then those men.  Someday, his desire to use his left hand instead of the God ordained right hand, will lead him into all manner of brutish, deviant, ugly acts.  

Imagine this kid trying desperately…trying, trying with all his heart and soul to pray away his left handedness.  But he can’t…he’s left handed. And every time he feels the urge to use his left hand, it only serves to remind him that he doesn’t love God enough, that he’s headed for the same life that all those robbers, and murderers live.  He’s going to become just like them one day…

What does that sort of thing to to a kid?  Well we all know what it does to an adult because it happened.  Does the name Jack McIntyre ring any bells?  Or has John finally erased all memory of Love In Action’s bloody birth?  McIntyre was one of LIA’s first clients (I say client because he went in of his own accord…a choice of free will that neither Lance nor Zach nor any kid in the horrifically misnamed Refuge "program" are allowed)  A few months ago I finally stumbled on a copy of his suicide note.  You want to know what the horror is my friend?  Well…take a peek into the Pit then…

TO: Those left with the question, why did he do it?

I loved life and all that it had to offer to me each day.

I loved my job and my clients.

I loved my friends and thank God for each one of them.

I loved my little house and would not have wanted to live anywhere else.

All this looks like the perfect life. Yet, I must not let this shadow the problem that I have in my life. At one time, not to long ago, that was all that really mattered in my life. What pleased me and how it affected me. Now that I have turned my life over to the Lord and the changes came one by one, the above statements mean much more to me. I am pleased that I can say those statements with all the truth and honesty that is within me.

However, to make this short, I must confess that there were things in my life that I could not gain control, no matter how much I prayed and tried to avoid the temptation, I continually failed.

It is this constant failure that has made me make the decision to terminate my life here on earth. I do this with the complete understanding that life is not mine to take. I know that it is against the teachings of our Creator. No man is without sin, this I realise. I will cleanse myself of all sin as taught to me by His word. Yet, I must face my Lord with the sin of murder. I believe that Jesus died and paid the price for that sin too. I know that I shall have everlasting life with Him by departing this world now, no matter how much I love it, my friends, my family. If I remain it could possibly allow the devil the opportunity to lead me away from the Lord. I love life, but my love for the Lord is so much greater, the choice is simple.

I am not asking you to sanction my actions. That is not the purpose of my writing this at all. It is for the express purpose of allowing each one who will read this to know how I weighed things in my own mind. I don’t want you to think that, ‘I alone,’ should have been the perfect person, without sin. That would be ridiculous! It is the continuing lack of strength and/or obedience and/or will power to cast aside certain sins. To continually go before God and ask forgiveness and make promises you know you can’t keep is more than I can take. I feel it is making a mockery of God and all He stands for in my life.

Please know that I am extremely happy to be going to the Lord. He knows my heart and knows how much I love life and and all that it has to offer. But, He knows that I love Him more. That is why I believe that I will be with Him in Paradise.

I regret if I bring sorrow to those that are left behind. If you get your hearts in tune with the word of God you will be as happy about my ‘transfer’ as I am. I also hope that this answers sufficiently the question, why?

May God Have Mercy On My Soul.

A Brother & A Friend.

No.  May God have mercy on yours, because I don’t have any to spare for the likes of you.  Jack McIntyre killed himself, rather then make one more promise to God he knew he could not keep.  Bad enough John Smid is doing this to grown adults.  Now he’s dragging kids into his little psych room, where he’ll sit them down right next to grown men who have engaged in the most extreme sexual perversions imaginable, and let them know that they’re just like those men are, that their sexual orientation will lead them into all of that and worse.  This is what John is subjecting gay teenagers to.  He takes in kids who are more or less fine with their sexual orientation, or getting there, and puts his crowbar to their self esteem and tries systematically to utterly destroy their deepest sense of their inner selves, to make them see their sexual nature as ugly and perverse and foul, and that only a relationship with Jesus can save them from their homosexuality.  But it won’t.  They’re Gay.  What happens is that they loose their faith, and often enough, loose their family too.  But as long as the checks clear, John doesn’t seem to mind.

> I speak on behalf of LIA, not only because I believe in what they’re doing, but also
> because I care a great deal about John Smid and the LIA staff. 

If you care about any of them then you need to do whatever you can to convince them to stop tormenting gay people, and particularly gay teens who are content with who they are.  John is trying his best to gut their ability to ever feel good about themselves as gay people, and ever experience what it is to love and be loved, body and soul.  He is systematically trying to put as much fear and loathing into teens and adults of their sexual nature so that they’ll never be able to love wholeheartedly without feeling ashamed and dirty.  To assault someones sense of self to the point where they cannot see one of this life’s most wonderful, beautiful, amazing things as anything other then ugly and perverse is a crime against them of absolutely staggering magnitude.  To do that to children is a crime against humanity. 

> Zach Stark’s opinion of "reparative therapy," as it’s being dubbed, variegated a
> great deal after his experience at LIA.  "Love In Action has been misrepresented
> and what I have posted in my blogs has been taken out of perpective and context,"
> as Zach is quoted at 365gay.com on 8-1-05.  My question to Lance is this: What
> specific occurrences at LIA made your experience so horrendous?

As for Zach…I’m a little fuzzy about how you expect a kid who was forced into ex-gay therapy against his will, and who said in an update to that blog post you’re quoting from there that he could only post blogs his father approved of, to speak out publicly against his treatment.  Actually, I’m being sarcastic.  You know damn well he couldn’t.  Since he’s still underage, and cannot speak for himself without suffering whatever consequences his parents (you know…the ones who put him into LIA in the first place) can dictate, it’s unreasonable to expect him to get on a soapbox about his feelings toward LIA.  If I were you though, I would strongly suggest that his silence on the matter since those first couple of posts speaks volumes.

I was with Lance at a protest against reparative therapy in Silver Spring, Maryland.  John Smid was there too, but too cowardly to come out to the line and speak with Lance himself.  One of the other LIA staffers, a new guy, did come out because, as he said, he wanted to hear from Lance himself why he was upset about what LIA did to him.  Lance gave him an earful, the gist of which was that he resented being made to feel horrible about himself simply because he’s gay. 

John likes to boast that he brings families together.  What happened to Lance after he left LIA was horrible, and he finally had to move out because his mom had become so abusive.  The day he moved out, his mom cornered him and started beating the crap out of him.  He’s told this to reporters and gave a more detailed account to Morgan Jon Fox who is doing a documentary on the LIA protests.  Morgan and Lance let me sit in on the interview to take some photographs and Lance’s story nearly brought me to tears and I had to concentrate on what I was doing and I almost couldn’t.  John did nothing, nothing for that family, except tear it apart.  Oh…and he cashed the check.

You care about the LIA staff do you?  Then dig up whatever stunted whithered stump of a conscience any of them still have left in them, and make them see two things they really, really need to see.  First, that they are committing a monstrous assault on the human identity of the people they’re "treating" and their capacity to love and accept love from another.  Second, that John has no brakes, and one of these days he’s going to push a gay kid too far and then they’re be more then Jack McIntyre’s blood on the LIA account books, and if you think the judgment on LIA has been harsh up till now, you haven’t seen anything.  Yet.

Just another day in president I’m A Uniter Not A Divider’s America…

A hard-fought football battle between Melrose and Malden high schools was marred by post-game events Friday night, when an altercation near the field left two Malden students in the hospital.

Following the game, the Malden cheerleading squad exited through the crowd towards the team bus, according to Pat Ruggiero, Melrose director of health, physical education and athletics. According to police reports, a 17-year-old, male cheerleader from Malden alleged that an unidentified female teen from Melrose began harassing him with homosexual slurs.

When the cheerleader ignored the taunts, a male teen accompanying the female, described as a 17-year-old, white male with a lip piercing and wearing a black hat, allegedly punched the cheerleader in the face and several times in the chest.

…

The cheerleader was taken to Melrose-Wakefield Hospital. Another 17-year-old from Malden began hyperventilating during the incident, and was also transported to the hospital.

Pretty obvious what happened…right?  Hahahahaha!  You must be living on another planet then…

Administrators from both schools conducted an investigation of the incident and had a meeting Wednesday morning to discuss how to proceed. Following the meeting, administrators released the following statement: "It was mutually decided that this is an opportunity for a teachable moment," a press release states. "A diversity rally is being planned for Friday, Sept. 28 to take place concurrently at both schools to speak out against ignorance and promote diversity."

Melrose Superintendent Joe Casey said that five students were interviewed during investigations, and only three or four teens were involved in the actual altercation. He said the students would be disciplined, but no punishment had been determined as of press time Wednesday.

"Neither school feels this rises to the level of being a hate crime," Casey said. "I think what took place was a lot of bad judgment, with a scuffle that followed."

[Emphasis mine]  Okay…what the fuck?!  A student, perceived to be gay, was beaten badly enough to be taken to the hospital after being repeatedly fag baited by the girl friend of his attacker.  Another student who witnessed the attack also had to be taken to the hospital.  And this isn’t a hate crime?  Ah…no.  It’s a Teachable Moment.  Right.  Let’s teach the gay students of both our schools that we don’t think beating the living crap out of them amounts to a crime.  Just…bad judgment. 

The Sunday before the protests, the protesters organized a wee poster making party at Peabody Park in the Forbidden Zone (the forbidden Zone being being those regions of Memphis that Love In Action inmates are not allowed to enter while in the program).  It was an affair that might have stuck you as a tad carefree, given the brutal nature of Love In Action’s Refuge program.  But these folks, nearly all of them teens themselves (Morgan told me to go to Peabody Park and look for a bunch of crazy teens), had a message of genuine love and courage to be oneself, to speak to the people trapped inside LIA, and there were times when the atmosphere got a little giddy with it.  But I could not emphasize this enough: the message they were determined to bring to the doorstep of LIA was not one of anger and fear and hurt, but of courage and love. 

I can think of no quicker, surer solvent of the hatred and fear inside of John Smid’s hollow church, then the spirit these determined teens brought to the protests. They are an amazing group.

Poster Making – Peabody Park

!!

Love in Action

Stop It

Don’t Be Mean

WTF?

Why John Smid

Poster Making – Peabody Park

More photos to come…

See it here…

Morgan and Lance

Love Is…

God Loves…

Be As You Are…

Lance Carroll made a statement to the press.   QAC has it on their site, including some more info about the protests that you should read.  Here’s what Lance said:

In January of 2005, I came out to my parents as being gay. After an initial positive and supporting reaction they began to change their minds…I was sent to several different counselors, the last of which worked for a fundamentalist Christian church. This “counselor” informed me that I was not Gay, in fact, he said no one was really Gay…and anyone who claimed to be gay was living a lie. This pastor recommended to my parents that I be sent to Love In Action’s REFUGE program for teens.

On June 6, 2005 I left Jackson, Missouri at five o’clock in the morning to make the long trip to Memphis, Tennessee. The first things I saw at the Love in Action campus were the protesters. I spent the entire summer between my junior and senior year of highschool in Memphis, against my will, at Refuge, where I underwent many forms of “therapy” that were supposed to turn me away from being gay. These so-called “therapies” included group activities where one person was singled out and made to be ashamed of very personal occurrences in their lives. I had to participate in this activity many times. Other “therapies” included isolation, where you wouldn’t be allowed to communicate—we were not even allowed to make eye contact, with any of the other participants; making the women wear skirts and makeup to help them become more feminine; and making the men play sports in an attempt to help them become more masculine.

These are just a couple of examples of the type of “program” they use to turn people straight. Though while I was there, it just seemed to make people more depressed and self-loathing than they already were. I, myself, went through several of these depressive periods. After enduring this time in Memphis I returned home, unchanged.

My parents were very disappointed and didn’t know what to do next, feeling that they had tried everything. My mom took it upon herself to somehow change me. This began with daily bouts of verbal abuse, her telling me how ashamed she was of me. After a few months of this, the verbal abuse escalated into small episodes of physical abuse, with her cornering me and slapping me, while telling me what an abomination I was.This type of behavior continued until I could no longer stand to live at home. One day I packed up all of my belongings into my car, and told my parents that I was moving out right that minute. My mother got so angry when I told her this that she exploded and beat me into a corner, ripping my shirt and giving me scratches and bruises in the process. My dad had to pull her off of me so that I could get to my car to leave.

Fortunately I am now living with a wonderful, and supportive family who are very empathetic toward my situation. They have taken me in, and made me their son-in-spirit. Now that I am in a much-improved situation, I feel that I need to speak-out against the things that I went through. Parents should not be able to force their children to attend any type of program like the one I went to. When a child comes out to their parents as gay, lesbian, or bisexual they need the love and support of their parents. They don’t need to be made to feel that there is something wrong with them, something that needs to be fixed.

That’s the gist of it, but Lance gave Morgan a more detailed account later, and as they allowed me to photograph the interview process, I was able to hear it and it just breaks your heart.  Keep this kid’s experience in mind as you read this statement on LIA’s newly updated Refuge website:

God has admonished us to respect our parents. God has given them to us as vessels of His choosing to bring us into His world. Whether or not our parents are worthy of respect.

In other words, if your parents are beating the living crap out of you, then God must want them to do that.  That is the kind of thing John Smid is pounding into the heads and hearts of gay teenagers at Love In Action, and time and again I have heard from survivors that the emotional effect of it is devistating.  I was able to talk with Lance for a while after the interview and he’s a decent and thoughtful guy and there are parents all over this country who would gladly have given him all the love he’d ever want.  But instead of healing the wounds in the families of gay teens, Smid is taking his several thousand dollar fee and making a toxic ruin of their emotional lives, and cutting scars in the hearts of teens they’ll be dealing with for years, if not for their entire lives.

I’m on the road back home today.  I’ll post more photos from the protests when I get back, and settled in.

I never thought I’d find myself applauding an essay on abstinence.  Most essays you read on the subject start from a strongly negative view of sex itself.  But then that’s because most essays you read on the subject come from religious right sources, and the religious right considers joy anathema.  You should be ashamed, ashamed of your body, of your feelings, of your deepest inner self.  Otherwise, why would you want to let them take control of your body, your feelings, your deepest inner self?  Most essays on abstinence start from the premise that there is something evil about sex, and especially if you’re gay, something evil about you.  When people speak of abstinence and gay people, what they’re really talking about is lifetime celibacy, lifetime shame.

Peterson Toscano posted recently about an evangelical teen website, Battle Cry, which advertises itself as righteous teens fighting a war against…well…against sex.

TELEVISION

This generation views 16 to 17 hours of television each week and sees on average 14,000 sexual scenes and references each year. That’s more than 38 references every day.

INTERNET

This generation spends three hours a day online and is the first to grow up with point-and-click pornography. Almost 90 percent of teens have viewed pornography online at one of the 300,000 adult websites, most while doing homework.

MUSIC

More than 25 percent of teen-targeted radio segments contain sexual content; 42 percent of the top selling CDs contain sexual content.

Well no duh.  Human beings are sexual creatures (its how we reproduce), and at a certain time in our lives (scientists call it ‘puberty’), sex starts becoming a pressing interest for us.  So much, so goddamned obvious.  Ask me if I’m happy about the commercialization of sex.  Ask me if I think sex is being treated in this culture with the respect it deserves.  But it’s not like any of the above are things you wouldn’t expect from human beings.  The presence of sex in popular culture is as unsurprising a thing as the presence of weapons and violence.  Note however, that you don’t hear a peep from Battle Cry about how frequently teens encounter violent images in popular culture.  That’s probably because Battle Cry is itself dealing in violent imagery.  It’s okay to imagine yourself as a warrior slaying thousands of your neighbors in blood strewn battle for all that is righteous and holy, but imagining yourself as a lover, laying down with someone and taking them into your arms and driving each other into fits of joyful sexual ecstasy is evil, and you need to have your mind washed out with soap.  Jesus didn’t say love thy neighbor, he said to make war on them.

But if Battle Cry is a teen website, the teens writing for it are doing so with adults looking over their shoulders, and feeding them the words.  Contrast it with a recent essay I found on Mogenic, a site for gay teens, about abstinence.  It’s by a gay teen, and it’s titled, A Virgin, and Proud of it…

…gays have traditionally felt the need to identify themselves as separate from the mainstream. We have created our own subculture, and every subculture needs its own doctrines to follow. We tend to throw out religious teachings—especially Christian teachings—without fully considering their worth. We create our own beliefs, and often we choose beliefs that directly oppose those espoused who have adopted a dislike for homosexuality—like Christians, say. In doing so, we drop many things that perhaps Christianity got right. An example of this is abstinence.

The other problem in gay society is that we don’t have a point to define as the moment when abstinence should end. Abstinence traditionally means waiting until marriage to have sex. As long as gay marriage remains illegal, we don’t have that magical marker in the sky that shows us when, if we decide to abstain from sex, we can stop abstaining. Those of us who choose to remain abstinent, therefore, must forge our own definitions, such as “Once I’m in a meaningful, loving relationship, then I’ll have sex.” But there’s no sure indicator as to when that occurs, and it is easy for us to begin to have sex without infringing upon our morals.

I, personally, am a proud virgin. And by virgin, I mean Virgin, with a capital “V”. Unless you consider masturbation a means to end virginity, I am about as close to 100% virgin as they come. I intend to remain this way until I find myself in the aforementioned “meaningful, loving relationship.” It’s not that I do not find myself attracted to the idea of no-strings-attached sex. In fact, I fairly often fantasize about it. But I cannot imagine myself actually going through with such an act. There are several reasons why I believe abstinence to be the best way to go…

Okay, he gets many things completely wrong in this essay, like when he says "the sexual abandon of gays is legendary".  Yeah it’s legendary…as in urban myth legendary.  There’s a lot of claptrap talked about gay men and sex, most of it pushed by religious right propaganda machines using studies they’ve either distorted or produced themselves to arrive at the conclusions they were after, namely that gay people are dirty twisted sexual perverts who have sex compulsively and never experience anything like love.  This kid buys into a lot of that myth, but so so a lot of us, even many of those of us who should be old enough to know better.  Never mind.

And…personally…I strongly doubt that abstinence before marriage is a good idea.  I think after you’ve made a vow is the wrong time to find out you’re not sexually compatible.  Again…never mind.

What was so heartwarming, so thrilling, about reading that gay teen’s essay, was the self confidant conviction running throughout, that he was entitled as a human being to experience sex in a context of pride, dignity, and self worth.

That’s it.  That’s the golden heart of it.  Right there.  You give that to kids, and it won’t matter what the popular culture says at them.  They’ll take from it what they need, what validates their lives, and ignore what does not.  Look at the example of the Netherlands, where sex education is frank and comprehensive, and prostitution is legal, and yet they have among the lowest of teen STD and pregnancy rates.  Pride matters.  And for so many years, my own teen years included, pride was such a scarce commodity for gay teens.  I have seen the cost firsthand, of the absence of pride.  I have experienced it.  And that is why, to this day, I still fight for it.

I never thought I’d find myself applauding an essay on abstinence.  And there I was, seeing to my delight, the difference, the profound life affirming difference, between an abstinence discussion based on shame, and one based on self worth.  So many kids, so many gay kids especially, never get to have that discussion, because the adults talking to them aren’t really concerned about whether or not they have sex.  They’re concerned that they might wake up one day, and realize that to be a human being, is not a dirty thing.

Kids start believing that, and it won’t matter what the religious right says to them, never mind pop culture.  And that is exactly why the religious right does not want them to have pride, dignity, and a sense of self worth.  They must be ashamed of themselves.  Ashamed of what they are: sexual beings.  Ashamed, ultimately, to be human.

I’ll be protesting in front of Love In Action here in Memphis tomorrow.  Already I’ve heard from some of its supporters, posting on the QAC comment boards, how homosexuals have given themselves up to their base sexual urges, over a holy god.  No.  We have embraced life.  And we are angry at those who would take away from teens, their pride, their dignity, and their self worth, in the name of the creator that gave them life.

[Updated – Fixed the link to the Mogenic essay] 

Those of us who were following the events in Memphis last year closely knew there were other teens imprisoned in Love In Action besides Zach…

"When we drove around to the front…we saw these men and trailing behind them–four young guys, all with their heads hung, staring at the ground as they walked. They are not allowed to make eyecontact with ANYONE for the first few days.so they are forced to fucking…i’m crying now…but…they have to look at the ground as they walk, for three days it’s a walk of shame, their heads hanging for being themselves, for having the courage to stand up and say "this is who i am"…and now all these people are saying ‘no you aren’t and we will change it. and you will be punished for thinking such things.’ I will NEVER get that picture out of my head. those four guys…"

Thus began the summer of shame for at least four gay youths.  One of them will be back in Memphis a year later, 18 now and free to speak for himself, to bear witness to what John Smid is doing to innocent children, in the name of love.  His name is Lance Carroll…

…and this is what happened to him last year: 

In January of 2005, I came out to my parents as being gay. After an initial positive and supporting reaction they began to change their minds. They had me see three separate counselors, the last of which was a Christian counselor in St. Louis who worked for a fundamentalist, evangelical church. He told me that I wasn’t really gay, in fact no one was “really” gay. He tried to convince me that the whole idea of homosexual orientation is a lie, and that I felt the way I did because of some sort of early emotional/psychological deficiency. This counselor recommended Love in Action to my parents.

On June 6, 2005 I left Jackson, Missouri at five o’clock in the morning to make the long trip to Memphis, Tennessee. The first things I saw at the Love in Action campus were the protesters. That morning began my summer as a participant in the Love in Action Refuge program.

…

I am attending the protest in reaction to my own horrendous experience last summer, and as an opportunity to voice my personal opinions concerning the Love in Action Refuge program…while I was there, it just seemed to make people more depressed and self-loathing than they already were. I, myself, went through several of these depressive periods.

And in case you’re wondering how John Smid handles these sorts of depressive periods in his clients, here’s what he told Tom Ottosen, when he was on the verge of suicide:

"I would rather you commit suicide than have you leave Love In Action wanting to return to the gay lifestyle. In a physical death you could still have a spiritual resurrection; whereas, returning to homosexuality you are yielding yourself to a spiritual death from which there is no recovery."

"That’s exactly how he put it," states Tom Ottosen, 24, an expressive, articulate two year ex-LIA group member.

Ottosen says he clearly recalls that experience. He says it occurred in October of last year during his last one-on-one conference with John Smid, LIA’s Executive Director, who claims to be able to change gay men into straight men through a live-in rigidly controlled indoctrination program Smid calls "reparative therapy."

Ottosen says Smid clearly and emphatically warned him, "It would be better if I were to commit suicide than go back into the world and become a homosexual again. He felt that a physical death–with my soul intact–was much preferable to a spiritual death, which would happen if I were to leave the group and go back to being gay." claims Ottosen.

Ottosen further states that Smid said this at a time when Smid clearly was aware he had strong suicidal feelings and was going through periods of extreme depression, guilt and loneliness.

Ottosen recalls his depression had been building for several months during his second year at LIA, primarily because of a warm and emotional relationship he was experiencing with another group member. "It wasn’t sexual at all, but it was strictly forbidden and I was kept from even talking to him for several months."

Also, earlier in July, "Another house member, who was in his fourth year with the group and in a position of authority, became depressed and attempted suicide" and was sent away for observation. "He was taken from his position of leadership and then he just kind of disappeared." Ottosen admits that he too, within a few months was at point where he had never been before. "I couldn’t work. I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t do anything."

Whosoever – The Final Indoctrination

It is bad enough that this man is counseling gay adults who go to him of their own free will.  But John Smid is determined to expand his program for gay youth, dragging in more and more of them against their will, to be taught to hate themselves for what they are. 

They will be kids who have already gone through one of life’s most traumatic moments – coming out to parents who have reacted in shame and anger.  Smid will take these already wounded and bleeding kids, and in essence try his almighty best to rip their hearts out of them, tell them that its all their fault, make them believe that they are broken, make them ashamed and deeply afraid of their inner selves, in the hope, the earnest hope, that they will never know what it is to love another person whole heartedly.  And I don’t think even the suicide of one of his teenaged clients will be enough to make him stop.  Shame is for his clients.  Smid is on a mission from god, and gods don’t feel shame.

We will be gathering Monday, June 5th at the Love In Action HQ on at 4780 Yale Road in Memphis, Tennessee.  There will be two protests: one from 8:30am until 10:00am, and another from 4:00pm until 5:30pm.  If you can be peaceful and respectful, please come.  Come to support the young ones silently walking the walk of shame.  Come to support the survivors bearing witness.  Come in the name of love.  Show the world what love in action looks like.

Imagine you’re a gay teenager, and you’ve either just come out to your parents, or been outed to them.  Imagine they react with anger and shame and contempt.  You’re a kid, going through adolescence, struggling with your emerging sexuality.   It’s a  confusing, embarrassing time when you begin to feel things, things about the attractive sex, that you’d never felt before.  Thrilling, confusing, embarrassing things.  You are a pervert, your parents tell you.  You’re going to catch AIDS and die before you’re 40 they tell you.  You’re a shame on your family name, and on them.  You’re going to hell.   

Imagine your parents force you into Love In Action to be cured.  Imagine you find yourself one day, inside the Love In Action program.  You are a young teenager, and you are in one of the group sessions, surrounded by older adults who have in their past engaged in sexual perversions and addictions the likes of which your teenage mind could never have conceived.  Imagine being force into exposing yourself, your deepest sexual thoughts and feelings, to these men, and being forced to listen as they expose themselves to you.  They are sexually broken, say the staff at Love In Action.  You are sexually broken, they tell you.  You, and the man next to you telling you how it is to fuck animals, are both sexually broken.  You are the same as they.  The sessions last for weeks.  There is no place inside of yourself that is safe from the staff at Love In Action, and you must expose it all to the men who fuck animals, rape children, and have never known what it is to have a healthy adult sex life.  You’re a young teenager.  Throughout it all you are told in word and in deed that you are no different from them.

Eventually, you begin to believe it.  You are finally dismissed from the Program, and perhaps you decide you are still gay and there is nothing wrong with that.  Or perhaps you try, as so many do, to stop being gay, only to discover you can no more choose your sexual orientation then you can choose whether to be right or left handed.  Perhaps some logical, rational part of your mind rejects what you were told about your sexuality at Love In Action.  But deep down inside, the seed is planted.  I’m a freak…There’s something wrong with me…with my sex…I’m a freak…I’m a freak…  You try to go on with your life, find yourself failing utterly to find love, emotional intimacy, peace…

Surely, nobody would do this to a child, even if they think that homosexuality is sinful and wrong.  Right?  You don’t understand.  Faith excuses everything.  Faith, and hate.  Peterson Toscano has an expanded post up now that you should read.

Back in January 2005, I met with the BBC crew that had just finished filming LIA/R. The presenter and the crew expressed shock at the treatment of the youth in the facility. They told me that adults and minors gathered together and talked about serious issues including prostitution, sexual abuse, and beastiality. They told me of a 16 year old lesbian placed in the program against her will. And the message that she received by being there is that her same-sex attractions are on the same level as a man having sex with animals.

I couldn’t believe it, so on June 1, 2005, when I bumped into John Smid at the Atlantia airport, I questioned him about this. (I had not yet heard of Zach’s story as it was just unfolding). He assured me that although the youth and the adults attended the some of the same sessions, they did not talk about their particular "issues", just their feelings.

Even if that were true, any 16 year old I know is smart enough to figure out within a half a day why everyone is in the program.

This fall, I spoke at length with a young man who was in the adult program this summer when Zach was also in attendance in Refuge, the youth program. I asked him to describe the sessions and he confirmed that adults and youth met together. When I asked, "But of course they don’t talk about issues, just emotions, right?" He replied that they talked about the issues often, in fact, each participant had to give an introduction which outlined the exact nature of their issues.

[Emphasis mine] Notice how John Smid was able to look Peterson right in the eye and tell him it wasn’t happening.  And it was.

Today, pumped up on the war rhetoric of saving youth from a culture set out to destroy them, potentially thoughtful and kind human beings who run LIA/R end up employing harmful strategies designed to scare these kids straight by any means necessary. Even if it means exposing them to pedophiles and people with extreme sexual fetishes. (The language reminds me of the fear-fueled war talk of the US Christian fascist group BattleCry)

I know folks from my time at LIA who before they entered the program never had sex with another person and were quite naive sexually. By the time they left, often with the shame of failure, armed with loads of details about what we thought of as "the gay lifestyle", they ended up living self-destructive lives filled with anonymous sexual encounters and worse addictions than they ever experienced before.

Go read the whole thing.   This is why I’m going to be in Memphis on June 5th.  If doing this to kids in the name of love appalls you, and you can make it to Memphis, then be there too.

It was about a year ago that I first read these words…

I pray this blows over. I can’t take this… noone can… not really, this kind of thing tears you apart emotionally…It’s so horrible. This is what it’s doing to me… I have this horrible feeling all of the time… I wish this on no person…

A 16 year old gay teenager had been outed to his parents.  It happens probably every day in this country, and all too often with brutal results for the kid.  Parents, who should love their children unconditionally, are taught by this nation’s men of god to hate them instead if they are homosexual, the better to make gay teens hate themselves, and thereby produce self destructive, self hating adults: convenient scapegoats for all the problems heterosexuals would rather not deal with in themselves.

Zach’s misfortune was not only to have parents who could not see the child for the homosexual, but also to be living just a few miles from the first ever ex-gay program, Love In Action, which had relocated from its San Fransisco birthplace to the friendlier climes of the bible belt, and its current leader John Smid had only recently decided to create a program, ostensibly for teens, but actually for frantic fundamentalist parents who were easy pickings for his ex-gay snake oil.  Smid was able to talk Zach’s parents into his little two-week teaser program, which of course led to the full eight week course. 

It’s a brutal, sexually abusive program where a teen’s deepest feelings about themselves, their bodies, their sexuality, their relationships to their parents, peers and god are systematically ripped out of them using the same mind control techniques that cults throughout the world use to alienate people from the world, the better to imprison them within themselves.  And make no mistake, Love In Action is a cult.  You want proof, read the rule book that Zach found on his parent’s computer, and posted on his blog for the world to see.  A teen who is forced into the "program" finds their life utterly controlled,  who they can talk to, what they can read, what they can wear, even down to the kind of underwear they’re allowed to put on, when they can eat, and even – I am not kidding – how many minutes a day total they can spend in the bathroom.  There are actually timers placed in or near the bathrooms to insure compliance.

It has one purpose and one purpose only: to break a kid’s spirit.  Not to make them a better person.  Not even, really, to make them heterosexual.  As with any cult, the purpose is to erase the soul within, so the cult leaders can put their will in its place.  And in June of 2005, a 16 year old gay teen was thrown into that cult, that ex-gay soul grinder so laughingly misnamed Love In Action.  But before he vanished into it completely, he was able to get a cry for help out to the world.  You can pretty much bet that John’s advice to parents nowadays is Take The Fucking Computer Away Before You Tell The Kid Where They’re Going!!!

When I read Zach’s words, and the LIA rule book, I literally could not sleep for about a week after, so sick with worry was I for him, and for other gay teens who I believed were almost certainly being forced into that "program" too.  I was later to learn that it was not an uncommon reaction.  People from all over the world have since told me the same thing: I couldn’t sleep for days after reading that…  But for Zach’s amazing, loving, devoted friends, worry and stress turned into activism.  They could not stand silently by, they did not stand silently by, while their friend was being abused behind closed doors.  They took to the street, and stood side by side in front of the door to a gay teen’s nightmare, and with their simple presence sent a message of support of their friend, and all the other teens inside, and they took to the Internet, to shout out to the world what was being done to helpless kids in Memphis, and to spread the word about LIA and programs like it, so other teens wouldn’t have to suffer the same silent abuse.

Now, on the one year anniversary of that moment, the Queer Action Coalition is calling for a protest at LIA’s hollow church in Memphis.  And the need is as urgent as ever, because even having suffered setbacks and losses, John Smid is as determined as ever to expand his "program" directed at gay teens.  Child abusers are like that…they never stop with just one:

As the one year anniversary of last summer’s protests nears, an un-publicized/somewhat hidden document on Love In Action’s REFUGE website outlines a new plan to expand their targetting of youth.

From LIA’s document: REFUGE International BOOK/Summer 2006:

Although we have seen success in our ministry, we see the culture relentlessly fighting back. So, we are expanding our ammunition to battle for young people and their families. Our experienced counselors and staff will offer a whole new array of options starting during the summer of 2006:

• Residential recovery for young adults (ages 18-25)
• College campus outreach
• Revamped summer program for youth (ages 13-17)
• Seminars to equip church and community youth leaders
• Conferences to heal wounds within families
• Creative support for parents and families

It appears, in this 8 page document, that LIA will launch a 3-month pilot program this summer for youth ages 13-17, and have begun to request funds for its operation. They have also launched a MYSPACE.COM blog in an attempt to further target youth by adopting main-stream/pop-cultural avenues of communication/outreach….these tactics seem to be the stepping stones towards a much larger front in an attack on youth, and their vunerable parents…

The Queer Action Coalition is rather concerned about these actions on LIA’s behalf, simply because WE ARE CONCERNED ABOUT THE WELL BEING OF OUR FELLOW CITIZENS.

The Lords Of The Ex-Gay Cults claim they act in love.  During the first week of protests in Memphis last year, witnesses saw for themselves what had been largely hidden from the world up until that moment: their love, in action:

Whilst in this centre he [Zach] had to spend the first three days in total silence unable to talk while he was talked to by their counsellors. An eye witness has reported "When we drove around to the front…we saw these men and trailing behind them–four young guys, all with their heads hung, staring at the ground as they walked. They are not allowed to make eyecontact with ANYONE for the first few days.so they are forced to fucking…i’m crying now…but…they have to look at the ground as they walk, for three days it’s a walk of shame, their heads hanging for being themselves, for having the courage to stand up and say "this is who i am"…and now all these people are saying ‘no you aren’t and we will change it. and you will be punished for thinking such things.’ I will NEVER get that picture out of my head. those four guys…" 

You may have a different definition of love then beating shame into an innocent kid because you hate what they are.  If so, then come to Memphis on June 5, and show your love in action.

Yesterday was the Day of Silence, a day when students all over the country refused to speak, in silent solidarity with those whose voices have been silenced by hatred and bigotry.  Sounds just like one of those foofoo liberal protest kinda things that the bleeding hearts are always doing…right…?  I mean…what the hell is that all about anyway…who needs it…why can’t they just stop waving it in our faces…?

Three-quarters of students surveyed across America said that over the past year they heard derogatory remarks such as "faggot" or "dyke" frequently or often at school, and nearly nine out of ten  reported hearing "that’s so gay" or "you’re so gay" – meaning stupid or worthless – frequently or often.

Over a third of students said they experienced physical harassment at school on the basis of sexual orientation and more than a quarter on the basis of their gender expression. 

Nearly one-in-five students reported they had been physically assaulted because of their sexual orientation and over a tenth  because of their gender expression.

Today the other side gets its shot.  They’re calling it, without any apparent irony, the Day Of Truth.  And if you’re wondering when truth ever even remotely mattered to a group of people who wave Paul Cameron’s lies about homosexuals around like a goddamn bible, then you’re probably a filthy heathen.

Via Ex-Gay Watch, here’s what Alan Sears, president of the Alliance Defense Fund, which fights anti-bullying measures in public schools with the ferocity of…well…a bunch of bullies, has to say about it:

“Day of Truth” participants will hand out cards of their own, offering to share a candid, loving, fact-based counterpoint to the unspoken assertions of the advocates for homosexual behavior. While making their case from a Christian perspective, the “Day of Truth”ers will confront with compassion — not condemnation — and restrict their discussions to the periods before, after and between classes.

Loving.  Compassion.  Not Condemnation.  How about a little truth in this Day Of Truth?  In April 2004, while other students at Poway High School in northern San Diego County were observing the Day Of Silence, student Tyler Harper put masking tape all over the shirt he was wearing, and wrote messages on it specifically to let the gay students at Poway High School know his contempt for them, and for those who thought their lives, and their right to a decent education, were worth defending:

A candid, loving, fact-based counterpoint….confronting with compassion, not condemnation…  If you’d think the Alliance would object to this sort of thing…well…think again.  The school ordered Harper to take it off.  Harper, with the help of Alan Sears and his Alliance Defense Fund, sued the school.  They lost:

In a 2-1 decision, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said that a T-shirt that proclaimed "Be Ashamed, Our School Embraced What God Has Condemned" on the front and "Homosexuality Is Shameful" on the back was "injurious to gay and lesbian students and interfered with their right to learn." The court said that the shirt can be barred on a public high school campus without violating the 1st Amendment.

"We conclude that" Poway High School student Tyler Harper’s wearing of his T-shirt " ‘collides with the rights of other students’ in the most fundamental way," wrote 9th Circuit Judge Stephen Reinhardt, quoting a passage from Tinker vs. Des Moines Independent Community School District, a seminal U.S. Supreme Court decision on the free speech rights of students.

"Public school students who may be injured by verbal assaults on the basis of a core identifying characteristic such as race, religion, or sexual orientation have a right to be free from such attacks while on school campuses. As Tinker clearly states, students have the right to ‘be secure and to be let alone,’ " Reinhardt said.

It seems so simple.  All American kids have a right to an education, that’s what the public schools are for.  They’re there for the fundamentalist kids, and the heathens alike, but they’re there for everyone.   While you’re in school, you have to respect each other.  That means the other kids can’t harass you, and you can’t harass the other kids.  It seems so simple.  But it isn’t.  That kind of live and let live agreement is anathema to the religious right.

Had a the school allowed its students to wear t-shirts condemning fundamentalist Christianity as shameful and telling the student body it should be ashamed for tolerating the fundamentalists among them, Alan Sears would be furiously throwing lawsuits around like an antipersonnel mine throwing shrapnel.  But let the school tell fundamentalists kids they can’t to the same thing to their gay and lesbian peers, and Sears sides with the harassing students.  Hypocrisy?  Oh mes non!  Fundamentalists have rights that no one else has…because they’re god’s favorite people.  To claim that the heathens have the same rights they do isn’t merely an attack on their privileged status, it’s literally an attack on God Almighty Himself.  Heathens simply don’t have the same rights god’s people do.  Certainly not the right to be left alone.  Especially not the right to an education.

Or for that matter, the right to even live.  In Iraq and Iran as I write this, gay people are being kidnapped and tortured to death at the behest of the mullahs, whose sense that they are god’s right hand is little different from the theocrats of the religious right here in America.  Exodus’ Randy Thomas takes note of that, and compares it to the persecution Christians face…

If you are Christian in Iran … you get stoned to death.

If you have same sex attraction in Iran … you get stoned to death

If you are a Christian who struggles with same sex attraction in Iran … you get the point.

Alas…he doesn’t.

We must keep this in mind for perspective and seek out ways to intercede (prayer and other ways) for our Christian siblings and for those being murdered because of their sexual orientation.

Homophobia is not some off the cuff comment about Tinky Winky.  Homophobia is what you see happening in Iran.  I am grateful for the Dutch government finally giving asylum to those fleeing Iran.  I pray that those who want to find Christ will and those who want to overcome homosexuality will be allowed their right to self-determine that path for their lives as well.

What’s missing from this?  Any hint that homosexuals in Iran have the right to exist just as they are.  Thomas’s prayer is only for those who wish to change.  For the rest, he has no prayers.

Exodus is now taking it’s tacit approval of anti-gay violence to the caribbean, and to Jamaca, where a murderous killing nightmare is taking place.  Wayne Besen writes:

An article in last week’s Time magazine calls Jamaica the "most homophobic place on Earth." It points out that two of the island’s leading gay rights advocates, Brian Williamson and Steve Harvey, were recently ruthlessly slain. If that was not enough, a crowd essentially danced on Williamson’s grave by celebrating over his mutilated body.

In 2004, a father learned his son was gay and went to his school to invite a group of peers to lynch his son. Now that’s family values!

Not too long after this sickening episode, witnesses claim, police egged on a mob that stabbed and stoned a gay man to death in Montego Bay. Earlier this year, a Kingston man, Nokia Cowan, drowned after a crowd shouting "batty boy" (a Jamaican slur for queer) chased him off a dock.

"Jamaica is the worst any of us has ever seen," Rebecca Schleifer of the U.S.-based Human Rights Watch explained to Time.

Into this malstrom, comes Exodus, with this message:

Some say decriminalise homosexuality……we say lets offer solutions

Solutions…

That’s what was left of Brian Williamson after the mobs got through with him.  Another human life lost to hate.  Another voice forever silenced.  Truth.  But for Exodus, PFOX and the Alliance Defense Fund to come out strongly against anti-gay violence would be to completely contradict their own message, which is that homosexuals can leave behind all the harmful effects of the gay lifestyle any time they want to.  Change is possible.  Or, to put it another way, whatever happens to homosexuals is their own fault. 

If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them. -Leviticus 20:13

There is the ex-gay message.  Not Change Is Possible, but Their Blood Shall Be Upon Them.  Brian Williamson.  Nicolas West.  Billy Jack Gaither.  Gwen Araujo.  Matthew Shepard.  Barry Winchell.  Allen Schindler.  Seventeen year old Kristofer Guy King, who was killed when a neo nazi with a knife broke into the trailer he was sleeping in, looking for his eighteen year old gay friend.  This is what happened to his friend’s mom, Patricia Wells:

Truth.

Shallow understanding from people of good will, is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will.
-Martin Luther King Jr.

Jason Johnson, the gay college student expelled from The University of the Cumberlands in Kentucky, has been allowed to return to class and finish the school year, under an agreement hammered out by his, and the school’s lawyers.  I’m actually surprised.  I’d thought the school would dig in its theological heels and insist on its absolute right to remove filthy sodomites from its sacred grounds.  In exchange Jason agrees not to sue the school, but I’m puzzled as to how much leverage the threat of a lawsuit against a Southern Baptist school in the Bible Belt could have been.  In any case, they’re not going to lie on his transcripts that he failed the semester anymore.  Whether or not they treat him fairly in the classroom remains to be seen.

From the Lexington Herald-Leader comes this column from Paul Prather.  I wish I could like it…he says a few things I completely agree with…

• I believe private religious schools should have the right to make whatever rules they want (short of mandates to torture or behead heathens), in keeping with the tenets of their faith…

• If you can’t obey a school’s code of conduct, common sense dictates that you might not want to enroll there.

• On the other hand, the same principle holds true for the school itself. If the University of the Cumberlands hopes to earn accreditation from a secular agency, it must be prepared to abide by that group’s secular standards. You can’t have it both ways.

That’s pretty much where I am generally, and I’d go on to add that if you want to discriminate against a portion of the citizenry at minimum you can’t expect them to support you with their tax dollars.  Prather goes on to comment on the hypocrisy of singling out gay students for violations of sexual conduct rules, saying that in his own experience on Christian campuses, the straight kids could be just as sexually active as the kids on the secular campuses, if at least a tad more reserved about expressing it openly.  But then he goes on to assert that Johnson’s problem was that he called attention to himself, and from there his column goes down a familiar path…

Thus, Johnson’s main mistake wasn’t simply being gay. It was calling undue attention to his orientation. Christian colleges might have been the originators of the don’t-ask-don’t-tell philosophy.

It is a fact that Johnson posted pictures of himself and his boyfriend on his MySpace profile, but nowhere have I seen it said that he was being open about his sexual orientation at school.  What I’ve always heard to date is that someone informed on him to the school administration, and they went looking for his MySpace profile and then confronted him with it.  In other words, Johnson didn’t tell the school, the school Asked.  That’s not Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell…that’s stay in the closet if you know what’s good for you.  If heterosexuals understand nothing else about their homosexual neighbors, they need to understand this: Those days are over. 

There are a lot of us, far too many in my opinion, who are still perfectly willing to be closeted on a situational basis, but none of us but the desperate self loathing are willing to live our entire lives inside the closet anymore.  There’s a reason for that, and it’s not turning your back on God or having a lack of moral values or defiant homosexual militancy.  It’s something else, something that the Prather’s of the world just don’t seem to get.  And yet it’s so simple, or would be, if only you can see the people for the homosexuals.  Prather, in trying his best, and I don’t doubt for a minute that he’s actually trying, misses it completely.

If a straight student had, say, posted photos of himself and his girlfriend in flagrante delicto on the Internet, he also would have been expelled.

In flagrante delicto.  It means "Caught in the act."  Johnson didn’t post pictures of him and his boyfriend having sex on his MySpace profile.  But you could tell at a glance those photos were of two teenagers in love.  Look at that for a second.  Prather is using a phrase that generally is taken to mean getting caught having sex (the act) to describe photos of two gay teenagers in love.  And he goes on in that manner for the rest of the column, trying his best to be sensible and compassionate, and failing miserably because he cannot see the people for the homosexuals…

Homosexual activities and extramarital heterosexual sex indeed are contrary to biblical and historical Christian standards. Yet, they’re about equally as errant as pride, gluttony, stinginess, temper tantrums, disrespect for parents and lying.

Homosexual activities.   Homosexual activities.  Homosexual activities.

One question raised by the Johnson case is this: How should Christian groups react to sexual misconduct? All religious organizations are made up of human beings who, in my observation, tend to fail miserably a fair amount of the time.

Sexual misconduct.  Sexual misconduct.  Sexual misconduct. 

Maybe Christian administrators should consider reacting the way Jesus did. I never can think about an incident such as Johnson’s without remembering the time Jesus was confronted with a woman who had been caught "in the very act" of adultery and was about to be stoned for it…

Adultery.   The Very Act.

Jesus said, "Let the one who is himself without sin throw the first rock." That ended the stoning. Then he addressed the woman. "Neither do I condemn you," he said. "Go your way. From now on, sin no more."

What a beautiful response…

Beautiful perhaps, when made to someone who had cheated on their spouse.  But it is unmitigated ugliness to say this to a gay teenager about his first love.  Johnson is not married (never mind for now, that homosexuals can only Be married in one state of the union).  He is not having an affair with another married person.  And considering Johnson’s religiosity, it would not surprise me in the least to hear they aren’t even having sex yet.  We don’t all jump right into the sack on the first date.  So at worst you can only call Johnson’s "sin" fornication, not adultery, and there is no evidence even for that.  But notice the mental leap here, from images of two young men in love, to adultery, and even more grotesquely, to forgiveness for adultery.  No.  From Johnson’s MySpace profile, his sin can only be one thing: being a homosexual in love.  And there’s what’s missing from all of Paul Prather’s compassion and understanding: any sense whatsoever that homosexuals love, and that they are punished simply for being in love.

Homosexuals don’t love, they just have sex…  This is the bedrock of anti-gay prejudice, the one irreducible premise through which everything else about homosexuals is understood.  Homosexuals don’t love, they just have sex. Never mind the raving haters of the world like Fred Phelps…if you want to understand how otherwise decent people can casually rip the lives of their gay and lesbian neighbors apart with no thought or care for the human misery and wreckage they leave behind, there’s why.  They can do it, confidant in the knowledge that our feelings for our mates are shallow imitations of the real feelings heterosexuals feel for theirs.  Heterosexuals feel love and contentment and fulfillment in their spouses, but homosexuals can only feel a pale imitation of that.  "Playing house" as the homophobic science fiction writer Orson Scott Card once put it.  Heterosexuals feel deep and profound grief at the loss of a spouse,  but homosexuals can only try to mimic grief at best.  So we cannot rip apart everything in their lives they ever held dear, because they don’t really hold those things dear…not the way we do.  Homosexuals don’t love, they just have sex.

It’s how anti gay prejudice becomes it’s own unstoppable machine, grinding up the lives of innocent people while others who fancy themselves decent and compassionate and thoughtful citizens look sadly on, as though watching the fate of dogs that have to be put down because they’re so sick.  Oh how…unfortunate…for them…  If you think that the only wrong done to Jason Johnson was being expelled from his school, you’re missing the graver injury done to his person, and right at the very core of his being.  To see it, all you have to do is be able to see the person for the homosexual.  Let me try to explain to the Prathers of the world how horrible that "beautiful response" actually is. 

Picture the first time you fell in love.  Picture that amazed, wonderful feeling.  One day, life just seemed more wonderful, more intense, more amazing then you’d ever dreamed it could be.  The sun shone a little brighter on everything around you then it did before.  The stars seemed to shine more intensely.  Everything old seemed new again.  Life was beautiful.  It was worth living no matter how hard or desperate it got.  Everything that ever happened to you was worth it, because it brought you to that moment, and that person.  Everything that ever Could happen to you from then on was worth it, so long as a certain person was there, so long as you could see them smile.  Because whenever they smiled, you smiled.

I remember it well.  When I was a teenager I used to listen to all the pop culture love songs of the sixties and early seventies on my radio, and never really understood what they were about, until I fell in love myself, with a male classmate.  I remember hearing this song on my radio one day, I’d heard it countless times before and I didn’t like it at all because it was it was slow, it had no beat, it was just some gooey sugary love song and whenever one of those came on I would reach for the tuning knob and try to find something else I could rock to, and this time when it came on I sat and listened, and began to cry…because I knew exactly how the person who wrote it felt…because it said it all about what I was feeling then…

Today I feel like pleasing you more than before
Today I know what I want to do but I don’t know what for
To be living for you is all I want to do
To be loving you it’ll all be there when my dreams come true
Today you’ll make me say that I somehow have changed
Today you’ll look into my eyes, I’m just not the same
To be anymore than all I am would be a lie
I’m so full of love I could burst apart and start to cry
Today everything you want, I swear it all will come true
Today I realize how much I’m in love with you
-Jefferson Airplane, Today

Homosexuals mate to their own sex.  That we do doesn’t take from us any of the higher emotions heterosexuals are capable of expressing to their mates, or of their unions.  We love.  We honor.  We cherish.  Til death do us part.  We are capable of great sacrifice for the honor of our love.  We are capable of great joy in that love.  Our unions are as life affirming to us as yours are to you.  The only difference between us is that we mate to our own sex.  You can’t take the homosexuality out of a homosexual, otherwise the snake oil salesmen of the ex-gay ministries would have thousands of happy heterosexuals to show as proof, instead of one paid staff member after another who proudly proclaims their heterosexuality only to get caught in a gay bar months or years later.  We are what we are. 

You can make us ashamed of ourselves.  You can make us hate ourselves.  You can make us terrified of the slightest shred of sexual arousal.  But you can’t make us heterosexuals because we aren’t.  What you Can do, is take all the higher aspects of love and devotion away from us.  All the romance.  All the poetry.  All the honor and devotion.  All the awe and all the joy and all the wonder.  You can take that from us.  You can drain our lives of every last drop of it.  But when you do we are still homosexuals, and all you have done is leave us empty human shells with sexual needs that won’t go away. 

And that’s exactly what you do, every time you tell a gay kid that his feelings for his first love are sin.  You convince him of it, and you literally leave him with nothing left in his life but mindless loveless lust.  That’s what you’re calling beautiful.

I’m not going to argue theology with anyone.  If you’ve got yourself locked into a relentless fundamentalist religiosity that insists that every last comma and period in the King James bible Must be literally true or you’re not a faithful Christian, then I guess the universe really was created in six days and is about six thousand years old and women suffer the pains of childbirth for the sin of Eve.  And if that’s what you believe then all I have to say to you is: Get the fuck off my back! 

I’m not going to argue about whether or not we have a choice.  That argument is over and done with for everyone except bigots and religious fanatics for whom no science could ever be enough to change their minds.

Here’s what I have to say about the case of Jason Johnson and forgiveness of sin: it doesn’t matter if you don’t mean to hurt anyone, if you won’t stop hurting them!  And one other thing, which was said more eloquently by another man, dealing in his own blunt way with another mindless human prejudice that was, and still is, tearing away at innocent people’s lives…

If you stick a knife nine inches into my back and pull it out three inches,
that is not progress. Even if you pull it all the way out, that is not progress.
Progress is healing the wound…
-El Hajj Malik El Shabazz (Malcolm X)

Forgiveness.  The biggest problem I have with Christianity, the reason I could never go back to it, is forgiveness.  Christ would tell me I have to forgive.  I know that.  I just can’t.  But maybe if I saw a serious start in this country at healing the wound I could try. 

This week’s cartoon. 

More about PFOX’s war on gay youth in our schools later, when I’ve caught up a bit…