So says Alan Chambers, the president of Exodus International, the group that helps gays and lesbians “leave homosexuality.” Anti-gay religious “leaders” and their nutjob followers point to groups like Exodus and to ex-gays like Chambers as proof that no one has to be gay. If we just dedicate our lives to Christ and pray our little gay hearts out Jesus will heal us and transform us… into what exactly? Not into straight people, Chambers admits in his new book Leaving Homosexuality. Chambers struggled with his homosexuality for twenty years, he says, and he’s free now… not straight, mind you. Just, you know, free:
For so long I’ve heard gay activists say to me, “You’re just in denial. You’re not grasping the reality of the situation. You’re just denying who you really are.” The truth is, I am in denial, but it is self-denial. I’m not in denial of who I used to be. I’m not in denial of the temptations that I could still experience. I am denying the power that sin has over me. Sin does not have any power that we don’t give it, and what I’ve found is that my freedom—and the freedom of others I’ve known who’ve left homosexuality—was centered around denying what might come naturally to us regardless of how it got there. And once you deny sin’s power, you can live a free life.
So… I can dedicate my life to Christ and in twenty years or so the amazingly awesome power of Christ’s love will turn me back into the miserable and tortured closet case I was in middle school? Or I can keep having sex with this amazingly hot guy who was fool enough to marry my sorry ass? Gee… let me think about that for a second. And while I contemplate my options please enjoy Queerty’s thoughts on Chambers…
[Chambers is] perfectly suited to write, unconvincingly, about the subject of how he learned to reject his same-sex attractions over twenty years. Which sounds like the worst use of time spent on earth, well, ever…. But here’s the rub: It’s not that we’ve got anything wrong with Chambers decision to deny himself the pleasure of being gay. That’s his call, and however ridiculous we find it, it’s a personal decision we wouldn’t want anyone telling us we don’t have the right to make.
Where we fault Chambers, though, is through his work with Exodus: Advocating adults and young people (and their families) disavow the way their creator made them for a life of hating yourself so a man on a cross won’t send you to hell. This man does not teach love and prosperity; he prescribes dangerous advice for malleable minds.
Okay, I’ve thought about it and I’m gonna to stick with—and occasionally to—the boyfriend. And may I add that Chambers’ definition of “ex-gay” is more elastic than a power bottom’s bottom. An ex-gay, according to Chambers, still wants to sleep with men. He just refrains from having sex with men. So technically I’ve been ex-gay all morning. Not straight, of course, because nothing can make me straight—not even Almighty Gawd—but so long as I don’t have a dick in my mouth I am, according to Chambers, totally not gay. See how that works?
UPDATE: And if the opposite of homosexuality isn’t heterosexuality, but holiness, what is the opposite of heterosexuality? It can’t be homosexuality, right? Would the opposite of heterosexuality be eeeevil? Or what? And it’s really too bad that “an abundance of holes” isn’t an alternate definition for holiness.
Thank you for responding, Marlin.
I’ve sent, “Crisis: 40 Stories Revealing the Personal, Social, and Religious Pain and Trauma of Growing up Gay in America”, to a friend and pastor along with information on how churches and ex-gay programs could be sued for the pain they inflict. The local church, where my friend was on staff, was entertaining bring an ex-gay ministry to meet with some young people who came out recently. The church didn’t start the program, I’d like to think it was because some of us stood up, but I fear the present economic crisis and potential for lawsuit (via Lambda Legal) were the real reasons.
Thank you for sharing your perspective. I hope your story will help others.
I wish you peace, joy, love, and justice. Keep up the good fight and cherish yourself.
Take care.
Marlin,
Sorry, just one more thing. You’re correct, I’ll never understand what you have been through. You’re not alone, many of us have had terrible things done to us. Me, a period of my childhood would have given Dan Savage a blog post for “Every Child Deserves a Mother and a Father”. We’re the same age, I had to decide that I wasn’t going to let the abuse I suffered define me anymore. I decided that I was more resilient than that. I had to get help to do it, but I did it.
Anyway, you’re too young and you have to much to offer this world.
Take care.
FYI — Not that it is a big difference. I am 46. I came out four years ago. Have dated a bit, and found that most people find me too strange LOL. I won’t go into details, but lets just say that after a certain age, with certain messed up thinking, it ain’t easy to be the kind of person people want to love.
I am a kind giving person. I do volunteer work. I read and write for fun (notice hobbies tend to be loner hobbies LOL.) I work as a school teacher (living out, with criticism from my administration and parents, but hoping that another young person won’t live in the isolation I did, because I didn’t know there were other gay people.). I do some activist work in the community. I go to the gayborhood in my area a couple of times a week (but joke that I am the invisible man). So I am not in total isolation.
But four years of rejection, and not being able to move to intimacy, makes one wonder how screwed up one is. LOL. I made the decisions that got me here. I will hopefully make the decisions that will one day have better results. I don’t blame Christianity for those decisions. I just would love to find a way from keeping others from making the same decisions, that bring about the same results. I haven’t given up hope completely — just not as hopeful as I was four years ago when I came out of the closet.
Marlin:
I am so sorry you were brainwashed by Christians: it was caried out by evil and vile people. And I too hope it never happens to anyone else ….
Have you considered counselling? With someone who is familiar with gay issues?
And please don’t give up hope of finding love and intimacy: you are a wonderful person as evidenced by your being out. Wishing you a wonderful boyfriend and lots of supportive and loving friends.
So basically here are the things you need to do to pretend you’re not gay.
1. Embrace a religion that is in decline and pretend that 6 verses in the Bible really mean something to your eternal soul.
2. Shave your mohawk off.
3. Pretend you’re straight by wearing a hideous jacket and a tie that doesn’t match. You know how the gay guys will get all fashionista on you for that! Don’t try too hard now, you might just give someone a stroke with your color-blindness!
4. Try to explain that not having sex is holy.
5. Look so uptight that it seems like you have a pipe up your butt. Good memories, eh?
I’m not sure if this guy realizes how absolutely obvious he is. Too bad denial has a new definition-holiness. Interesting. I haven’t gotten laid in a couple weeks. I’m holy! Awesome!
What a load.
Cato, I’m very very sorry.
Marlin, like the others here, I wish you the very best in finding someone who loves and respects the whole you. I can’t imagine the damage that’s been done to you, but you’ve already taken the hardest step. Good luck.
On Topic: Ugh, this man is horrible. He looks so photoshopped waxy that he doesn’t even look real.
Also #36, I’m sorry, but homosexuality and alcoholism are not related to each other. Please stop confusing the two.
merlin..
while i’ve not experienced your particular pain, i spent enough time among fundamentalist evangelicals to brandish a few lasting scars of my own. i spent more than a few years of chasing and acquiring some healing in the process.i would echo what others have said. a combination of counseling , solid friendships and supports and an almost impossible patience have borne me the fruit of satisfying love and sex. and i believe , even as you may not, that the same may be had by you. there is no easy solution or fast track but it can happen for you. while i’ve been out of the closet for some decades now, i married my partner a month ago and i’m 55. the time it’s taken to get here has been hard and bitter at times but filled with great surprise and fulfillment. i wish you the same
..and cato…well again to echo what others have said here.i was quickly and deeply saddned by your story. that i managed to escape that fate is small solace for those that didn’t. thank you for telling it here.
I read on World Net Daily (I think it was) that Barack Hussein Obama was converted to homosexuality by Rev. Wright, which easily explains why he is anti-God, and wants to convert our children to homosexuality as well.
He could benefit from this program, and maybe he’d even release his birth ceritificate.
Wow Cato, that is an incredibly sad story. Organizations like this aren’t just silly things to make fun of; they’re really dangerous.
39, and 40. Thanks. Every time Dobson’s Crisco slathered hand squeezes Chambers’ prostate, Chambers opens his mouth and spouts ex-gay lies. You can barely see Dobson’s mouth moving.
Marlin, I’d suggest finding yourself a gay friendly psychologist to help you shake off the past, and get on with your with your new gay life.
@15:
the nerve endings , specifically built for pleasure, in the ass of all males, -gay, bi, asexual or straight-, are more numerous/powerful than women. Seems like a design feature to me, chief. If the creator designed the human body, he built the boys’ model double-duty like an SUV: happy to take people both in the front and/or back.
As far as sadist cruel jokester, uhm, yes: let me introduce you to the Old Testament?
Also; if the creator were putting out different models based on sexual orientation, and ,say, the straight male were to redesign the perfect body, it would include breasts to play with, no?
Wow, great comments. How truly sad to see someone so hate themselves that the only way they think they are complete is to deny themselves sexual pleasure. If you believe your God is perfect, then he created you the way you are Gay or Straight.
Since when was sexual preference binary? I’m not confused. I’m greedy.
I suspect that the ex-gay thing works for a tiny number of people much like anorexia works for a small number of people. Denying the bodily need for food or sex can produce a certain high, a certain screwed up sense of well-being that is tied into deprivation and control. He probably sees himself as healthy and in control. So does a 14 year old girl who purges.
Geekgirl — that is a wonderful analysis of one of the effects of that kind of control. The sense of well being and control is powerful. Sadly it also develops into a sense of pride that is a very bad human characteristic.
Hey Marlin,
Hope your having a good day.
I read that “holiness” as “loneliness” the first time through.
I stand by that reading.
Thanks Kim — It was okay — lunch with a friend — and lots and lots of reading and wring LOL.
I hope you had a good day also.
@66
What an insightful thought. I’ll keep that one in my bag o’ tricks. Thanks!
#7 “He looks really gay. You can tell by the look on his face that he’s craving the cock.”
I laughed so hard at that I thought I was gonna pee my pants. That’s the FIRST thing I thought when I was looking at his pic, without reading what/who he was: “That dude looks like a feh-ga-la!”….Nice jacket, “holy” man 😉
Well….his main problem is this.
He was gay and had sex with men.
He decided to stop and become deeply religious AND everyone he now hangs around with knows he used to fuck and get fucked by guys.
Most of the people around him are disgusted with gays and fear the consequences of even touching a gay person.
You try to find a chick that would have sex with you in that environment…especially if you look and dress like him.
Hey Marlin:
Thanks for your insightful post, particularly on the point of “finding happiness through suffering and denial”. It was only recently, that I realized that the fundy Christian’s obsession over abstinence and celibacy was more about trial through suffering than a sense of purity (I’m not sure which is worse).
I grew up in an extremely fundamentalist Christian town in the South. I also happen to be asexual. Not a big deal to anyone, you would think. Who cares? Weirdly enough, my fellow fundy classmates and youth ministers did. I always thought that with the never-ending obsession over virginity, that a 19 year old virgin would be off their radar. NO. It surprised me then, but I had fundies to the right and left of me wanting me to show in interest in the opposite sex, “You don’t have to have sex, you just need to feel that you want to, have sex to get married”. WTF??? Suddenly being a virgin is not okay? I didn’t get it.
Recently however, a fellow asexual shared this story for me–her Christian fundy sister claimed that you can only be a virgin, if you: WANT SEX, BUT DO NOT HAVE IT. So, in her sister’s and fellow fundies’ mindset, you can only be a holy blessed virgin/celibate if you actively have a sexual desire, which you must immediately suppress. (so according to them, asexuals, people with low sex drives, eunuchs, etc are never virgins even when they’ve never had sex). On an even odder note, with the Born Again Virgin movement, you can also have had sex, and now be a virgin–its all about the repression, baby!
So yeah, celibacy is all about some mind control/suppression shit. So long as anyone is a former gay, that’s fine in the fundy’s minds, because your sinful, dreadful homosexuality is something you get to suppress, and apparently makes you a morally superior person. Geekgirl is right–this is really a form of anorexia. Rather than letting a gay person just be, let’s make them repress their natural desires, and screw with their minds by telling them they’ll go to hell if they dare have a homosexual relationship. I guess we should all be thankful obesity was not open condemned in the Bible.
74:
Thanks for sharing.
This Chambers is an accessory to murder/suicied and should be in jail for life without parole.
Chambers seems miserable and you know the saying: “MISERY LOVES COMPANY”!