I took a fare to a newish gay bar last night; he'd been to Utah before and wanted to know the scene besides "The Trapp" (owned by my friend, Joe Redburn). About my age, he insisted he liked both boys and girls; asked if I was straight (I am), but he certainly seemed gay to me. The trip was fresh in my mind when I saw this link in today's NY Times...

I have no opinion on this subject matter other than a firm conviction Michael Glatze is seriously deluding himself...

I'm hopeful people will follow this story because I believe, in the long run, he will serve the cause of enlightenment on the subject. Of course, I think it will be a situation analogous to alcoholics--and some misguided professionals who encourage them--who claimed to be "cured."

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/19/magazine/my-ex-gay-friend.html?src=me&ref=general

Some extracts... First, about his "conversion,"

>“Homosexuality came easy to me, because I was already weak,” he wrote in the opening line of an article for the far-right Web site, WorldNetDaily.com. He went on to renounce his work at XY and Y.G.A. “Homosexuality, delivered to young minds, is by its very nature pornographic,” he claimed. In a second WorldNetDaily article a week later, he said that he was “repulsed to think about homosexuality” and that he was “going to do what I can to fight it.”

The Mormon connection...

>Michael soon moved out of the Halifax house he shared with his boyfriends and sequestered himself in an apartment across town. He said he then briefly joined the Mormon Church, heartened by promises from several Mormon men he befriended that they would help him “find a wife.” (Michael left the church a short time later after deciding that Mormons “didn’t agree with the Bible.”)

A genuine barf bag moment...

>But even as he rejected anti-gay theology, Michael’s political views began shifting rightward: he spoke glowingly about Ann Coulter, and in a Time cover article in 2005 about gay teenagers he said: “I don’t think the gay movement understands the extent to which the next generation just wants to be normal kids. The people who are getting that are the Christian right.”

You can read the rest yourself and form your opinions...

>As I drove back to my hotel that night, I wondered if I would ever hear from Michael again. Might he call me someday to say that he was gay after all, and that his years as an ex-gay were just another pit stop in his lifelong pursuit of truth? It’s possible, but I doubt it will happen anytime soon. For an ex-gay intent on staying that way, there are few safer places in the world than a Bible school in Wyoming. The country’s least-populous state — where Matthew Shepard was murdered and left to die on a rural fence post, and where two fictional cowboys fell in love on Brokeback Mountain but never allowed themselves a life together — is also a state without a gay bar. My old friend, it seems, has picked the perfect place to go straight.

He must be deluded.

I don't understand why as an "ex-gay" he needs to come out and bash gays. If they don't want to live the "gay lifestyle" (I hate that term)--it is up to them, but why do they have to bash other gays? I'm ALWAYS suspicious when someone starts bashing gays no matter who they are.

I feel for whoever he decides to date or marry.

We can choose to be whoever we want to be, but when who we really are comes into conflict with who we choose to be, look out. Playing dress up won't make you gay, just as playing straight won't make you hetero. I'm sure the "ex-gay" friend will eventually find an appropriate time to be honest with himself and others.