'Ex-Gay' Movement: Weaker By the Minute

I don't understand why we celebrate repentant ex-gays. We craft a sort of role model out of someone who decided they didn't want to be gay anymore, and in some cases became a prominent spokesman against gay issues, and who fought very publicly for sometimes as many as 20 years to deny being gay. I'm not saying ex-gays don't deserve acceptance. They do and should be welcomed. But, like career-impaired actors who finally come out of the closet and get hoisted up onto cars at PRIDE parades, it's the praise for finally coming around that feels odd to me. It's like falling in love with someone when you are a teenager and having him date everyone else available before coming back to you middle aged and saying 'I've tried everyone else. Nothing else lasted. Let's get married.' Umm, thanks. Glad to have you back? Let's wait before sending out the invites.

Wow. Robert Duvall, you speak like a extreme conservative right-winger! Executing someone who does not agree with you (or me)? That is the exact thing said by folks who misunderstand the LGBTQ community about our LGBTQ friends. Hatred is hatred, whether the flag is red, blue or rainbow, my friend. Stop the immaturity. It does not help anyone.

What's Maurice Bachamann going to do?

Superior? You mean superior like how the Nazis believed that white people are superior over other races? Or perhaps how European knew they were superior over the indigeous peoples with their manifest destiny and at the time there highly advanced technology of weaponry, medicine, transportation and the list goes on...? Hmmm, maybe you've got at point there.

Gays are superior in many ways to straights. We're certainly more creative, and usually dance better. Why would one want to be straight??

In other words, priests that are not allowed to marry or have sex, are forced into homosexuality by the church. It's NEVER good to mix homosexuals with pedophiles! Homosexuals, myself included, despise pedophiles!! BTW, if homosexuality is 'unnatural', celibacy is 1,000,000 times MORE unnatural, in ANY species, INCLUDING HUMANS!! What does that say about any church that requires celibacy??

While I can appreciate your passion, I have to point out that there is indeed a difference between having 'same-sex attractions' and being 'gay.' That's why queer (when reclaimed and redefined as simply not'heterosexual') can be a useful term. 'Gay' is a term (and sometimes a community) that many of us don't identify with, despite the fact that we are not 'straight'. It's possible that for the particular people being interviewed (or interrogated) admittance is accurate because they feel guilty about it and would rather deny or ignore their desire for people of the same sex.

Side B, or celibate, behavior is considered homosexuality by ex-gay ministries because it acknowledges gay identity- that it's like 'diet homosexuality'.

Kurt, I see your point, but saying, 'The Advocate using the language of bigotry' and, 'attempt at identity-genocide by the extreme-right crazies' is silly. Relax, dude. Did you ever stop to think that the people who are denying themselves the satisfaction of a natural relationship feel that saying they are still gay is 'admitting' something for them? They do feel guilty for being gay. They certainly shouldn't, but they do. I read that sentence as from the point of view of these unhappy souls. I hope this crazy 'therapy' fades away quickly since it's just shit.

I'm very disappointed to see The Advocate using the language of bigotry in the sentence which includes: '...admit that they still have same-sex attractions, they just deny themselves the satisfaction of gay relationships...' What in the world is the phrase 'same-sex attractions', other than an attempt at identity-genocide by the extreme-right crazies? Isn't 'same-sex attractions' what sane people call being gay? Since when is gay something you 'admit', as if you were guilty of something? If the sentence fragment read '...acknowledge that they are still gay, they just deny themselves the satisfaction of gay relationships...' is the whole sentence more or less accurate? More or less slanted? More or less insulting? I think you know the answers and I assume you won't use that phrase again.