Ex-gay? Fine by me; just leave me alone while you do it

I’m pretty sure I’ve said it here on the blog before, and I know for certain that I’ve said it publicly in conversations with friends and colleagues:

If you are gay and want to change your sexual orientation to straight, fine by me… so long as you don’t force or try to coerce me into doing the same.

Mother Jones has an article up detailing how some new studies may say that sexual orientation is more fluid that many have previously thought. They include, at the beginning, an interview with a man who says he used to be gay, but isn’t anymore. The good thing about that, is that I get the feeling the gentleman did it just for himself and no one else. In his own words, “The important thing is that ‘now I like myself. I’m not emotionally shut down. I’m comfortable in my own body. I don’t have to be drawn to men anymore. I’m content at this point to lead an asexual life, which is what I’ve done for most of my life anyway.’”

Now, I’m not in this gentleman’s head. I really don’t know what he is thinking or why exactly he felt the need to change himself, but he did. At the same time, he isn’t preaching that anyone else should be forced to change (or, at least, forced to feel as though they should). He did it because it was the right thing for him.

Now… if that was the kind of “ex-gay” therapy that mosts “reparative therapies” engaged in, then I wouldn’t have a problem. If people felt as though they needed to change just because being gay didn’t feel like them - and that feeling wasn’t based on some internalized, deep-seeded prejudice or bigotry - then all is okay. I don’t really care.

What bugs me are those people who seek to want to force others to feel as though they should change… You know who I’m talking about: The Religious Right, Exodus International, so on and so on. Those groups attempt to tell all gay people that they should and can always change if only they tried hard enough and because God really wants them to.

B.S. on all that. Me being gay is something that is a part of me. I feel it in my mind, my body and my soul. It doesn’t hurt me and it doesn’t hurt anyone else and it isn’t making me a crazy person. It isn’t a disease and there is nothing wrong with me just because I happen to be gay.

But the Right doesn’t get that. I sometimes doubt if they ever will.

You want to be an ex-gay? Okay. Whatever. I wish you luck… but don’t come around to me telling me that just because you did it, that I have to do it, too.

UPDATE:  I just received a message from a colleague, well-versed in ex-gay matters, that the point of view offered up in that Mother Jones article wasn’t based on any good science. He says there might be an agenda hidden in it.

PS - Our new contributor, my good friend Brian Murphy, wrote a good piece on Senator Larry Craig. Check it out.

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Posted in Anti-LGBT, Ex-gay, LGBT, Religion, Sexuality, United States |