DSA Growing Strong!
7 years ago
Saturday, March 31, 2007
Can"Ex-Gays" Change?
John Smid, President of 'Love in Action', the Memphis-based religious ministry that claims to help people struggle with homosexuality to change their sexual identity, responded to my Memphis Flyer Viewpoint Column in this weeks Memphis Flyer Letter to the Editor. Yes, unlike many in the gay community, I support the right of people who do not want to be "gay" for religious reasons to seek help to change their sexual identity and try to adopt a "straight" identity and live a "straight" lifestyle according to their religious beliefs. What I DO NOT support is forcing people, especially young people, into these programs against their will, which has happened recently in Love in Action. And groups like Love in Action and Exodus International often go beyond their religious ministries and mission and provide political support to groups who want to deny civil rights to gays and lesbians. So John, I will support your right to choose to be "straight" if you will support the rights of those of us who choose to live a happy healthy gay life. I hope you will not impose your religious beliefs upon us or deny us OUR right to choose.
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3 comments:
I agree with you! I can't believe the extent that some people go to. It's wrong to force what you believe on someone else.
This was an interesting article, Jim. I don't agree with many of your conclusions, primarily because I have a preference for harder science...and the jury dealing with hard science on this issue is still out...pardon the pun.
I was also a bit confused about your statement that there had not always been homosexual or heterosexual people. Certainly our current social construct of "gay identity" is barely 100 years old, but we have plenty of archeological evidence extant in the form of ancient art and texts that tell us these behaviors and preferences existed.
I think the primary differnce has to do with how each previous culture perceived and dealt with homosexuality. And that is where we are running into problems today with the RR's failure to adequately deal with their cognitive dissonance in the face of a changing world.
I agree that it is neither here nor there regarding the choice/not choice issue. Using science for defence of either stance is premature at this point.
I, personally, haven't met any gays living as straights that I would consider well-adjusted happy people. They have all been sadly tortured individuals. That is my anedotal experience. My concern for the youths begins much sooner than when they are forced into some sort of program like Exodus.
By fostering such ideas from the cradle, these churches are encouraging suicide, self-medication and self-hatred in their GLBT children and by extention, violent criminal behavior and a predilection for persecution in their straight kids.
I don't think I said that there haven't always been "homosexual" or "heteroseuxal" people, I thought I said there have not always been "gay" people. As you say, there have not always been "gay" people since a gay identity is a relatively modern construction. I'm a little less certain myself on the social constuction of "homosexuality", I'm not sure myself what "homosexuality" and "sexual orientation" signify beyond the 19th century medicalization and categorization of sexual desire. Yes, same-sex desire and relations have probably existed throughout human history, but I don't think societies have always distinguished between what we call "homosexual" and "heteroseuxal" people. There are many examples of cultures where same-sex sexual relations were integrated into the culture (ancient Greece and some "primitive" cultures) in some manner (usually inter-generational and pederastic). So I guess I would have to say that there not always been "homsexual" and "heterosexual" or "gay" and "straight" people, these are all modern social constructions. I'm not saying that everyone and anyone can choose their sexual orientation, some may and can, but that doesn't mean "sexual orientation" (i.e., sexual attraction/desire) is an innate biological condition. I'm trying to make a SOCIOLOGICAL argument. One of the hardest things to teach in sociology is that many of our social identities are created by social forces beyond our control, we are productes of a culture and a society and we have to interact within society and social groups. Or as Marx and others have said: "people make history, but not under conditions of their own choice or making"
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