However, one of the conference speakers, Exodus International president Alan Chambers, disagrees. "I myself was a homosexual man 15 years ago," he says, "and for over a decade now, I have been leading a heterosexual life. And it wasn't about me hating myself; it was about me wanting something different than what I found myself struggling with." [Agape Press]The "ex-gay" movement touts a party line basically claims that those who remain homosexual are really straight people who actively sublimate their feelings and desires for the opposite sex in order to reject G-d's word and fulfill their most base desires to commit sodomy (an act that is apparently acceptable when performed by a "good Christian man", even when it's not consensual). Despite this, I've noticed that the majority of ex-gays substantiate their claims by making statements about their conversion like Chambers' own comment above "I was homosexual then, but now I lead a heterosexual life."
Being heterosexual and leading a heterosexual life are not the same thing. For many years, most homosexuals were forced by society to hide in the closet and lead a socially acceptable heterosexual life (or at least provide the appearance of doing so) - that did not make them straight, it had them living a lie. In principle, they're much like the Crypto-Jews who were forced to feign Catholicism (those who escaped to places like England pretended to be Catholic or Protestant depending on who the crowned monarch was at the time, in other countries some were forced to adapt an appearance of being Muslim), yet they were still Jews most of whom secretly practiced their religion. Centuries later, there are still Catholic families (primarily of Spanish decent) who are finding out that some of their family religious traditions are the vestiges of those who were forced to convert, verifying that purporting to be something you're not and leading a life inconsistent with your nature does not mean you are what society demands you to be.
Tags: gay; ex-gay; politics; religion; something being imposed on the public; something else being imposed on the public; that code word for gay or Jew or whoever the fundies are hating on this weekSphere: Related Content
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