Straight and narrow: church's 'gay cure'
Kelly
London
Straight and narrow: church's 'gay cure'
Alarm raised over Memphis evangelicals' therapy
-Julian Borger in Memphis
Friday, August 26, 2005
Love in Action International stands on a bluff in north Memphis, the
steep roof of the ministry's angular modernist church offering itself as
a beacon of hope for the world's reluctant homosexuals.
That should include every gay man and lesbian on the planet, according
to the Reverend John Smid, the head of this evangelical group, whose
mission is to take gays and straighten them out.
"I hope we can help men and women overcome ... mindsets
counterproductive to their walk in Christ," Mr Smid said on a sweltering
Tennessee afternoon as he showed Love in Action supporters around the
new mission headquarters.
About two dozen mostly elderly wellwishers went on a tour of the
compound, the size of a small school.
One, Anne Layne, confided that her financial support for the group arose
from bitter experience. "My first husband just left me with two
children. I didn't even know he was gay."
Mr Smid left his wife and two daughters in 1980 in similar circumstances
- he had decided he was gay. The potted autobiography he hands out is
unusually graphic for a church document, revealing his former "addictive
habit of masturbation" and his homosexual experiences.
But after four years, Mr Smid had a religious epiphany and he was led
back to heterosexuality and marriage.
He attributes all of this confusion to his family life, his parents'
decision to park him with a relative amid their marital problems, and a
sexual advance from a "significant adult in my life" when he was 10.
Love in Action is built around bringing to light such childhood traumas.
"Homosexuality always comes out of a distorted view of oneself," he
said. So his mission in life is to uncross these wires with group
therapy and strict behaviour rules aimed at driving out the "false
images" homosexuals have of themselves. The rules run to 13 pages.
They call for "any temptations, fantasies, or dreams to be presented to
one's staff worker", and stipulate that "facial hair is banned on men
while women must shave their underarms at least twice weekly". Clothes
are even controlled (there's a ban on Abercrombie and Fitch, and Calvin
Klein brands).
The conversion style is widely known as "reparative therapy", and is
spreading around this increasingly evangelical country. While there is
one Anglican organisation for "ex-gays" in Britain, there are at least
120 in the US, says Exodus International, an "ex-gay" network.
Outside Washington, billboards show handsome, smiling men announcing
"Ex-gays prove that change is possible".
The booming business reflects a constant supply of unhappy people from
strict Christian households, whose sexual feelings clash with their
beliefs. Adult clients pay thousands of dollars in the hope of a "cure".
However, Mr Smid has provoked controversy by starting a programme for
teenagers who have been sent by parents to Love in Action - mostly
against their wishes.
One, Zach Stark, a disgruntled 16-year-old, went online with a cry for
help and ignited a national row. "It's like boot camp," he wrote in his
blog in May. "If I do come out straight, I'll be so mentally unstable
and depressed it won't matter."
His plight drew protests from gay activist groups, who demonstrated
outside Love in Action calling for his release, and inspired national
media stories. Zach's father, Joe, went on the Christian Broadcasting
Network to defend his decision to send his son there.
Mr Smid is unapologetic. "We believe it's the parent's responsibility to
intervene," he said, and claimed that only one of the 27 teenagers who
had taken part in the youth programme, Refuge, failed to finish the
course. Earlier this month, Zach posted another blog saying that he
"wasn't pressured into doing anything that would hurt me". Nothing was
heard from him again.
But now Tennessee state authorities are pursuing an inquiry into whether
Love in Action is selling therapy without properly licensed therapists.
Mr Smid has removed references to "therapy" and "treatment plan" from
his website but critics maintain his programme could be psychologically
damaging.
Jeff Harwood, a gay Christian who spent three years in Love in Action in
the 90s, said: "It was very emotional, digging up things you'd done ...
the more you [could] dig up, the more credit you [got]."
Mr Harwood came out of the programme believing himself "cured". He dated
a woman but the relationship fell apart and former impulses returned. He
reached a crisis. "I just said 'this is it'. God is nothing but a cosmic
sadist. I sat in my bathroom with a carving knife, wondering whether it
would be better to slit my wrists or cut off my genitals."
A friend talked him out of suicide and now, aged 41, he is reconciled
both to his homosexuality and Christianity. Of almost 40 "graduates" of
the Love in Action programme that he knows of, more than half are still
openly gay, and only 12% consider themselves ex-gay, he said.
Love in Action's figures differ. Gerard Wellman, 24, the ministry's
business administrator - and a "successful graduate" of the programme -
said that 70 % of graduates say "it works for them".
He added: "Homosexual describes behaviour, not people."
Others, however, claim they have been left unchanged or traumatised.
One, John, said he hated every moment of the programme. "You get
emotional in front of people you don't know. It was very Orwellian,
upsetting. They wanted to know all about my sexual incidents. They make
you go over an incident again and again. You obsess about things that
happened in your past. I don't know how anyone can do that to another
person."
<A
HREF="http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1556715,00.html">http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1556715,00.html</A>
A Hermaphrodite
jake
Thanks.
jake