You Can’t Change What I Never Chose

Samuel describes his brutal experience with ex-gay therapy. Part one:

 

Part two:

 

 

Jim Burroway reflects on the videos:

The sad tragedy to all of this is that Sam’s story is both unique and not uncommon. There’s hardly a month that goes by that I don’t get an email from someone asking for advice. Either they are trying to recover from an ex-gay experience or, more commonly, a friend or relative asks what they should do when someone they know enters some kind of “treatment” program. These are hard stories to deal with, but one good resource is Beyond Ex-Gay, a network of ex-gay survivors. It’s not only for survivors themselves, but also their families and friends. I know that they have provided valuable support to those who are coming out of the ex-gay experience.

via Joshua Kundert.

Putting on my Christian hat for a minute, there is just no theological defense for torture in the name of ex-gay “therapy”. It has been generally accepted that the Spanish Inquisition was a bad idea, and that saving people’s soul’s via pain and suffering was not what Jesus intended.

Also, the only theological grounding I can think of for disowning a loved one is if you fear their influence might lead you into sin. Unless parents are afraid their kids are going to turn them gay, I can’t fathom how they can justify cutting a child out of their lives.

EDIT: To clarify (for those who don’t know me well), I personally do not consider homosexuality to be wrong. The above is an exercise in trying, and failing, to understand how even someone with a fundamentalist Christian framework can justify brutal and unloving treatment of gay children.