Late to the Revolution

Last week, The National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR) posted an open letter from 9 former “ex-gay” leaders in which they called for a ban on conversion therapy. On hearing about this letter, some have made it clear that they don’t trust these former leaders or that they find it hard to forgive them.

Maybe this is understandable. Alan Chambers offered a so-called apology for his leadership of Exodus International, the world’s largest “ex-gay” ministry, and shut the place down, but one could hardly claim that Chambers is now a supporter of LGBT rights.

However, I know some of these people who cosigned the letter. Four of them are on my Facebook friends list. And I believe they are the real deal. They no longer believe that being LGBT is a sin or that LGBTs can or should change, and I think they sincerely want to help us gain equality and acceptance.

I think we sometimes tend to forget how new the concept of LGBT equality is. Just a few years ago, states were still allowed to criminalize homosexual sex. When I was born in 1965, being attracted to your own sex was still considered a sickness, and those who experienced such attractions were considered a threat to society. We were thought of as degenerates, criminals and scum.

In this day and age, when Mat Staver claims that acceptance of homosexuality will lead to the destruction of civilization or when Linda Harvey claims that those nasty homos want to infiltrate schools so they can persuade kids to join the “homosexual lifestyle,” many of us laugh at their obvious absurdity, but not that long ago, their attitude was common and widespread.

While growing up, I heard the most vicious homophobic comments imaginable almost daily. The comments sometimes came from otherwise nice and friendly people. It wasn’t just the thugs who were against us. And there was nothing to counterbalance that hostile attitude. I knew no one who was out. Not one person. I rarely saw LGBT characters on TV shows or in movies or read about them in books.

And let’s keep in mind that there was a time when many of us wanted to be good little boys and girls. Many of us wanted to make our parents proud. Nearly everyone, at one time or another, has had disagreements with their parents, but only some of us have feared that we could risk losing our parents’ love, affection and support forever if we revealed who we really are. What a scary thing that is.

Many of us were taught that being LGBT was a horrible sin, an offense against God, and that those who were guilty of this sin are worthy of eternal damnation. Some of us found it hard to shake this belief. Some believed that if they accepted their sexuality, they would not only risk losing their families, but they could end up suffering in hell for eternity.

I believe that to risk offending your family in such a way that they might permanently reject you and to go against what you have been taught as a basic tenant of the faith you were raised in is a revolutionary act. I think it takes great courage to do this. I believe this so strongly that I wrote a novel about it, The Raven’s Sepulcher. (You can download it from Amazon or Smashwords if you care to read it. …I know that’s a shameless plug, but I’m like that. LOL)

I was never involved in any “ex-gay” or anti-gay organizations, but I was terribly afraid for anyone to find out about me for the longest time. I lived in fear. I’ve grown a lot over the years, but I think I still have a ways to go. I think I’m still recovering from the homophobia that was dumped on me when I was young. So I can understand why it took some of us a while to come around. I commiserate with those who had to struggle, and I’m happy to call some of them my friends.