If an exgay activist posts a profile on the youth-oriented Myspace web site, this is euphemistically called “evangelism.”
If a gay Christian posts a profile at the same site, it’s likely to be called “homosexual recruitment.”
But isn’t exgay activism sometimes a form of sexual recruitment into celibacy, unhappy marriage, or secretive sexual encounters?
And aren’t some gay people of faith, in fact, evangelists for a God that loves all of humanity?
Where can one draw appropriate distinctions between “evangelism” and “recruitment”? Is it ever fair to accuse anyone of recruitment?
Does anyone know who runs, and, more importantly funds, “myspace.com”? It might very well be one of the conservative christian operations. I’ve only recently heard of it, and I’ve been on the Internet for a decade.
I posted this article (link below) in a YahooGroup news compilation just this week regarding a book review of Created Equal: Why Gay Rights Matter to AmericaHomosexual Recruitment vs. Heterosexual Recruitment(Book Notes: Created Equal)From Austin ClineYour Guide to Agnosticism / Atheism.About.comJanuary 04, 2006An article / book excerpt excerpt is as follows:Why, one must ask, if heterosexuality is “natural,” is all this effort being expended to promote it? Is it because what is being promoted is not natural sexuality but a form of social organization that excludes those to whom its promotions are not addressed?The anti-gay right, oddly enough, understands this as most of the heterosexual world does not. The theory of “homosexual recruitment” advanced by them to oppose gay and lesbian rights rests on the premise that sexual desire is amorphous and can be channeled into homosexuality as easily as into heterosexuality. Thus, because anti-gay rightists believe that “the homosexual lifestyle is based on the recruitment and exploitation of vulnerable young men,” homosexuality must be suppressed to save all those sad young men.In fact, however, heterosexuals are not recruited by homosexuals; rather, homosexuals are recruited by heterosexuals almost from the moment they are born. The homosexual recruitment fantasy is simply one more instance of how heterosexuals project their own behavior onto the victims of that behavior as a justification for persisting in it.Authors Nava and Dawidoff argue further that the only “recruitment” going on is being done by the Christian Right. This might be an interesting read on “heterosexual recruitment.”
Homosexual recruitment, as described by the “Right Wing (alleged christian) folks is so ridiculous. We (gays) do not need to recruit to “increase our ranks” so to speak, all we have to do is sit back and let the heterosexual breeders continue to supply us with more gays. As they have done for centuries past, they will continue to do for centuries to come.
Thanks for that link Autumn – absolutely fascinating analysis – something I had never thought of. Certainly it is ironic that the anti-gay right consistently fights GSAs in high schools because they are there to “recruit” or “lure” impressionable youngsters into the “homosexual lifestyle,” yet the entire reason schools are legally required to allow GSAs is because Congress specifically wrote legal language to ensure that “Good News” clubs and other evangelical “Christian” teen groups could operate in schools. If you accept that homosexuality is innate, but understand that religion is a choice, it is pretty clear who is recruiting and who is not.
Thanks for that link Autumn – absolutely fascinating analysis – something I had never thought of. Certainly it is ironic that the anti-gay right consistently fights GSAs in high schools because they are there to “recruit” or “lure” impressionable youngsters into the “homosexual lifestyle,” yet the entire reason schools are legally required to allow GSAs is because Congress specifically wrote legal language to ensure that “Good News” clubs and other evangelical “Christian” teen groups could operate in schools. If you accept that homosexuality is innate, but understand that religion is a choice, it is pretty clear who is recruiting and who is not.
“Why, one must ask, if heterosexuality is “natural,” is all this effort being expended to promote it?”.
I can’t get over the hypocrisy of so many Christians when they say people are naturally heterosexual and being gay is a choice. If being gay is a choice then its perfectly natural for some people to make that choice and its one we’d find to be highly susceptible to outside influence, it is not. If people were naturally heterosexual, they wouldn’t be able to make the “choice” to be gay, there wouldn’t be any gays at all.
Having done ministry, I can tell you that the prevailing religious view is that heterosexuality is the norm. Everyone is born as heterosexual. Therefore, homosexuality is a perversion and must be recruited into. It is not something natural according to such thinking, so it can only come from one thing. Many religious people find the comment that one remembers sexuality as a child to be a lie or fake memories. Nevertheless, it is very easy to break down these arguments. Some may continue to try to hold them and shut down the argument to save their views.
I was shocked one day because I was reading Thomas Sowells’ writings (a prominent conservative), and I thought he was being a fairly rational person until I read his anti-gay rantings about recruitment. He would not back up his assertions. What is really troubling is that some people will even support gay people, but they will recoil in horror if gays are mentioned in relation to schools–as if deep underneath there is a belief that recruitment has some truth. Having worked in education for years, most educators go out of their way to be thoughtful and not offend the sensibilities of the students and families. Any addressing of gay issues generally comes in the issue of stopping bullying. I have not seen it addressed in any other case. In my college classes, when we discuss argument, gay marriage will often come up, but students will sometimes think I am very neutral or negative towards the concept. Recruitment is a silly idea, but it still persists sadly.
Aaron Race at January 7, 2006 02:11 PM
Having done ministry, I can tell you that the prevailing religious view is that heterosexuality is the norm.
This is where language is important. Heterosexuality is (or appears to be) the usual. Just as right-handedness is the usual Norm? What does that mean? It used to be that people who were left-handed were punished for their “affliction.”
Different casts of bees have “norms.” Are the people who complain about “norms” supposted to suggest that people are supposed to act like bees?
BTW, I have read more than a few of Sowell’s commentaries and have come to the conclusion that he’s a nut.
Hey,
Thanks for the link to my site. I will put a link back to exgaywatch in the next day or two.
Brad 🙂
I looked at this very thing when I wrote Gay Evangelism on my blog.
“From having been an Evangelical, Born-Again, Pentacostal, Conservative Christian, I think I understand why the Religious Right slanders the queer community. They look at the world through their own world-view. They want to convert the whole world, so they assume the rest of us want to do the same thing.
As an Evangelical, I was taught that my highest call was to share the Gospel of Jesus in hopes of leading many to Christ. At school, on the job, in my neighborhood, I was on the prowl to “save souls”. My church gave me license to exploit any opportunity “for the Kingdom”. I was in a life and death struggle to rescue people from the devil’s clutches.”
Peterson
Peterson, you touch on an interesting point.
I think we have all at some point known someone who thought they had an enemy. Perhaps it was a co-worker or an ex-friend. But this person was constantly in battle against the enemy. And with time we came to realize that the “enemy” barely knew the person existed and expended no time on the “battle” whatsoever. It was all just delusion.
I think this may be in some ways similar to the actions and mindset of conservative Christians. They are convinced that “secular humanists” (and especially homosexual activists) are trying to destroy Christianity. When, for the most part, no one gives them a thought.
Sometimes Christian activists get so cought up in the “battle against sin” that they don’t realize that they are the agressors and that if they would stop there would be no battle at all.
Other than the occasional extremist nut, No one is trying to do away with Christmas. No one is trying to shut down churches. No one is trying to silence pastors. No one is trying to stop some kid from saying grace over his school lunch.
And no one is trying to convert their kids into homosexuality.
Another thought:
If we had to rely on some recruitment program to have a gay community, it would have died out long ago. It’s hard enough getting someone to write an email to their legislator, much less put in the hours it would take to recruit someone.
Peterson Toscano at January 7, 2006 05:34 PM
At school, on the job, in my neighborhood, I was on the prowl to “save souls”.
A number of years ago on the Internet it became evident to me that conservative christians didn’t particularly care about one’s corporeal body, they were out to save some incorporeal soul. The fact that this incorporeal soul could not be–or at least has not been–detected is another reason why I have rejected christianity.
Reading over the comments to the original Mike Airhart thread entry, it seems like documenting how the ex-gay movement recruits members could be a valuable exercise. I remember in the late seventies being a part of a “Hermosa Beach Out Reach Project” that was a southern California, Evangelical ‘witnessing’ project. As part of the program I learned how to witness to total strangers using the Four Spiritual Laws tract. I had an assignment to literally ‘formulate’ a testimony. The testimony — which in my case was an ‘ex-transvestite’ testimony had to be formulated to make a three point message: 1.) How miserable my life was without Jesus, 2.) my conversion (how I came to ‘accept Jesus into my heart’), and 3.) how I was ‘saved’ from sin and how my life was ‘more abundant’ after ‘accepting Jesus into my heart.’ This testimony was to be used to try and convert folk into evangelical Christianity. It does seem to me that the ex-gay movement’s ex-gay-person participation model in many ways mimics the “conversion” and “witnessing” models I experienced in that project back in the late seventies. A person is to convert from being gay, and then to proselytize others so that they too can be ‘saved’ from being gay. Not everyone follows the rules and proselytizes, but the ones who are held up as models to others are the ones who proselytize.Documenting how the ex-gay movement recruits members could be a valuable to point out that evangelical Christian organizations use ex-gays to recruit for ‘heterosexuality’ in a very highly organized way.
Oh, I said that long ago about who is aggressively recruiting who.
But I’m glad it’s being reiterated here.
And I’ll say this again. Jews and gays are unique minorities in the world.
Constantly under threat and chronically being forced to renounce what they are to the hetero or a religious majority for whatever reason.
The world does not need less Jews or less homosexuals.
The world is yet still grossly ignorant and fearful of these minorities, so the need is greater still of the access to and understanding of said minorities.
We’ll never know them, if they aren’t here.
And the message, over and over and over again from Creation, is TO KNOW THEM.
Because to know…is a door to love.
Many opportunities to do that, has been generous from all Creation and is everywhere.
So why be afraid or to conceited to know more when there is more to know?
And homosexuality or homosexuals isn’t the worst thing that could happen to an individual or society.
Neither is being Jewish.
My sister in law converted to Judaism from being raised Catholic, because her husband is Jewish and for their only child and son to be so, must be through his mother.
One is accepted in this way, but Jews do not prostlytize or assume one isn’t godly because one hasn’t claimed an affiliation of one kind or another.
Even the matrilineal line of cultural connection is archaic, but it’s not harmful to have this tradition.
And it might change eventually.
But being homosexual crosses all color, cultural, family, economic and geographical lines.
The fact that we’re not generally and easily used to gay people still is the point.
Because we all should be by now.
This is an indigenous human quality after all.
And I have talked about how ‘making mention’ of one’s gay orientation is spoken of by anti gay groups as ‘promotion’ of homosexuality.
It’s nothing of the kind, but an acknowledgement of reality.
Heterosexual obfuscation is promoted as truth, and gay honesty is spoken of as a lie or threat to society as we know it.
Language, it’s concision and how it’s used to gain power and be cruel, has been one sided.
And laziness on the part of who is being addressed, seems to be making all the difference in discerning what’s really going on.
Peterson reminded me of what Jamiel says.
That the mission of evangelicals, or any other Christian is to save souls, and pull their fellow human beings from the Pit.
However, in a plural society…it’s more appropriate so share this belief, than decide that another person SHOULD HAVE this belief and force them directly or indirectly in to living that belief while withholding basic freedoms unless and until that person DOES follow that belief.
Such as threat to gay people’s freedoms and happiness unless and until they live like heteros or are celibate, for example.
No federal case is being made or acted on to ban those of even criminal character or less ethical motives to be unable to marry or have children however many times they wish, based on Biblical or especially basic ethical objections to those person’s behavior.
One need not be religious or studied in any religion to understand their responsibilities as a citizen.
But sharing one’s cultural or family situation is most natural and encouraged.
It’s one thing to just state who and what you are.
It’s another to say ‘I think you should be like me and do what I do…or God and I will hate you.’
That, in itself, is a prejudice. An assumption that what you are is worthless, or will be punished.
But they don’t leave the punishment or isolation to God. It’s human beings that claim custody of that.
And this is precisely why the Constitution and Bill of Rights states plainly that no law can be made to favor a single religion, or give favored status to religious people.
Their belief system has already proven to be deadly and dangerous, let alone unfair to other human beings.
And continues to be to homosexual people in particular now.