A North Carolina couple, Jim and Beverly Burrows, have outed their son.
The boy attended a school seminar entitled The New Gay Teenager and, per the Burrows, consequently began questioning his sexuality.
The North Carolina dad explains that his son’s subsequent struggle with homosexuality has turned his family upside down. “As far as our family is concerned, the damage has already been done,” he laments. “There’s no way that we can go back and undo what has been done.”
The Burrows seem to believe that their son would have no struggle relating to his sexual orientation, or indeed even consider that he might be gay, if not for the seminar. This is a bizarre idea and the first I’ve heard of any suggestion that a single seminar could change a person’s sexual orientation.
If this were believable, it would suggest that though ex-gay ministries are not successful in making someone heterosexual even after decades of intense personal interaction, a casual impersonal seminar can make someone gay. Odd.
Yet it seems to be what the Burrows are claiming:
Still, Mr. Burrows feels he needs to warn other parents of the homosexual indoctrination his son encountered at the Governor’s School. “[I]f I can keep one other family from having to go through this, then all this trouble has been worthwhile,” he says.
It would seem to me that either the Burrows are incredibly naïve, or they are seeking to find someone to blame for an unwanted situation and are opportunistically firing salvos in the culture war without care or regard to the damage they are undoubtedly doing to their own son.
It seems to be, more likely than anything, that the parents are looking for someone to blame. I’d really guess that this seminar prompted the boy to come out to his parents.
You are right, quite an odd accusation that a single seminar can cause a person to have gay attractions. I’d hope that Agape Press and the AFA would realize the strangeness of this claim, but I know better. I wonder how this child feels about being outed to the entire nation.
All that said, I do think a seminar of this type seems incredibly odd and out of place (although, I’d be interested in reading what it was about before making that call fully).
These parents are a prime example of what becomes of the lies of ex-gays, radical right wingers and christians extremists. This is the perfect example of what their hurtful messages become. Here is a family torn apart, that a trip to pflag could have calmed down easily.
This is what the James dobson’s and Stephen Bennetts and Janet Folgers of the world are creating. These are the people, the children and the families they are hurting. Shame they don’t see the face the can put with the damage.
Where else would these parents ever have heard that you could be “recruited” or “indoctrinated”. Perphaps they should be the poster family for the damage done.
There is a question to be begged: why did the child choose that seminar first of all? If the child did not suspect he was gay already, why would he go to a voluntary talk? I don’t know many straight male teenagers who would choose to go to such a seminar. The parents seem to be grasping for straws. They seem to be looking for anything that would allow them to scapegoat.
For a kid at a magenet school, I would’ve expected his parents to have more sense.
Out of place? I don’t know. I guess as a Unitarian Universalist, where as part of our Religious Education and YRUU (cute, eh?) we have these types of conversations as part of our regular young adult ethics learning programs. And remember, this is in a church! At a summer magnet school that doesn’t seem so odd.
Haven’t I seen that name Jim Burrows before…?
Anyway, that poor kid! I hope he has some understanding relatives to stay with or something–these parents clearly aren’t thinking.
In their zeal to promote this story, AgapePress obviously hasn’t thought through what they’re doing. They’re shooting the anti-gay position in the foot. Actually, they’re shooting it in the head.
If one is expected to believe the parents’ assertion that it was the seminar that caused sexual confusion in their son, then:
1. Sexual orientation is extremely fragile and can be easily influenced from outside sources.
2. Therefore, transitioning from gay to straight should be just as easy as from straight to gay.
However, the fact that transitioning from gay to straight via Exodus or any other reparative therapy program is not easy (and ultimately futile) undermines the idea that sexual orientation can be redirected by virtue of outside intervention, a favorite talking point of the religious right. It also undermines the other talking point of the religious right–the supposed powerful influence of the “gay agenda.”
If attendance at a single pro-gay seminar can redirect a person’s sexuality, then how come reparative therapists insist on years of anti-gay seminars in order for them to (not) work? If the “gay agenda” is this powerful, then all “ex-gay” ministries should be even more powerful. They’re not, so by believing the parents’ premise, one is conceding that ex-gay ministries are fraudulent at the most basic level.
However, if the parents are mistaken, and this seminar had nothing to do with their son’s realization of his sexual orientation, then the “gay agenda” has nowhere near the influence over society–specifically, teenagers–that the religious right wants you to believe it does.
It’s a logical conflict–it’s either one or the other. AgapePress is foolishly trying to have it both ways, and the sad part is, amongst their target audience, they’ll likely get away with it.
I suspect that by outing their son, these parents (among other things) may be practicing discipline-by-humiliation, sort of like hanging the bed sheets of a bed wetter on the clothesline for all to see. Supposedly, this would motivate the “offender” to correct himself. Not only is this woefully misguided parenting, it is also a cruel betrayal of familial trust. The fact that this specific incident has an apparent political element makes it all the more despicable.
This is precisely why I’ve had a serious problem with Chad Thompson being allowed into a school environment.
The parents of a boy like this would fall on Chad’s words and experience and take their expectations for their son and pressure him to be like Chad.
And the fact that the boy has no need to be and isn’t obligated to be, would be lost.
Chad’s interventions should be around adults only, if that.
Heterosexual parents are conditioned to believe that they won’t have a gay child.
And if they are gay….they are defective.
In the worst way, as if it’s the end of the world if their child doesn’t change.
Ex gay ministries and therapy advocates leave out the part about how much of a commitment that is.
Chad Thompson hasn’t tested his orientation yet.
For a guy his age, he doesn’t seem to have any or much dating experience with females. And I’d be interested to know what age range they are.
They would have to be pretty young and naive to buy that he’s completely not gay anymore.
That said, this case we’re talking about here, is so risky for this young boy.
The emotional struggle, isn’t with his homosexuality.
It’s with anything and everybody ELSE, because he’s gay.
The only elective I could find at The Governor’s School of North Carolina that comes close is the “Human Sexuality Film Series“. And it is an elective so why did his son attend the class at all unless he had questions to begin with. Of course, the idea that a single class could have “made him gay”, even if they had been trying their best to do just that, is absurd. If there is one thing that both sides of this issue should be able to agree on at this point it’s that human sexuality is stubborn.
The thought has crossed my mind that this is an attempt at payback for LIA, but I’m hoping that no parent could put their child through that for such a reason. It just doesn’t seem to add up; a son whose father’s reaction to learning about his possibly being gay is so negative that certainly it could have been predicted. Yet his son feels comfortable enough after a single class on human sexuality to confess such a thing to him anyway? It sounds implausible somehow.
If his son is indeed dealing with his sexuality, however, I sincerely hope that he isn’t driven to any drastic and possibly dangerous acts in reaction to the pain he must be feeling at this point. Coming out is bad enough without a press release from your own father.
David
Stories like this make me even more grateful for the parents I had – if they’d done something like this, it would have f***ed me up in the head in ways the DMS-IV doesnt even have names for.
And the point made earlier is well taken – how is it that ex-gay ministries need months of time and complete isolation from the ‘deviant’ lifestyle in order to work, but an impressionable teen can spend a couple of hours in a seminar and – sproinggg! – out comes a budding ‘mo? I didn’t realize living the dreaded Gay Lifestyle was so irresistably attractive.
Haven’t I seen that name Jim Burrows before…?
I’ve never seen a name even remotely like that in my life.
No. You see turning from straight to gay is apparently really easy, but the going the other way is so hard that only Jesus can do it and then only some times.
Now why God would make people this way is just a mystery and we just have to shut up and accept it.
Ever hear of reductio ad absurdum arguments. If this is where fundamentalism leads logically then they need to go back and review their original premises, namely, the literal truth of “scripture”.
A far more detailed article was published in the Carolina Journal… 10 days before Agape(sic) Press.As for the Burrows, they appear rather unhinged and utterly unreasonable. It apparently isn’t enough to have an intellectually gifted child — no, he has to be straight as well.