A gay New York Times journalist recently caught up with a former friend and colleague, Michael Glatze, the conservative Christian activist who, in 2007, renounced his homosexuality and claimed to have become straight. Benoit Denizet-Lewis wrote about the reunion, with background on Glatze, in the NYT story “Going Straight.”
Following his ex-gay conversion, Glatze, a one-time LGBT youth activist, wrote an editorial for World Net Daily, in which he called homosexuality “neurotic” and “abornmal,” saying it was “lust and pornography wrapped into one.” He also appeared to question whether homosexuality should even be legal:
Homosexuality allows us to avoid digging deeper, through superficiality and lust-inspired attractions – at least, as long as it remains “accepted” by law. As a result, countless miss out on their truest self, their God-given Christ-self.
He’s since made a habit of homophobia and misogyny. In 2009, for example, he called Barack Obama “the world’s first official girl-man president” and decried anti-bullying policies in schools as the result of hysteria from “victim-minded whiners.”
Read the NYT story in full here. A related NYT article this week addressed reparative therapists who “help God-fearing people stay in the closet.“
Weird, considering it was only 2 years before his “coming out” as a misogynist, anti-gay zealot that Michael Glatze offered to assist me in setting up a Gay Straight Alliance in my small-town high school to combat anti-gay bullying. I find his personal turmoil and great reversals very upsetting, given what he’d represented to so many.
Ben,
It sounds a-typical of a psychotic break within his sex/God programming, both seemingly at odds w the other via corrupted data on both counts. Neither side is happier. It’s a constant fight. He must have had some difficult times w relationships of which he accidently judged harshly, to do what he did. We can only hope he learns to resolve it one day, it’s a terrible position to be in.
Don’t let it discourage your authenticity just because his is muddied. Discrimination is a self hate tool best never emulated, even if it’s springing from a now dead hero.
This guy is clearly very very intelligent. There is a distinct possibility that he was never gay in the first place and he was just searching for an identity after both his parents died…I’ve had friends who have floated in and out of bisexuality like that. It doesn’t mean that “gay doesn’t exist” it means that possibly, for some people, they have some more fluid sexual identity than most of us. Then again, he dated a guy for 10 years. That’s not just a transitional situation. He probably is just gay and in massive denial. What I see is a man who is searching a lot, he went from being a strong gay advocate to a Mormon, to Buddhist retreat center stuff, to evangelical Christian. Those are some serious serious swings in one person’s life. I feel sorry for Michael, I hope he finds true happiness. I wish he engaged gay people in a dialogue instead of firing away nasty rhetoric that just alienates people. We need less invective and hate in our culture.
PS– I read about him going back to SF for an editing job. He was shunned by the gay community and he wanted to recant the things he had said. It got back to him that people were saying awful things about him behind his back I read. I think the starting place of any dialogue — w anyone– should be based in LOVE not rhetoric and hate. I think Michael and the other side have engaged in both.
I read this article from the NY times magazine, in fact. I don’t harbor any hate for Michael and most of all, I hope he will be emotionally and physically well, but I also pray to god that the words he says to others don’t end up causing physical or emotional damage to them. I hope for the win-win situation that Michael may find his peace and that others may find their peace too and eventually end up where they want to be.
I notice Glatze has taken down all of his websites. Another Ex-ex-gay in the making perhaps.