Former ex-gay Peterson Toscano sums up the week in ex-gay news.
Toscano has also posted new video from the Survivor Initiative press conference outside Love In Action in Memphis, Tenn.
Looking for new or rejuvenated ex-gay topical blogs to read this weekend? Try these:
Chronicles of An Ex-Ex-Gay, by Jacob, a survivor of “Love In Action”
Straight Guise, by Joe Kort, M.A., M.S.W.
Walk Free, by Ken Peters
Whether you like or dislike them, hop over and give them a piece of your mind.
MICHAEL GLATZE IS ON SIGNORILE’S RADIO SHOW TODAY @ 4:30p est: SIRIUS OUTQ
Just click on “free online trial” in upper right corner.
Gosh these guys hurt when they sting. I spent a lot of years trying to overcome same-sex feelings – praying, abstaining from “M”, bargaining with God, even trying to imagine Jesus as my lover. It never worked. Yet these guys come on the radio and say I didn’t try hard enough, or whatever? I heard the interview today. But, Signorile is not a Christian. I wish someone like me could have asked, “What did I do wrong!!!???” How is it that Michael Glatze is so blessed when I was a young kid and asked God for that ‘cure’ and didn’t get it? I’m really sick and tired of these people acting all blessed and intuitively endowed in their 30’s. I was a little young guy (teenager) when I asked for all that and had the divine door slammed in my face. Thanks, Michael Glatze, you really made me feel great today.
Larry, I got an e-mail today with the similar charge against me. “You didn’t try hard enough.” That is the most disrepectful and arrogant thing someone could say to one of us. And it is a smoke screen designed to shame and silence us not give us life and hope.
In a day or two I will post the first in a series of blog entries on my site entitled “Change Was Not Possible”. I think you will appreciate these, Larry, as I will talk about the religious and spiritual mandate I felt I had to trust Jesus and pursue change at any cost. But what happens when one realizes that such a change is not possible?
Unfortunately I missed the interview. Anything interesting? Are there archives?
Thanks Peterson. I know I’m probably being a wimp, but I really thought I had things figured out. I was confident in the knowledge that after years of hating what I felt, God had shown me the way to be happy and still be Christian. Then, these folks come along and tell me that I am wrong, and if I’d only hooked up with them I would have been right. If they are right, then my history and relationship with God is wrong – in which case, I’m tired and give up. I can’t imagine that an all-loving God is that cruel. But, I’m still really tired of being stung. There was a thunderstorm that knocked out the Sirius repeater (on the Metropolitan Bank Building in downtown Little Rock) right before the OutQ interview with Glatze. I wondered if that was the Lord telling me I shouldn’t listen. It came back on a few minutes into the interview. I wish I had shut off the radio and left it off. I’m so tired of hearing how my plea’s for heterosexual feelings were ill-timed, not sincere enough, whatever. I had finally decided that I could be happy as a gay Christian, and Michael Glatze gets on the radio and blogs and tells me I did it all wrong. I’m tired.
I received, I won’t say how, a notice from Michael Glatze about how he overcame homosexuality (that private thing that he won’t discuss with the public). It was the most vacant, odd article. His approaces are not very concrete–often moving into new age mysticism and self-help junk. I would share the article/email, but I did not receive his permission, so I will not–but I don’t think his methods will help anyone.
Larry,
I never heard of this Michael Glatze before his public proclamation of overcoming homosexuality. I am a little confused about why he is getting any publicity, let alone all the pubicity that he is getting. I don’t believe for a moment his proclamation, based on all the other people who made the same proclamation only to admit later that they are still homosexual. Even Alan Chambers has spent much of this year making comments in the media that pretty much admit that he is still gay.
You know your own heart. You know your own truth. I doubt that Glatze’s story is at all truthful. Just because he has a soapbox doesn’t necessarily mean that he has anything to say that is going to be useful in your life. Just ignore him.
John, to be fair to Alan, homosexuality can be defined in different ways. For many, homosexuality only occurs in activity. Thus, if the person does not engage in certain acts, he or she is not homosexual. For others it is a question of orientation and attraction. I would define it as such. However, I do think Michael and Alan have the right to self-identify as they wish. If Alan says he is straight, then I will accept that at face value.
As would I, but Alan doesn’t say he’s straight, and neither does Glatze as far as I’m aware.
Ex-gay and heterosexual are NOT synonymous, but the POLITICAL INTENTION is to portray them as such.
We normally don’t hear about honest ex-gays because their political intentions are NOT specifically anti-gay — thus they are not anti-gay activists.
Glatze sounds like an opportunist, I’d be very interested to know just what he did do for the LGBT community as a gay activist.
PS, sorry to enable the usurpation of the thread… 🙂
Michael Glatze is being touted as if a hero to just about every anti gay blogs right now.
I meant they are going on and on and ON about it.
He’s given fodder to those who rationalize why gay people deserve to be treated with the utmost of injustice and hypocrisy.
Political will is at stake, and shouldn’t be if the ex gay industry were sincere. This is why political intent hedges religious will. It’s coercive on it’s face.
And takes what should be a very private thing, into the public arena.
For public consumption and control.
This is why it’s impossible for me to believe any assertions of benevolence and concern for the gay individual and their relationship with God (which is also a very private relationship).
Because the PUBLIC relationship with citizenship, justice, family and professional peers is just as important. Maybe even more so.
And for gay folks, one can’t come at the expense of the others. However, this is the expectation and I don’t understand that.
It’s irrational….and most of all, the most coercive factor against gay youth especially, of all.
And I’ve noticed that on conservative blogs like TownHall and WMD, no other social issues concern them even close to gay issues.
Another strange thing, even for people who say they are religious.
You’d think we weren’t at war, or had gangs that have made the streets of this country unsafe for decades or never had domestic violence that kills thousands of women and children a year.
But these same people feel VERY right about who is a threat, who carries disease and threatens children more than anyone else in America.
And Michael Glatze knows what’s at stake too. I’m with Emproph on the opportunistic nature of Glatze’s turnaround.
But the surge in being hard pressed to convince straight people it’s not a choice to be gay gets harder to fight.
Making a lot more young gay people vulnerable.
“Not trying hard enough?”
Yeah…..and for WHO is this conversion to benefit again? Really…?
For those of you who are seriously interested in understanding the struggles of people of faith who are also glbt, you can see the video below from Harvard. The title is: “Gays and God: Being GLBT and a Person of Faith.”
The panel is with Bishop Gene Robinson, Rabbi Steven Greenberg, and Rev. Zina Jacque.
There are some clips of Glatze at the Sirius site. He repeats the Chambers stat–he said he has met with hundreds of thousands of people who have gone exgay. Has he really had the time to meet all these people? Where is he getting this info?