Twenty-two-year-old D.C.-area blogger Ben at Scattered Words exemplifies the agreeable ex-gay Christian:
Someone who pursues an ex-gay sexual and spiritual path primarily because it’s right for him, and not because of any obvious desire to promote discrimination or impose one’s own lifestyle and political ideology upon everyone else.
Given that mature perspective, Ben’s affirmation of the intolerant, prejudiced, pushy, and frequently insulting Alan Chambers and Randy Thomas is puzzling. Ben’s general view of gay people as promiscuous bar hoppers is unsurprising, given his age and limited experience with gays — but that view is a bit narrow and unfair nevertheless.
Despite those shortcomings, Ben demonstrates that he can calmly address heavy and sometimes unjustified criticism while remaining focused on who he is, what he believes (or isn’t sure about), and where he is going.
I greatly respect that.
Just wondering–do you have any idea who this “Ben” person is? Or even if he is nothing more than another mouthpiece for these “ex-gay”/Exodus “ministries”?
If he ever gets tired of the ex-gay movement, I can see about setting him up with a nice, traditional young boy who won’t take him out to any of those nasty bars. The two of them can stay at home and cuddle… That would be so sweet.
Raj, I don’t know who Ben is. I suppose that, in time, we will see whether he develops an independent voice or becomes window dressing for the political and religious extremists.
He seems like Mary Martyr to me. He wants attention and that’s all that matters to him. He says that gay couples suing for health benefits is just terrible. He laudingly links to people who say that gays are “bastards who will die insignificant deaths”. He whines about the horror of a bathhouse, apparently never experiencing the beatings and abuse and hate that so many he now admires have inflicted on those that he condemns and judges.
I’ll be ignoring him and I hope that others do the same. Let him go around applauding people who say that he deserves to die. He won’t be the first or the last.
Nah he is just young and confused. I think we have all been there. You hear/read all sorts of stereotypes about gays and you never give them much thought until you realize that you are one of them. He is in the process of determining his own identity spiritual, sexual, and personal outside of those stereotypes. Although I wish he had taken a more gay affirming way of doing so, I suspect that he will arrive at the same destination. He is in the process of drawing lines between what he will do and what other people do. Although, juzz if 31 days of no sex is a record for him(an ex-gay) I as a gay man need to get out more!
I read the site for a week or so and was quite shocked by the views and attitudes of the author and those that support him – which mostly emerge in comments. Ben seems to have lived a pretty charicatured lifestyle for a 22 year old – it seems quite unusual that he could have done the things he claims to have and yet remain so uneducated about certain matters to do with sex and health. It’s also unusual that he could live in a metropolitan area and have never come across any positive gay role models. His entire story rings false in my opinion – but what do I know?
It’s a tenuous point, but there is the matter of the promotion of the site through Haloscan clickthroughs – “HOMOSEXUALITY: You don’t have to be GAY, you can change!” – linking to his blog. This does seem to suggest the author isn’t being entirely honest when he says he’s not trying to convert anyone.
I lived a similar life at the time (about 10 years ago). My private semi religious high school did not have a gay straight alliance. My College didn’t have one at the time and was so small that I couldn’t dare explore my sexuality without fear of being outed. Yeah it is possible to not know any positive role models.
The people who leave comments routinely comment on their own site that gays should be murdered, are bastards, etc. He also gets comments from Stephen Bennet and the other usual suspects.
He’s either a fraud or looking for any attention he can get. The talk about the horror of bathhouses and how sick he feels and how he sobs all the time rings very false to me.
What’s so upsetting is that Ben’s obviously received more than his fair share of wacks from the Crap Bat of Life. Thanks to the bottom feeders like Bennett and Chambers, his very real problems — sexual abuse, depression, rage, even sexual acting out — get sublimated to his “problem” of homosexuality. There are times it seems like it’s only a minor improvement that superstition can no longer physically burn people at the stake, only mentally torture them instead.