Some lady who’ll say anything to get a bit of attention thinks some people can pray away the gay:
In the interview, with The View host Joy Behar, Coulter points to a Michael Glatze story in the New York Times as evidence that gays can change. “[Glatze] used to run a big gay magazine in San Francisco, and then he found God, and he’s not gay any more,” she said, adding that “the most important part of the story … was that he’s a huge Ann Coulter fan.”
Coulter also took the opportunity to share her thoughts on “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” suggesting it would be nice to see the now-thoroughly dead military policy applied society-wide.
In the wake of the Marcus Bachmann controversy, Behar is on something of an ex-gay kick. She recently had ex-gay Stephen Bennett on the show for a rather tedious and predictable interview:
No! You cannot pray the gay away..
Stephen Bennett has always come across to me as, and I do not say this lightly, a complete fake. What he says to Behar is load of tire, old ex-gay clichés and he has even added a few new ones as needed (open relationship, childhood molestation). With him, I just can’t believe anything that comes out of his mouth. I think he desperately wanted to make a career out of this gig and it never worked because even in that crowd, he didn’t come through as sincere. CNN must have really come up empty when booking that show.
David, you make a great point about adding to his story. Those are some new twists that I had not heard before. I’ve read most of his printed material, seen him speak in public, and even had several personal conversations with him back in the days when I was trying to change my sexual orientation. His first testimony was that once he was free from bulimia and drug use that he was in a very happy gay relationship with the man he mentioned with whom he was going to spend the rest of his life. He recounts in his original testimony that what got him to leave this man was the “conviction” he felt from God that what he was doing was immoral (through the influence of that friend). He always stressed that he was happy and that his decision to leave this man was one he did because he wanted to follow God, not because he was unhappy (i.e., I was happy but gave it up for God and you should too). He probably realized after awhile that he was actually telling people he was happy and gay. So, now we have a change in the story where he says he realized that lifelong happiness was not possible. It is incredulous to me that he would withhold a piece of information such as his partner saying he wanted a once-a-year fling from his public testimony when that would have added another serious contribution toward the stereotype. And, of course, now we find out he wasn’t really happy after all. Yeah right.
One of the things that we know about memory is that it is interpretive and often it is distorted. He says he was molested by a young boy when he was in sixth grade. I am not one to doubt a person if they say they were molested, but the truth is that we don’t have all the details. Is it possible that sexual experimentation had been going on and then, in the midst, or afterwards the other boy pushed things farther than Stephen wanted to go? That makes the situation altogether different. It would be evidence that he was experimenting and was perhaps gay before the molestation happened, so I doubt we’ll ever get any more details on that. What should be noted is that all that is happening to his testimony is that he is adding, as you noted, other stereotyped ideas to his testimony to pack more punch. You talked about his not being able to make a career out of this. What I think we have to ask the ex-gay community is this: why does NARTH or Alan Chambers or any of the ex-gay organizations not make him a poster child of true change, especially since he says he is “completely change to hetersexuality?” It is suspicious. Could there be something they know that we don’t?
The final thing I’d like to say is that the problem with Stephen Bennett is that he gets the benefit of the doubt with these interviewers. He’s says he’s no longer gay and everyone begins to ask him how he did it. Why don’t people ask specific questions such as, “Do you ever feel aroused by a man when you see an attractive one?” in order to assess whether or not there has been any true orientation change (assuming he would tell the truth)? Why doesn’t someone investigate whether he really is different and has not just changed his behavior? To my knowledge, Stephen has never publicly acknowledged the change in his inner life, only that he parades his wife and kids and his self-definition change out as the evidence for being “delivered” from homosexuality. I don’t think he is a fake as much as I think he is in religiously-induced denial.
@T.J.
Yes, I picked up on those discrepancies as well. While, like you, I am loathe to dispute a report of molestation in someone’s life, I can’t help feeling a bit skeptical as to the nature of the incidents in some cases. The ex-gay narrative is so set, and in time becomes so practiced, that I don’t think it unreasonable to suspect that repeated suggestion may cause simple childhood experimentation to be recast in memory as something more heinous.
We certainly know that false memories are a real and powerful phenomena, and molestation is a crucial pillar in the ex-gay mantra. Exodus and other such groups are almost cult-like in their demand of adherence to a certain script, to a theme of causation, that it would be almost impossible not to see the events of one’s life in that light after a while. Those who can’t or won’t, they end up dissociating, albeit often after much pain.
You may be right about Bennett, certainly there are many, many ex-gays who should be classified as in “religiously-induced denial.” My gut still tells me that he is much less sincere.
TJ,
I watched the broadcast the day it was aired and was floored Joy didn’t ask the majic bullet question. Either it was off the table by the producers or Joy missed it. Either way it was totally screwed. In a sense the question got answered by not bringing it up, though many may not see it that way.
My take is he is a combo of denial and fraud. He got pretty financially desperate with his ministry. The fact he is popping up now, years after being quite visible, is a sign he is sniffing for cash and a comeback. Glad you saw through all this mumbo jumbo.
There are no gays. There are no straights. There are males. There are females. Either we live according to our design or we do not. Feelings must take a backseat to reason, for feelings are great servants but terrible masters.
@Orthodoxdj
Thoughts feelings and logic are as intact with gays as any factor of humanity. To think feelings are the ruling factor to any aspect of human sexulaity is ill bred logic.
Our design was inspired by spirit which is unlimited in scope, hence bodies are used for a myriad of experiences. It is only the confines of body fear that would have us think and do otherwise. You may want to take heed of your motivations as your perceptions are not from the highest of echelons, a potential you do hold within, though seemingly obscured by blury vision.
Having taken my own turn through the ex-gay scene, the one thing I noticed was that the only people who were able to ‘stay cured’ were those who made a ministry and career out of their ‘ex-gayness’. It all seemed so convenient – start a touring and speaking ‘ministry’, write books, become a paid-by-the-hour counselor – all to keep the money flowing, to re-enforce their ‘cure’ and to generate a fan-base and audience to whom they must maintain the charade for the sake of ‘accountability’.
Yes, Fiona, you’ve made a very good and significant point there. Others have noticed this too. On these talk shows where ex-gays appear, you never seem to see anyone who, having attained ex-gaydom, is now just carrying on with his or her job as an estate agent, bank clerk, hotel manager, petrol station cashier, plumber, accountant or whatever. The only exception that I can recall was a guy whom I actually happened to know, as he was a local. He was the son of rich, fundamentalist evangelical parents who had made it clear to him that he would have no share in the family business if he didn’t “straighten out” and get married. I also happened to know his ex-boyfriend, with whom he had continued to have occasional sex on the quiet.
To be fair, through my blog I know several people who are still on the ex-gay path, married and with children, and who haven’t made a ministry or book career out of it. I don’t know them well enough to know how legitimate their claims are, but I would guess that there are probably more of them out there than the “public” ex-gays.
But let’s face it, gay men marrying heterosexually is nothing new, and it happened long before Exodus even came around.