Recently, a number of “ex-gay” and anti-gay organizations launched a petition to keep me off FOX News. Not only was this a waste of time, but did nothing but bring TWO free publicity. If the so-called “ex-gays” really want to harm Truth Wins Out and put us out of business they should start a reality TV show highlighting the lives of clients trying to go from gay-to-straight.
Simply showing the idiocy of these “pray away the gay” and shame therapy organizations does far more damage to these creepy programs than I could ever do. These groups are most effective when they promote the idea of sexual reorientation — but don’t show their bizarre and self-loathing methods to the general public. Indeed, a great deal of the work of Truth Wins Out is trying to highlight the insanity. If a group like Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays (PFOX) or the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH) starts a reality show — they can make fools of themselves in the public arena, and Truth Wins Out becomes redundant. So, please, “ex-gays” no reality shows or my life’s work becomes expendable.
Case in point is the unintentionally hilarious (as well as horribly tragic) BBC documentary discovered by our friends at Ex-Gay Watch. It shows a group of sad men who reject their natural sexual orientation engaged in a group hug. Clearly, these sexually and emotionally starved individuals are engaged in a form of light foreplay with their extended embraces. However, they are instructed by quacks to call the suspiciously long touching sessions “non-sexual.”
Ex-Gay Watch’s Dave Rattigan makes a good point:
I am an openly and unashamedly gay man — and yet, when I hug a male friend, gay or straight, I don’t need an instructor in my ear reminding me it’s a non-sexual hug. It is, contrary to the mythology of the ex-gay movement, possible to be a healthy, gay-identified man without foisting your sexual attentions on every other man that comes along.
Amen, Dave.
If this clown show ever reached reality television we are so through.
