News :: GLBT
Gay Rights Activist No Longer Gay?by Kilian MelloyTuesday Jul 3, 2007 Michael Glatze, gay rights activist and founding editor of Young Gay America magazine, came out today in a column written for WorldNetDaily.com... as a "former" homosexual.
In an article posted today on WND, Glatze says that his column "will actually be news to anybody I used to relate to," though the article says Glatze broke contact with the GLBT world over a year ago.
It’s a topsy-turvy moment in GLBT history, with leaders of the "ex-gay" movement having recently acknowledged that there likely is a physiological basis for homosexuality and even having apologized for the harm caused by "conversion therapies."
What’s more, mental health professionals, who once more or less uniformly declared that sexuality was fixed and attempts to modify it were hopleless and possibly injurious, have now begun to consider the possibility that sexuality may be more fluid that previously thought, and that some--far from all, but some--people may actually be able to alter their sexual preference to some degree.
With Glatze’s assertion that "promptings" from within (he says they came from God) turned him straight, the mysteries of sexuality, faith, and personal struggle may have just deepened.
"I hope I can share my story," Glatze was quoted in the WND article.
Continued Glatze, "I feel strongly God has put me here for a reason. Even in the darkest days of late-night parties, substance abuse and all kinds of things--when I felt like, ’Why am I here, what am I doing?’--there was always a voice there.
"I didn’t know what to call it, or if I could trust it, but it said ’hold on,’" Glatze said.
The WND article says that Glatze discovered feelings of same-sex attraction at age 14, and came out as gay six years later. Then, for the next ten years, Glatze became better known in the GLBT world as an activist and writer.
But, the article says, throughout this time, Glatze has a sense that something was not quite right.
Now, Glatze says he’s been "liberated" from homosexuality, and the article quotes from his column a passage in which Glatze writes that "’coming out’ from under the influence of the homosexual mindset was the most liberating, beautiful and astonishing thing I’ve ever experienced in my entire life."
However freeing and beautiful his personal experience, however, it’s important to keep in mind that this is one individual’s experience; as they say, results may vary. The WND story, though, does not seem to acknowledge this.
The WND article put in a promotional push for WND Managing Editor David Kupelian’s book The Marketing of Evil, saying that Glatze had contacted Kupelian to say that the book had "given me so much help in my process of healing from the profound influences of evil in our current society."
The article went on to quote Glatze as writing to Kupelian, "There is nothing that would give me more pleasure than to say the Truth about ’homosexuality’ and atone for my sins in that regard."
The WND article also cited Charlene Cothran’s personal transformation from lesbian publisher of Venus magazine to Christian proponent the renunciation of homosexuality.
Cothran has rededicated her publication to, as the WND article quotes her as saying, "encourage, educate and assist those who desire to leave a life of homosexuality."
While it is not unknown for people who once identified as gay to "change" their self-proclaimed sexual orientation over time (the reverse is also true, with self-proclaimed straights "becoming" gay at some point in life), there is no universal agreement that this means that gays can "convert" into straights, or vice versa.
Possible alternative explanations include heterosexual people believing themselves to be gay earlier in life before sorting through their desires and emotions to arrive at a more genuine understanding of their needs and desires. A process very much like this is the avenue, sometimes, by which "straight" people suddenly embrace their "gay" identity, often in mid life.
Bisexual people sometimes undergo personal sexual eras during which their attraction to one gender over another may shift (and even shift back again).
There is, of course, the possibility that some gay people really do become heterosexual, though by what mechanism (and how deep-running the "conversion" may actually be) is a matter of conjecture.
And then there’s the question of what constitutes sexual desire, and whether that’s even what’s being discussed. For many "ex-gays," the question is not one of never again feeling attracted sexually to another person of the same gender; it’s a constant struggle, as they themselves often describe it, to overcome their same-sex desires, or at least refrain from acting upon them.
Critics of so-called "reparative therapies" point out in their turn that being gay or straight is a matter of identity--what one is--rather than activity--what one does, and with whom.
Questions of definitions of sexuality are even murkier when it comes to the in-between land of bisexuality, which many gays denounce as a mere prevarication.
A 2005 study of self-described bisexuals relied upon physiometric readings of gential arousal rather than the self-description of a group of bisexual men, with the result that almost all of the so-called "bisexuals" physically responded to erotic images of one gender exclusively--in the case of bisexual men, it was usually other men. And yet, in their own minds, some form of desire for women also existed, even if their bodies did not repond to images of women.
To judge from the WND article, Glatze does not seem to take any of that into account. The article quotes from Glatze’s column that "[Gay sex is] a neurotic process rather than a natural, normal one," and further quotes Glatze as writing, "Normal is normal - and has been called normal for a reason."
This seems to indicate that Glatze considers his personal feelings on the issue to apply universally--a stance that is far from universally accepted by others.
To understand the extent of Glatze’s renunciation, it may be useful to review his career as a writer and proponent of gay equality.
The WND article retraces Glatze’s career from when he became editor of Young Gay America at age 22, and cites the media’s acceptance of Glatze as an expert and a spokesperson for gay America. Glatze won the National Role Model Award from Equality Forum; he made appearances on national news programs, and was quoted in the TIME Magazine article "The Battle Over Gay Teens;" he produced the award-winning documentary film Jim in Bold, which addressed suicide among gay teens.
To the extent that he is known by the world at large, Glatze is known as an advocate for GLBT causes. To alter that wider perception, he may need to express his new identity with some forcefulness.
Looking back at his earlier career, Glatze now says that Young Gay America magazine, which started out with the laudable intention of being a more "virtuous" alternative to gay porno mags, "was as damaging as anything else out there, just not overtly pornographic, so more ’respected.’"
It was after seeing a video of himself appear with Judy Shepard, mother of murdered gay man Matthew Shepard, at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, that Glatze says in the WND story, "I began to seriously doubt what I was doing with my life and influence."
Continued Glatze in the WND article’s quote, "Knowing no one who I could approach with my questions and my doubts, I turned to God."
Said Glatze, "I’d developed a growing relationship with God, thanks to a debilitating bout with intestinal cramps caused by the upset stomach-inducing behaviors I’d been engaged in."
At one point in his life, Glatze said, he thought anti-gay rights organizations and individuals were "mean and crazy, and they wanted to hurt me."
Explained Glatze, "I thought they were out to get me."
Continued Glatze, "They made me really, really mad--and scared, I think. I wanted them to go away."
But now, recounting his last actions at YGA Magazine, Glatze says that he wrote down some of his musings on an office computer, finishing up with the words "Homosexuality is death, and I choose life," and leaving that comment on the computer screen for others to read.
There are many others who have gone through the exact same experience, whose opinion at the end of the process could be summed up by the exact same words--almost. They are the "ex-straights," who found heterosexual life meant a kind of living death, and for whom honest embracing of their true natures meant liberation.
Glatze, according to the WND article, harbors a sense of respect for an aunt whose Christian view caused her to disapprove; he says that she "was never judgmental, but always firm."
Perhaps that sense of respect should apply even where there is disagreement; perhaps firm but non-judgmental mutual boundaries are the truest and most constructive course for both sides to take when it comes to hearing the stories of those who found at some point in life that the nature, and the destination, of the journey was not what they thought it to be early on.
Kilian Melloy reviews media, conducts interviews, and writes commentary for EDGEBoston, where he also serves as Assistant Arts Editor.
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