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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (Feb. 20, 2004)
BOOKS he seed for Anything hut Straight: Unmasking the Scandals and Lies Behind the Ex-Gay Myth, Wayne R. Besen’s studious, fact-centered, fascinating history-cum- exposé of the ex-gay movement, was planted by a memorable, traumatic personal experience. He opens the hook with an anecdote from 1988— related with surprising gcxxJ humor— in which his parents react with dismay when their son comes out to them, going so far as to pur chase him a self-hypnosis cassette titled Gay and Unhappy. Looking hack on the incident, Besen says, “I spent the ages of 9 to 17 trying to deal with the fact 1 was gay or trying to ‘change.’ I finally accepted myself and the first thing my parents say is, ‘Have you tried to change?’ ” As Besen became a bona fide gay activist— in the late ’90s he worked for the Human Rights Campaign as associate director of com munications— he saw that many families of queers are opposed to ever “coming around” and that an increasingly politicized ex-gay subculture existed to reinforce their intolerance and misunderstanding. “I was working at H RC to combat the 1998 right-wing ex-gay campaign,” Besen says, refer ring to that year’s newspaper ads featuring “cured” gay men and lesbians. “I was inspired to write Anything hut Straight as an activist.” Besen began to he aware of the need for an in-depth, complete resource on the very dan gerous movement. “In 1998, there was not much of a track record on exposing these groups,” he says. “There was information, hut it was scattered, not easy to access. I wanted to put all this information in one place.” Writing the book was no working vacation. With all the research and preparation, it was 4 1/2 years in the making. It “nxik an enormous amount of discipline and made it more difficult to date or make new friends,” he shares. But creating the fxxik offered its own intrigues, as infiltrating the ex-gay underground often requires researchers to do the espionage thing. “Infiltrating these ministries is total acting,” explains Besen. “One must go undercover to see what they’re truly about. When a reporter or activist announces who they are, the ex-gays basi cally lie about how happy and ‘cured’ they are. When you go undercover, you can see that these folks are miserable and in a great deal of pain.” B ecause most ex-gay ideology exploits the religious faith of its victims, Besen proposes that the queer community, particularly our spiritual leaders, be aggressive in addressing the burgeoning contingent of disillusioned ex-ex gays seeking affirmation. “1 think it’s important to have churches like Metropolitan Community Church and also to Exposing the exes Wa^yne R. Besen goes from Gay and U nhappy to A n yth in g but Straigh t by REVIEW A nything but S traight : U nmasking the S candals and L ies B ehind the E x -G ay M yth by Wayne Besen; Harrington Park Press, 2003; $19.95 softcover C hristopher M c Q uain reform primarily hetero churches," he asserts. “As stxriety becomes more accepting, the lines will blur a little. But we have a long way to go to get to that point.” Though Besen hints in Anything hut Straight that ex-ex-gays, many from conservative-religious back grounds, may feel intimidat ed by their prospects of fit ting into a community that in turn has its ambivalence toward religious conser vatism, he doesn't see intra community religious dis agreement as the principal barrier to finding a place in the community and defeat ing ex-gay propaganda. “The real problem is not divisions but apathy,” he says. “Gay people— very much like heterosexuals— are mostly uninvolved in the political arena. While most straight people can afford this apathy, we can’t. We have to make every effort to pull more people in our community into the political process.” While Besen became an activist and a writer, his Wayne R. Besen reads from his tell-all book about the ex-gay mom and dad took some movement March 7 at Metropolitan Community Church of Portland steps, too. Noting that par a new home once he’s done promoting the btxik. ents “have expectations [and] sometimes create “When the tour is over, I’ll likely move back to a story line for their kid...beautiful wife or hus D.C. or New York. Who knows, maybe I’ll fall in band, beautiful wedding, beautiful kids,” he love with Portland and move there. I’ve never explains that “coming out...forces parents to been before, but I hear it’s lovely.” j H readjust their story line. It took my parents two years to come around; now they’re PFLAG par WAYNE B esen reads from Anything but ents who are as accepting as possible.” Straight: Unmasking the Scandals and Lies As Besen’s b<x>k tour, which includes Port Behind the Ex-Gay Myth 9 a.m. March 7 at land on March 7, nears its end, he’s pondering Metropolitan Community Church of Portland, the direction his career will take next. He 2400 N.E. Broadway. Check the March 5 issue plans to get into fiction writing and has “an of Just Out for possible other appearances. idea for nonfiction that I’m keeping secret for now— but will be even more controversial than C hristopher M c Q u a in , also anything hut Anything hut Straight .” straight, lives and writes in Seattle. Currently a nomad, Besen will be lcx>king for F or anyone committed to understanding the fullness and complexity of human sexuality, the concept of propagandizing queers into altering their sexual orientation might seem like something of an easy target. In a culture that thinks and speaks clearly about sex and sexuality, the notion that hetero sexuality is morally superior to homosexuality (or the association of homosexuality with pedophilia and sex addiction) would seem laughable. Anyt/ung hut Straight, a detailed chronicle of ex-gay “ministries” preying upon queers whose insecurity with their sexuality or unrelated addiction and mental health issues make them easy targets, amply demonstrates that we don’t live in such a culture. Wayne R. Besen offers an in-depth ex-gay timeline, accessibly explaining the methods and ideologies of the current network of het erosexual conversion groups that have coagu lated under the well-known Exodus Interna tional organizational umbrella and had their germ in the 70s, when the fledgling gay rights movement provoked a reactionary response from religious fundamentalists that continues in various mutations to this day. We’re introduced to an array of ex-gay “trailblazers" and the tactics (from the punitive, shame-based approach of the earlier years to the falsely optimistic soft-pedaling of today’s PR- saw y version) they’ve employed in the name of saving queers from their basic human desire for sexual expression and romantic fulfillment. If Besen’s tone is sometimes incongruously conversational for the subject matter, it doesn’t undermine the rich, thoroughly researched information in Anything but Straight. As a lie- by-lie, distortion-by-distortion rebuttal to a destnjetive social force aimed directly at us, this book has a place on the bookshelf of any conscientious queer. —CM F J N ext A dventure P ortlands A ltgrnatimg S porting G o o dt 9 to r € ©©Offiahs* ®1 ? $§)(?& & doraorKal Bryan beck
