Box Turtle Bulletin
News and commentary about the anti-gay lobby“Now you must raise your children up in a world where that union of man and box turtle is on the same legal footing as man and wife…”
News and commentary about the anti-gay lobbyDecember 15th, 2009
The recent votes by the city counsel of Washington, DC, to first recognize out-of-state same-sex marriages and now to offer marriage equality brought out plenty of anti-gay activists. And many loudly proclaimed the healing power of Christ to overcome the homosexual lifestyle.
But among the many there in the chambers to denounce the evils of homosexuality, one demographic seemed to be missing: residents of the city who had been healed. There just didn’t seem to be any living, breathing ex-gays there to remind their elected officials to represent this often-invisible minority.
The reason may be revealed in an article by Amanda Hess in the Washington CityPaper back in September.
Unfortunately for PFOX and reporters on the sexual-orientation beat, ex-gay Washingtonians are hard to come by. Since each of my dozen or so calls to PFOX headquarters went unanswered, I am unable to confirm any of the group\’s purported ex-gay offspring or friends. J. Matt Barber, a member of the PFOX board of directors, tells me that he has “a number of very close friends who are former homosexuals”—none of whom live in D.C. I do track down ex-gay minister Anthony Falzarano, who founded PFOX in Washington in 1995. Falzarano was happy to detail the hundreds of male sex partners he had in his former life, but his flamboyant ex-gayness is no use to PFOX now—Falzarano has since left D.C. for West Palm Beach, Fla. Quinlan, PFOX\’s current go-to ex-gay, once called D.C. home, but he has since settled into his heterosexual lifestyle in Dayton, Ohio.
Anti-gay activists are quick to tell you that the world is just teeming with “former homosexuals”. I guess just not in DC.
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Wayne Besen
December 15th, 2009
My research has found that because DC architecture is filed with columns, ex-gays are told to avoid the capitol and stay in Virginia. Just too much temptation and a reminder of their old lifestyle.
Just across the Potomac, there are hundreds of thousands – maybe millions of ex-gays.
Alex
December 15th, 2009
DC also features one of the world’s largest free-standing phalluses… that can’t be good for ex-gay men!
Dawn/FFL
December 15th, 2009
But what of the women? Where are all the women?
Lynn David
December 15th, 2009
All those domes?
jason
December 15th, 2009
So THAT’S why I was always so horny when I lived in the District!!!!
Emproph
December 16th, 2009
According to PFOX:
3% of 300 million Americans is 9 million. If twice as many are “ex-gays,†that’s 18 million. You’d think at least one of them lived in D.C.
Sol Invictus
December 16th, 2009
This article draws an analogy that is interesting, Emproph posts:
“% of 300 million Americans is 9 million. If twice as many are “ex-gays,†that’s 18 million. You’d think at least one of them lived in D.C.”
The statistic Emproph posts I think is bad. No question about it, and to be sure there are ex-gays living in Washington DC, as probably in most major cities. Quite possibly they are simply private, or invisible about their sexual preference. A public pronouncement of personal sexuality, or sexuality switching is something few do.
However there are 1.57 Billion Muslims on the planet. If three percent or more are born homosexual each generation, then there should be at a minimum of 150 million gay Muslims around somewhere, out of two generations.
How many Muslim gay web sites exist here, or around the world?
Where are the 150 million plus “gay’ Muslims in the world?
There should be at least 1-2 million right here in the USA! Is there a gay Muslim web site anywhere in the USA strictly for Muslim gays?
One thing seems to be very true. There seems to be no ex-gay Muslims either.
Then we get down to Buddhists, etc. Where are the gay Buddhists?
China has a billion plus people. Again that means 30-60 million or more are gay. Where are all of the Chinese gay web sites for strictly Chinese gays?
As with Muslims there seems to be no ex-gay Chinese either.
But where are the supposedly 300 million plus gay Chinese and Muslims?
Either those people are invisible, or the numbers for gays do not add up.
Hmm, perhaps ex-gays are equally invisible.
Brady
December 16th, 2009
I’m quite happy to see no ex-gays participating in this issue, whether or not any live in DC. I’ve always found it peculiar that someone publicly disccuses his or her change from gay to straight as reasoning that gays should be denied certain rights.
Sol Invictus- I’d suggest you use this new website I heard of called Google. “Gay muslim” pulled up a slew of sites catering to gay muslims, as did “gay Buddhist.” I’m sure your other examples would be the same.
Richard Rush
December 16th, 2009
Sol Invictus, most of the Muslim, Chinese, and Buddhist gay people are in the same place as all the other gays were fifty years ago – hiding in a closet to be invisible, and frequently marrying an unsuspecting op-sex spouse to avoid persecution or worse. It is astonishing that so many people seem to think it is more beneficial for society to have a homosexual deceive and marry an op-sex person than it would be for gays to marry other gays.
It seems to me that ex-gays are basically closeted homos who just need some hand-holding while trying to stay in the closet. In the past, closeted homos just suffered in isolation, but now they can share the misery.
If you had a daughter, how would you feel about her marrying an ex-gay man?
Timothy Kincaid
December 16th, 2009
Questioning the visibility of gay people in parts of the world where such visibility leads to execution is not only disingenuous, but reveals a startling lack of decency and valuing of human life.
Mykelb
December 16th, 2009
Sol Invictus – your reasoning is fallacious at best and astoundingly ignorant at worst. The societies you so roundly list do not have civil rights protections for LBGT persons. Do you actually think that they are going to just come out of the closet and get killed? You’re thinking is illogical and irrational and promotes and leads to the torture, victimization and hatred of millions across the globe and for which we have fought hard against in the E.U. and the U.S.
grantdale
December 17th, 2009
1570* million Muslims. 65% adults = 1020 adult Muslims. 3%* = 31 million adult gay Muslims. 1250 million in China. 75% x 3%* = 28 million. 31 + 28 = 59 million. Somehow this is “300 million plus”.
If only my income was so upwardly flexible by way of a simple inability to count.
I cannot claim to have met all 59 million of them, but I have quite assuredly met gay Muslims (even American ones) and gay people from China. Buddhist and gay? — pfft, a dime a dozen; you have to beat them off with sticks.
However, gay websites are decidely scarce on the ground in Saudi Arabia and Iran. And China. Reason being they are illegal, and censored. People do find a way to get around, as even a 10 second search will reveal, but they do so at great risk. I’d also like to mention that there is no web presense for any gay bars in Timbuktu, not even just the one. (How can this be??? Who knows, but I think I just spotted a business opportunity for these troubling times.)
So what does this leave us to conclude?
1) gay people exist in Muslim countries, in China, etc. But gay websites etc largely do not in comparison to elsewhere. Yeah, Duh.
2) ex-gay websites exist but ex-gays themselves do not. Any wonder none got unearthed in D.C. Yeah, Duh.
3) some people need to see more of the World. And they probably may, but only after first stealing the keys from a warden.
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