hey kids.
this is a newyorktimes article that my sociology prof sent to us.
I went and checked out the website for the treatment program mentioned...
I think it's at loveinaction.org or something.
Enjoy? Discuss?
love.
The New York Times
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July 17, 2005
Gay Teenager Stirs a Storm
By ALEX WILLIAMS
MEMPHIS
IT was the sort of confession that a decade ago might have been scribbled
in a teenager's diary, then quietly tucked away in a drawer: "Somewhat
recently," wrote a boy who identified himself only as Zach, 16, from
Tennessee, on his personal Web page, "I told my parents I was gay." He
noted, "This didn't go over very well," and "They tell me that there is
something psychologically wrong with me, and they 'raised me wrong.' "
But what grabbed the attention of Zach's friends and subsequently of both
gay activists and fundamentalist Christians around the world who came
across the entry, made on May 29, was not the intimacy of the confession.
Teenagers have been outing themselves online for years, and many of Zach's
friends already knew he was gay. It was another sentence in the Web log:
"Today, my mother, father and I had a very long 'talk' in my room, where
they let me know I am to apply for a fundamentalist Christian program for
gays."
"It's like boot camp," Zach added in a dispatch the next day. "If I do
come out straight, I'll be so mentally unstable and depressed it won't
matter."
The camp in question, Refuge, is a youth program of Love in Action
International, a group in Memphis that runs a religion-based program
intended to change the sexual orientation of gay men and women. Often
called reparative or conversion therapy, such programs took hold in
fundamentalist Christian circles in the 1970's, when mainstream
psychiatric organizations overturned previous designations of
homosexuality as a mental disorder, and gained ground rapidly from the
late 90's. Programs like Love in Action have always been controversial,
but Zach's blog entries have brought wide attention to a less-known aspect
of them, their application to teenagers.
Although Zach wrote only a handful of entries about the Refuge program,
all posted before he arrived there in the Memphis suburbs on June 6, his
words have been forwarded on the Internet over and over, inspiring online
debates, news articles, sidewalk protests and an investigation into Love
in Action by the Tennessee Department of Children's Services in response
to a child abuse allegation. The investigation was dropped when the
allegation proved unfounded, a spokeswoman for the agency said.
To some, Zach, whose family name is not disclosed on his blog and has not
appeared in news accounts, is the embodiment of gay adolescent
vulnerability, pulled away from friends who accepted him by adults who do
not. To others he is a boy whose confused and formative sexual identity is
being exploited by gay political activists.
In his last blog entry before beginning the program, at 2:33 a.m. on June
4, Zach wrote, "I pray this blows over," adding that if his parents caught
him online he'd be in trouble. He described arguments he had been having
with his parents, his mother in particular. "I can't take this," his post
reads. "No one can. I'm not a suicidal person. I think it's stupid,
really. But I can't help it - no I'm not going to commit suicide - all I
can think about is killing my mother and myself. It's so horrible."
The Rev. John J. Smid, the executive director of Love in Action, declined
to discuss the details of Zach's experience, citing the program's
confidentiality rules. In an interview early this month at his
headquarters, a weathered 1960's A-frame building, which was until
recently a vacant Episcopal Church, Mr. Smid explained that teenage
participants in Refuge are forbidden to speak with anyone the program does
not approve of. Requests made through Mr. Smid to interview Zach's parents
were declined.
Founded in California in 1973, Love in Action moved to Memphis 11 years
ago. It is one of 120 programs nationwide listed by Exodus International,
which bills itself as the largest information and referral network for
what is known among fundamentalist Christians as the "ex-gay" movement. In
2003 Love in Action introduced the first structured program specifically
for teenagers, 24 of whom have participated, Mr. Smid said. The initial
two weeks costs $2,000, and many participants stay six weeks more, as Zach
has.
The goal of the program, said Mr. Smid, who said he was once gay but now
renounces homosexual behavior, is not necessarily to turn gays into
practicing heterosexuals, but to "put guardrails" on their sexual
impulses.
"In my life I've been out of homosexuality for over 20 years, and for me
it's really a nonissue," Mr. Smid said.
"I may see a man and say, he's handsome, he's attractive, and it might
touch a part of me that is different from someone else," he said. "But
it's really not an issue. Gosh, I've been married for 16 years and
faithful in my marriage in every respect. I mean I don't think I could
white-knuckle this ride for that long."
Mr. Smid first learned that one of his teenage participants was a cause
célèbre when protesters appeared outside his headquarters for several days
in early June, carrying signs saying, "This is child abuse" and "Jesus is
no excuse for hate."
He was bombarded by phone calls from reporters, he said, as well as by 100
e-mail messages a day from as far as Norway. Zach's writings, which
appeared on his page on www.MySpace.com, were publicized by one of his
online acquaintances, E. J. Friedman, a Memphis musician and writer, who
read Zach's May 29 blog entry, "The World Coming to an Abrupt - Stop."
Mr. Friedman, 35, was disturbed by what he read and fired off an instant
message. "I said: 'You should run away from home. There are people who
will help you,' " Mr. Friedman recalled. "He said: 'I can't do that. I
want to have my childhood. If this is what I have to go through to have
it, then I will.' "
Mr. Friedman posted an angry message about Zach's impending stay at Refuge
on his own blog. Mr. Friedman's friends picked up on the story and started
spreading it on blogs of their own. Soon a local filmmaker, Morgan Jon
Fox, who had met Zach through mutual acquaintances, joined with others to
start a group called Queer Action Coalition, which organized the protests
at Love in Action.
"We wanted to show support," said Mr. Fox, 26, who directed a fictional
film about gay teenagers in 2003, shot at White Station High School in
Memphis, where Zach is a student. "Then it kind of blew up."
Links to Zach's site bounced around the country. Mr. Friedman's Web page
had so much traffic, "it blew my bandwidth," he said. Mr. Smid, too, was
inundated with Internet traffic, much of it outraged at the attempts to
change Zach's sexual orientation.
"All of a sudden, 80,000 Internet hits later on our Web site, the world
has decided that he should be freed," Mr. Smid said. "Maybe he didn't ask
for this. Maybe he doesn't really have the personality that really is
going to be able to deal with this. And they talk about our 'abuse' of
him."
The program at Love in Action has parallels to 12-step recovery programs.
Participants, referred to as clients, study the Bible, meet with
counselors and keep a "moral inventory," a journal in which they detail
their struggle with same-sex temptation over the years, which they read at
emotionally raw group meetings, former clients say.
Excessive jewelry or stylish clothing from labels like Calvin Klein and
Tommy Hilfiger are forbidden, and so is watching television, listening to
secular music (even Bach) and reading unapproved books or magazines.
"It's like checking into prison," said Brandon Tidwell, 29, who completed
the adult program in 2002 but eventually rejected its teachings,
reconciling his Christian beliefs with being gay.
Physical contact among clients other than a handshake is forbidden, and so
is "campy" talk or behavior, according to program rules that Zach posted
on his blog before he began at Refuge. Occasionally, recalled Jeff
Harwood, 41, a Love in Action graduate who still considers himself gay,
some participants would mock the mandatory football games.
"You could get away with maybe one limp-wristed pass before another client
would catch you," he said, seated on a tattered sofa in a funky cafe
called Java Cabana in the trendy midtown district of Memphis.
Because teenagers, unlike adult clients, return home at night, parents are
asked to help keep them away from television and, more important, a
computer. Zach has not updated his blog since entering the program.
For Mr. Smid and his supporters, offering Love in Action to teenagers is
vital to combat what they see as a growing tolerance of homosexuality
among young people. "We just really believe that the resounding message
for teenagers in our culture is, practice whatever you want, have sex
however, whenever and with whoever you want," he said. "I very deeply
believe that is harmful. I think exploring sexuality can lay a teenager up
for numerous lifelong issues."
Critics of programs that seek to change sexual orientation say the
programs themselves can open a person to lifelong problems, including
guilt, shame and even suicidal impulses. The stakes are higher for
adolescents, who are already wrestling with deep questions of identity and
sexuality, mental-health experts say.
"Their identities are still in flux," said Dr. Jack Drescher, the chairman
of the committee on gay, lesbian and bisexual issues of the American
Psychiatric Association, which in 2000 formally rejected regimens like
reparative or conversion therapy as scientifically unproven. "One serious
risk for the parent to consider is that most of the people who undergo
these treatments don't change. That means that most people who go through
these experiences often come out feeling worse than when they went in."
Two weeks ago the Tennessee Department of Health sent a letter to Love in
Action, saying it was suspected of offering therapeutic services for which
it was not licensed, a department spokeswoman said. Mr. Smid insisted in
the interview that his program is a spiritual, not a counseling, center,
and he is removing references to therapy from its Web site.
He said he does not track his success rate. Mr. Harwood, who graduated
from the adult program in 1999, said that of 11 fellow former clients he
has kept track of, eight once again consider themselves gay.
Although critics say such programs threaten the adolescent psyche, at
least one teenager who considers himself a successful graduate does not
agree. "In my experience people who struggle with their sexuality are more
mature in general," Ben Marshall, 18, said. He recounted being in turmoil,
growing up gay in a conservative Christian household in Mobile, Ala.
In 2004 his parents sent him to Refuge. "I went to Memphis kicking and
screaming," he said. "I had grown to hate the church for the militant
message it gave off toward homosexuality."
While enrolled he spent days listening to stories of the pain that
homosexuality had caused clients and their families. Slowly, he said, his
attitude changed. He ended up choosing to continue in Love in Action's
adult program for nine months. While the program has a "high rate of
failure," he said "there are enough successes to know I'm not alone."
But even success comes only through continuing struggle. Although he plans
to date women in the future, Mr. Marshall said, he is avoiding any
romantic relationships for the time being. "In all honesty, I'm just
trying to figure out how to deal normally with men before I start to deal
with women," he said.
Zach's parents did not reply to a request for comment for this article
left on their answering machine. Last week his father, speaking to the
Christian Broadcasting Network, said: "We felt good about Zach coming
here. To let him see for himself the destructive lifestyle, what he has to
face in the future."
In Zach's case there is no indication he was particularly upset about his
sexual identity. Although his high school is in a Bible belt city, the
student body is fairly tolerant of homosexual classmates, some students
said, particularly those who, like Zach, are not conspicuous about their
orientation.
"Stereotype me, if you dare," was the motto Zach chose for his blog, where
he listed "Edward Scissorhands" and "Girl, Interrupted" as his favorite
movies and Brandon Flowers, the lead singer of the alternative rock band
the Killers, as the person he would most like to meet.
While Zach, as his blog recounted, only recently came out to his parents,
many of his friends had known he was gay for more than a year, one
classmate said. Zach openly identified himself as gay on his blog, which
links to 213 friends' blogs listed in a Friend Space box on the site.
Zach is due to leave the program next week. His June 4 message expressed
thanks for the more than 1,700 messages on his page, many voicing support.
"Don't worry," he wrote. "I'll get through this. They've promised me
things will get better, whether this program does anything or not. Let's
hope they're not lying."
* Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
