PRAY THE GAY AWAY?

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter

Helen and I watched the “Pray Away” film last night, about Reparative Therapy [RT], the attempt to convert gay people to straight. Our church is going to show it this weekend, but we couldn’t wait. Well, okay, we just got a smart TV, with Netflix built in, and we wanted to use it. Took only four hours--two for smart people to figure out a smart TV, and two to watch the film.

As a student of story-telling, I have some quibbles with the way this film goes at telling the story of Reparative Therapy, but that’s not the issue. Besides, Ken Burns can’t do every documentary.

The film focuses on the stories of former leaders of the RT movement who realized that what they were doing was both harmful and unnecessary.

First, the great harm that RT does. Young gay people who have undergone RT are twice as likely to commit suicide as those who have not. RT tries to make people into something they cannot be, tries to get them to live dishonest lives. Reparative therapy doesn’t work because it can’t work. Our sexual identity is no more a choice than our race is.

To their credit, the RT folk do not claim that homosexuality is a “choice,” like choosing which shirt to wear. They agree that it is a psychological necessity. They have developed a pseudo-scientific, circular psychological profile of gay people—distant fathers, smother mothers, childhood abuse, etc. If a gay person protests and says, “But my parents are nice and supportive, and I was never abused,” the RT people say, “Well, you must have forgotten or misunderstood.” But now you have a choice, they say: you can leave that past behind and come to Jesus, “just pray the gay away.”

I agree that we always have the choice to come to Jesus. As Paul Tournier, the Swiss physician said, “You are never too young or too old to give your life to Christ. After that, what else is there to do to get ready to die?”

But giving one’s life to Christ is salvation to our true identity, to who we really are, to the way God has made us—black or white, tall or short, gay or straight, smart or simple…

That brings us to the second main point: RT distorts the Gospel, the Good News, of Christ. As I watched, I envied the fellowship and support that RT gave to the people it was trying to “help.” I almost wanted to declare myself gay so that I could join in their prayer circles and fellowship. I kept thinking how wonderful it would be if those same RT people were trying to help lost people be found people rather than gay people be straight people. Lostness afflicts everyone, straight or gay. We need salvation not from our sexual identity but from our lostness. I loved the fellowship and support the RT folks gave, but it was bound to fail, because it was directed to the wrong ends. People can be converted from lost to found, but not from gay to straight.

The center of the film, the turning point, was when the RT leaders sat with and really listened to the stories that gay folks told of how badly they had been hurt by RT. The leader of Exodus International--the main, megaton RT organization--was so moved that he decided to close the Exodus organization rather than do more harm. [That, of course, did not end the RT movement. Other RT organizations are still quite active.]

The ex-RT leaders featured in the film, those who have repented of the harm they did, were not vengeful or mean toward their ex-colleagues. They pointed out that RT people are not evil or malicious, in their hearts or intents. They really believe that they are doing good, while they are doing harm.

That’s a real dilemma for those of us who need to confront RT and its supporters. How do you do reparative therapy on a wolf in sheep’s clothing who doesn’t even know it’s a wolf? How do you help people understand that sexual identity is not a choice, and not a psychological condition because of the way you were raised, but simply the way you are? That’s difficult, because RT people need to believe that gay people can be changed. It gives them purpose.

Having a purpose for life is a good thing. It’s such a shame that the considerable energies and sympathies of the RT people aren’t used to pray us toward one another and toward our own true selves instead of trying to “pray away.”

I am hopeful, for I know many people, young and old, who have been converted from homophobia to acceptance, from passion to compassion, from “pray away” to “please stay.”

John Robert McFarland