...Soon I heard about the Ex-gay movement. More specifically, I heard about a group in Los Angeles that met at a church who were “recovering homosexuals.” This sounded perfect, not only would these people know what I was going through, but it was far enough away from college that the chance of meeting up with familiar faces was pretty slim. I was able to keep it far removed from school and therefore keep it all a secret. So I drove for two hours down to LA to experience a real Ex-gay ministry.

When I arrived, I parked in front of a large church, which was part of a young, hip, growing denomination. I was so intimidated and also somewhat skeptical since the church was clearly more Pentecostal in style than the stuffy Southern Baptist denomination I grew up with. There must have been fifteen to twenty people when I walked in and a couple of men welcomed me with strong handshakes. They did not seem straight. I was so nervous I was shaking when they began to worship with Contemporary Christian Music. This was somewhat new to me too. People were standing, raising their arms into the air as they sang. They were really getting into to music and lyrics. I thought, "Wow! These folks are hard core." I also thought, "Well God, whatever it takes." At one point I got choked up by the whole scene. These were people, mainly men, who supposedly had the same sexual feelings I did. I could tell they really were sincere and that had to count for something. Could it be that I found what I had been looking for? It certainly started to look that way.

After about thirty minutes of singing, a guy who appeared to be in charge, got up in front for a kind of sermon -- a pep-talk really. Although he did not seem straight, he spoke of us being "new creatures in Christ, being washed clean, putting off the old and putting on the new, and without Christ we are nothing." This all lined up with my Bible. Just about the time he was wrapping up and I thought it was going to be over, I realized that everyone was going to sub-divide into small groups. I got nervous again. I so wanted to cut and run for the door, but they had already accounted for me and cheerfully directed me into a small group of five guys, one being the leader.

This was a prayer group I was told. I had been in various kinds of similar groups in my church as well. We went around the group and shared our concerns, specifically in terms of our "skewed straight identity" and pray for each other. One man was married and "just needed to deal with his thoughts." Another man had "fallen" in the past week, which was an unusually arousing realization -- this cute guy actually had sex in the past week. I half wanted to get the details and I half felt the need to pray for him. I remember the group leader, an older somewhat emotionless gentleman, requested continued prayer for his friend that had disappeared from the group in recent weeks. The words coming out of his mouth sounded distraught; yet, his face looked as if he was uninterested in what he was saying. I was able to piece together that this leader was a kind of mentor to the missing man. He ended the prayer request by saying something about the fear of his friend falling back into the "lifestyle," and then he said something about how easy it was to get AIDS. This sent a chill around our little circle, and it somehow motivated an anxious resolve of devotion in us.

The biggest difference to this prayer group from the ones I was used to was that this group put each person on the "hot seat" when they prayed. This sounds at first scary but it was quite the opposite. Each person when they shared would sit in the middle and we would lay our hands on them -- on their shoulders, their fore arm, or knees -- and pray directly to their concerns. Although this might seem odd for a bunch of guys who are attracted to the same gender, it really emphasized to me their "hands-on," tangible approach to participate in a person's healing -- just like Christ had done. These people were downright serious about being healed by God and I was ready to find out all they could do for me. When it came my turn, I didn't have to say anything since it was my first time attending (thank goodness!). Nonetheless, I sat in the middle and gentle hands touched me and sincere voices articulated my concerns, while a wave of acceptance washed over me. At last, I was with a group of people who could understand what I had been going through and could help me with it.

Over the next six months or so I made the two hour trek, there and back, every week up until the summer months. I read everything they gave me. I joined one of their churches that had started in Santa Barbara, became a regular at one of their Bible Studies just off campus, and I had a small prayer/support group with two "ex-lesbians" (whew! That was safe) on campus. I began to exercise Spiritual gifts -- speaking in tongues, laying hands on people wanting healing, and speaking words of discernment. I submitted myself to any and all the prayer I could receive. It was the height of the nineteen eighties and healing the inner child was all the rage. So the ministry had their own religious twist on pop-psychology issues; they nurtured my inner child, and dug for clues in my history that may have triggered my homosexuality. In the process along with my continued therapy, I learned a lot about myself and dealt with and created closure for some key unresolved past experiences.

Like any community, as I got to know them, I began to see the dirt on the sole of their "best foot forward." I began to perceive the differences between their beliefs and their behavior. What I knew of communities in general told me that every group has a certain amount of discrepancy between what they think and what they do, so I was willing to overlook a certain amount. After a while, though, the more I learned, the more disappointed I became.

The group believed that homosexuality originates at an early age when a child has an improper relationship with a parent. Maybe the parent is overbearing, passive, or possibly missing. Maybe the child has been molested. I was told that these inappropriate relationships to parents in the past could be counter acted with proper relationships in the present. This relationship would then enable the jump to heterosexuality, or at the very least, allow gays and lesbians to live happily celibate. But here is where I observed that the reality hardly conformed to their theory.

For one thing, their methods of countering the missing parental relationship did not seem to bring about heterosexuality. For example, a new male recruit would be paired with an older man. Theoretically, this older "role model" replaced the younger man's dysfunctional father-image, filling the void and bringing "healing" for the younger man in need of fatherly attention. I believe some great connections and healing came out of those relationships, but no one ever said they felt more straight as a result of these relationships. I remember one bonding was so strong and the "friendship" got so close (they were even living together) that in almost every way the two men maintained a gay relationship except for sexual activity -- supposedly. I remember another one when the role model was a straight man, the recruit dealt with an agonizing "crush" on the man who could never return the love the recruit desired.

There were other ways this theory did not pan out. I knew members whose personal histories simply did not fit the ministry's model for the development of homosexuality. Like me, they had never been molested and they came from healthy, two-parent families. This confounded the leadership. They prayed extensively over these guys to find the hidden "flaw" that made them gay. I remember a look in one such man's eyes that I now recognize as hopelessness. How would he ever be able to change if he didn't even fit the profile?

What really brought the ministry's whole theory into doubt for me came actually from the very source of their theories. Psychologists originally explored the missing parent/mentoring approach in the late 1960's, but the results of the study demonstrated its ineffectiveness -- that it just plain did not work. Yet the Ex-gay leadership had no problem presenting the treatment as gospel truth. They simply picked out the sentences and paragraphs that supported their views. That's why I wrote above that they used twisted psychology. Under the auspices of religion, they manipulated information to their own purposes -- and that they did this often.

I can not place all of the blame on their shoulders. Even after I knew the details of the study, I too disregarded it's results and it's ramifications about my sexuality. After all, it was just psychology and I had God. He could do anything, right? God could even change my sexuality.

However, the more time went by and the longer I attempted to make Ex-gay techniques my own, the more they would not add up. The focus on "who we were in Christ" began to sound somehow familiar. Great amounts of energy was devoted to imagining how we would really be straight one day. The diligence to be "that person for Christ" would often be equated with modifying our appearance, "taking on a masculine nature," even though we were attracted to the same gender on the inside. Faithfulness to God was in direct proportion to whether members had abstained from sex and masturbation the previous week. We tried to stay busy with church activities (and I with school) to distract us from looking at our sexuality, which was a kind of success -- a mastery over lust by distraction. It finally dawned on me why this all felt so familiar. I had already been doing these tactics ever since I decided homosexuality was unacceptable. That's why I had turned to them in the first place. These approaches did not work for me, and they sure did not seem to be working for them either.

Be that as it may, those who worked hard enough rose in the ranks as examples of "the healed." Some even became paid leaders with their employment at stake if their sexuality did not comply with their teaching. Of course that was never stated aloud, but it sure was sobering when I realized what kind of bind that put everyone of the paid Ex-gays in. How could I trust what they say is true when their job depended on it? Yet, some of their personalities and speaking abilities were so captivating and strong that if we disagreed with them, it felt as if I would be disagreeing with God. Not only did I believe that some leader's authority was "in line" with God's authority, some leaders sincerely believed that their authority actually was God's authority within the sphere of the group. It sometimes felt as if to question their ministry meant to be unfaithful to God. I felt, and sometimes I was made to feel, that our innocent questions and desires about sexuality were signs of doubt and disloyalty to the group, the leadership, and to God. Loyalty meant that it did not matter what we thought inside just as long as we conformed to what the leadership believed God wanted.

Over the months, I heard about a live-in program where men would put their lives basically on hold, while they moved into a house (with other Ex-gays) to submerge themselves in a 24/7 program of healing. The prospects of this started to really make me uncomfortable, especially when I would hear about the drama and pressure that would circulate about the program.

The leadership was given much more authority over the live-in members. There would be times at the meetings when the leadership would turn up their noses to certain books and movies as, "Not be edifying to the new creation God is making us to be," but in the live-in group, leaders controlled what books were read, what was watched on TV or viewed at the movies. Participants could not do outside activities alone. The members were restricted from seeing certain people. I heard of some program providing temp-like jobs so members were monitored at all times.

There were also the confrontations. I only saw a couple of them, but I heard of others. Two different times, live-in members were found out to be having sex and the leadership would corner them and aggressively argue with them and pray over them until the person would totally submit, or breakdown, or both. One guy simply walked out distraught, the other stayed the rest of the meeting but was forced to leave by the next morning. In both cases I was mortified to hear the leadership speak horribly of them after the fact. It was like they made them an example of how Satan could destroy a life and we were warned not to communicate with those poor deceived, lost souls.

Still, this was the only thing I knew to get me to change. I was not going to be a failure. I was not going to let God down. I overlooked more and more nonsense to be the person I thought God wanted me to be. I began to notice a cyclical pattern to my behavior. I would go to the LA meeting and share my past week's "temptations," get prayer for strength and healing and drive home motivated, "Yes, I'm perfect and clean in God's eyes. I'm God's child and I want to please him in everything I do." I'd get up and read my Bible the next morning. On the way to class though, I'd see a cute guy in shorts and I would get angry at myself for allowing my eyes to wonder down his hairy legs. I'd ask God's forgiveness, quote a scripture, and refocus again. Sometimes I could focus for a few days, kind of like keeping a lid firmly on a boiling pot, but eventually that seemed to burn my hands and make the "fall" all the more disappointing. I would think I would be gaining ground, but I would get horny, masturbate, and feel like a tremendous failure. Instead of questioning the system, I assumed that I must not be trying hard enough, and I'd start the whole "workaholic" treadmill over again, and again, and again.

At some point significant red flags flew for me regarding the Ex-gay ministry. There were just too many aspects to their "healing techniques" that had cultic and brainwashing elements. I knew better. Besides, I knew that if we were following God's truth, it could withstand the test of any contradicting view. God was no wimp. If we had the truth, and God stood with us, why were we so intensely afraid to just get through the day? What was all the drama about (besides the fact we were all raging queens)? And most of all, where were all the straight people that once were gay? Even though I was attending their church, weekly bible study and a prayer group, all in Santa Barbara, the direct exposure to the Ex-gay ministry was only a few hours a week, when I drove down to LA. Gratefully, this allowed me to keep some distance, and I'd like to think some perspective from really being a hard-core Ex-gay.

Nonetheless, I really wanted to be straight, and I still believed that God could do anything. The stress and pressure only seemed to increase when one of the women in my little prayer group had heard about a healer that specialized in this sort of thing and my friend arranged for us to go see her. I was hopeful that maybe a special healing like this could help shift things in the right direction, but it began to feel almost subversive, like we were seeking out a soothsayer. We drove to some church we had never been to before in the middle of the day, and each one of us went in to see this women one at a time -- I was last.

When I walked in, she had a male assistant with her and I sat in the hot seat while they prayed over me. They asked a few questions, much like a psychic would ask questions, "Do you have siblings? Was your father present in the house when you were young?" They anointed my forehead with oil. They spoke in tongues over me. There was a lot of talking about roots, "Lord, get to the root of this boy's desire. Lord, pull the improper root of lust clean out of his life." I tried to imagine my problem being a root to a big tree, and I imagined it being pulled out, but somehow, the root seemed elusive, like I was grabbing for it and nothing was there. I squinted. I squeezed. I swayed back in forth in my chair. I stayed as open to whatever God wanted as I possibly knew how. I wanted to be open in ways I could not yet imagine. Eventually, I felt a certain amount of peace (or exhaustion) while the woman leading the prayer wound down.

I wanted to believe. I prayed with her. I pleaded for the Spirit to fill the space where once was the root with God's love and strength. I felt as clean as I imagined clean could be. I was not aware of it, but I had taken the longest amount of time out of the three of us. I guess I had deeper roots. I imagined myself completely free to choose heterosexuality, but I was afraid to put it to the test. How would I put it to the test? Was I supposed to get an erection from thinking about women? Was that not a sin all by itself?

Well, the "cleanliness" and the imagined freedom lasted until we had dinner at a fast food spot where a really cute guy was at the register. My sexuality had not flipped, nor did I feel like I chose to be aroused by anyone. I just was. My lesbian friends seemed to feel differently, or at least they said they were, "I really feel like I've been changed." They would kind of chuckle under their breath and say it again. I chimed in too, as to not rouse suspicion, but I was lying through my teeth, just like always. I could do it so well.

Summer break was just days away. Although friends might not have noticed from the outside, deep inside I was tied up in a knot of frustrated confusion. I suppose this could have been the time where I tried even harder, and I suppose that outwardly, I kept up the facade, but inside, I just needed a break. I was so exhausted and so disappointed. I had submerged myself in the Ex-gay experience every way I possibly could. If it was going to be this much work for so little reward, I had to be sure of what I was doing and that meant I had to know all the truth. I had spent all my life suppressing my sexuality, and most especially in the past few months and it seemed like these very same months I had been more obsessed with it than ever. I felt confident that I knew what this side of the fence was about. What I hadn't explored was the other side. If I was going to seek God's truth about this in every way, I owed it to myself to know for sure that I was choosing correctly and the only way to be completely sure was to find out what all the hubbub was about. What was so horribly sinful and desperately lonely about being a homosexual?

So when summer began, I prayed a very unique prayer -- at least for me at the time. I said, "God, I have to find out for myself what it means to be gay. No more taking Ex-gays' word for it. So this is going to be my summer of calculated rebellion. I love you. I will be back, but just give me some space for three months to check things out." As best as I could conceive, I set God on a shelf and turned my back to see how the other half lived. I stayed on campus with a job in the admissions office, but on off hours, I was no where to be found. I did not take the long drives down to the Ex-gay ministry anymore. The bible study and prayer group went on vacation with classes. I hardly went to church and it certainly took a back seat to other activities.