The Salt Lake Tribune had an interesting article on the 10th annual Evergreen International conference at the Mormon-owned Joseph Smith Memorial Building in downtown Salt Lake City. Evergreen is an ex-gay ministry. At the conference, Richard Cohen, an ex-homosexual, a “therapist,” and author of the book Coming Out Straight, insists that no one is born gay. He doesn’t like what he calls the “g-a-y word” either. “Homosexuality,” he said, “Is not gay, nor bad, but SSAD: Same Sex Attachment Disorder.” Oh please! Do these people ever listen to themselves? Same Sex Attachment Disorder?! Remember the days before psycho-babble, before Oprah Winfrey began her tedious spiritual journey towards ‘nothingness’ … back in the good old days when homosexuals were just biblical abominations? Now, those were the days …Cohen goes on to explain that homosexuality, rather than being genetic, is a symptom of unresolved childhood trauma. “A little boy in a man’s body looking for a daddy’s love in the arms of another man,” said Cohen. “Or a little girl in a woman’s body looking for a mommy’s love in the arms of another woman.” Even if Cohen is right, is that such a bad thing? That, as adults, lesbians and gay men seek the love they were denied as a child. What’s wrong with that?
While we’re on the subject of so called “ex-gays,” remember John Paulk, the board chair for the ex-gay group Exodus International, and on the staff of Focus on the Family? He was the guy on the cover of Newsweek as “Going Straight” with his ex-lesbian wife Anne. He is also the author of the book Not Afraid to Change; The Remarkable Story of How One Man Overcame Homosexuality, and appeared in ads in mainstream newspapers saying he had converted to heterosexuality through prayer. Southern Voice reports that Paulk isn’t as “straight” as he says he is. He was recently confronted and photographed by gay activists frequenting Mr. P’s, a gay bar in Washington, D.C. When confronted he claimed he didn’t know Mr. P’s was a gay bar and he had only dropped in to use the bathroom. So he dropped into Mr. P’s for a pee, huh? But that doesn’t explain why he was there for 40 minutes, socializing with men and offering to buy them drinks. There’s a lot of mixed-up queens out there.
Two letters in the Lansing State Journal bring back memories of Anita Bryant’s anti-gay tirades in the 1970s. Kenneth Sheffer’s letter describes allowing gays into the Boy Scouts as “opening the hen house to the fox.” Do you think this guy lives on a farm? “I can’t imagine companies dropping their support of the Scouts,” he writes, “I do not hate gays. I know a few who are great people and are the ones that can be trusted. But I do remember that God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Henry.” But Shirley Michael wins the “Clichéd Letter of the Week Award”: ” … in the beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth,” she writes, “Now I’ll tell you why homosexuality is immoral. God created Adam and Eve, to marry and become one. He didn’t create Adam and Steve, or Eve and Evie. Satan is alive and doing his best to destroy morality. But God will prevail, and all will be judged accordingly.” Remember Anita Bryant’s: “If God had meant there to be homosexuals, he would have created Adam and Steve?” Well, sweethearts, if God had meant there to be heterosexuals, SHE would have created Cain and Mabel.