Christopher Macintosh

A friend has emailed me about the tragic suicide of yet another gay teen. It breaks my heart when I learn that a kid, trapped in a hostile environment, has felt that the hatred and intolerance he or she faces is more than they can take.

Gay teen suicide is one of the great tragedies of our time and one that is almost wholly preventable. These kids are not killing themselves because they feel they are perverted or that their “lifestyle” is empty and meaningless. They are killing themselves because they are told they are perverted; they are told their lifestyle is meaningless. They are beaten at school, attacked at home, ridiculed by family, and condemned from the pulpit. They listen to a message of hatred and intolerance disguised as love and when it is delivered over and over, when they are told enough times that they are worthless, they come to believe it.

Everytime a religious figure condenms homosexuality as unnatural and perverse, everytime a religious figure declares that gay people will burn in Hell for eternity, everytime a religious figure claims that any abuse suffered by a gay person is deserved, they have given the bashers the justification they desire to beat and often kill. They give the victims of their tyrades the message that suicide is the only answer because, for most of them, they know that heterosexuality is not the answer for them.

Every year, more and more scientific evidence points to the fact that homosexuality is NOT “curable,” that homosexuality itself, (not the behavior, but the orientation- at least among gay men) is not a choice. Research shows significant differences in the hypothalamae of gay men as opposed to straight men, that there is a correlation between orientation and the presence of the q28 gene in men, that gay men react to male phermones in the same way as straight women, that identical male twins raised in seperate environments will, in at least 95% of the time, both be gay if at least one is.

But, science is never an answer to those who seek in the Bible justification for bigotry and hatred. The Old Testament declares that adultery is a capital offence- why do those who condemn homosexuality not demand the death penalty for all those evangelists such as Richard Roberts who are divorced? Paul says in the New Testament that women should sit seperate from men in church, should never express religious opinions, and should always be subservient to their husbands. In even the most hardcore Baptist household, is this common?

We must stand up for those who are the most vulnerable and the least able to defend themselves from religious hypocrisy and cultural bigotry. We must stand up for the gay youth of America who are being beaten and murdered and driven to suicide by the ignorance and hatred of the deliberately blind.

I nearly killed myself when I was fourteen because of the verbal abuse of my stepfather. I know what our gay youth are going through. Stand up for them. Help them. Tell them they are beautiful and that the bigots and hate-mongers are wrong.

“Love In Action,” the “Christian,” “ex-gay” re-education camp to which young Zach Stark was recently consigned by his intolerant parents, has now been closed by the State of Tennessee. When even the founder of the group says that it doesn’t work and does more harm than good, I think that is a message that the bigots should listen to. But, then, when have bigots listened to anything other than that which supports their bigotry?

This is an Associated Press copyrighted article:

‘Ex-Gay Ministry’ Ordered Closed
by The Associated Press

(Nashville, Tennessee) The Tennessee Department of Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities has ordered the closing of what it calls two unlicensed personal care facilities run by a Christian group that claims to counsel gays to give up homosexuality.

Love In Action’s work, particularly with teenagers, has drawn protests from gay rights advocates.

It has become quite popular for many GLBT people to describe themselves, and to presume to refer to anyone GLBT, as “queer.” We have the gay minstrel show on Bravo now called Queer Eye. Universities and colleges across America have instituted “Queer Studies” programs. Queer seems to be the accepted term now for being gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgendered.

I’m sorry, but I detest the term.

I am not queer. I am gay, I am homosexual, and not straight. But, I am not queer and I don’t like anyone, “queer” or not, calling me “queer.”

I find the term offensive and a reminder of the descrimination and violence we have suffered for too long. I have written of my stepfather calling me queer when I was a boy. I was beaten almost every day during junior high school. A young man was murdered in my city when I was a teen and the word “queer” written with his blood on the wall beside him.

“Queer” is symbolic of all the pain and degradation we have endured. I find it as offensive as “nigger,” “kike,” “spic,” or “wop.” No university would institute a “Nigger Studies” program or offer classes in “Kike-history.” Why should “queer” be acceptable to us?

For that matter, why should a program such as “Queer Eye,” regardless of the title, be acceptable? “Queer Eye” is nothing more than the gay 21st-Century equivalent of “Amos and Andy.”

I know that some say that by embracing “queer,” we take the pain and hate from the word. No we don’t. Ask any African-American if they would tolerate ‘nigger” or if they embraced “niggger, would it take away the pain of centuries of slavery, lynchings, and descrimination. Ask a Jew if they would embrace “kike” as a way of alleviating the pain of the Holocaust and the Dyaspora.

For some, it is an “in-your-face,” “fuck-you” way of declaring independence from the descrimination and hate and I can understand the anger behind such feelings. Like every other middle-aged gay man, I have my copy of La Cage aux Folles and know all the words to “I Am What I Am.” But, I think there is a bit of exhibitionism in it, as well; a bit of wanting to shock. It’s similar to the tacky and tasteless exhibitionism often seen in Pride parades that negate any positive image that may be created. Wagging your penis at shocked straight people along the parade route is not going to influence them to be more receptive to gay marraige. All it does is declare that you care not for their feeings. If that’s all you want, then fine. However, some of us want more.

I am who I am and I am comfortable with who I am. I don’t need to walk up to a complete stranger on the street, slap his face, and scream, “I’m a cocksucker!” And, it’s not internalized homophobia to say so.

When you allow one aspect of your character or life to be the definition of who you are, you are pathetically mono-dimensional. And, the use of the word “queer” is an insulting and demeaning way of defining a group and often embraced by those for whom being gay is the over-riding quality of their being.

I am not queer, but I am proud that I have loved men and I was proud to march around the White House in protest against anti-gay descrimination. I was proud to work in the HIV community. I was proud to volunteer with The Quilt. I am proud to drive a car with a rainbow flag sticker. I am proud to write gay love stories. I am proud to speak to legislators and politicians about gay issues. I am proud to write letters to the newspaper regarding gay issues. I am proud to march in the Pride parade and to publicly declare my homosexuality.

But, I am not queer and don’t presume to call me queer.

It may be unseemly and disrespectful less than forty-eight hours after his passing to begin speculation on a successor to Chief Justice William Rehnquist, but there are a number of issues which Senators and the public must consider in the weeks to come as the President chooses and the Senate confirms the new leader of the Supreme Court.

As Rehnquist was a conservative and his replacement will, most likely, reflect his conservative temperment, the Supreme Court is unlikely to change its balance due to his absence. However, as Associate Justice Sandra Day O’Conner was often a swing vote between the conservatives and the moderates and liberals, her replacement will matter a great deal. Judge John Roberts has been nominated to replace her and I believe that many liberal groups have rushed to judgment on him and prematurely announced opposition to his nomination. I don’t believe Roberts will be as dangerous to gay people and other minorities as some fear, primarily because of his strong respect for the concept of stare decisis, of legal precedent, (see this article on Stare Decisis in Wikipedia). Roberts strongly believes in upholding legal precedents and if the court has ruled, as it did in Lawrence v Texas that anti-sodomy laws are a violation of the right of privacy, he is unlikely to reverse that. He is unlikely to reverse Roe v Wade, either. Much as I dislike George W. Bush, and my dislike of the man is immense and intense, I believe the early opposition to the Roberts nomination is simply knee-jerk and opportunistic. It is my hope, actually, as some have suggested on the Sunday morning talk-shows, that Bush switches Roberts’ nomination to fill Rehnquist’s seat and chooses someone else for O’Connor’s.

All of this, however, must be viewed in the light of what I believe is the great issue facing America during the next few decades. Eloquently stated during an episode of The West Wing a few years ago, an aide to the character of President Bartlet states that the great issue facing America in the Twenty-first Century will be privacy. It is true. As surveillance of computers and communications becomes not only easier but more common, as legislation such as the “Patriot” Act becomes more acceptable, as the people of the United States become ever more compliant and less concerned about the growing encroachments on their civil liberties and place the illusion of security before the right of freedom, privacy will be the great issue before the Supreme Court during the upcoming decades. And, it is this issue on which Judge Roberts and any other Court nominees should be questioned in the most intense and direct of terms.

Privacy is a right and we should demand it.

One night, when I was fourteen, I was standing in the kitchen of our house as my mother cowered at the table and my step-father stood in the doorway from the dining room yelling, “I’m not gonna have any God-damned queers in my family.” It was the spring of 1972 and my “sin,” the catalyst for this incident, was my having watched an ABC Movie of the Week entitled That Certain Summer, in which a teenage boy played by Scott Jacoby learns that his father, played by Hal Holbrook, is gay and living with a partner played by Martin Sheen. The movie showed the pain the revelation causes the boy and his attempts to understand and deal with it. I was just coming to terms, that spring, with the fact that I was turned on by the boys in the showers in gym class and not by the naked women in the Playboys I had removed from the neighbors’ trash cans. In watching the movie, I saw that there were gay men out there who didn’t commit suicide, who didn’t lurk in alleys, and who didn’t go to prison. I saw that there might be hope for me.

Until my step-father’s outburst of loathing and disgust.

Two hours later, I was seated on the toilet in the bathroom holding my Boy Scout knife to my wrist, desperately trying to work up the courage to end the pain and the “perversion.” Were it not for the insistent knocking on the door by my younger brother, I might very well have done so.

This summer, a teenage boy in Tennessee named Zack Stark caused a great stir when he wrote in his blog of his homosexuality and his parents’ determination to “cure” it by sending him to a Christian “ex-gay” re-education camp called Refuge, run by a ministry called “Love in Action.” There was outrage at the techniques used by the group and protests both on the Internet and in front of the group’s headquarters. The State of Tennessee even invistigated the camp over allegations of abuse and practicing therapy without proper certification. Zack has now returned home from the re-education camp and his latest blog entry, as quoted by The Washington Blade, indicates that there has been some “progress” made by the re-programmers at Love in Action. It is understandable. The boy is sixteen and under great stress caused by parents who cannot accept a son who is not what they want.

I understand the feelings of shame, the sense of alienation at not being what your family wants. An older family-member had occasionally touched me inappropriately when I was young and later, seeing the turmoil and emotional violence in my family after my mother’s remarriage, had asked that I live with him and his wife. My mother refused and told me that, had she agreed to it, I would have been “ruined.” I wasn’t completely certain what she meant by the term “ruined,” but had a fairly good idea that it had something to do with being “queer,” which I knew I was. So, I endured the rest of my adolescence knowing that, in my mother’s eyes, I was ruined.

Larry Evans was the founder of “Love in Action” in 1973. However, after seeing the wreckage “reparative therapy” leaves in its wake, the destroyed lives, the self-hatred, the suicides, he has now denounced it and declared it to be dangerous and wrong.

More than a third of teenage suicides are by gay youth. Do they kill themselves because of their homosexuality or because of the alienation, the rejection, the abuse they endure at the hands of unaccepting families and closed-minded bigots? There is little evidence to suggest much of a success rate in programs such as “Love in Action,” which some of their organizers admit, even as they use fear of the “homosexual agenda” in their fund-raising; but there is voluminous evidence to show the harm such programs do in creating feelings of shame and failure in the victims they target.

I have only the greatest respect and sympathy for Zach, a beautiful young man, as you can see from the picture above, who deserves all the peace and joy life can give. I hope he finds love and self-acceptance, no matter what path he chooses once he is of age to make decisions for himself. And, I hope that advocates either for “reparative therapy” or against leave the boy alone and let him deal with his life. He’s been under terrible stress and deserves support and love.