Was J gay? Probably | Pl Otreicher | The Guardian

Contents:

• JOHN PLK WAS THE POSTER BOY OF THE EX-GAY MOVEMENT FOR 25 YEARS. HERE'S WHERE HE IS NOW.
• WAS THE APOSTLE PL GAY?
• ST. JOHN PL II’S TOTALLY CATHOLIC RPONSE WHEN GAY ‘PRI’ PARA ME TO ROME 18 YEARS AGO
• FORMER EX-GAY SPOKMAN JOHN PLK APOLOGIZ AMID DIVORCE
• WAS J GAY? PROBABLY
• WAS ST. PL GAY? CLAIM STIRS FURY
• JOHN PL YOUNG WOOS YOUNG, GAY CROWD WH 1978 H

JOHN PLK WAS THE POSTER BOY OF THE EX-GAY MOVEMENT FOR 25 YEARS. HERE'S WHERE HE IS NOW.

For Pope John Pl II did lbian, gay, transgenred and bisexual peopl untold harm. I bore first-hand wns to this my 24 years of pritly mistry to gay men sufferg and dyg om HIV/Aids.

WAS THE APOSTLE PL GAY?

Aga and aga durg the 1980s and 1990s, at the very height of the panmic New York primarily and then London, was my pa and privilege to hold the hand of young Catholic gay men their twenti and thirti and try to reassure them that they were not nmned to eternal damnatn bee of what their Church tght about their orientatn and their lovg sexual behavur.

Most tragilly of all for me as a Catholic prit was that at least three of the people I assisted were fellow prits, two of whom like myself were Irish born - gay men tortured and tormented as they went to meet their Maker by the very Church to which they had given their liv.

Their fai and relig muni did not want to know what was too is the legacy of Pope John Pl that he mt now answer for the prence of our gay brothers to whom this life he gave so ltle to quench their eternal, one may well ask, n any self-rpectg gay man or woman stay wh such an opprsive and, for , a humanisg stutn? Yet here I am, an openly gay Catholic prit, and still I believe and hope and love om wh s ranks. It was his s that bld him to as gay people.

ST. JOHN PL II’S TOTALLY CATHOLIC RPONSE WHEN GAY ‘PRI’ PARA ME TO ROME 18 YEARS AGO

We are the midst of a cultural sea-change as regards homosexualy.

But to someone younger, homosexualy seems to be a great al ls threateng. When addrsg the qutn were John and Pl lovers, ’s key to remember this pot: Homosexualy was absolutely verboten the time and place of the Beatl.

FORMER EX-GAY SPOKMAN JOHN PLK APOLOGIZ AMID DIVORCE

The guys, we have to realize, had likely dulged every sexual practice known to homo sapiens, and probably vented a few new on along the way. You may be able to fd the same ntent another format, or you may be able to fd more rmatn, at their web over a , John Plk was the poster boy of the ex-gay movement. As a self-proclaimed nverted gay man happily married to his wife, an ex-lbian named Anne, he ma untls media appearanc, spoke at Exod nferenc, and publicly advoted for “gay reparative therapy” for “broken” homosexuals.

The pastor troduced him to Exod, a mistry California pecially for gay people who wished to be nverted and bee straight for relig reasons.

WAS J GAY? PROBABLY

Plk immediately signed up for a year-long rintial program lled “Steps Out of Homosexualy, ” which he lived wh 12 other people, studied the Bible, and went to church. “Even as I pursued this reer as a profsnal ex-gay man, and raised a fay and loved my wife, I was utter torment, ” Plk wrote 2014. I wanted my homosexualy to change, but the tth is: For all my public rhetoric, I was never one b ls gay.

WAS ST. PL GAY? CLAIM STIRS FURY

Plk got dnk and wound up at a gay bar D.

He was still livg his life as a heterosexual man, and his wife Anne still believed the ex-gay movement, but he only got more lonely as the years went by.

That same year, Plk divorced his wife, and me out aga as a gay man. ” Plk’s ex-wife Anne remas part of the ex-gay movement today through the Rtored Hope Network, an anizatn that cropped up the wake of Exod’ dissolutn to “serve those who sire to overe sful relatnal and sexual issu their liv and those impacted by homosexualy, ” their webse stat.

JOHN PL YOUNG WOOS YOUNG, GAY CROWD WH 1978 H

“It’s ternalized homophobia: you hate what you are. It is a form of self-flicted torture that has hnted me my entire life, and I do not want young gay women and men today to go through what I went through, ” Plk wrote 2014. Today, Chef John Plk owns Mezzaluna, a terg bs, Portland, Oregon, where he liv proudly and openly as a gay man.

Once unlocked, the msag not only cease to be hidn but they bee obv, glarg at the rear, who wonrs why such obv meangs had not been seen have suggted that that Pl was plagued by homosexual fears. This is not a new ia, and yet until recent years, when homosexualy began to shed some of s negative nnotatns, was an ia so repulsive to Christian people that uld not be breathed official circl.

This is not to say that our cultural homophobia has disappeared.