I Went to Church Camp to 'Pray the Gay Away'

Contents:

• 5 THGS I LEARNED AT A 'PRAY AWAY THE GAY' CAMP
• FORMER 'EX-GAY' LEARS DENOUNCE 'CONVERSN THERAPY' IN A NEW DOCUMENTARY
• NETFLIX FILM ‘PRAY AWAY’ DOCUMENTS AB BY GAY CONVERSN THERAPY
• ‘PRAY AWAY THE GAY’ HAS GONE AWAY. WHY ARE GOVERNMENTS TRYG TO STOP IT?
• NETFLIX’S ‘PRAY AWAY’ DOCUMENTARY WILL REMD YOU THAT GAY CONVERSN IS STILL GOG ON
• RELATIV LOOK TO EE TEEN WHO WAS SENT TO ALLEGED 'PRAY AWAY THE GAY' MP
• ‘PRAY AWAY’ REVIEW: ATONG FOR AN ANTI-GAY STANCE
• NETFLIX'S 'PRAY AWAY' IS A HUMANIZG LOOK AT 'GAY CONVERSN' THERAPY SURVIVORS
• ‘THE MISTN OF CAMERON POST’ REVIEW: GAY-CONVERSN DRAMA IS TIMELY, TOO TIMID
• THIS TEENAGER HAS BEEN FORCED TO A GAY NVERSN MP WH NO PE
• DON’T ‘PRAY AWAY THE GAY’ - WE’RE ‘BORN PERFECT’

5 THGS I LEARNED AT A 'PRAY AWAY THE GAY' CAMP

"Wh my first weeks therapy, I was told every other gay person on Earth had been executed.... By the end of the so-lled 'treatments, ' I believed the ernment was lookg for me bee the gays had brought AIDS to Ameri and that I now had this disease ragg through me. " That is, they assumed that bee he was gay, 's bee his ntrollg mother and adbeat dad had nfed and irreparably trmatized his genals.

In fact, they uldn't fd any trma to blame Sam's homosexualy on at all. Later ssns would clu pper heatg ils, needl my fgers, and electric shocks, " all while Sam was shown gay porn. Antos777/iStock/Getty Imag Of urse, no one explaed why they had a stockpile of gay porn on hand.

FORMER 'EX-GAY' LEARS DENOUNCE 'CONVERSN THERAPY' IN A NEW DOCUMENTARY

Obvly, spe the old sayg, you n't "heatg-il the gay away. In fact, he got so ed to reprsg his te self that, even after he me out, he wasn't entirely sure how to be: When he got to llege and first enuntered the gay muny, he immediately "me out a ball of glter.

" He embraced a sparkly, Freddy Mercury-stage-show-liftyle bee he saw a bunch of out-and-proud homosexuals and thought that was how was done. "I'm very flamboyant, and that's partly bee of how I was troduced to the ia of other gay men existg.... I found out what a gay person looked like, and realized that was how I was supposed to act.

NETFLIX FILM ‘PRAY AWAY’ DOCUMENTS AB BY GAY CONVERSN THERAPY

Go to a hardware store on the day of the gay pri para and you might hear an old du wh a beer gut lament, "Why do them gays have to be so flamboyant? The vast majory of homosexuals are -- shocker -- jt people.

But if you see somebody sportg an outlandish stume, 's not about makg homosexualy look fun to help "turn kids gay" (if Sam's gayns uld survive electroshock torture, then we're pretty sure another kid's straightns n survive a few paras and some sequ boas); 's about showg closeted gay kids that homosexualy isn't tomatilly a lifetime of misery. 1 Both Fah And Homosexualy Can Be Equally Intolerant. I'm the middle ground: From some fah muni, I'm attacked for beg gay.

‘PRAY AWAY THE GAY’ HAS GONE AWAY. WHY ARE GOVERNMENTS TRYG TO STOP IT?

Fally some mon ground between tolerant homosexuals and tolerant Christians: tolerance! For more sir perspectiv, check out 5 Reali of Beg Gay a Country Where It's Illegal and 6 Shockg Reali of the Secret 'Troubled Teen Indtry'.

NETFLIX’S ‘PRAY AWAY’ DOCUMENTARY WILL REMD YOU THAT GAY CONVERSN IS STILL GOG ON

It's a movement that's born out of a larger culture of homophobia and transphobia that still persists the majory of Christian church today. It wasn't until the suici of his iend, who was also part of the "ex-gay" movement, that he reevaluated everythg.

Interview highlights clu extend web-only answers and have been eded for length and clary: Interview Highlights Thomas on how he joed the "ex-gay" movement and Exod Internatnal I was out of the closet the '80s. They also had a group for the gays, and unrneath all of that olns there was this toxic theology that said that you need to overe homosexualy.

RELATIV LOOK TO EE TEEN WHO WAS SENT TO ALLEGED 'PRAY AWAY THE GAY' MP

Stolakis on what the ex-gay and nversn therapy movement looks like today Conversn therapy and the ex-LGBTQ movement has always been practiced lolly. It's bee very lennial-driven bee there are younger people who've grown up homophobic and transphobic environments who are ready and willg to take the place of people like Randy.

Stat, nversn therapy remas enmic many nservative, relig muni—and as Pray Away documents, is groundg a new generatn of believers s rhetoric as part of larger culture wars beg waged over gay and trans rights. But many of the movement’s early lears and figureheads have sce rented; many s g out (or back out) as gay and speakg out about the harm they experienced—and that they ed. This was also a product of [his] havg grown up a homophobic and transphobic environment, both terms of the world he was raised , but also specifilly the relig worldview.

And jt like much of male Christiany, Catholicism remas a homophobic and transphobic environment for many people.

‘PRAY AWAY’ REVIEW: ATONG FOR AN ANTI-GAY STANCE

Many of the subjects Pray Away discs their experience the ex-gay movement, at least retrospect, as not changg their sexualy as much as enuragg them to supprs . How do you thk the ex-gay movement ntu s practice given that track rerd?

One thg I’ve learned om spendg time this world is, let’s say, [when you’re part of] a fah muny that’s homophobic or transphobic and you fd a Bible study group or a nversn therapy support group happeng at your church—that may actually be the first time you feel any fort, sharg any part of your inty.

As well as tellg the stori of a number of the ex-gay movement’s former lears, Pray Away featur the activist Jefey McCall, who se himself as both an ex-gay and ex-trans dividual.

NETFLIX'S 'PRAY AWAY' IS A HUMANIZG LOOK AT 'GAY CONVERSN' THERAPY SURVIVORS

Do you see many parallels between the ex-gay and the transn movements, as well as the wir moral panic over trans people? The anti-trans sentiment that we’re seeg build our world is fely a ntuatn of the ex-gay movement and the nversn therapy movement. My uncle went through hell; I was very prepared to make a film about straight, homophobic people makg LGBTQ people hate themselv—but that’s not what I found.

Our re creative team [workg on the documentary] was prised of people wh a direct relatnship to the issu: gay and trans nversn therapy survivors, queer people who grew up evangelil. Do you see the ex-gay movement as ever “dyg out, ” as Yvette Cantu Schneir, prevly an ex-gay lear and policy analyst wh the anti-gay Fay Rearch Council, puts at one pot?

‘THE MISTN OF CAMERON POST’ REVIEW: GAY-CONVERSN DRAMA IS TIMELY, TOO TIMID

The reason the nversn therapy movement ntu is that is based on a larger culture of homophobia and transphobia.

THIS TEENAGER HAS BEEN FORCED TO A GAY NVERSN MP WH NO PE

The fact is that many church might stay they’re agast nversn therapy, but if a trans kid or a gay kid to their pastor, the silence n be afeng. Netflix has released the trailer for Pray Away, a new documentary that vtigat the abe brought on by gay nversn therapy programs — featurg terviews wh the program lears themselv.

The film centers on Exod Internatnal, an Evangelil gay nversn program that began as a Bible study group between five gay men who wished to help each other leave the “homosexual liftyle. ” Shortly after s ceptn the Seventi, the group received 25, 000 letters om LGBTQ people askg for help, leadg Exod Internatnal to rapidly grow to the largt gay nversn therapy program the world.

Exod Internatnal, evangelilism’s flagship ex-gay mistry, shut down 2013 after former lear Alan Chambers said had ed pa and harm to too many people and that more than 99 percent of those who’d sought help there hadn’t actually experienced an orientatn change. While mistri cludg Exod Internatnal and Foc on the Fay ed to preach that homosexual sire should be elimated, most evangelil church, pastors, and mental health profsnals today emphasize chasty amid sir that might last a lifetime. Even the Nashville Statement, a 14-pot manifto by the plementarian Council of Biblil Manhood and Womanhood, matas that homosexual sire may never change.

DON’T ‘PRAY AWAY THE GAY’ - WE’RE ‘BORN PERFECT’

The first thg that Netflix’s Pray Away documentary do is remd viewers that gay nversn therapy is not a thg of the past. It’s shockgly siar to the ttimony given by the lears of the ex-gay movement over thirty years ago, several of whom are featured Pray Away after leavg the movement and formally apologizg to the LGBTQ muny. John Plk, for stance, was the poster child for the “former homosexual” who succsfully nverted to the straight liftyle.

He appeared wh his wife Anne on the ver of Newsweek magaze 1998, and both of them appeared on talk show after talk show to reunt how both of them were gay, but ma a nsc effort to change.