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Tolerance and pluralism are bedrock principles of American society.
The ex-gay movement and the Christian Right are attacking these principles
and furthering a rigid moral agenda which offers Christian dogma and
heterosexuality as the only acceptable norm. While Americans generally
support equal treatment for gay and lesbian people, gay men and lesbians
still remain among the most disliked groups of people in the nation.73 Working
through the ex-gay movement, the Christian Right has tapped into the
fear that many people have of homosexuality in order to further its theocratic
The ex-gay movement is in many ways a typically American phenomenon.
Schramm and Upchurch tried for years to become straight so that they
would fit into society. Many people, no matter what their differences
may be-skin color, language, body size, and sexual orientation-are encouraged
to change in ways that promote success, to "be all that you can
be." It's hardly a surprise, then, to see the ex-gay movement growing
in popularity. If you're a gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender person,
mask your identity, or better yet, change it completely if you can.
American culture promotes certain acceptable images of men and women.
A dominant heterosexual culture mandates that people strive to get married
to a member of the opposite sex, buy a house, have kids. Those who stray
from these models of prescribed normalcy inevitably begin to see themselves
as "other," and begin the difficult journey of trying to conform
to society's definitions of what is acceptable and what isn't. And some
people will go to great lengths to mask their differences in order to
At the center of the ex-gay movement is a long-standing struggle between
sexual identity and religious identity. Many lesbian/bisexual/gay/transgender
people struggle to reconcile their sexual identity with their religious
faith. The ex-gay movement has tapped into this insecurity and is exploiting
it for political purposes.
Hundreds of people turn to ex-gay ministries in an honest search for
truth and meaning in relation to their sexual identity and their faith
in Christianity, and this sincerity must be recognized in responding
to the ex-gay movement and its followers. However, ex-gay movement leaders
recruit men and women based on one set of messages, and then reveal a
very different one once they are organized into ex-gay ministries. The
goal is not exclusively to convert homosexuals to heterosexuality but
to recruit people into the Christian Right in order to promote a broader
theocratic agenda. Challenging the leadership of the ex-gay movement
must include an understanding of this broader agenda in order to defend
equal rights for all people, regardless of sexual orientation.
The partnership between the ex-gay movement and the Christian Right
represents a serious threat not only to lesbian/bisexual/gay/transgender
people, but to democracy and diversity in the US. By appealing to people's
fear of homosexuality, the Christian Right is manipulating political
forces within the Republican party, as well as the media and the general
public, in promoting a false image of homosexual conversion that is at
odds with mainstream psychological, psychiatric, and religious institutions.
By exploiting the pressures many people feel to conform to the dominant
culture, the ex-gay movement is taking advantage of, and flourishing
in, this restrictive environment.
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