The Difficulty Of Being Ex
I’ve been reading with some bemusement the coverage of a new book by Alan Chambers, the president of an organisation called Exodus International. This is one of those ‘ex-gay’ groups which helps people ‘leave homosexuality’. Bemusement not, strictly, at the coverage, but at some of the content cited. Chambers apparently doesn’t think that he’s ex-gay in the sense that he’s no longer prone to homosexual temptation, just that God/Jesus/etc is helping him resist those temptations to which he may yet be prey. The much-quoted line from the book is “The opposite of homosexuality isn’t heterosexuality. It’s holiness.”
Among many reasoned and insightful critiques of Chambers’ beliefs in the cause to which he’s dedicated the last twenty years of his life, there are also the inevitable piss-takes, which I’ve read with glee. None more so than Dan Savage’s comments today:
Chambers’ definition of “ex-gay” is more elastic than a power bottom’s bottom. An ex-gay, according to Chambers, still wants to sleep with men. He just refrains from having sex with men. So technically I’ve been ex-gay all morning. Not straight, of course, because nothing can make me straight—not even Almighty Gawd—but so long as I don’t have a dick in my mouth I am, according to Chambers, totally not gay.
Worth clicking the link by the way, for the photo of Chambers and the related comment (number 7 under the article).