straight – Memphis Flyer

For the past few years, local filmmaker Morgan Jon Fox has been piecing together a documentary about Love In Action (LIA), a Christian-based ministry for people struggling with their homosexuality. But Fox needed one more thing to wrap up production: a happy ending.

For Fox, that came last month when he learned that Refuge, LIA’s two-week “straight camp” for teens, was closed.

In 2005, 16-year-old Zach Stark posted a blog entry about his parents forcing him into the Refuge program. The post sparked a week of protests by gay activists and criticism that adolescents were being sent to Refuge against their will.

“One thing that really concerned me about Refuge is that when some kids weren’t changed after going through the program, they would be abused by their parents,” says Fox, who helped organize the 2005 protests.

Josh Morgan, communications manager for LIA, says the protests did not affect the center’s decision to close Refuge. It was replaced by the four-day Family Freedom Intensive to improve communication between parents and their children. Refuge did not include parental involvement.

“We’re focusing on giving parents and kids common language and helping them understand exactly what’s going on,” says Morgan. “We don’t want to work with the child and let parents stay out of the loop.”

LIA’s Web site describes the Family Freedom Intensive as a “course designed for parents with teens struggling with same-sex attraction, pornography, and/or promiscuity.” The program involves lectures, workshops, and discussion groups and costs $600 per attendee. Parents can sign up with or without their children.

The $7,000 Refuge program was a two-week summer day camp. After two weeks, parents could opt to leave their child in the program for additional time. During its three-year existence, Refuge saw 35 clients.

“We don’t turn people straight. That’s a common misconception,” says Morgan. “We exist for people who already feel a need to change or explore different options. If someone is … happy with the way they are, we wouldn’t accept them into the program.”

Peterson Toscano, a former LIA client who tours the country with his one-man comedy Doin’ Time in the Homo No Mo Halfway House — How I Survived the Ex-Gay Movement!, is happy to see Refuge go but doubts the new program will be much different.

“How does [LIA] know they’re not taking kids against their will? Parents have a tremendous amount of power,” says Toscano.

Including parents in the program could result in both the child and parent leaving with mixed messages, says Toscano. When he attended the adult residential program in the mid-’90s, parents were invited to attend a few days of treatment.

“The parents hear generalized teachings about what makes a person gay. The basic ex-gay ideology that’s been going around for decades is you become gay because you have an overbearing mom and an emotionally or physically absent dad,” says Toscano. “Parents walk away with the message ‘I screwed up my kid.'”

Fox, however, is glad to see some change at LIA. He hopes to enter his documentary, This Is What Love In Action Looks Like, in this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

“To me, [the Family Freedom Intensive] is way different from Refuge,” says Fox. “But who knows? Maybe kids are still being forced to go. It’s really hard to tell.”

The religious right has traditionally argued that homosexuality is a choice and that gays and lesbians can, and should, “change” (i.e., become heterosexual through reparative therapy or religious conversion).

In response, liberal advocates for gay and lesbian civil rights argue that homosexuality, or sexual orientation in general, is not a choice and that gays and lesbians should have civil rights protections because they are born gay or lesbian and cannot change their sexual orientation. Both of these arguments are misleading and oversimplify scientific facts and research on sexual orientation.

The argument that human sexuality is biologically determined is contrary to social scientific research, which suggests that sexuality is largely socially constructed. It ignores not only the sociological evidence against an innate, unchangeable sexuality but also the radical insight of Freud that humans are not born “heterosexual” or “homosexual” and that the development of an exclusive “heterosexuality” requires the repression of homosexual desire.

Even Kinsey, the much misunderstood and misquoted sex researcher, rejected the concept of an innate sexual orientation, preferring to categorize people based on their sexual behaviors.

Kinsey never argued that heterosexuals and homosexuals were two separate innate sexual orientations. Like Freud, he believed that all human beings were potentially bisexual.

Why do many in the mainstream gay movement argue that it is impossible to choose to be gay or lesbian? Many radical feminists argue that women can choose to be lesbian — that identifying as a lesbian is a social and political choice available to women to liberate themselves from patriarchy and compulsory heterosexuality.

The early radical gay liberationists argued that gay liberation requires the sexual liberation of everyone from the socially constructed hetero/homo dichotomy. They believed that everyone could be “gay.” They rejected the scientific claim that homosexuality was a biological or psychological pathology or that same-sex desire was even “abnormal.” The gay rights movement created a modern “gay” identity.

There have not always been “gay” people, so it is erroneous to claim that people are “born” gay. Bisexuals are also left out of the “sexual orientation is not a choice” paradigm, since they can choose their sexual identity. If we base gay/lesbian rights on the argument that it is not a choice, then we exclude bisexuals and deny their right to choose.

Why all the focus on the question of can gays change? Why not ask, “Can straight people change”? Both questions focus on the same issue: If we could change our sexual orientation/identity, do we have a right to make that choice? This is the important issue.

The purpose of the “ex-gay” ad campaign (and the public focus on whether gays can change) is to undermine the central claim of the gay/lesbian rights movement that people are born gay or lesbian and that it is not a choice since no one can change their sexual orientation. The religious right is exploiting an opportunity handed to them by the misguided strategy of the liberal/mainstream gay movement.

We should focus the political debate on the freedom of people to be gay, lesbian or bisexual regardless of how or why they arrive at their sexual identity, not wasting time on the futile “nature vs. nurture” debate.

The argument for “gay rights” should not be based on questionable scientific claims of the biological immutability of “sexual orientation” but rather on the right of gays and lesbians to CHOOSE their sexual identity! This argument sets aside the biological argument and bases gay rights upon the constitutional right to speak and the freedom of conscience guaranteed to religious groups.

Our right to be gay or lesbian or bisexual is the right to be free from religious and government interference in our private lives, to make our choices about who we have sex with and who we want to have intimate relationships with (as long as they are consenting adults). Let’s not let those opposed to sexual equality take away our right to choose.

To be gay, lesbian, bisexual, or straight involves making a series of choices. Those choices should be a right like any other basic human right and not dependent upon scientific opinion about how and why a person arrives at their sexual identity. Let’s defend the freedom to choose our sexual identity and quit hiding behind questionable scientific dogma.

Jim Maynard is a local gay activist. This piece is a modified and abbreviated version of a longer essay.