[This essay, as others like it, will likely continue to be a work in progress. I will post updates to any revisions I make. As I stated before, this whole idea is an experiment]

Can homosexuals change? Is it really just a disease that can easily be cured or overcome by faith in a Christian god and pure willpower?

My answer is very much a resounding no.

Witness possibly the most famous of the converts: John and Anne Paulk. Their story is hailed as a victory for homophobes and bigots everywhere. It is the story of two "former" homosexuals who "overcame" their "mental illness" and married to follow the path of "god."

You need me to translate? It is the story of two homosexuals who cannot, for whatever reason, come to terms with their homosexuality. Because they cannot accept it, neither can others. So instead, they choose to mask their true nature by marrying, thus creating the false impression that they are a happy, god-fearing couple. What does this mean? It means that not only are they denying and deluding themselves, but it also means that they are hypocritical liars. I certainly don't think God condones lying.

To read their essays on how they overcame their illness is to masochistically induce nausea. You want to become anorexic? Read their essays. It will put you off food for some time and cause you to vomit. Really, though, it is sad that they cannot deal with it. It shows the kind of society in which we live, actually. That they cannot overcome it is indicative of the type of people with whom they associate and perhaps the type of community in which they live. If they suppress their natures, there must be a reason, right?

What makes me assume that they have not actually overcome anything and that they are still two very gay people trying to stay in the closet? Well, their essays, for one. One who has been around homosexuals comfortably their entire life can tell the difference between someone who is gay and someone who was experimenting "in college." Also, did I forget to mention that John used to be a drag queen? An experimenter who lost his "moral" way, yet he was in deep enough to drag himself out like the queen he actually is. Moron.

What happened to him? A person who appears to have once been comfortable with his sexual identity, comfortable enough that he, in fact, dressed in drag and was a part of the gay community, but then he 180s and suddenly decides it is wrong? It does not sound like he always struggled is what I am getting at. It seems to me that something far more devastating must have happened in order for him to suddenly decide he needs to convert.

But the most interesting tidbit in support of my contention? John Paulk's foray into a gay bar following his "conversion." He first tried to claim he only stopped to use the restroom, but he was unaware that he was being watched. His watchers corrected this claim by documenting his 40-minute stay. Queen Paulk asserted, only after being caught in a web of lies, that he did know it was a gay bar when he stopped in, but he only entered for a drink and not for "sinful activities."

Now tell me, homophobes, why would someone with an "aversion" to homosexuals, indeed someone who has been cured, stop for a drink in a bar he knows to cater to gays? Why not go across the street to the straight bar like all the other boring, Christian, god-fearing folk? Hell, why not go home and enjoy a Zima with your former lesbian?

There is a reason for all of this. Wanna know what it is? YOU'RE STILL GAY, ASSHOLE. THERE IS NO CURE. Take off the mask and get on with your goddamn life. Get yourself a pretty dress, if it makes you feel better.

Paulk's employer, a conservative group called Focus on the Family, had this to say when the Advocate questioned him on it (emphasis mine): "And one person’s serious lack of judgment does not negate the fact that thousands of people have struggled out of homosexuality.”

Notice my bold face.

Struggled OUT of. And hey - that's actually a funny pun. Go me.

Anyway, they had to struggle NOT to be gay? Perhaps that's because it is not NATURAL for them, hmmmm? That would be like me struggling to come out of heterosexuality. It would be a struggle because I am not gay. So, pretending to BE gay? Yes, t'would be difficult indeed.

Ah, but this ex-ex-gay movement leader is a bit more honest about their intentions: "Scott Melendez, who leads an ex–ex-gay group, informally known as Dos Equis, in Washington, D.C., says the ex-gay movement focuses solely on making people look heterosexual. “Success means cessation of homosexual activity,” he says. “Where that leaves your thought patterns, they don’t go into.”

In other words, they do not cease being gay, they simply repress their urges to act out their natural behaviors. They put on the appearance of a happy, nuclear family. You know what the underbelly of happy nuclear families looks like? Go watch American Beauty or read The Picture of Dorian Gray. The face sure is pretty, but the picture painted underneath is as frightening, black and ugly as any horror you can imagine. It is a mask, a facade, a false creation designed to impress the Joneses.

Radical right groups and other prejudiced assholes constantly assert "family values" as their reason for everything. What people are starting to realize, and the homophobes continually try to cover up, is that there is no such thing as a nuclear family, or traditional family. There never really was. We look back to the 50s as the last genuine nuclear era (in so many ways, by the way) and look farther into the past to see how families lived and stayed together their entire lives. Funny thing is, though, they wore masks, too. You know why divorce rates are so high today as compared to the past? Because people are taking off their masks, not because family stability is any worse than it used to be. Instead of cheating, people divorce. As a friend was telling me yesterday, her grandparents have been married for 50 years. To everyone else, they are the pinnacles of a traditional family. But beyond the both of them fucking around on each other for decades, their family is more fucked up than anything I have ever heard is. They are not the only ones.

More and more, society is taking off the mask, which is ironic, because there are times in the past where society really did not wear a straight mask. Witness the rampant homosexuality in Shakespeare's works. During the rule of the Roman Empire. Back when the British monarchy actually meant something. Homosexuals were around in Biblical times, they were around before biblical times, and they even exist in the animal kingdom.

Indeed, Melendez further asserts that many ex-gays eventually leave the movements when they realize that they cannot change and that they do not like wearing masks. They struggle to accept who they are, sure, but every homosexual, at some point in their life, struggles with their sexual identity. Why? Because society wags their finger at you if you are different. It has nothing to do with sexuality, either. If Big Brother ever becomes a reality, it won't be because the government created it. It is because we, as individuals, did.

WE force people to conform. We force people to look alike, sound alike and listen, watch and read the same mindless drivel. We frown upon differences and individuality. We do not like freethinkers (which is a whole other issue I shall cover very soon) and we certainly do not like anyone who DARES to invite others to do the same. We call them names. We throw tomatoes. We bully them into conformity. Sometimes we even kill them for being different.

Why? Because god said so? Sorry for saying, but god (whom I do not believe in, in case you had not figured that out) reserves punishment to himself. Do not judge others, lest ye be judged. For every biblical quote you can find, I can find two.

The most important thing to take away from this exercise, however, is this: If homosexuality has a cure and these conversion therapies work so well, then why do so many fail to convert? Why does their conversion not stick and why do we still have so many openly gay people? It must be because they enjoy being ridiculed in society. No, it's probably because they are masochists who get their sexual excitement by being told they are going to burn in hell. No, no, that doesn't sound right either. It's gotta be because they like rednecks yelling "queer" at them and then threatening to beat them, kill them, or even succeeding in beating/killing them. Hmm, maybe it's because they like being estranged from their entire families and the communities in which they grew up. I mean, no one really cares about that, right, so they don't mind throwing away the familial love they received as a child. My friends? They love being called "dyke" and "butch" because they decided to get a funky mohawk for their birthday.

No, I think the correct answer, the real reason these cures do not work is because homosexuality is not a disease and you can't "cure" nature.

In memoriam of Matthew Shephard - may he finally find peace.

More Information:
¤ ABC article where medical health workers renounce conversion therapy
¤ Scientology scam - an editorial
¤ NARTH, aka the devil, on conversion therapy(anyone with half an ounce of sense, btw, can so easily discredit their "study" its not remotely amusing. It's offensive.

Want to contribute a link (which I will continually add)? Leave a comment!