To Straight and Back - POLITICO Magazine

Although I was exposed to the teachings and preachings of the Paulk's, I guess I was one of the lucky ones. Even at a younger age I knew "society" would have issues with who I was, but I didn't (and still don't) care. I am who I am, I never "internalized [the] homophobia."

It could be that I was battling other "demons" (my mental illness and trying to stay sober) or the fact that Paulk's popularity came after my so-called formative years. I had already left the church and was heading for full blown apostasy, those still in my circle who attempted to use the Paulks as an example where cut off or out of my life. But their influence and the damage they caused was still felt. "You can change" was the oft heard slogan.

I am thankful that I never, as Paulk puts it, had to maintain a "veneer of heterosexuality"
__
There was a time in my life when I used to sound a lot like Rick Perry. In fact, for more than ten years I was one of the nation’s leading spokesmen for the “ex-gay” movement. I traveled the country telling audiences that being gay was a preventable condition, and it could be treated if only you followed a simple plan, obeyed God and sought repentance for your sins. “Ladies and gentlemen, homosexuality is not a genetic, inborn condition,” I would say. “It is the result of traceable causes that, once unraveled, can bring about understanding and transformation in the life of one who is motivated and submitted to God.”

Oh, I was a believer: Homosexuality was just WRONG. And I was Exhibit A, a self-declared convert who had managed to overcome my own shameful gay past. I even appeared on the cover of Newsweek magazine in 1998, posing alongside my wife as a poster boy for “going straight.” And I was happy to do it: Those stories gave me a national platform to advocate for what is called “gay reparative therapy”—basically, convincing gay people that they were sexually “broken” and could be provided with a way to change. My wife Anne—herself an ex-lesbian—and our three sons were often put forward as evidence of how to accomplish this. Anne and I even wrote a book together preaching the gay-to-straight gospel, Love Won Out: How God's Love Helped 2 People Leave Homosexuality and Find Each Other.

But I was in denial. It wasn’t in fact true, any of it. Worse than being wrong, it was harmful to many people—and caused me years of pain in my own life. Which is why I have this to say to the Rick Perrys of the world: You don’t understand this issue. At all.

To Straight and Back - POLITICO Magazine