Straight to Jesus
Sexual and Christian Conversionsin the Ex-Gay Movement
Tanya Erzen
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS
Berkeley · Los Angeles · London
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Grateful acknowledgment is made for permission to reuse material from the author's essays “We Shall Overcome: Changing Politics and Changing Sexuality in the Ex-Gay Movement,” in Local Actions: Cultural Activism, Power, and Public Life in America, edited by Melissa Checker and Maggie Fishman, © 2004 by Columbia University Press and used by permission of Columbia University Press; and “Sexual Healing: Self-Help and Therapeutic Christianity in the Ex-Gay Movement,” in Religion and Healing in America, edited by Linda L. Barnes and Susan S. Sered, © 2.004 by Oxford University Press and used by permission of Oxford University Press.
University of California Press
Berkeley and Los Angeles, California
University of California Press, Ltd.
London, England
© 2006 by The Regents of the University of California
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Erzen, Tanya.
Straight to Jesus : sexual and Christian conversions in the ex-gay movement / Tanya Erzen.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.
ISBN-13 978-0-520-24581-5 (cloth : alk. paper),
ISBN-10 0-520-24581-4 (cloth : alk. paper)—
ISBN-13 978-0-520-24582-2 (pbk. : alk. paper),
ISBN-10 0-520-24582-2 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Church work with gays—California—San Rafael—Case studies. 2. Ex-gay movement—California—San Rafael—Case studies. 3. New Hope Ministries—Case studies. I. Title.
BV4437.5.E79 2006
306.6'6183576—dc22 2005023504
Manufactured in the United States of America
15 14 13 12 1l 10 09 08 07 06
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
This book is printed on New Leaf EcoBook 60, containing 60% post-consumer waste, processed chlorine free; 30% de-inked recycled fiber, elemental chlorine free; and 10% Fsc-certified virgin fiber, totally chlorine free. EcoBook 60 is acid-free and meets the minimum requirements of ANSI/ASTM d5634-oI (Permanence of Paper).
For WJQ
Contents
5. Testifying to Sexual Healing
Conclusion: Walking in a Dark Room
Abbreviations
| AA | Alcoholics Anonymous |
| AFA | American Family Association |
| APA | American Psychiatric Association |
| CC | Christian Crusade |
| CRA | Center for Reclaiming America |
| CWA | Concerned Women for America |
| DOB | Daughters of Bilitis |
| DSM-II | Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Psychiatric Disorders, second edition |
| EC | Evangelicals Concerned |
| ERA | Equal Rights Amendment |
| EXIT | Ex-Gay Intervention Team |
| JONAH | Jews Offering New Alternatives to Homosexuality |
| LGBT | Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered |
| LIA | Love in Action |
| MCC | Metropolitan Community Church |
| NARTH | National Association for the Research and Treatment of Homosexuality |
| SCA | Sexual Compulsives Anonymous |
| SLAA | Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous |
| TVC | Traditional Values Coalition |
Introduction
In a run-down community center in San Rafael, California, a middleaged man spoke haltingly in front of fifty people sitting on rickety folding chairs. As he testified to the power of Jesus in changing his life, there were murmurs of assent. He told the assembly, “I will never be the same again. I have closed the door.” What would be a fairly normal evangelical church experience was transformed as he recounted his pornography addiction and his anonymous sexual encounters with other men. Rather than expressing shock or outrage, the members of the audience raised their arms and called out, “Praise him” and “Praise the Lord.” Hank was one of a dozen men who had come to New Hope Ministry to rid themselves of homosexuality.1 At this annual Friends and Family conference, his testimony provided assurance to the gathering that after three years, he was a living example of the possibility for change.
Listening raptly in the audience was a new member of the program. Curtis, twenty-one years old, with streaks of blond in his hair and numerous facial piercings, had arrived from Canada a month before. Raised in a nondenominational conservative Christian family of missionaries, Curtis believed that having same sex desire was antithetical to living a Christian life. At age sixteen, he had come out to his family as “someone with gay feelings who wants to change.” Instead of attending college, he had been involved in Christian youth groups since he was eighteen. Aside from a clandestine sexual relationship in high school, he had never allowed himself to date men. Eventually, with the encouragement of his parents and youth pastor, he decided that in order to conquer his same-sex attractions, he needed to devote himself to an ex-gay program. His ultimate goal was to overcome what he called his “homosexual problem” and eventually get married. “I don't want to be fifty years old, sitting in a gay bar because I just got dumped and have no kids, no family—and be lonelier than heck,” he reasoned. Unable to secure a green card, Curtis was working in the New Hope ex-gay ministry administrative offices for the year. Whether filing