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Gay Teenager
Stirs a Storm
July 17, 2005
By Alex Williams
 MEMPHIS
- It was the sort of confession that a decade ago might have been
scribbled in a teenager's diary, then quietly tucked away in a
drawer: "Somewhat recently," wrote a boy who identified himself only
as Zach, 16, from Tennessee, on his personal Web page, "I told my
parents I was gay." He noted, "This didn't go over very well," and
"They tell me that there is something psychologically wrong with me,
and they 'raised me wrong.' "
Rollin Riggs for The New York Times
Brandon Tidwell is a former client of the program intended to change
his sexual orientation. But what grabbed the attention of Zach's
friends and subsequently of both gay activists and fundamentalist
Christians around the world who came across the entry, made on May
29, was not the intimacy of the confession. Teenagers have been
outing themselves online for years, and many of Zach's friends
already knew he was gay. It was another sentence in the Web log:
"Today, my mother, father and I had a very long 'talk' in my room,
where they let me know I am to apply for a fundamentalist Christian
program for gays."
"It's like boot camp," Zach added
in a dispatch the next day. "If I do come out straight, I'll be so
mentally unstable and depressed it won't matter."
The camp in question, Refuge, is a
youth program of Love in Action International, a group in Memphis
that runs a religion-based program intended to change the sexual
orientation of gay men and women. Often called reparative or
conversion therapy, such programs took hold in fundamentalist
Christian circles in the 1970's, when mainstream psychiatric
organizations overturned previous designations of homosexuality as a
mental disorder, and gained ground rapidly from the late 90's.
Programs like Love in Action have always been controversial, but
Zach's blog entries have brought wide attention to a less-known
aspect of them, their application to teenagers.
Although Zach wrote only a handful
of entries about the Refuge program, all posted before he arrived
there in the Memphis suburbs on June 6, his words have been
forwarded on the Internet over and over, inspiring online debates,
news articles, sidewalk protests and an investigation into Love in
Action by the Tennessee Department of Children's Services in
response to a child abuse allegation. The investigation was dropped
when the allegation proved unfounded, a spokeswoman for the agency
said.
To some, Zach, whose family name is
not disclosed on his blog and has not appeared in news accounts, is
the embodiment of gay adolescent vulnerability, pulled away from
friends who accepted him by adults who do not. To others he is a boy
whose confused and formative sexual identity is being exploited by
gay political activists.
In his last blog entry before
beginning the program, at 2:33 a.m. on June 4, Zach wrote, "I pray
this blows over," adding that if his parents caught him online he'd
be in trouble. He described arguments he had been having with his
parents, his mother in particular. "I can't take this," his post
reads. "No one can. I'm not a suicidal person. I think it's stupid,
really. But I can't help it - no I'm not going to commit suicide -
all I can think about is killing my mother and myself. It's so
horrible."
The Rev. John J. Smid, the
executive director of Love in Action, declined to discuss the
details of Zach's experience, citing the program's confidentiality
rules. In an interview early this month at his headquarters, a
weathered 1960's A-frame building, which was until recently a vacant
Episcopal Church, Mr. Smid explained that teenage participants in
Refuge are forbidden to speak with anyone the program does not
approve of. Requests made through Mr. Smid to interview Zach's
parents were declined.
Founded in California in 1973, Love
in Action moved to Memphis 11 years ago. It is one of 120 programs
nationwide listed by Exodus International, which bills itself as the
largest information and referral network for what is known among
fundamentalist Christians as the "ex-gay" movement. In 2003 Love in
Action introduced the first structured program specifically for
teenagers, 24 of whom have participated, Mr. Smid said. The initial
two weeks costs $2,000, and many participants stay six weeks more,
as Zach has.
The goal of the program, said Mr.
Smid, who said he was once gay but now renounces homosexual
behavior, is not necessarily to turn gays into practicing
heterosexuals, but to "put guardrails" on their sexual impulses.
"In my life I've been out of
homosexuality for over 20 years, and for me it's really a nonissue,"
Mr. Smid said.
"I may see a man and say, he's
handsome, he's attractive, and it might touch a part of me that is
different from someone else," he said. "But it's really not an
issue. Gosh, I've been married for 16 years and faithful in my
marriage in every respect. I mean I don't think I could
white-knuckle this ride for that long."
Mr. Smid first learned that one of
his teenage participants was a cause célèbre when protesters
appeared outside his headquarters for several days in early June,
carrying signs saying, "This is child abuse" and "Jesus is no excuse
for hate."
He was bombarded by phone calls
from reporters, he said, as well as by 100 e-mail messages a day
from as far as Norway. Zach's writings, which appeared on his page
on www.MySpace.com, were publicized by one of his online
acquaintances, E. J. Friedman, a Memphis musician and writer, who
read Zach's May 29 blog entry, "The World Coming to an Abrupt -
Stop."
Mr. Friedman, 35, was disturbed by
what he read and fired off an instant message. "I said: 'You should
run away from home. There are people who will help you,' " Mr.
Friedman recalled. "He said: 'I can't do that. I want to have my
childhood. If this is what I have to go through to have it, then I
will.' "
Mr. Friedman posted an angry
message about Zach's impending stay at Refuge on his own blog. Mr.
Friedman's friends picked up on the story and started spreading it
on blogs of their own. Soon a local filmmaker, Morgan Jon Fox, who
had met Zach through mutual acquaintances, joined with others to
start a group called Queer Action Coalition, which organized the
protests at Love in Action.
"We wanted to show support," said
Mr. Fox, 26, who directed a fictional film about gay teenagers in
2003, shot at White Station High School in Memphis, where Zach is a
student. "Then it kind of blew up."
Links to Zach's site bounced around
the country. Mr. Friedman's Web page had so much traffic, "it blew
my bandwidth," he said. Mr. Smid, too, was inundated with Internet
traffic, much of it outraged at the attempts to change Zach's sexual
orientation.
"All of a sudden, 80,000 Internet
hits later on our Web site, the world has decided that he should be
freed," Mr. Smid said. "Maybe he didn't ask for this. Maybe he
doesn't really have the personality that really is going to be able
to deal with this. And they talk about our 'abuse' of him."
The program at Love in Action has
parallels to 12-step recovery programs. Participants, referred to as
clients, study the Bible, meet with counselors and keep a "moral
inventory," a journal in which they detail their struggle with
same-sex temptation over the years, which they read at emotionally
raw group meetings, former clients say.
Excessive jewelry or stylish
clothing from labels like Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger are
forbidden, and so is watching television, listening to secular music
(even Bach) and reading unapproved books or magazines.
"It's like checking into prison,"
said Brandon Tidwell, 29, who completed the adult program in 2002
but eventually rejected its teachings, reconciling his Christian
beliefs with being gay.
Physical contact among clients
other than a handshake is forbidden, and so is "campy" talk or
behavior, according to program rules that Zach posted on his blog
before he began at Refuge. Occasionally, recalled Jeff Harwood, 41,
a Love in Action graduate who still considers himself gay, some
participants would mock the mandatory football games.
"You could get away with maybe one
limp-wristed pass before another client would catch you," he said,
seated on a tattered sofa in a funky cafe called Java Cabana in the
trendy midtown district of Memphis.
Because teenagers, unlike adult
clients, return home at night, parents are asked to help keep them
away from television and, more important, a computer. Zach has not
updated his blog since entering the program.
For Mr. Smid and his supporters,
offering Love in Action to teenagers is vital to combat what they
see as a growing tolerance of homosexuality among young people. "We
just really believe that the resounding message for teenagers in our
culture is, practice whatever you want, have sex however, whenever
and with whoever you want," he said. "I very deeply believe that is
harmful. I think exploring sexuality can lay a teenager up for
numerous lifelong issues."
Critics of programs that seek to
change sexual orientation say the programs themselves can open a
person to lifelong problems, including guilt, shame and even
suicidal impulses. The stakes are higher for adolescents, who are
already wrestling with deep questions of identity and sexuality,
mental-health experts say.
"Their identities are still in
flux," said Dr. Jack Drescher, the chairman of the committee on gay,
lesbian and bisexual issues of the American Psychiatric Association,
which in 2000 formally rejected regimens like reparative or
conversion therapy as scientifically unproven. "One serious risk for
the parent to consider is that most of the people who undergo these
treatments don't change. That means that most people who go through
these experiences often come out feeling worse than when they went
in."
Two weeks ago the Tennessee
Department of Health sent a letter to Love in Action, saying it was
suspected of offering therapeutic services for which it was not
licensed, a department spokeswoman said. Mr. Smid insisted in the
interview that his program is a spiritual, not a counseling, center,
and he is removing references to therapy from its Web site.
He said he does not track his
success rate. Mr. Harwood, who graduated from the adult program in
1999, said that of 11 fellow former clients he has kept track of,
eight once again consider themselves gay.
Although critics say such programs
threaten the adolescent psyche, at least one teenager who considers
himself a successful graduate does not agree. "In my experience
people who struggle with their sexuality are more mature in
general," Ben Marshall, 18, said. He recounted being in turmoil,
growing up gay in a conservative Christian household in Mobile, Ala.
In 2004 his parents sent him to
Refuge. "I went to Memphis kicking and screaming," he said. "I had
grown to hate the church for the militant message it gave off toward
homosexuality."
While enrolled he spent days
listening to stories of the pain that homosexuality had caused
clients and their families. Slowly, he said, his attitude changed.
He ended up choosing to continue in Love in Action's adult program
for nine months. While the program has a "high rate of failure," he
said "there are enough successes to know I'm not alone."
But even success comes only through
continuing struggle. Although he plans to date women in the future,
Mr. Marshall said, he is avoiding any romantic relationships for the
time being. "In all honesty, I'm just trying to figure out how to
deal normally with men before I start to deal with women," he said.
Zach's parents did not reply to a
request for comment for this article left on their answering
machine. Last week his father, speaking to the Christian
Broadcasting Network, said: "We felt good about Zach coming here. To
let him see for himself the destructive lifestyle, what he has to
face in the future."
In Zach's case there is no
indication he was particularly upset about his sexual identity.
Although his high school is in a Bible belt city, the student body
is fairly tolerant of homosexual classmates, some students said,
particularly those who, like Zach, are not conspicuous about their
orientation.
"Stereotype me, if you dare," was
the motto Zach chose for his blog, where he listed "Edward
Scissorhands" and "Girl, Interrupted" as his favorite movies and
Brandon Flowers, the lead singer of the alternative rock band the
Killers, as the person he would most like to meet.
While Zach, as his blog recounted,
only recently came out to his parents, many of his friends had known
he was gay for more than a year, one classmate said. Zach openly
identified himself as gay on his blog, which links to 213 friends'
blogs listed in a Friend Space box on the site.
Zach is due to leave the program
next week. His June 4 message expressed thanks for the more than
1,700 messages on his page, many voicing support. "Don't worry," he
wrote. "I'll get through this. They've promised me things will get
better, whether this program does anything or not. Let's hope
they're not lying."
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