Today I followed up with a post at Pams House Blend. Here’s an excerpt:

The evidence-based answer

So, we’ve got a painful, uncomfortable, answer to the question: Suicide after bullying is not something set apart, simpler, or more easily prevented than suicide in general. In fact, while increasing awareness of bullying and suicide is helping, some of the most vulnerable in our families and communities may be harmed by the use of an oversimplified bullying-causes-suicide meme.

Here’s the full post.

“We need to stop the carnage of gay teen suicides,” said Malcolm Lazin, Executive Director, Equality Forum, a national LGBT civil rights organization headquartered in Philadelphia.

In October 2010, [name redacted], a Rutgers University freshman who committed suicide [redacted], brought national attention to the epidemic of gay teen suicides that resulted from bullying. It is estimated that about 500 gay teens each year or 40 gay teens per month take their lives as a result of homophobia.

They promote the passage of two bills in Congress, the Safe Schools Improvement Act and the Student Non-Discrimination Act. Excellent! Making schools safer and more fair to all is essential.

The inconvenient truth about the press release is that it doesn’t promote suicide prevention.

Full disclosure: I am not a mental health professional. Not a suicide prevention expert. I am personally invested in the subject because my partner died by suicide, and I’ve spent a lot of time in the 10 years since thinking about prevention. He was in his 40s, not a teen, but part of his despair rose from being newly out, rejected by people he trusted, and believing that being gay would mean being forever controversial. My access to the raw experience of losing a loved one doesn’t make me any smarter than anyone else, it just leaves me with a heart for people of any age who are living with despair and hopelessness.

An aside for those who are suffering: Loving Dale gave me a sense of what dark days were like. Not the complete knowledge, of course, and I don’t know what it’s like to live through extreme bullying. In the middle of really tough times, it can feel like people are only offering empty platitudes about things getting better some day. When we find ourselves living with misery, a sense of helplessness, or despair, though, relief is available here and now. The key is talking it all out with people we trust, especially family (when available) and mental health pros.

OK, back to the press release. This piece is an example of a broadly-used meme: (a) John or Jane dies by suicide; (b) Bullying was cited as the reason; (c) Thus, bullying causes suicide; and finally, by implication, (d) Ending bullying will end suicide.

We need to step back and ask mental health and suicide prevention experts whether the meme is supported by available evidence.

After Dale died, I wanted to lash out at people who had rejected him. “They need to understand the consequences of their actions,” I fumed. “They need to change.”

But, the longer I lived with the full, unvarnished truth of Dale’s life and death, the more complex it got. It wasn’t just that he had been rejected, a lot of factors had to coalesce to make his suicide possible.

(Trigger warning: If you are feeling distressed or uncomfortable reading this for any reason, feel free to walk away. I’m treading as carefully as possible in tender territory for me. My perspectives here are my source of peace and confidence that suicide can and must be prevented, but I don’t expect everyone to agree with me on all of the details. Most of all, I don’t want to cause anyone pain or harm.)

I also interacted with other SOLOS (Survivors Of a Loved One’s Suicide). Each story we shared was unique, but it struck me that none of them was simple. No matter how much we each wanted to boil things down to black-and-white answers, it didn’t seem to me that alleviating one contributing factor would have completely changed the course of events preceding their deaths. Their suicides were not inevitable, but preventing them would have involved changing multiple factors.

My sense, as a layperson, is that distorted thinking is an essential contributor to suicide.

Dale’s pain was real. Life-long dreams had slipped through his fingers. He had hopes for a good future, but he also had a long history of depression which was growing increasingly drug resistant, a crushing burden. It was reasonable for him to expect that disappointing outcomes would result from coming out further, at least occasionally.

Distorted thinking came into play, though, as well. In darker moments he believed he was a burden on me and others. He questioned whether it he would ever move beyond his guilt about divorcing after 22 years of marriage. He thought his death would serve a greater good than his life would have.

We have a cultural tradition of looking for slivers of good in the middle of bad circumstances. Everything happens for a reason, the saying goes, so we look for seeds of hope and purpose amidst devastating losses.

When it comes to suicide, though, I don’t believe that a loved one’s death ever serves a greater good than their life would have. That would be distorted, irrational thinking.

I’m concerned that I will be read as being cold, lacking empathy, blaming suicide victims, or casting a shadow on families and anti-bullying advocates here. My only intent is to encourage serious discussion, though, about how anti-bullying advocacy can best be used to promote real suicide prevention.

In that vein, I have to ask: Is it possible that the bullying-triggers-suicide meme sometimes hurts suffering teens more than it helps? As a layperson, I can’t answer definitively. But I’m concerned.

I’m trying to put myself in the shoes of a youth living with taunting and bullying. I’m guessing that I’ve mentioned it to some of my friends; my teachers have seen it happen; my parents have tried to help. But it’s been a long road, and nothing is really changing. Some days I bounce back well enough from being taunted or slammed into a wall, but then I sometimes have days of unrelenting pain that I can’t quite put into words. I just want the pain to end. I’m reading about bullying in the news, and not only are my tormentors getting away with it, many public leaders are fighting to keep the status quo.

Imprisoned in pain, my thinking growing more distorted, maybe with no access to mental health care, or a bad experience with a pastor or school counselor, I feel like I’ve got nothing left to go on. At some point, might my distorted thinking include that dying would serve a greater good? That my bullies would finally pay? At this point, I’m not thinking rationally… my head is a big jumble. It makes mottled sense to me that the whole situation is out of my hands… Circumstances are forcing me into one final act.

Stepping back into my own middle-aged life, I’m thankful for all of the anti-bullying voices out there. I’m also concerned. I hope smarter people than me — like mental health professionals and suicide prevent experts — are being asked questions like these:

• Is the bullying-triggers-suicide meme true?
• When people are suffering and vulnerable to self-harm, how are they affected by coverage of suicide?
• Is there risk that vulnerable and suffering people will see suicide victims as heroes? Martyrs who have died for a cause?
• Would it be more accurate to promote comprehensive mental health care as the path to suicide prevention?
• Have alternate memes been tried or tested which are effective and accurate?
  • Bullying cripples, but suicide kills.
  • Bullying maims many, a few of whom die by suicide.
  • Suicide is not a rational act, but getting help is.
  • Bullying prevention happens at school; Suicide prevention happens at home, in church, in the neighborhood, and at school.

It’s crucial to honor the loved ones we’ve lost to suicide by finding purpose, energy, and resolve to eliminate bullying. And yet it’s worth doing mindfully of those who are still vulnerable and suffering.

We can think of it this way: For every youth lost to suicide, probably dozens more are still suffering under the same conditions.

Preventing suicide where bullying is a factor must focus on both eliminating the bullying (which will happen over time) and separately, distinctly, on reaching youth who are living with bullying, despair, or feeling overwhelmed and trapped for any reason now.

Postscript: Now that I’ve gotten through all of this based on my experience as a layperson, I just found a great evidence-based piece: Reporting on Suicide: Recommendations for the Media from the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. Maybe I’ll follow up on this soon.

Robin is an old friend, she co-founded StopDrLaura.com with me, and she and her wife Diane were the first gay (lesbian) couple married in LA county after marriage became legal in California last year (before it was banned).

I suspect she wrote me this email, below, in response to the news that the Democrats don’t plan on doing anything about repealing DOMA during this session of Congress (meaning, until at least January of 2011).

Here’s my re-format of Tyler’s thoughts:

No civil rights movement has ever said ‘give us less, and we will be satisfied.’No civil rights movement has ever won without the strength to keep fighting no matter what the loss or setback was at the time.

The LGBT community has survived

• mental institutions
• penal institutions
• science calling us sick
• religion calling us sinful

We have survived being thrown out of our homes, our schools, and rejected by everyone we knew.

But we found each other. And we loved each other. And we supported each other through AIDS, when no one gave a damn. And we refused to be victims.

We became survivors, and now, our resilience has made us tougher, stronger, smarter.

No, we will not back down from the losses around marriage equality, or any other civil right issue. We deserve it all, and we will not rest until we have it all. That is what a movement is.

We keep moving, forward. No retreat, not now, not ever.

Tyler encapsulates the historical credo of survivors.  She speaks to the the legacy of queer folks for fierceness, resilience, and determination against all odds.

As integral and crucial as this approach is to the achievements of LGBTQ folks, we do our community a disservice if we assume that fiery determination is built-in, a queer birthright.

Queer fierceness didn’t come naturally for my partner Dale, who died by suicide in 2000.  He was an animated, gifted guy, but waged a long battle with clinical depression.

After he died, I wanted to lay the blame for Dale’s death squarely at the feet of the pastors who had fired him from his long-standing part-time positions as a church musician.  Those were crushing blows for him.  As it turned out, the last firing was followed shortly by him taking steps to make quick, painless suicide available.

But the deeper truth was that I let Dale down, too.  I assumed that, since Dale was starting his coming out journey, he was also gathering up the fierceness that would carry him through the many steps to come.  As an accomplished 46-year-old, it didn’t really occur to me that the fierceness I saw in him might be more mask than muscle.

So, to Tyler’s thoughts, I’d add that the LGBT community has survived the suicide of so many of its loved ones.  Just as the movement has included supporting each other through AIDS, it has brought fierce and resilient folks together with vulnerable folks who encounter seasons of despair.  We have taken on the toughness necessary to persevere precisely because we’ve seen so many of our own in desperate need of compassion, nurture, and protection.

The march to equality calls each of us to be our best, fiercest, selves.  It also calls all lesbian, transgender, bisexual, gay, and otherwise queer folks to “come as you are… fierceness is not a prerequisite.”

The congruence for some clients will be with their sexuality. The congruence for others will be with their religious beliefs.

Clearly, some people feel that the most core aspect of them is their sexuality.

Others, on the other hand, believe that their religious values and religious beliefs are most core, and they would rather explore congruence of their behavior with those beliefs and values.

Dr. Throckmorton has my respect for being a thoughtful, available presence at his blog. He has earned Michael Bussee’s endorsement of the sexual identity framework.

In that context, I won’t/can’t lash out in activist mode about the ache I felt when I heard him say those words. And yet, the ache remains.

One of the thinnest stereotypes of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and other queer-identified folks is that we have made a choice favoring our sexuality at the expense of our faith. With words similar to Dr. Throckmorton’s, we are cast as prioritizing sexuality above all else, choosing selfishness over selflessness, cheap grace over personal sacrifice.

I’m not surprised to hear the stereotype offered as fact by folks who have not known lgbtq people of faith personally. Those who haven’t heard our stories, or only know of folks who left their faith communities after being given ex-gay ultimatums — be ex-gay or go away — may not have experience which contradicts the stereotypes. They haven’t stood side by side with friends whose coming-out journeys were more spiritual than sexual. They haven’t known parents whose adult kids’ coming-out brought them into their own spiritual journeys, hand-in-hand with friends, pastors, and spiritual mentors.

Dr. Throckmorton, though, speaking as a therapist who seeks to guide other therapists, has no lack of experience with lgbtq people. He has written about faith-based support for lgbtq people; he interacts with gay people of faith regularly.

I followed a self-directed ex-gay path of sorts for many years. I didn’t believe that God called all lesbians and gays to deny their orientation or live celibately. But I believed (and intensely hoped) that God had made me at least nominally bisexual and intended me to be married without acknowledging my attractions to guys.

Starting my coming-out journey meant connecting with God in a more intensive way than I had previously. I embarked on that journey with the counsel of a 15-year friend who was also an Episcopal priest. I received guidance from the rector at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Des Moines (who is now a bishop) and was welcomed and integrated fully in the community there. My mother also reached out to our family priest in Minnesota for information and support.

There were so many questions for me to ask, and some answers which surprised me, along that path. The pastoral and spiritual advice I heard wasn’t about either/or choices. I heard voices of empathy, compassion, and encouragement. The counsel I received avoided pat answers and encouraged me to be fully engaged in my spiritual journey. I met other lgbtq folks in the church. I also met people in the church who were living with same-sex attractions either celibately or monogamously in heterosexual marriage.

I don’t hold myself out there as a notable because of my spiritual journey… my story is simply characteristic of so many other stories in which faith has been integral to, not excized during, the coming-out journey.

But, where is Dr. Throckmorton’s awareness of or compassion toward this facet of living with same-sex attractions? I ache to think of tender, vulnerable folks hearing him reinforce their worst fears equating being gay with amputating faith.

Religious beliefs are certainly relevant to therapeutic work with queer and ex-gay people of whatever flavor. For guidance on how faith and psychotherapy can coexist, we can look to the American Association of Pastoral Counselors (AAPC), which promotes itself as “Professionally Integrating Psychotherapy and Spirituality.”

One of the AAPC’s mission statements is to:

Promote pastoral counseling and care practices that are ethically sound, clinically competent, theologically grounded and sensitive to multiple faith and spiritual practices.

Their Code of Ethics includes:

We show sensitive regard for the moral, social, and religious standards of clients and communities. We avoid imposing our beliefs on others, although we may express them when appropriate in the pastoral counseling process.

To be clear, I don’t expect that Dr. Throckmorton is a member of the AAPC or has made a commitment to its code of ethics.

Members of the AAPC model something important, though: How religious leaders can ethically offer spiritual guidance hand-in-hand with psychotherapy. The organization is open only to ministers (defined as people “who [have] been authorized by a religious endorsing body through ordination, consecration or equivalent means [...] to exercise specific religious leadership”). So, unlike Dr. Throckmorton, AAPC members are explicitly committed to specific theologically-based messages. And yet, ethical practices require them not to impose their beliefs on others.

Dr. Throckmorton mentions that his work has been published by the Christian Association for Psychological Studies (CAPS), a group whose ethics code requires respect for client autonomy, but doesn’t appear to call for respect toward divergent beliefs. He is cited as the past president of the American Mental Health Counselors Association and current chair of its Ethics Committee. The Code of Ethics there includes:

Preamble

Mental health counselors believe in the dignity and worth of the individual. They are committed to increasing knowledge of human behavior and understanding of themselves and others. [...]

Principle 13: Public Statements

[...] All public statements, announcements of services, and promotional activities should serve the purpose of providing sufficient information to aid the consumer public in making informed judgements and choices on matters that concern it. [...]

I don’t get it. A sexuality counseling expert who also wears the hat of an ethics committee chair appears to be violating his own organization’s code by promoting misleading stereotypes.

In 1993 and 1994 my then-wife and I hired a Christian therapist to do relationship counseling. One of the core issues for us was that my wife and I were coming from distinctly different theological perspectives on same-sex attractions. It was understood by all of us that the therapist’s personal beliefs were not aligned with mine. When discussing her services before hiring her, the therapist indicated that she was equipped and committed to working with us from a foundation of mutual respect, especially regarding divergent religious beliefs.

The work we were doing was taxing and complex. It required much from the therapist.

The couples therapy broke down after nearly a dozen sessions, though, when the therapist discovered that she had misspoken at the time we hired her: Contrary to her best intentions and hopes, she was not equipped to work with us from the foundation of mutual respect for divergent beliefs.

I received indications that appropriate steps were taken by the therapist’s employer in the form of additional training, mentoring, and supervision after her work for us ended. I appreciated her optimism and hope that her skills would bear fruit; I know she intended no harm.

But the harm we experienced was devastating. Instead of helping us at a tenuous and difficult point in the marriage, this therapy contributed to its fracture. I don’t know what the specific outcome would have been with a competent, ethical therapist. I can’t help but wonder how the ugly, adversarial relationship which emerged after that work ended might have been different, though.

The lesson I take from this experience is simply that these codes of ethics matter. When they are not in place, backed by professional commitment and competence, real harm can result.

And, to be complete, I can’t find any reference by Dr. Throckmorton that he is a licensed, practicing mental health professional. A license verification search on his last name at the Pennsylvania Department of State Bureau of Professional and Occupational Affairs doesn’t turn up anyone holding a Psychologist’s license. It looks like this information from the Pennsylvania Counseling Association is relevant:

Counselors who practice in the community, with clients of any age, must be licensed through the Pennsylvania State Board of Social Workers, Marriage and Family Therapists and Professional Counselors in order to call themselves “Licensed Professional Counselors (LPC).” Information about this process can be found in Chapter 49 of the Pennsylvania Code found on the Board’s website. There is no license or certification required for counselors who practice exclusively in colleges or universities (unless requested/required by a particular employer); however, many counselors practicing in these settings do choose to become LPCs.

It strikes me as odd that a person presenting himself as an expert to the national media appears to have no license to practice as a mental health professional.

Maybe Dr. Throckmorton can clarify, though:

• What ethical code(s) of conduct does he seek to, or is he required to, comply with?
• After considering his statements on CNN, would he like to issue a retraction or correction?
• Is licensure not relevant or necessary to his academic work, to creating the sexual identity therapy framework, or to membership and leadership in the AMHCA?

Dear Ex-Ex Gay Organizations,

I really appreciate your concern for people like me, people you consider “ex-gays.” It’s really great to know that there are people out there that seem to want to help. According to your websites, you seem to really care for those of us who have been through the chaos and confusion of sexual identity issues.

However, your help is not wanted, nor needed.

(…the rest of the open letter)

I posted a comment in reply to the open letter which hasn’t been approved yet.
Here it is:

Hey there… my name is Steve. Off and on over a period of 2-3 years, starting shortly after PFOX created its YahooGroup for people to talk with each other, I was in gentle dialogue members and supporters of PFOX. When I had the privilege of meeting Regina Griggs face-to-face at a Love Won Out conference in 2006, it was great to finally know her smile, her laugh, her hug.

I come to you in peace, now, as well. I know it’s tough in the middle of the culture wars over issues of sexuality and faith, because enough people are angry and mean that it’s easy to assume that all people are that way.

I am the web developer for BeyondExGay.com, one of the sponsors of the Ex-Gay Survivor Conference.

The BeyondExGay.com project matters to me, in part, because I lost my partner, Dale, to suicide in 2000.

Suicide is complex; I don’t believe it can generally be nailed down to a simple cause, or that a finger of blame can be pointed in a single direction. But, one of the things Dale struggled with before he died was being told that he either needed to be ex-gay or leave his musical talents behind when he crossed the thresholds of churches he loved. He had shared his talents inside those churches as a self-taught pianist, organist, and choir director for decades. He had also spent most of his 46 years, 22 of them married, in prayer and Bible study, struggling to achieve peace and grace regarding his same-sex attractions. It devastated him to hear from otherwise loving and well-meaning pastors that he had not yet tried hard enough or long enough.

So, despite not participating in ex-gay ministries myself, I have been impacted by them. When Dale’s pastors tried give him hope by describing ex-gay life as a viable option, his despair deepened instead. I live with the knowledge that, despite being aware that it bothered him, I didn’t recognize how much until it was too late.

Of course my experience of struggling with difficult impacts of ex-gay experiences is not universal. I got to meet Randy Thomas the same day that I met Regina Griggs. He and I had communicated online. Even though our contacts had been sporadic, his face lit up when he recognized me. He’s got a warm smile and he gives great hugs. He’s a real person to me, and I wish him a good life. I am glad that he has found peace in his journey. I don’t want to change him or fix him. I don’t have any illusions that he (or any ex-gay folks) wants or needs my help in his journey.

Christine and Peterson, the founders of BeyondExGay.com, have similar sentiments about ex-gay indivicuals they know. The site’s home page states, “Certain people who currently identify as ex-gay say they are content as such. We don’t seek to invalidate their experience.”

At the same time, we need to tell people about our journeys. Our ex-gay experiences haven’t been all bad, quoting again from the home page: “Some of us received positive help through our ex-gay experiences. We grew to understand our sexuality better and in some cases even overcame life-controlling problems.” In the end, though, we experienced more harm than help.

We have heard ex-gay groups described as cults, and those who have chosen to participate in them as duped. We find those stereotypes hurtful and demeaning to ex-gays and former ex-gays alike. By telling our stories, we hope people will see that there are valid reasons for seeking ex-gay experiences, that some folks have found them helpful, and yet there are also valid questions about the results and the personal costs attached to them for many of us.

My personal hope is that we all can be survivors, discovering peace, hope, light, grace, health, and community on our journeys. That is the beginning and the end of my prayer for you as well as me, for the folks who were at the Ex-Gay Survivor Conference as well as the Exodus Freedom conference, for supporters of PFOX as well as PFLAG. Most of all, that is my prayer for the tender souls in our midst who, like Dale, struggle mightily for the smallest slivers of those gifts.

The concept for it has emerged from multiple sources — my experience as a survivor of Dale, my boyfriend’s, suicide in 2000, and my admiration for the ways in which Peterson and Christine have crafted the Beyond Ex-Gay site as a place of healing and sharing of survivors’ stories.

The impetus for this is my sense that suicide-related issues play an obvious role in queer life, and yet as a community we are sometimes better at launching activism-based challenges at others than healing-based nurturing within. It’s important to me that suicide in the gay community impacts folks of all ages, not adolescents or young adults only, as Peterson described recently.

I don’t see this as an always dismal or devastating topic.

At its core it’s a mental health issue and a community health issue. More folks have survived despair and self-harm than died; many of the loved ones we have lost actually spent years courageously battling mental illness and dysfunctional family or community dynamics. When it comes to suicide prevention and survival, sustaining strong, supportive communities with access to good health care is as important if not moreso than ongoing efforts to eliminate bullying, discrimination, and homophobia. Just like the gay community has been essential in caring for people with HIV, we have a critical roles to play in helping each other survive, heal, and thrive in the context of suicide.

It’s too easy to shy away from talking the issues out. It’s a tough experience, a complex topic, and a word we’d rather avoid. When I looked at domain names, I found a number of suicide-related names owned by resellers, available for hundreds of dollars, and figured I’d end up a long or quirky leftover. Surprisingly, though, neither the QueerSuicide nor the GaySuicide domain names were in use… one more suggestion that we’re prone to shuffling the topic aside.

And, it’s not that I’m any sort of innovator on this, either. Folks like Gabi Clayton, Steve Schalchlin, the Trevor Project, and thousands of gay teen suicide prevention web sites have been available for a long time.

He closes with:

The important point is that we need to tell our own stories because once others tell them for us, the stories morph into a political message. So I encourage you, whatever journey you are on, step up and speak out.

The intersection of the personal and the political really is intriguing in this context, isn’t it?

I mentioned recently (see War or Peace?) that I see a clear distinction between healing which calls on people to be at war with themselves and healing which draws them into peaceful places where still-tender hurts can be soothed and souls can be gently nurtured.

At its heart, healing is profoundly personal. Rediscovering quiet and peaceful places within ourselves where previously there was only conflict and shame isn’t likely to happen in the midst of assertive or angry political activism. Healing of deep hurts often begins with reclaiming all that was already whole and complete, learning to be tender with ourselves, treating the wounds, and acknowledging the scars.

And yet, to heal and rediscover joy after being wounded by our culture, our religious and political leaders, even sometimes by our closest family and friends, can’t help but become a political act as well.

Coming from shame or woundedness, recovery lets us emerge to healthier, more self-assured places. When we assert the simple facts of our own humanity, that we have always been as whole as our brothers and sisters, we make it clear that something was wrong in the culture that had taught us otherwise. We debunk stereotypes. We challenge people, and their institutional power structures, and their assertions of cultural or faith-based wisdom, to consider our lives and our all-too-real experiences.

What could be more political?

The challenge, it seems to me, is to acknowledge the full spectrum of healing required. Like the stages of grief in which catastrophic loss puts us on a journey of denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance, there are multiple phases or seasons embedded in the healing process for most of us. As appropriate as it is to launch into being politically active to prevent the hurts we’ve experienced, that often involves being authentic about our tenderness and vulnerability, a skill often which rises from healing. If we avoid those deep places by focusing only on our anger, we risk stunting the healing process and perpetuating more of the battles which wounded us in the first place.

The best messages we, as survivors, can bring to our communities are the simple ones: We are well. The journey has been fruitful, and yet more hurtful than it needed to be. As a community, we have a responsibility to change that.

I just wonder whether he

• Will seem angry, or struggle for composure;
• Mention that there is no such thing as a gay Catholic;
• Solicit professional clients for his case supervision service;
• Explain how not being a neutral therapist meshes with his scientific approach.
• Describe how he works with openly gay clients while asking publicly, “Is Gay Real?”

The bit about working with gay clients has been discussed at Dr. Warren Throckmorton’s site, where he noted that Nicolosi had said:

A few gay-identified clients do decide to stay with us. Out of respect for diversity and autonomy, I affirm them in their right to define themselves as they wish, and I accept them in their gay self-label.

Here is how I summed up my experience of hearing Dr. Nicolosi speak a year ago:

I know that Dr. Nicolosi wasn’t soliciting the crowd to expand his client base, but I thought the conference organizers would have wanted folks to leave his talk inspired to embark on a therapeutic journey with someone like him.

Instead, I walked away believing that such therapy would be a long (months or years), arduous (digging, digging, digging into childhood years) and high-risk (only a third emerge as ex-gay, most of them still having same-sex attractions) journey with an angry guy who thought my masculinity was counterfeit and misogyny was funny.

Other folks taking notice so far include:

• The Ginger Beer message board in the UK: Know Your Enemy
• Gay.com in the UK: Anti-Gay Quack Comes to London
• GayTwoGether, which notes the Gay.com coverage.

Update: Timothy Kincaid at Box Turtle Bulletin wonders if he will do his “better brain-damaged than gay” joke.

]]> http://atb.opho.org/2007/05/24/dr-nicolosi-speaking-in-london/feed/ 2 http://atb.opho.org/2007/05/20/war-or-peace/ http://atb.opho.org/2007/05/20/war-or-peace/#comments Mon, 21 May 2007 00:21:47 +0000 Bose http://atb.opho.org/2007/05/20/war-or-peace Continue reading »]]> Peterson talks about his time as a member of the Times Square Church under pastor David Wilkerson.

In the midst of his own struggles with believing he had to choose between being gay and having God in his life he recalls:

I even spoke to a minister at the church about my struggle. To my shock he told me that he too had a similar struggle. He warned that it is a spiritual battle, one where I needed to bind the devil, do spiritual warfare and drive out the evil spirits in my life.

Years later, after emerging from his ex-gay years as an openly gay man, he asked about that minister and heard:

“Oh, didn’t you hear?” he replied, “Brother _______, moved back to _____ . Soon after he returned home, he killed himself! So awful. And such a man of God. No one knows why he would do such a thing.”

Sadly, I think I know why, knowing the weight of wickedness he sat under, wickedness heaped on him every Sunday. Perhaps it eventually crushed him.

Suicide leaves so many questions in its wake for which clear, simple answers can be elusive.

Whatever else impacted the minister prior to his death, it sounds like he was conditioned by that environment to avoid being authentic with people about his innermost thoughts and feelings. Speaking about despair, doubt, loneliness, or having a crush on a guy would have cast a shadow over his faith, his life, the respect he had earned. So he learned to brandish violent words — battle, bind, drive out, warfare — whenever talking about a simple trait, his attraction to guys.

That approach — hiding from the tender, authentic, inner self except when “fixing” it with violent words and imagery — has trained some of our most vulnerable loved ones for suicide.

It can be tempting to perceive suicide as a passive process of shriveling up or fading away from life, but in the eyes of a person who is suffering in silence, it can morph into a decisive, though violent, solution.

Ex-gay ministries and therapists are at their best when they reach out to folks (especially those whose families, peers, and culture don’t look kindly on lgbtiq people) and provide safe space for them to give voice to their tender, often battle-scarred, inner selves. Too often, though, the words of war — personal, political, and spiritual — remain active in those environments.

I think the war mentality was a factor in Dale’s suicide, though I won’t ever know the extent. He gave up battling over his orientation and was moving forward thoughtfully as an increasingly open gay man. But, it bothered him to still feel like he was at the crux of a cultural and spiritual war that marked him as an outcast of churches he loved, a war which was likely to permeate his family when he came out to them.

His life with depression felt like a losing battle against unpredictable, gripping mood swings, psychiatrists, and medication side effects. Even 22 years of marriage to his best friend had been shadowed by battling with himself to be fully present as her partner.

It seems to me that one of the many layers of complexity embedded in suicide is that it sometimes, symbolically at least, represents the ultimate acceptance of a violent solution to inner tenderness and struggle.

In that sense, Dale didn’t give up on life. He gave in to those who insisted his life must be about war, not healing, by striking the blow which ended all of his battles.

I am cherishing the chance to be a part of the Beyond Ex-Gay project. Peterson and Christine highlight the need for ex-gay survivors to set their battle-laden imagery aside in order to create safe space where gentle healing can unfold. We are meeting former ex-gay leaders who have modeled this by backing away from politicization of the issues and demonization of lgbtiq folks and moving toward healing, openness, and authenticity. We are hearing from ordinary folks who are working through their own healing transitions like this, yet too often feeling that alone in navigating issues of faith, family, love, community, and identity after their ex-gay experience has run its course.

There are no shadows to be cast over the lives of folks who have found peace as ex-gays, no battles for supremacy to be won or lost. The Beyond Ex-Gay community simply acknowledges that, for them, the season for being ex-gay or seeking ex-gay experience has passed. All that could be gained from it has been gained, but at significant cost — personally, spiritually, even financially — and healing is being sought in other directions.

Remembering Dale, and Peterson’s friend, and countless others, it means a lot to me to play a role in nurturing peace and healing.

]]> http://atb.opho.org/2007/05/20/war-or-peace/feed/ 5 http://atb.opho.org/2007/01/16/my-letter-to-the-governor/ http://atb.opho.org/2007/01/16/my-letter-to-the-governor/#comments Tue, 16 Jan 2007 16:24:00 +0000 Bose http://atb.opho.org/2007/01/16/my-letter-to-the-governor Continue reading »]]> The Love Makes a Family organization in Connecticut is encouraging folks to email Governor Rell and their statehouse reps about marriage equality with an easy-to-use page at their site.

Here’s my letter, with the personal portion highlighted:

Jan 16, 2007

Governor M. Rell
Executive Office of the Governor
State Capitol, 210 Capitol Avenue
Hartford, CT 06106

Dear Governor Rell,

As your constituent, I urge you to support legislation this session giving full marriage equality to same-sex couples in Connecticut.

Civil unions provide important legal rights, but thousands of loving, committed couples–many raising children–deserve the dignity and respect that only marriage can provide.

Six years ago my 46-year-old partner died after a long battle with depression which had been compounded by fear of losing the respect of his loved ones and his community if he was honest with them about being gay.

Suicide is complex, leaving no simple cause to blame. But, one of the contributing factors in Dale’s case was the message he had gotten loud and clear: That to be gay was to be less, to be set apart.

In Dale’s name, I ask you to take a step to ensure that the state of Connecticut is not promoting the message that gay relationships are less worthy of the rights and responsibilities of marriage than others.

Please support marriage equality this session, so ALL people in Connecticut are treated equally and fairly under the law.

Sincerely,

Steve Boese
West Hartford, CT

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