Nope. Hasn’t happened yet. Sigh.
I came really, really close two weeks ago. I was having dinner at my parents place and almost blurted it out. But then I realized that my dad was going away for a week and my mom would be left alone to process the news. And given my mom’s current state of health, I didn’t think that was a good idea. So I waited.
And then, I decided when my dad got home from his conference, I’d ask him for a time when we could talk. But as I was chatting with him on the phone, he shared how one of the workshops at this conference was given by a woman who works for Desert Stream Ministries and who taught on ‘wholeness’. That was his word and it triggered my memory for what this ministry does.
Yep. You guessed it. It’s all about helping people overcome homosexuality. The website couches its ministry in broader terms saying that its “particularly relevant to those struggling with homosexuality, sexual promiscuity, the effects of sexual abuse, codependency, self-hatred, or the inability to love others well.” But in essence, it believes these are all linked together. Brokenness in one of these other areas is what leads a person to succumb to the temptation of homosexuality and choose a gay lifestyle.
There are several things I’ve always found incongruous about these types of ministries. First, they claim that homosexuality arises because of woundedness. People are attracted to their same sex because of something that was missing or messed up in their relationship with one of their parents. The problem is that if that’s the case, far more than a steady 10% of the population should be gay. There’s a heck of a lot of people with mommy and daddy issues out there.
Second, a lot of their testimonies highlight people who were miserable being gay and who were leading very messed up lives of promiscuity and substance abuse. The implication is that the gay lifestyle is a very unhappy one that people want to escape from. But it’s not about being gay. There are heterosexuals who are miserable in the same ways. I also think the lack of acceptance and the guilt associated with being gay are a major impetus for people to hide their pain in these unhealthy ways. But if they believed they were okay as who they were, then they wouldn’t be in such a miserable spot in the first place. There are numerous very healthy, very happy gay men and woman who do not feel the need to be rescued or healed.
Third, if you read the stories of so-called recovered homosexuals, they are not in fact recovered. They have just become very good and living in denial and have set up amazingly intricate safeguards to prevent them from giving into what they think of as temptation. For example, the main article author on the Desert Stream site talks about how whenever he travels away from home, he has at least two or three people he has to call daily and strict rules about who he can room with. This is not normal. This is not healthy nor is it the way a person who has truly been transformed into a heterosexual would need to behave.
And so, I think this whole ‘healing the gay’ thing is bunch of hooey. I’m sure there are others who have articulated it better than me, complete with scientific evidence for the differences between gays and straights and the influence of biology, etc…but this is just a tiny rant for the purpose of showing why I have not yet come out to my parents. They (or at least my dad) believe this stuff. He believes that being gay is due to some sort of sexual and relational brokenness. So my telling him I am gay would not only mean for him that his daughter is deeply hurting in some way, but would also imply that he and my mom did something wrong in raising me that allowed me to be broken in such a way. And that means he’ll grieve for me and for his own sense of responsibility. Nothing could be further from the truth - Aargh. I’m still planning on coming out. It’s just this latest news about him attending this workshop derailed me for a bit. Gotta build up my reserves again. I’m thankful for the many people who have been encouraging me and supporting me as I prepare for this event and who will be there for me no matter what the outcome is.
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