Darkside Rainbow

Happy 4th to all you Americans. Right now I feel as if I should be saluting a rainbow flag lowered to half-mast after an article that Lyndsey pointed me to, about how a prominent gay activist has decided that he’s no longer gay, with exclusive testimonial.

‘Gay’-rights leader quits homosexuality
Rising star in movement says God liberated him from lifestyle - WorldNetDaily.com

He was a rising star in the “gay rights” movement, but Michael Glatze now declares not only has he given up activism – he’s no longer a homosexual.

Glatze – who had become a frequent media source as founding editor of Young Gay America magazine – tells the story of his transformation in an exclusive column published today by WND. [...] The radical change in his life, Glatze recalls, began with inner “promptings” he now attributes to God.

Oh, honey…being gay isn’t a lifestyle. It’s just a simple fact of who you are. Your lifestyle is up to you.

I know I should feel angry about this, should be appalled, shocked, but…I just can’t bring myself to. It’s his life, his personal decisions, and no doubt the struggle to make this choice was very difficult and personal to him so I can’t exactly label Glatze a traitor, but it still makes me feel so very, very sad. It’s rather painful to think that someone who once fought for our rights has made such a drastic reversal…and why? Cultural and social pressures? Stigmas? Why would he make such a switch?

Religion is cited as the answer, but many homosexuals have reconciled their faith with their sexuality successfully without having to sacrifice one or the other. And for him to say something like this:

Homosexuality came easy to me, because I was already weak.

Weak. Oh, gods…I really have no words for that. Reading the rest of the exclusive actually brings tears to my eyes and a knot to my throat, because he goes on to talk about the good that was done for the gay community during his time and how all of those good things that he did were wrong. How homosexuality is basically pornography and perversion that poisons the minds of youth.

I just don’t understand how someone can make such a vicious about-face. I can understand being very confused about one’s sexuality at a young age, as he says he was. Some homosexuals don’t realize or acknowledge until later in life that we are, in fact, gay. It happens. It’s a discovery stage that we all go through at one point or another. That discovery can happen in reverse, if a confused young boy embraces homosexuality at a young age and realizes later that he swung himself in a direction that really didn’t suit him. It’s more rare, but it happens. Figuring out “I’m straight” shouldn’t automatically mean “gay is evil” any more than figuring out “I’m gay” automatically means “straight is evil”.

What are you fighting so hard against, Glatze? What are you trying so hard to reject? Is it fear? Shame? You say we cannot see the truth when we’re blinded by homosexuality, but I think you’re willfully blinding yourself here to so many basic human truths, throwing up a wall of intolerance so thick one might almost think you’re hiding something…or hiding from something.

What bothers me the most is his talk of a “lifestyle” of late-night parties and substance abuse in direct association with his sexuality, as if that was somehow caused by homosexuality. No, that’s caused by lack of self-discipline, and that happens to both gays and straights. He can’t blame his own bad choices on the entirety of homosexual mankind.

I really don’t know how to close this. If this was his true face, I can’t really mourn his loss from the world of gay activism, because we don’t really need someone like that on our side, fighting against us while pretending to fight for us.

But he could have done this with more grace. He could have found himself, gotten himself sorted out, without deciding to condemn an entire innocent echelon of humanity in the process just because he couldn’t live with himself.

How many times will we take the fall because someone can’t deal with his or her own personal demons?

micheal glatze, young gay america, ex-gay, gay activism