Saturday, September 5, 1998

Is effort to convert gays a declaration of love or war?

By Liz Doup

Knight Ridder Newspapers

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- Sergio is gay but desperately wishes he weren't.

At one time, the 34-year-old Miami Lakes product manager was engaged to a woman because he thought it might change his sexual orientation.

It didn't. And so on Monday nights Sergio, who asks to be identified by first name only, joins a Fort Lauderdale support group with 14 others just like him: gay men and lesbian women who want to be straight.

The group is Worthy Creations -- a branch of Exodus International, a nondenominational Christian ministry -- created by former gays. The group's leader is Richard Culbertson, 59, of Davie, Fla., who heard about changing sexual orientation 15 years ago through a radio ministry broadcast.

Since then, Culbertson, who says he has stopped his homosexual activities, has ministered to South Florida homosexuals in relative obscurity until Exodus International upped its profile recently in a series of full-page ads that appeared in newspapers, including The Herald, around the country.

The ads were coordinated by the Center for Reclaiming America, a group affiliated with Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Fort Lauderdale, and were funded by conservative Christian groups around the country. They featured Exodus "converts" who say they were homosexuals once, but no more. Their message: "If you don't want to be gay, you can change."

But to some, these ministries aren't benevolent helping hands. They're part of an escalating attack on homosexuals led by conservative Christian churches and political conservatives, grabbing headlines as fall elections approach.

They point to Senate leader Trent Lott, who recently compared homosexuals to alcoholics, and to organizations like the Center for Reclaiming America and the Christian Coalition.

"For years, conservative Christians preached hate and bigotry and got nowhere," says Tony Ramos, 31, president of GUARD, Gays United to Attack Repression and Discrimination, a South Florida group that monitors actions against gays. "So they changed their campaign. Now it's, 'We love them and want to help them to change.' "

Though 25 years have passed since the American Psychological and American Psychiatric Associations struck homosexuality from their lists of mental disorders, the issue of whether homosexuals can -- or should -- change sexual orientation still sparks fiery debates.

Last year, the American Psychological Association officially labeled "conversion" or "reparative" therapy as potentially harmful. But a recent Newsweek poll found that 56 percent of the general population thinks homosexuals can change sexual orientation through therapy, will power or religious conviction. Only 11 percent of gays and lesbians polled agree.

The debate over conversion rages, in part, because there's no scientific answer to the question: What causes homosexuality?

Is it a blip in the genes or a byproduct of experience? Or both?

This debate exploded in the early '90s, when a handful of research appeared to link some genetic patterns to homosexuality. But the studies were small and interpretations differed.

"We're talking about something that hasn't been decided in black or white," says Pepper Schwartz, a sociology professor at University of Washington in Seattle who writes extensively on homosexuality. "Just as there's not one way in which people lose or gain weight, there's not one way in which people become homosexuals."

Leaders of Exodus programs disagree.

Life experiences are solely responsible for one's sexual orientation, they assert. Women may turn to lesbianism because they were sexually or emotionally abused by men. Men are gay because their mothers were overly attentive and their fathers emotionally or physically distant.

"I know the gay community laughs at these theories," says Bob Davies, 47, the North American director of Exodus, who was gay, now married for 13 years. "But either they're not being honest with themselves or we're getting a skewed sample."

The American Psychiatric and American Psychological Associations discount such theories, too. Indeed, many people with backgrounds of sexual abuse or detached fathers are heterosexuals.

"There is absolutely no scientific evidence behind these correlations," says Dr. Lowell Tong, chairman of the American Psychiatric Association's committee on gay, lesbian and bisexual issues. "That's from the era of blaming mothers for schizophrenia -- blaming mothers for just about everything."

As an antidote to supposed past abuse, Worthy Creations support groups in Miami, Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach combine scripture reading and prayer with verbal support from the members.

The groups, as well as some secular therapists, including Los Angeles psychologist Joseph Nicolosi, look at the change from gay to straight as a process. First, they say, gay people must stop homosexual behavior. Then they should concentrate on making platonic same-sex friendships. Gradually, the desire supposedly dissipates.

"When you feel like one of the guys, you don't eroticize," says Nicolosi, author of the 1991 book "Reparative Therapy of Male Homosexuality: A New Clinical Approach", and executive director of NARTH, the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality. "You become friends. You hang out. It demystifies men."

Justin Boatwright desperately would like it to be true.

Growing up in Central Florida, kids taunted Boatwright with "fag, sissy, queer." He was attracted to boys, but the church he attended told him it was wrong. He'd be damned. He'd burn in hell.

Boatwright, 39, a slender man with short-cropped hair, was torn. He felt one thing; he believed something different. For nearly 18 years, he put his religious beliefs on hold and worked in gay bars, flitted among relationships and popped pills.

A few years ago, he attempted suicide, carving his lover's initials on his wrist. He didn't die. He was lonely and desperate.

"I wanted to be released from this life I was leading," he says. "I didn't want to be gay."

A man at a 12-step program led him to Calvary Chapel in Fort Lauderdale. Though Calvary doesn't have a conversion ministry dedicated to homosexuals, Boatwright was encouraged to change his life.

It was a struggle, but Boatwright says he stopped having sexual relations with men nearly two years ago. Today, he leads a ministry group for people infected with the AIDS virus and runs the church cafeteria. Along with two Bibles, he carries Exodus leaflets to hand out to anyone interested.

"I don't think, without God, anyone can change," says Boatwright, who hopes to date and marry some day. "It's just too difficult."

Jerry Stephenson, 41, of Plantation, Fla., thinks it's impossible -- with or without God.

Stephenson went to weekly meetings of Worthy Creations for two years in the late '80s. A Southern Baptist minister who'd worked from Key West to West Palm Beach, he feared losing his job if his congregations learned he was gay.

"It doesn't work," says Stephenson, now president of the 1-year-old Grace Institute, a seminary that adheres to fundamentalist teachings except one -- that homosexuality is a sin.

"People leading (Worthy Creations) are in denial because they have to be," he says. "If not, they think God will hate them and the church will forsake them and they'll go to hell."

But those looking to change say they need group support to help make it happen.

At a Worthy Creations meeting in Fort Lauderdale, a 45-year-old wife and mother confesses to having a three-year affair with a married woman. Her husband of 25 years does not know, says the woman, who asked not to be identified.

"It would just be easier if I could be heterosexual," she says. "It's hard keeping up two relationships -- the guilt, the time involved. But here you realize other people have the same struggle."

Sitting across from the woman, Sergio agrees.

"Here, I can openly talk about it and know they won't judge or condemn me," he says.

The effort to convert is fraught with peril. Sergio admits that he "slipped" a couple of months ago and had a same-sex relationship after nearly four years of abstinence.

During the support group, Sergio suggests pairing up with a prayer partner. Culbertson nixes the idea, unless that partner is a minister or a heterosexual man. Culbertson describes a scenario in which two gay men -- both lonely -- call each other at 2 a.m. for support.

"The next thing you know, they end up in bed together," says Culbertson, whose salary is paid with donations from Coral Ridge Ministries of Fort Lauderdale, private parties and a few other churches.

Indeed, two of Exodus International's founders left the group in 1979 and "married" in a commitment ceremony. Another 13 group leaders also returned to homosexuality.

But even if groups claimed a 100 percent success rate, many therapists and researchers assert they wouldn't be swayed. People can train heterosexuals to engage in homosexual actions, too, says Schwartz, the sociologist. But what does that prove? And can it do more harm than good?

"To what extent do we want to tinker with something we really don't understand?" she asks.

Many psychological experts believe that one's sexual orientation is core to his or her identity. Any attempt to change that orientation gives an explicit message: What you are is bad.

Sergio has spent years feeling bad about who he is. So he is here, in a support group with people who nod and whisper "Amen" to his words.

"This group will help me deal with my life," he says. "I know I'm not alone."

(c) 1998, The Miami Herald.

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