lesbianandgayrambles

The other day I read a few articles that stated how the Republican Vice-president nominee Sarah Palin’s church supports converting gays into heterosexuals.  A particular article I read from http://www.gay.com/news/opinion/article.html?2008/09/08/1 states that Palin’s church is hosting a conference to help people “impacted by homosexuality”.

Palin’s church and others like it threat homosexuality like it is a addiction like alcoholism or drugs. Well homsexuality is not like an addiction. Instead, I look at it from a sociological point of view.

Homosexuality, is a subculture and like any other subculture it may not be accepted by everyone.

Let me now ramble on converting gays into heterosexuals. This subject is very significant to me because It has recently impacted not only my life but a very dear friend of mine.

A friend of mine had came out to his sister that he was homosexual. He was hoping she would be able to give him positive support before he told the rest of his family. Unfortunately, his sister ended up telling their brother (who was a ex-gay) and his older brother told their parents. To bring up some background info my friend’s parents are very religious and do not believe homosexuality is right.

The events that happened next sadden me even until this day. After his parents were informed that my friend admitted he was homosexual he was kicked out of his house. I do not know the exact details of how it happened but I wish it would of happened differently. My friend ended up moving in with a homosexual male couple.

I didn’t see him as much as I used to. I found out that he had dropped out of school, and then I ran into him in a local gay neighborhood at 2 am. My friend was only 17 at the time and I was very upset at what I say. He was out with some other “Friends” hanging outside the gay bars. When I say him he didn’t look as happy as he did before. You could see it in his eyes, and I knew it might have been because his family didn’t support his decision, but I also thought he wasn’t getting the right role models either. I told him he shouldn’t be out at 2 am, and that he had other positive and responsible adults that would support his lifestyle and would offer him a safe environment. He then said “Well your out this late too”. “Yes” I said, but I am also older, finish school, and care about you.

After that, I didn’t see him again. One of my other friends saw him one last time and tried to offer him a better living environment and a chance to help him back to school, and a way to intervene with his parents. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen. What happened was my friends mother ended up tricking him in meeting with her, and after that he was taken to a program that converted gays into heterosexuals. Since our friend was still a minor he was basically forced into the program. Several of his friends tried to contact him for months. We finally heard from him through a myspace message stating the wrongs he has done and how even though he was forced into the conversion program it helped him.

I had missed feelings about the whole situation. I am glad to of heard from him, but I truly believe that he will always be putting up a front and will never be the person that he truly wants to be.

I always believe that no one should ever try to change a person’s sexual orientation, but instead maybe they should change the way they think.

This is one of the reasons I will not be voting for Palin or McCain.

Until my next ramble.. think about this “What would you do if a friend or family member told you that they were gay, bisexual, lesbian, transgender, straight, HIV positive, or something out of the ordinary? How would you react?

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