You Can't Fix Stupid

Comedian Ron White is famous for his comedy routine "You can't fix stupid."

Well, here's a news flash for you: You can't fix gay either. Fix implies something is broken. Being gay isn't being broken. It's being the way God made you, even if it's different than "normal." Being gay is its own normal. I know this. Lots of people know this. But sadly, too many people in positions of power and influence continue to believe being gay is a choice and can be "fixed."

Someone directed me to the story of Kirk Murphy, a man who was part of a UCLA study conducted by George Rekers as part of his doctoral thesis.

In 1970, a well-known expert on homosexuality and transgender issues appeared on a local television talk show in Los Angeles to talk about feminine boys. He described how very young boys who behaved in a feminine manner would almost invariably grow up to become a homosexual. Alongside that expert was a gay man who described his own childhood and confirmed what the expert said. But there was hope, the expert announced. A new program at the University of California at Los Angeles would ensure these young boys grew up to become masculine, normal men. The expert gave a list of symptoms to watch out for, and urged his viewers to call him if their children exhibited the problems he described.

The mother of a four year, eleven month old boy saw that program that afternoon. She noted the list of symptoms that the expert gave and concluded that there was something seriously wrong with her son. She and her husband decided to take their young boy to UCLA for treatment to prevent him from growing up to be gay.

That young boy came under the care of a very young grad student by the name of George Alan Rekers. The boy’s treatment would become a subject of Rekers’s doctoral thesis, and the astounding success that Rekers claimed in curing the young boy would mark the start of a very impressive career. Rekers would write about “Kraig” in at least twenty publications during his career, a career which included becoming a very important activist in the promotion of anti-gay causes.

In this original BTB investigation, we speak with his family and friend who knew the real “Kraig” to uncover the truth behind Reker’s greatest success story. Their stories reveals the tragedy of a terrible experiment on a very young boy which would haunt him for the rest of his life. It is not only an indictment of a man who built his anti-gay career on Kirk’s suffering, but a rebuke to others — those in the mental health profession then and in the contemporary ex-gay movement today — who would place their careers and agendas ahead of the well-being of this young boy and countless others like him.

I think it's interesting to note that George Rekers, a psychologist and ordained Southern Baptist minister, was caught last year returning from a European vacation with a male escort he found on rentboy.com. The escort has claimed that Rekers is in fact gay.

In my humble opinion, maybe if folks would stop trying to fix something that's not broken, gay men would stop marrying straight women and messing up their lives. I've already blogged about religious hypocrisy and the Rekers story was part of it. I find this interesting, especially in light of a recent article in Psychology Today where homophobic men were found to be highly aroused by gay porn.

Go figure.