SHAMWOW

Some college paper in Kansas ran a five-piece story about the relationship between the Christian church and the gay community. The first two articles focus on a gay man who was raised in an insane religious family. His father beat the shit out of him and sent him into the emergency room countless times, he was forced into electroshock therapy and tortured, and he very nearly committed suicide. The remaining three focus on different perspectives on homosexuality within the church.

Part 1: Student recounts painful conversion therapy, abuse

As the man turned on the electricity, the pain was so horrible, Swanson still cannot understand why his mother sat in the lobby and did not race to rescue him as he screamed.

All types of adult images were portrayed on the screen during the electric-shock sessions. The therapist spoke very rarely but with emphasis.

“I block out a lot of things, but I remember him saying, ‘this is evil,’ the first time I saw a picture of a man and a man in bed together. I’ll never forget that one,” Swanson said.

While recounting his electric-shock therapy Swanson stares ahead in a haze. He repeatedly adjusts his pant legs and shifts in his chair.

Part 2: Student finds sympathy, understanding at K-State through ‘untherapy’

Fritch told him there were other gay people in the world and the government was not eradicating homosexuals, like his parents had told him.

Swanson said he began to “freak out.” This revelation devastated him: All the people he had lived with and put his trust in had lied his entire life.

Swanson said Fritch was shocked that he believed he had AIDS.

Swanson said he began going through “un-therapy, going through all these stages, literally going through mental and physical, in reverse.”

Through patience and understanding, Swanson said the gay community helped him understand that being gay was OK.

He said he feels he still has a lot of “un-therapy” to go through.

“I’ve never dated in the gay direction because I always wonder how the therapy will come back up,” Swanson said. “Because every single time there is a major victory, I’m still having the nightmares.”

Swanson expects the effects of his therapy to haunt him for life.

“I’ve literally had licensed psychologists say, ‘You need to repress this. This is so damaging we have no idea how you’ve gotten through this. This is not to be dealt with,’” he said.

Part 3: Local church offers ministry for gay community

Homosexuality and sexual brokenness [being homosexual] are issues that are clear to the church, Kluttz said, adding that people who are homosexual would not be operating as their “true self, not the way God created them to function.”

Dusty Garner, senior in political science, said he believes he functions as he should and is not surprised Manhattan has a local “reparative therapy” counseling program. He is a leader in the local community for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning and intersex people.

Garner said he routinely hears of churches offering programs to “fix” those born with a same-sex orientation. He said LGBTQI issues are especially tough for young adults who are raised in a conservative or religious area like Kansas.

“I think that when you are young and impressionable, you’re raised in your religion generally because that is what your family has practiced,” Garner said. “If your family is telling you what you are doing is wrong, then you’re left with these deep inner conflicts that make you inherently feel like less of a person.”

Part 4: Church leader argues people choose sexuality

“Biblically, where I stand, I think inside there is a place where we know it’s just unnatural, and an unnatural way to live,” Kluttz said. “I think that people want out. They just feel like this is not OK. ‘I’m not OK, this is wrong.’”

She said the Living Waters program had two participants who were seeking help resisting homosexuality, and since their completion of the program they continue to struggle.

While Living Waters uses a group-based counseling system, conversion and reparative therapy programs often use more aggressive measures to change a person’s orientation. These programs cite research conducted by Robert L. Spitzer, who has purportedly provided scientific evidence that sexual orientation can be changed.

Spitzer, a retired psychiatry professor at Columbia University, was hailed as an ally to the gay community when he assisted in the 1973 removal of homosexuality from the psychiatric manual of mental disorders. In 2003, Spitzer lost that status when he published results of a 16-month study reflecting homosexual orientation could be changed with therapy.

Eleven percent of the men and 37 percent of the women in Spitzer’s study reported a complete reorientation from homosexual to heterosexual after the 16-month study.

The APA does not recognize Spitzer’s research as legitimate because it does not follow the scientific method of a study, said Clinton Anderson, associate executive director and director of the LGBT concerns office for the American Psychological Association.

Part 5: Local church welcomes gay community

(Or perhaps: Local Church teaches from the Bible)

“I don’t think it’s appropriate because it makes an assumption that there is something wrong with someone that has to be fixed,” said Rev. R. Kent Cormack, pastor and teacher at First Congregational United Church of Christ.

Cormack, who is openly gay and in a same sex-marriage with the church organist, has been a pastor at First Congregational since 2000. He said his church performs same-sex marriages and encourages its congregation to recognize these unions.

Cormack said not all churches share the view First Congregational holds, but he takes great pride in his church’s history of welcoming Christians of all sexual orientations, genders and races.

He said his church was specifically formed in Manhattan to support abolitionism, and he likes to think his congregation is on the forefront of people’s individual liberty.

[...]

As a nonreligious leader, Garner said he believes religious texts have good morals, meanings and intentions, but have a long-lasting effect when they are used against somebody to hurt them. He acknowledged there is a large LGBTQI community in churches, but in general the LGBTQI community, especially in the United States, has turned its back on religion because of negative experiences.