Ex-gay-o-rama

There's some very interesting stuff about ex-gays and ex-ex-gays over at Pam's House Blend. If you want a good laugh, trust me--you must watch the video clip from Fish don't Fly.

Reading this post put me in mind of an experience one of my college friends had back in, oh, this would've been around 1980. This friend--let's call him Dick, whose hatband he equaled in gayness--had gotten a job in the mailroom at CBS headquarters in New York. The job made him nervous. It was a hotbed of guy culture, and what's more macho than mocking anyone who's different? Dick lived in fear that his queerness would be discovered and he'd be the next target of his coworkers' jokes.

One evening, though, Dick called me, breathless with excitement. For once, he told me, he was enjoying the tendency of the mailroom boys to stereotype and pigeonhole people. That day, they came into the mailroom from lunch laughing their heads off and talking about all the "faggots" outside the building. Why? It seems 60 Minutes had run a story on the possibility of changing one's sexual orientation which included an interview with a psychologist (or psychiatrist--sue me, I don't remember, it was over 20 years ago) who said essentially you are what you are, it's a waste of time to try to change homo- to heterosexual or vice versa. This got the panties of the ex-gay folks in a bunch, and they (I believe it was Exodus) organized a demonstration outside Black Rock to proclaim their success in converting to heterosexuality. As my friend described it, a line of men marched past the building, limp-wristedly holding picket signs and lisping the chant: "I changed! I changed!" Well, he had a tendency to exaggerate. Still, the point is, these so-called ex-gays weren't fooling anyone but themselves.

And of course, the minute anyone mentions Exodus and similar organizations, I think of Overcome, and this brilliant bit from Mr. Show: