Zach Vs. Pat

Zach Vs. Pat

by Wayne Besen

In May, 16-year old Zach told his fundamentalist Christian parents that he is gay. Horrified by the news, they vowed to fix him by sending him to an "ex-gay" boot camp in Memphis to be reprogrammed. Like a modern day message in a bottle, Zach used his Internet blog to send an SOS. Miraculously, his desperate plea for help washed up on the shores of sanity and circulated in cyberspace at warp speed.

"I told my parents I was gay," he wrote. "This didn’t go over very well," and "They tell me that there is something psychologically wrong with me, and they ’raised me wrong.’ Today, my mother, father and I had a very long talk in my room, where they let me know I am to apply for a fundamentalist Christian program for gays."

The next day, Zach threw another bottle into the Cyber-sea.

"It’s like boot camp. If I do come out straight, I’ll be so mentally unstable and depressed it won’t matter."

By now, Zach’s plight has received worldwide attention and the spotlight has shone brightly on the debatably abusive and coercive tactics used by Love in Action, the cult that runs the ex-gay boot camp for youth called "Refuge".

With all the focus on this young man, another pair of victims in this tragedy has largely gone unnoticed: Zach’s parents. They have alternately been portrayed as abusive or religious zealots. Indeed, Zach’s father, Joe Stark, unwisely appeared on Pat Robertson’s 700 Club to defend his decision to enroll his son in Refuge.

"We felt very good about Zach coming here because"...to let him see for himself the destructive lifestyle, what he has to face in the future, and to give him some options that society doesn’t give him today," Stark told the toothy televangelist. "Knowing that your son...statistics say that by the age of 30 he could either have AIDS or be dead."

These are the words of a father who clearly loves his child. He is doing what any sane father would do, and that is using all available means to protect his son. Stark believes he is doing what is necessary to keep Zach from a premature death and an unhappy life.

The problem is, all his assumptions are based on deliberate misinformation spread by quacks or charlatans who have a political or profit motive in deceiving the public. Stark is a parental pawn in the culture wars and I believe he will one day come to greatly resent this unethical manipulation by the extreme right.

First, his statement that gay people die at 30 comes directly from the work of Paul Cameron, a disgraced researcher who was kicked out of the American Psychological Association for distorting the facts on homosexuality. Second, it is clear from Zach’s blog that Stark bought the right wing lie that Zach is gay because he wasn’t raised properly.

This canard is a staple of conversion therapy and a mammoth burden weighted on the shoulders of guilt-ridden parents who did nothing wrong, but are assigned blame. Parenting has no more to do with a child’s sexual orientation than it does with determining height or handedness. Mounting evidence points to sexual orientation resulting from biological factors. Unfortunately, Zach’s parents are being victimized by the right wing offering them outdated and disproved research from the 1950’s and 60’s. I suspect, in time, they will also be outraged by the right’s dubious use of "blame the parents" pseudo science.

Look, there is no way in the short run that this is going to end well for the Stark family. They enrolled their son in a failed program where the co-founder, John Evans, dropped out after his friend Jack McIntyre, also in the program, committed suicide because he couldn’t change. I photographed Love in Action’s poster boy, John Paulk, in a seedy gay bar. The group’s youngest graduate and spokesperson, Wade Richards, is now a gay activist. Needless to say, the group has credibility problems, especially when one explores their bizarre techniques.

"I’m looking at that wall and suddenly I say its blue," Love In Action’s director, John Smid told the alternative newspaper The Memphis Flyer, while pointing to a yellow wall. "Someone else comes along and says, ’No, it’s gold.’ But I want to believe that wall is blue. Then God comes along and He says, You’re right, John, [that yellow wall] is blue.’ That’s the help I need. God can help me make that [yellow] wall blue."

Don’t get angry at or lose faith in the Stark family. Like most parents, they will need time to sort through the pernicious myths and misinformation. When the high priced miracles and magic fail, they will see that yellow walls don’t become blue and gay people don’t turn straight. At that point, the Starks will have to choose between valuing their family or Pat Robertson’s family values. My bet is they will embrace Zach over Pat.

http://www.waynebesen.com/columns/2005/07/zach-vs-pat.html