John Smid, the former director of Memphis-based ex-gay ministry Love In Action, has announced his marriage to partner Larry McQueen. The two married in Oklahoma on Sunday, November 16th.
Smid has been living as an out gay man for several years now, and he's been in a relationship with McQueen for one year. Gay marriage just became legal in Oklahoma last month. The couple live in Paris, Texas, where Smid moved from his Memphis home in the summer of 2013.
You know we talk all the time about homophobic people secretly being closeted gays, and I don't think I have ever seen a better example of that.
All I can say is that it is awesome that finally this man gets to live his life the way he wants, and marry the person that he loves, and the fact that it happened in freaking Oklahoma of all places is just icing on the cake.
Actually, i disagree. I do not think it's great that this man caused pain to so many people and then gets to 'live his life the way he wants'. Fuck him, what right does he deserve to do as he pleases after putting people through those programs which are borderline torture!
ReplyDeleteHe should spend the rest of his life making real amends (not bullshit, I'm sorry) for the harm he did.
DeleteI think he is. I did some research on him after reading this story, and it sounds like he is not only very aware of the pain he caused, but very committed to helping heal the damage he did.
DeleteWe'll see. (Don't hold yer breath.)
DeleteI'm tired of irony and hypocrisy. Fuck Schmid. He's another self-centered "I got mine" asshole.
ReplyDeleteI read John Paulk's book "Not Afraid to Change" a few years ago, after Paulk had publicly recanted his "ex-gay" status. He talks about John Smid as one of the men who was instrumental in helping him "develop his masculine identity" (they were all about the Focus on the Family-defined gender roles) and learn to be heterosexual.
ReplyDeletePaulk, of course, was Focus' "ex-gay" poster boy who, with his wife (now ex-wife), led their ex-gay ministry for awhile. He was caught cruising a gay bar in DC, later dropped quietly from Focus, and resurfaced in Portland as an openly gay caterer, but few people there knew about his past. Many people felt that he had done so much damage in the ex-gay movement that he needed to recant rather than quietly resuming his life as a gay man. He was pressured and finally issued a statement that conversion therapy didn't work, and he was very sorry about the harm he had caused.
Reading Paulk's book was interesting, because nearly every man involved in his conversation, John Smid included, is now openly gay and has publicly admitted that reparative therapy doesn't work.
Yes, they've done a lot of harm, but at least they realize and admit they were wrong and are working to repair some of the damage they caused. Paulk's wife, Anne (an alleged ex-lesbian, although I've read comments from people who say they knew her and dispute the "lesbian" part), continues to be prominent in the ex-gay movement, most recently aligning herself with Restored Hope Network.
http://www.pqmonthly.com/update-john-paulk-apologizes-for-ex-gay-gospel-wife-ann-says-shell-pray-for-him/14177
I wish John Smid and Larry McQueen the best.
I agree. Religion is a very strong form of brainwashing and few ever escape its claws. Much harm is done in the name of religion each day and I have to respect those that are able to beat the addiction and break free of the mind control and finally find themselves and that journey must include seeing the error of their ways and owning it and apologizing. Much like other addicts that break free and make amends for the things they did while under the power of drugs, religious people are righteous when they are finally freed and tell the truth about the terrible process that led them to be who they were. A brain on religion is broken but it can be fixed and this man is evidence of that.
DeleteThese are the kind of stories that remind me that when I came out to my parents at 13 and in 1967, all it would have took was if they were the kind of people who put orthodoxy above love, I might have suffered the same fate.
ReplyDeleteIt's lessening, but it's incredulous to me that to this day there are some young gay men so afraid of being discarded by their alleged loved ones, they will carry the pretense all the way to altar, and a honeymoon bed. Then some blameless woman, who deserves better, wonders why she's living in a state of half-happiness with a husband she (correctly) senses is not all hers.
Marriage equality, a very positive step, cannot come too soon to the entire nation, and even the pope is telegraphing signals that he knows religion too must evolve toward inclusiveness and away from condemnation.
I only wish they didn't feel the need to wear identical shirts; what is this, Jr. High School???
ReplyDeleteI guess the matching marriage uniforms are no more dumb than a dude wearing a tux and the female wearing a ridiculous dress. Weddings are so ridiculous to begin with and forcing dress codes on people (hello, terrible bridesmaid's dresses? I've had to back out from more than one wedding as a bridesmaid due to the horrible taste of the bride in dressing her attendants!--You can't make me wear that!)
DeleteMarriage is important only because of legal ramifications regarding investments, taxes, and security of real properties and other assets, other than that they are a strange fantasy involving emotions.
It's a start. He could have got married privately and let it go at that, at least he had the guts to be open about his sexuality, for once, and showed the "idiots" it's not a "phase", it's what he is to the core of his being, if they believe in God, then this wasn't a mistake. I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, .I didn't have to struggle, live in denial, be ashamed, etc. So I have no frame of reference what it's like in the closet, to watch your peers marry, yet know you can't by law. And I don't want to feel "other than", can we just call it "married" and leave "Gay married" be? Plumbing means nothing, it's all heart and only love.
ReplyDelete