Anything but Straight: Unmasking the Scandals and Lies Behind the Ex-Gay Myth (Paperback)

Besen, employed by the Human Rights Campaign, spent four years examining this strange turn of events in American politics, the end result being this book. Dividing up the topic into four distinct sections, Besen starts with a frontal assault on nationally t outed ex-gay John Paulk, and his infamous "bathroom break" at Mr. P's, a local gay dive in Washington, D.C. He uses that incident as a spring board into the ex-gay ministry movement itself, revealing all of its ugly flaws in the process. He then moves into the practice of reparative therapy, and how it developed with the support of psychiatrists in the field. Next, Besen bashes the political movement behind the ex-gay myths, ripping down the religious right as a primary motivator in bringing to light this fallacy. He ends the book talking about the future of this movement, writing both hopeful and frightening predictions.

Originally, I purchased this book wanting to get a more well-rounded viewpoint on the ex-gay theories. One way to combat them with your family, friends, and in society, is to be able to honestly understand where the other side is coming from. Besen's book is more of an assault on this movement, which at first turned me off, but then, as his rhetoric died down a bit, made for some interesting reading. At first, Besen would liberally interject his own opinions about what he was writing, sometimes with a cutting remark or a put-down. We as readers are fully aware of the insanity of some of the things he writes, and don `t need an author to point that out for us. Perhaps some self-editing in that area would improve the book a bit.

However, the information that Besen presents is incredibly horrible in and of itself. What he presents is an incredibly thorough book, bringing to light all the negative, nasty things this movement has brought to people's lives. The ex-gay movement is essentially a house of cards built on a pile of lies, and exposure of that will help bring ruin to it eventually. In the meantime, a bunch of people, many of them struggling with their own identity, will be run over by this machine and destroyed. Besen's book is an honest, real attempt to give those people hope and some information to save themselves.

"Anything but Straight" is very much a one-sided look at this contentious issue; but when only the other side is presented in the media, in advertisements, commercials, and television, our country needs books such as these to balance out the hateful damage they do.

Still, Besen also shows how most of the people who become involved with or lead these ministries probably mean well. More importantly, he shows how gays and their allies can expose these hurtful groups, which rely heavily on wild semantics, shaky statistics, pseudo psychology, and highly questionable science, all the while trying to appear Bible-based.

Besen also shows how gays can make their communities less vulnerable to ex-gay groups, while warning those communities about insidious new tactics that the increasingly media-savvy ex-gay leaders use to lure parents into forcing children to join the ex-gay circus. For groups that keep claiming that all of their members come there voluntarily, they certainly keep taking advantage of parental pressuring and other fears of rejection!

Best of all, Besen offers resources and alternatives for people who might want to join these groups. He even defends, to my satisfaction, his undercover efforts to capture all of the information that appears in this sometimes shocking but always fascinating volume. I suggest Besen's study for all gays, all of their allies, and anyone who thinks the ex-gay movement needs support or more recruits.

I also suggest Ronald L. Donaghe's scathing fictional treatment of the ex-gay movement, The Salvation Mongers, as well as the disturbing documentary One Nation Under God and-for some needed levity on the topic-the silly yet likable comedy But I'm A Cheerleader.