My Last Cure Attempt

My reader, Peter’s comments about religion reminded me of my last serious attempt to throw myself into religion and “cure” myself of my same sex attraction. With my son’s learning to surf getting me into the sport, and finding myself spending time on surf trips with him and some of his friends, I thought a good program for them (and me) would be Christian Surfers, a world wide organization originally founded in Australia with numerous US chapters (http://www.christiansurfers.com/). It seemed a good way to keep the boys out of mischief and to provide a counterweight to the spaced out surfer dude mentality sometimes found in the surfing community. Moreover, the chapter took surf trips and did a Saturday morning bible study followed by surfing in the summer. For me, I thought the Bible study and focus on faith would be helpful in achieving the enigmatic cure I sought.

Soon my son and were very involved in the Virginia Beach chapter, which was headed by a gorgeous young married guy (who has now moved up in the organization). Not only was he physically beautiful and charismatic, but he was also one of the nicest guys I have ever known. Eventually, I was even one of the assistant directors of the chapter. My "cure," however remained illusive. You guessed it – instead of curing my “secret affliction,” I was now utterly infatuated with the chapter leader. After one Christmas gathering, he hugged me and I absolutely thought I was going to faint.

My quest for a “cure” largely ceased after this – no matter what I did or how hard I tried, God simply would not allow me to be “cured” and seemed to just put one obstacle in front of me after another. The falsity of the promise that God can cure you of being gay and the cynical way that the Christianist far right plays upon the desire of so many of us to conform and/or be what our families want, is nothing less than a travesty. The simple fact is that God makes some of us gay for God’s unknowable purposes. To try to change God’s handiwork is, in my view, a form of blasphemy.