Anti-Gay Catholic Activist Michael Voris Confesses Gay Past

Having been raised Roman Catholic, in my view few things screw one up more emotionally and psychologically - especially if one is LGBT.  When I first came out, it took a year and a half seeing a psychologist who was also a Presbyterian minister to make the initial step of letting go all of the damage done to me by my Catholic upbringing.  Even after that, it took more counseling to finally find self-acceptance.  Sadly, some never overcome the poison from their psychologically twisted Catholic upbringing (other denominations - e.g., Southern Baptists - can likewise mess one up in a major way).  Worse yet, others find that by clinging to such batshitery, they can make a living and seemingly care nothing about the harm that they do to others by peddling misogyny.  The "ex-gays for pay" crowd are but one example of this phenomenon.  Blogger friend Joe Jervis reports on another psychologically afflicted individual who seemingly cannot let go of the poison of his Catholic upbringing: Michael Voris of Church Militant, an ultra-right wing Catholic site.  It turns out that Voris is gay - despite protestations that he has returned to the Church - and has unloaded a lot of bullshit about his past.  Here are some highlights:

Thanks in part to pressure from virulently anti-gay and comically bewigged Catholic activist Michael Voris, last week the Catholic Church fired its news service editor for tweeting against North Carolina’s hate law. Yesterday Voris posted a video on his website, Church Militant, in which he confesses that for most his thirties, he lived a sexually sinful life of “live-in relationships with homosexual men.” Voris claims that he makes this revelation because the New York Archdiocese has been plotting to out him over his past. From the transcript for the video:

I will now reveal that for most of my years in my thirties, confused about my own sexuality, I lived a life of live-in relationships with homosexual men. From the outside, I lived the lifestyle and contributed to scandal in addition to the sexual sins. On the inside, I was deeply conflicted about all of it. In a large portion of my twenties, I also had frequent sexual liaisons with both adult men and adult women. These are the sins of my past life in this area which are all now publicly admitted and owned by me. That was before my reversion to the Faith.

I had great pain to overcome from childhood and my youth and instead of recommending myself to God in my youth, I gave in to the flesh and died spiritually. I shudder every time I think what would now be my lot had I died in a traffic accident or something. I gave up myself — my masculinity, my identity, my self-understanding, my own dignity as a baptized Catholic.

The sad truth is that Voris has not overcome the pain and damage of his childhood and youth.  If he had, he would not be wallowing in the anti-sex batshitery that is the Church's stock in trade.  Joe continues with this:

Back in 2010 I posted several times about Voris, his attacks on President Obama, on LGBT rights, and his call for a “benevolent Catholic dictatorship in the United States.”  These posts prompted a JMG reader to write and tell me that he’d once been close friends with Voris, who, according to the reader, had been a producer at the CBS affiliate in Detroit.

From the reader’s email: “It really pains me to see Mike spitting this vitriol into the public, and it also pains me to see a guy who was once a deep and close friend be the subject of ridicule and derision. But I also recognize that he’s brought this upon himself. Until he can face his own demons, he’ll only be able to demonize that which scares him.”

During my 2010 exchange of emails with the above-quoted JMG reader, he asked that he not be named should I report on his account of Voris’ past. As I was unable to independently confirm that Voris had, as Voris himself now puts it, once lived a sexually sinful life, I decided against outing him based on an anonymous claim. That issue, obviously, is now moot. At this writing, nearly 1400 Church Militant commenters have effusively praised Voris for his revelation.

1400 psychologically and emotionally damaged commenters who, like Voris, cannot let go of the brainwashing they received growing up.  I would further add this: does Voris believe this crap or has he cynically decided that embracing such dysfunction is an easy way to make money?