What counts as change in the ex-gay context often looks quite different from what cultural outsiders might expect. A recent NPR story left out the fact that Wyler was married and had children at the time of his conversion therapy, not a single gay man living in L.A. making a rational decision between gay life and religious and family life, as the story depicted. It is not surprising that a fourteen-year marriage would be a strong pull toward resolving an identity clash in favor of existing commitments—especially when those commitments are seen as reflections of God’s will.
Lynne Gerber
Lynne Gerber is an independent scholar. Her current research is on religious responses to HIV/AIDS in 1980s and 90s San Francisco. She is the author of Seeking the Straight and Narrow: Weight Loss and Sexual Reorientation in Evangelical America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011).
