Over Independence Day a new “fight song” for ex-gays popped up online. It features the likes of Ted Haggard, Roy Ashburn, Larry Craig, and George Alan Rekers. The ex-gays aren’t exactly loving it. Was it the Rentboy.com cameo?
Randy Thomas, the executive vice president of leading fiction publisher Exodus International and amateur videographer, and the guy who thinks he’s above Randy Cohen, was tres upset after watching the vignette. And he makes a reasonable point on his blog: “As far as I know none of them ever identified as gay except one politician who now identifies as gay after being caught. He seems to be happy with that identity now. I don’t think any of them even tried to attend an ex-gay ministry. Another of the men mocked in the video, Rekers, only had influence in professional counseling and the religious political right concerning those of us on a post-gay journey.”
And he’s right. While Ashburn is the only one who identifies as gay, the other guys have never acknowledged their homosexuality. Rekers, Craig and Haggard are on the straight and narrow; their gay sex acts were just minor indescretions of otherwise heterosexual men.
Where are industry leaders Alan Chambers and John Paulk? And gospel Donnie McClurkin and rapper J-Elijah?
How about we take this to the next level?
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Gary Stewart
I’m the creator of the video. It’s a parody, not a thesis, and as such, should require no disclaimer for viewers with a sense of humor, or sophisticated enough to discern fantacy from reality.
I intentionally used familiar hypocrites who were singing a fake marching hymn. The video starts with Craig saying “I am not gay, I never have been gay…”
There is nothing in it intended to imply any of the fake “stars” are part of any organized ex-gay movement, and there’s nothing about parody that requires strict adherence to facts. But if your job as journalists still require such an adherence, there’s a lot of hypocrites out there that could use your attention.