The question of what happened to raver, former XY editor, and gay youth activist, Mike Glatze (seen on the right with former BF) is semi-answered this weekend by Benoit Denizet-Lewis New York Times Magazine article, “What Happened to my Ex-Gay Friend?”
Traveling to Wyoming, Lewis finds the still cute (like a ski instructor) Glatze, clutching a Bible, and describing what happened in the process of his turn from queer raver to gay hater (“I don’t see people as gay anymore. I don’t see you as gay. I don’t see him as gay. God creates us heterosexual.”)
Now 36, Glatze reveals himself as a bundle of walking contradictions, starting with “speaking glowingly” about conservative harpie, Ann Coulter. Glatze left his long-time partner, joined the Mormon church (lured “by promises from several Mormon men that they would help him “find a wife”), and then left after deciding that Mormons “didn’t agree with the Bible”. He took up Buddhist meditation to stop getting boners when he looked at a guy but was asked to leave the community for “talking too much about the Bible.” One wonders whether he fits in anywhere.
Mike’s zigzag journey wasn’t triggered by some Camelot search for a maiden, but a simple heart murmer: At “29, he experienced a series of heart palpitations and became convinced that he suffered from the same congenital heart defect that killed his father when Michael was 13.”
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We couldn’t help but wondering: for all of Glatze’s gay issues, does he actually date girls? Yes! Two of them, in fact, and both relationship happened before he enrolled in Bible school. According to Lewis, Michael was cagey about whether they actually, F’ed, “saying only that neither had been ‘particularly godly.’” Hmmm.
If the question about Mike Glatze’s flameout couldn’t be answered by an close friend’s earnest investigation, who could solve this puzzle? Reading the article’s comments section, we came across two plausible answers to The Mystery of Mike Glatze.
The first answer was based in a reality more mundane than the article’s oft-referenced queer theory with one commentator astutely pointing out that a loved one’s death commonly trigger religious conversions and (can) reflect larger existential struggles.
However, the second comment gave the A to the Q that felt closest to the bone:
Anywheresville, USA
June 17th, 2011
10:32 am
It no more makes sense to say that someone could not be repressing heterosexuality to fit into the gay world than repressing homosexuality to fit into the straight world.
However, what I DO NOT HEAR here (or in most gay conversion-to-straight memoirs) is any sense that “hey! I can’t be gay because I’m always looking at women, and thinking about women, and lady-parts, and wanting to have sex with women.” THAT is what makes you straight — not theory, not religion, not intellectual analysis.
And Queerty’s theory about Mike Glatze? There was something in the Ecstasy of it all.
Tomas Mournian is the author of the novel, Hidden, available at Amazon.com and great online bookstores everywhere.
Ken
Queerty, Glatze is mistakenly identified as the person on the right in the photo. In actuality he is the young man on the left WITHOUT the cap.
Ganondorf
In other words, queerty misidentified him as the ugly one, when he was, before 36 (thirty, probly), somewhat-attractive-at-one-time. He seems like a grad-A moron, despite the write up he got in the nyt by another professional homosexual entertainer (who whored his own narcissistic experience with “sex addiction,” I believe). I mean, the arguments are so bad that only a moron could believe them, but rarely you do get otherwise smart people believing in deeply stupid and patently false things.
Bored With It
Why do we care? If he wishes to delude himself, let him. I would venture he’s as unhappy in his current situation(s) as in the one that led him to abandon it all. I’ve seen this all so many times before. Frankly, I’m bored with it.
Tomas Mournian
@Ken: Or, “Mike Glatze, seated on the left in the photo on the right.”
Adonis-of-Fire
LMAO, that bitch needs to take a seat
He sounds seriously borderline personality disorder
Gurl #BYE
Ray
If you go to the original article and look at the current picture you will see how miserable he his now, of course he deserves it for giving credibility to the whole ex-gay thing.
Art Smith
LOL I read the NY Times article, that guy is in total denial and I feel bad for whatever woman he marries since marrying a gay man would be like a Hetero woman marrying an asexual man.
Apparently that guy from XY mag had former drug addiction/abuse problems and like some former users/addicts has become born again completely.
Jason
@Ganondorf: I don’t see any “ugly one” in the pic. It makes me wonder what universe some gay men live in.
Mk_Ultra_Again
@Ray:
I agree. I kinda feel bad for him. He’s got that Britney Spears-“I’m not all that there anymore” look in his empty eyes. I hope he finds peace and I hope he doesn’t ruin anyone else’s life by trying to play “straight lifestyle” with some poor unsuspecting woman.
Ganondorf
@Jason:
I’m confident that you don’t. Then again, that’s more a reflection on you than me. I’ve come to understand that shallow, superficial, and, flagrantly, “body nazi” are terms that ugly, bitter people rely on to characterize those that won’t or don’t sleep with them in an effort to make themselves feel superior or falsely, not motivated by such incentives. Or wasn’t that that implication of your last sentence? In any event, I highly doubt you’ve the personality and education to make up the difference. But YOU be grateful for whatever YOU can manage to get and hold on to.
Cam
Gee what a shock, a long term party boy has a freak out after years of drugs and finds god. (Yawn)
Clay
@Ganondorf: Jason just means that neither guy in the picture is ugly, referencing your statement “queerty misidentified him as the ugly one”, and can’t see why anyone would call either guy that. Enjoy your weekend.
so,,,
Why is this a story now? The guy has been like this for years — he even spent about five minutes as a mormon.
He’s an ass, but I do feel sorry for him. The XY scene seemed was creepy that it’s not surprising it would send a kid into a fugue state away from his sexuality.
Peter
@Ganondorf: I thought the guy on the right was hotter :/
Also, you sound like you have an asshole-esque perspective of the world.
Jean
I have read what Mike Glatze has written. I believe he had a genuine religious experience.
I also believe that after his religious experience, he started to interpret his experience with the other emotional realities in his life. This included shame at being gay, shame of being a submissive personality. Also with sexual repression it is common to have a deterioration of mental health. This may account for his political philosophy that no one should be legally allowed to have gay sexual relations in the US.
In any case, I think that he will have a hard time. It seems to me that if one chooses literal Biblical allegiance over one’s sexual nature it is best to do so with an acceptance that it is fixed. This is the Throckmorton and Yarhouse SIT approach that is approved by mental health organizations. Mike Glatze has instead chosen to believe that he is not and never really has been gay, but that he just needs to meditate gay thoughts away every four days. He has accomplished celibacy for five years and now plans to marry.
I wish him and his future spouse only the best of health and happiness.
Queer4Life
what a waste of a perfectly good looking queer.