Michael Glatze worked at XY, a national gay magazine, for 12 years. Then, with Ben, his partner of over 10 years, he founded his own gay mag, Young Gay America. But now Michael says he isn’t gay. He’s moved to Montana and is currently in Bible school. And he’s written things like “Homosexuality = Death. I choose Life.”
Glatze is the subject of the lastest New York Times Magazine piece from Benoit Denizet-Lewis, our founding editor. In “My Ex-Gay Friend,” Benoit tries to figure out how Glatze, who once told him that “Christian fundamentalists should burn in hell,” now considered himself to be of those he’d originally condemned to eternal damnation. He writes:
It was a good question. Had part of me come to “save” my old friend from the clutches of the Christian right? Though I don’t doubt that sexual attraction can evolve, I was skeptical of Michael’s claim of heterosexuality—and I rejected his argument that “homosexuality prevents us from finding our true self within.” Besides, I had a hard time believing that Michael’s “true self” was a fundamentalist Christian who writes derogatorily about being gay. But whatever aspirations I had about persuading Michael to join the ranks of ex-ex-gays, they were no match for his eagerness to save me.
“God loves you more than any dude will ever love you,” he told me at the cafe. “Don’t put your faith in some man, some flesh. That’s what we do when we’re stuck in the gay identity, when we’re stuck in that cave. We go from guy to guy, looking for someone to love us and make us feel O.K., but God is so much better than all the other masters out there.”
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—Photo via pinknews.co.uk