Daily Kos on “Love in Action”, an organization which looks to “turn” gay teens into straight ones, and on one sixteen-year-old’s blog post on his experience.

Its director, John Smid, is quoted as saying to someone who’d been through the program:

I would rather you commit suicide than have you leave Love In Action wanting to return to the gay lifestyle. In a physical death you could still have a spiritual resurrection; whereas, returning to homosexuality you are yielding yourself to a spiritual death from which there is no recovery.

Okay, hang on a second here. Last time I checked, most Christians believe that if you don’t give your life over to Christ, your ultimate destiny is eternal damnation in Hell. Also, unless I missed something here, it’s impossible to have a conversion experience when you’re dead. To add to the madness of this statement, some denominations of Protestant Christianity, as well as (I think) Catholicism, believe suicide is a mortal sin. And, of course, many Christians believe homosexuality itself is a sin; some seem to treat it as unpardonable, too.

So does this mean, either way, that such a person is out of luck? That there is no saving grace for them? If so, in my opinion, that belief is the antithesis of everything Christianity is all about.

Also, according to this site, and looking at LIA’s rules, LIA itself could be considered a potentially abusive facility. Also not good.

As for the kid’s parents, what they did was anything but loving, I think. “Christian love?” Yeah, right. IMO, they didn’t want to deal with the fact that their son is gay; so they shipped him off to a camp to be rid of him.

What’s so wrong with forgiveness and understanding? His parents ought to be ashamed of themselves. How is sending him to a potentially abusive fundamentalist camp going to help him “go straight”?

http://www.myspace.com/specialkid ~ his page at Myspace. Do keep him in your thoughts/prayers/whathaveyou. Hopefully, he will be leaving the camp on the 17th or 20th. (He’s been there since June 9.)