• protist@retrofed.com
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    22 hours ago

    The hate in these comments is abhorrent. This guy was literally a victim of gay conversion therapy before he preached it. He renounced all of it in 2008 and has been married to a man for 12 years now. People change y’all, and this guy changed for the better. Celebrate that

      • Doomsider@lemmy.world
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        20 hours ago

        That is the cool thing about propaganda. It keeps ruining lives long after you changed your opinion.

      • schipelblorp@sh.itjust.works
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        21 hours ago

        A monk decided to meditate alone, away from his monastery.

        He took his boat out to the middle of the lake, moored it there, closed his eyes and began meditating. After a few hours of undisturbed silence, he suddenly felt the bump of another boat colliding with his own.

        With his eyes still closed, he felt his anger rising, and by the time he opened his eyes, he was ready to scream at the boatman who had so carelessly disturbed his meditation. But when he opened his eyes, he was surprised to find that it was an empty boat that had struck his own. It had probably gotten untethered and floated to the middle of the lake.

        At that moment, the monk had a great realization.

        • mrgoosmoos@lemmy.ca
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          8 hours ago

          that he was gonna have to go launch a whole investigation to find out who the boat belonged to and who didn’t tie it up securely so that he could yell at the correct person?

          • schipelblorp@sh.itjust.works
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            9 hours ago

            He realized that new interns were starting next month and he should have them build an island in the middle of the lake for him to meditate on, big enough that a bit of flotsam bouncing against the shore would not disturb his meditation.

            Also see: brother comment.

          • schipelblorp@sh.itjust.works
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            9 hours ago

            Most internet summations don’t include the realization I read elsewhere, so I just left it at the exercise for the reader.

            Basically, it’s this: You know how sometimes you have a bad day and are being a jerk? It’s not “you” exactly, it’s just all the shit you have to deal with. You just have to shift those bad days to your childhood, and have a lot more of them, and they have to be worse, and you have a person who is permanently a jerk. But, in the metaphor the boat, is that person any more an empty boat than you are on a bad day?

            We’re all, to a large degree, empty boats bumping into each other, pushed together by the many different currents of reality, so don’t take so many things personally.

            In this case, the priest is just a result of how he was raised, or whatever influences pushed him into this horrible life of gay conversion; and the good thing, of getting out, was also probably a result of influences pulling him away from it. So, also, don’t get hopped up on people’s ability to control their lives from some objective moral vantage point that does not exist.

      • protist@retrofed.com
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        21 hours ago

        I would say demonstrating he was wrong publicly every day for the last 12 years is a fucking solid service to society

    • Avicenna@programming.dev
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      19 hours ago

      I hope he reached out as much as possible to all the people he preached to tell them how wrong he was and apologized. No he didn’t? Oh well, at least he looks happy.

      • Allero@lemmy.today
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        9 hours ago

        It’s never possible to undo all the damage you have made throughout your life. But honestly, it’s not what ultimately matters. What matters is who you are now and what do you plan on doing going forward.

  • BeUnique@lemmy.zip
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    1 day ago

    Usually the ones loudest about the gay thing are in the closet. It’s because they feel a certain way when they think about it. Then they feel shame because of their backwards ass religion and overcompensate with a bunch of other in the closet religious nuts.

    I actually had a friend sorta like this! He never went gay bashing or anything or he wouldn’t be my friend but if anybody asked if he was gay or made any inkling he’d freak tf out! He’d also be super weird and uncomfortable if there was anybody gay around when most of us really didn’t give a shit one way or the other. I’m not talking about somebody hitting on him, just “this person is gay” and he’d get all uncomfortable and weird. This was middle school to highschool btw so maturity levels should be taken into account.

    Years later he came out as bi. Good on him for working on his inner demons I guess.

    • iocase@lemmy.zip
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      22 hours ago

      My theory is they assume everyone else has gay thoughts like they do, so every man married to a woman resisted the urge to go balls deep in their homies, instead choosing to get married to a woman they aren’t attracted to and have children as their show of devotion to God. Because they’re so sexually repressed, and only talk about how gay their thoughts are while getting fucked by their other gay religious friends, they never put 2 and 2 together that most people actually don’t have an attraction to the same sex the way they do.

    • violentfart@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      I’ve found that what I’m most critical of other people is what I’m most critical of in myself.

      And this was learned behavior from insecurities of the people around me while I was growing up.

    • Souroak
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      21 hours ago

      I don’t think that homophobes have to be closeted to be envious of queer folk who are being true to themselves and not living a life of conformity. Of course some of them are though.

  • Zier@fedia.io
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    1 day ago

    Conversion therapy is a form of torture. It’s as stupid as expecting someone to change their blue eyes, to green eyes. You can’t blame people for genetics, and you cannot just decide, as a blue eyed person, that you are now a green eyed person. It’s not a decision, there is no therapy or medication or surgery to “fix” what is not broken. It’s just abuse.

    We have already been through this with Left Handers. Being left handed is normal. Gay people are normal. Religion does not exist to help people, it’s purpose is to control people.

    Thank you for attending my Ted Talk.

    • Malyca@lemmy.zip
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      23 hours ago

      Growing up in the USSR they forced everyone to write with our right hand. You get beaten if you don’t. Was really hard for my cousin because he’s left handed. He just learned to fake it for the teachers.

      • Beehaw_Girl@beehaw.org
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        19 hours ago

        How did he fake being right-handed?

        I’m naturally right-handed and I’ve tried to do things left-handed before and it is insanely difficult, maddening really.

        • Malyca@lemmy.zip
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          19 hours ago

          Developing ambidextrous talent I guess. I remember when they are watching he’d use right, then switch to left for the rest and homework.

    • M137@lemmy.today
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      21 hours ago

      I agree that it’s a form of torture, but someone can’t ever have eyes be a different color because of the trauma. People do act like and belive they’re straight because of the trauma forced upon them from conversation therapy.
      They also often gain hatred of those who are like they “used to be”, and there’s no real mirror for that in eye color.
      And just to be clear, I say none of this to minimise the horrors of conversation therapy.

      • explodicle@sh.itjust.works
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        6 hours ago

        Simply put on these uncomfortable green contact lenses every day. Problem solved, just endure the increasing ocular irritation.

  • SnoopSqueak@lemmy.today
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    1 day ago

    Did they renounce their cult and do anything at all to help the victims?

    Or are they pretending “progressive christian” is a valid ideology, forgiving themselves and moving on without actually fixing any of the root problems?

    Pastors are not good people. They make their living lying to people and almost never face accountability for it. They just shift the lie to suit their needs at the time, at everyone’s expense.

      • M137@lemmy.today
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        21 hours ago

        Only if he does actual work to undo the bad stuff and makes it his mission to spread gay acceptance within his religion, and I doubt that’s the case.

  • SoupBrick@pawb.social
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    1 day ago

    I was trying to find an article to verify this info and this was in the top results:

    https://sfl.media/former-gay-cure-ministry-leader-arrested-after-allegedly-trying-to-meet-14-year-old-boy-in-florida-sting/

    This is the article I could find about a “gay cure” pastor having a gay marriage:

    https://gay.blog.br/en/gay-en/former-pastor-who-preached-gay-cure-now-lives-in-marriage-with-another-man/

    It might be a different pastor tho?

      • SoupBrick@pawb.social
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        1 day ago

        Looks like it, thanks for the assist!

        I didn’t think the first article was him, but it is just another instance of a “beacon of morality (Christian pastor)” trying to commit one of the greatest evils. Great documentation to show people who think “secularism” indicates a lack of morality.