In December 1985, David Caligiuri
received one of The Advocate's homophobia awards: the A Prayer A Day Keeps the
Lust Away citation. As director of FREE INDEED, a national ex-gay ministry, Caligiuri was
singled out for offering discontented gays and lesbians "a way out of the homosexual
death-style" through prayer. "I'd like to give the award back," Caligiuri
now laughs, "I no longer deserve it."
Caligiuri's eight year involvement
with the national "ex-gay" movement peaked with his founding of the Phoenix
chapter of Homosexuals Anonymous (HA) as well as Free Indeed. He has since abandoned his
pulpit and now says that the ex-gay movement is a fruitless effort based on deception.
"There's no reality in it," he says, "I was selling a product, and my
product was a lie."
Headed up by national ministries
like Exodus International and Courage, the organizations of the ex-gay movement rely on
the tenants of born-again Christianity to convince dissatisfied homosexuals -- usually
young gay men who are just coming out -- that they can shed their sexuality by suppressing
their sexual urges and embracing Christianity. "We offer support to people who are
seeking to leave the sin of homosexuality," explains Bob Davies, director of Exodus.
He ventures that "about 80% of those seeking to abandon their homosexuality are
men."
"Anybody who is involved in the
ex-gay ministry is misguided and is wasting their time," says Lisa Seeley, a former
"redeemed lesbian" who worked with Caligiuri as HA and appeared with him on the Sally
Jessy Raphael Show. "These organizations are for people who are spiritually and
emotionally wounded."
"It's possible to change your
identity or your behavior," says sex educator Brian McNaught, author of On Being Gay.
"But it's really impossible to change your orientation. These people are no longer
calling themselves gay, but they continue to have same-sex erotic feelings."
Caligiuri says he founded Free
Indeed after an ominous week in 1981 when all hell broke loose in his personal life. A few
days after his lover ended both their romance and their business partnership, Caligiuri
was sexually assaulted by a man he picked up in a bar. "I was really drunk," he
recalls, "and I went home with this guy. He tied me up and raped me. He left me tied
up all night, and the next morning he raped me again."
When Caligiuri was eventually freed
by the attacker, he returned home to the home he shared with his ex-lover. "He had
another man there with him," Caligiuri recalls. "I thought at this time, 'If
this is what being gay is about, I don't want to be this way anymore."
Caligiuri vowed that if he could
find a way out, he would share his discovery with others. He organized an anti gay
contingent to demonstrate at Phoenix's gay pride parade in June 1985, and a few months
later Free Indeed held its first public protest. At a meeting to promote a gay civil
rights ordinance, Free Indeed members loudly blasted gays, telling them they were sinners
headed for hell.
Free Indeed began receiving about a
hundred telephone calls a week, thanks in part to a deceptive listing in the local yellow
pages. "We were listed under Lesbian and Gay Alternative Services," Caligiuri
says, "so people thought we were a gay information switchboard. People would call to
find out where the local bars were, and we'd preach to them about the sins of
homosexuality." Ruses like this are typical of the movement, Caligiuri says, adding,
"They'll do anything to reach these people."
"David used to go on radio and
say really stupid things," recalls Peter Kelly, a counselor at Phoenix's Catholic
diocese AIDS program, "like that he knew he was gay when he started wearing pastel
colors."
Caligiuri's family first found out
about his ministry when they saw him on Raphael's syndicated talk show in 1985. "They
were relieved," he recalls. "They figured that if they had to have a gay person
in the family, better that I should be a 'reformed' gay person."
But Caligiuri was hardly reformed.
"By the time I appeared on Sally's show," "I'd started having sex with men
again. Men would call our hot-line and tell me about their latest sin: sex with their
pastor, sex with their father. I was horny all the time."
Unable to risk going to gay bars,
where he might be recognized from his numerous television appearances, Caligiuri says he
"used to go to bookstores and get blow jobs." When he wasn't working the
bookstores, he was sleeping with other "reformed" homosexuals.
"I didn't realize it at first,
but a lot of the HA leaders were having sex with one another," Caligiuri says.
"We'd go to conferences in other cities, and we'd be paired up in hotel rooms.
Everybody was sleeping with everybody else."
By the time he appeared on AM
Philadelphia television show in May 1988, Caligiuri was having anonymous sex a couple
times a week. When the show's host asked him if he ever "acted on temptation,"
his answer was a lie.
Caligiuri's duplicity began to take
it's toll on him, however. He was suffering from chronic fatigue syndrome and candidiasis,
a debilitating yeast infection, and this led to his escape from the sect. "I was too
sick to go to church," he explains. "The more time I spent away from those
people the more I began to feel like myself. I began to remember who I used to be."
Late in 1991, Caligiuri turned Free
Indeed phone lines over to a local church and closed the ministry's doors. "I'd
convinced myself that there is no need in the world for ex-gay people," he says.
Today, Caligiuri, 31, is studying
alternative spiritualities ("I'm interested in belief systems that aren't
judgmental."), considering romance ("But not with a Christian!"), and
searching for a new project to devote himself to. "I feel compelled to commit myself
to gay causes," he says. "I want to eventually stop feeling guilty about what I
did and make up for the damage I may have brought to our community."
---end article---
Caligiuri's story is by no means
unique and I have read several other articles of former leaders and founders of 'ex-gay'
ministries who have said very similar things. Fortunately not all of them have left
Christianity, but have come to realize that God loves them despite the attitudes of
others. Some, like Chris Glaser, director of the Presbyterian "Lazarus Project"
of West Hollywood Presbyterian Church have actually been working with the gay community to
bring them into the sheepfold of Christ and encouraging real ethical values of sexuality
within the sphere of being gay.
I have also, as I said talked and
become and become close friends with many who once attended such groups as "Love In
Action" and others, who either once claimed to have been "reformed" or who
were too honest with themselves to live a lie, no matter who was disappointed in them.
Some were even encouraged to marry as a way of "sealing" their new
heterosexuality, only to eventually start hitting the bars, bathhouses and bookstores,
since these were usually activities under the concealment of night and one-night-stands of
promiscuous behavior meant no continuous "sin" through a committed relationship.
This is a horrible trap which the
Church has dumped on the backs of the truly gay oriented people, and the very innocent
victims in these cases are the wives and children of such marriages. Yet the church
insists that there are only two options they are willing to allow gay people: 1)
heterosexuality or 2) celibacy. This is sad.
What is also mortifying, is in the
cases of those who cannot suppress their desires and fear for their sanity in such a mixed
up confusion that the church forces on them, they may even opt for 'suicide' or surgical
dampening of the brain functions. In the past lobotomies and heavy drug suppressants were
commonplace. There are now becoming available more and more literature on the threat of
coercive Christianity toward gays, such as Sylvia Pennington's Ex-Gays? There
Are None, and others. There are also a great many fact based books being
written to help people trapped in this confusion such as Maury Johnston's Gays
Under Grace, and Chris Glaser's Come Home!. I
seriously recommend those for people seeking help for this persecution and
self-acceptance.
Thank you.
