The metal chair was aggravating me. I squirmed in my hard seat but tried to look comfortable. I scanned this group of men seated beside me in a circle. I felt uneasy but tried to be engaging. I wasn’t sure if I belonged here.
This was a support group for people who wanted to change their sexual orientation from gay to straight, or at least, to somewhere in between. The group was called Evergreen, which I thought was odd. Evergreens never change.
Officially, the literature stated that this group was only for support. No guarantee on miracles. But these men wanted to believe in miracles.
I was a college student at BYU and was making the rounds on the reparative therapy circuit. Reparative therapy was one of the monikers for altering one’s sexual orientation from devilish deviancy to divine intercourse. Naturally, there was a religious angle to these groups.
As a card-carrying gay and a temple-recommend-carrying church member, I realized I was holding a bad hand. I came to Evergreen, searching for the promise that a new game was in town. I went to the group to reinforce my faltering faith, and on one level, I hoped to turn straight. But I had my doubts.
On another level, I felt isolated at BYU and wanted to meet other gay men. I didn’t know what to expect—maybe there were social reasons, maybe I was looking for men who were in the same dilemma I was in. Though my reasons seemed at odds with each other, it didn’t feel any more hypocritical than being gay and Mormon. Perhaps Evergreen could change my folding hand into a straight flush.
I had recently returned from my Mormon mission to Sweden. My mission president, a round, fire-and-brimstone Mormon from my hometown in Atlanta, took me aside one day for a coming-to-Jesus chat.
“Your mother is crying day and night since you told her about it,†he said, enunciating the word “it.†“Do you want to make her cry?â€
Fortunately, my mission had prepared me for this tactic. I had listened to a series of tapes called “Power Negotiating,†which had circulated around the mission. My president was appealing to my guilt over disappointing my parents. That was Tactic 23 on the tapes.
When that didn’t work, he said, “You know Ben, you’re not like those other gays. You’re special. You’re too good to be one of those people,†he said, enunciating “those.†Tactic 17: Appeal to their pride.
If I was “special,†why had he sent me to the northern edges of Sweden, where I spent part of winter in total 24/7 darkness? I wanted to ask him that but just listened. When he saw that I was unyielding, he gave up.
Some conservative churches were still hoping God would either destroy gays, or convert them to something more acceptable. Since neither wish had materialized, they started forming theology-based support groups for gays. Simply making gays more masculine or feminine, in accordance with their sex—a kind of makeover—would be a start. This was part of Evergreen’s pitch.
Reparative therapy sprung from the notion that heterosexuality is like a flower blooming in the sunshine. Then a nasty rock, called homosexual tendency, is placed on this joyful tulip, crushing it. But plants are resilient, and the blossom grows around the rock to reach the sunshine again. Unfortunately, the flower is now crooked and not straight, literally and sexually.
Someone in the Evergreen support group shared that metaphor with me. He was an older gentleman with a perma-grin on his face. Every question I had was answered with a smile. It could have been creepy, but since I didn’t really know anyone else, I found it a little reassuring.
“I want to read you a Scripture and then tell you how it helped me this week,†the leader of the group said to everyone. It was a very Mormon meeting, in spite of the fact that we were a bunch of homos wondering how we got here.
I was drifting away from the leader’s testimonial and wondering about the back-stories of the people seated around me. Perma-grin was a big queen in a ’50s sort of way. He was dressed like Frank Sinatra. He wore an expensive sports coat, pressed white shirt, dark pants and a hat. Flashy but tasteful. Modern effeminates tended to be flashier. He spoke with much bravado, yet giggled a lot. He was the only one in the group that seemed to be having a good time.
I concluded he must be a 10th-generation Mormon, perhaps grew up in Price and just loved his heritage to some pioneer—maybe it was Brigham Young? I theorized that he dabbled in homosexuality here and there but was tightly connected to his community and family. He seemed like the type of guy who invited the missionaries over regularly, played the church organ, and had one gay porn magazine stuffed secretly under his mattress.
He whispered little explanations into my ear. This was only my second meeting, so I guess he assumed I wasn’t up on my Evergreenisms. When the leader said, “same-sex attraction,†he confided in me, “That means gay. We don’t use the term gay, because we are really straight inside, like in a seed.â€
“Yeah, the flower,†I interjected proudly.
“The flower, yes,†he smiled and giggled while tapping my shoulder.
The leader, Scott, said something that caught my attention. He quoted some LDS official who said that we must put away childish things and become men. Instinctively, I interrupted him. “But don’t the Scriptures say we should be as little children?â€
Across the circle, Timothy, a 20-something cute blond guy, laughed. His hilarity and gestures were sultry and alluring. He struck me as a waiter, which turned out to be true. When he spoke about his convictions of the gospel, he seemed sincere. But I wondered if he had batted at the plate one too many times, was now facing two strikes and had suddenly decided to switch batting arms. Just in case the Mormon Church was true after all, perhaps he wanted the umpire on his side. I learned later that he was HIV positive.
Scott gave me a “you know what I mean†look. He was a pragmatic 30-something paper pusher who had a wife and three little ones at home. He seemed like someone who would willingly work two jobs, carry any burden, if that’s what his family needed. No doubt, this group helped him focus on what he deemed important in his life—church, children and chastity. He believed in the simple truths about life, so my play on words kind of annoyed him. His personality was very direct and genuine.
Three older men sat kitty-corner together. They looked angry. Through bits of conversation, I gathered they had gotten married back when being gay meant being merry. In those days, church leaders taught that marriage would annul abnormal desires. Each of them raised several children, cheated on his wife, got divorced and was excommunicated from the Mormon Church. (Evergreen allows both the excommunicated and church members to attend support meetings.) Now, they were just trying to pick up the pieces on the tail end of their lives. They were definitely feeling bitter.
Two others seemed like Scott, just your average, unassuming males. They were married, too, and trying to keep it that way. I heard that some of their wives met together to discuss their own trials. I imagined what those meetings must be like. “So, Catherine, did you try the cookies I baked? Oh, by the way, how do you know when your husband’s faking it?â€
Two other 20-something BYU students were also there. They were attractive, trying to be engaging, and squirming in their seats like me. I’m a little ashamed to admit it, but I made out with one of them after my fourth meeting. I think I did it for the irony.
I played a few basketball games with the group, a masculine activity designed to build appropriate male bonds. No ass-slapping allowed. I was one of the best players on the team. My athletic prowess was misleading though, because as a teenager I once shot at the wrong basket in an intramural game. Since then, my skills hadn’t improved. The bar was lower here, but still I felt like I was going through that teenage “I have to prove I’m a man†phase.
Evergreen took root in Utah in July 1989. It was grafted from a Christian-based group called Exodus and pruned to fit Mormon theology. Not officially sanctioned by the LDS Church, it nevertheless enjoys the church’s unspoken blessing. The group sometimes meets in LDS buildings, refers clients to LDS Social Services and therapists, and invites church leaders to conferences.
The organization exists solely on financial donations and provides its services for free. Potential members are screened and must agree to confidentiality policies. Evergreen acts primarily as a resource on same-sex attraction issues and gives direction for support groups worldwide.
Essentially Evergreen, like its counterparts in other denominations, teaches that parents have been poor role models for their gay children. Pre-gay boys haven’t bonded well with their fathers. Consequently, they have sexualized their dysfunctional parental relationships and currently act out with other men.
At Evergreen, one is taught that both men and women may develop same-sex attractions after being abused by men, but for opposite reasons. Men are drawn to sexual activities with men after being sexually abused by them, while women are repulsed by sexual activities with men after being abused by them. Gay men search in vain for the love that daddy never gave them. Some boys even become more feminine to attract other men, the story goes. Girls may have been sexually or physically abused by men and detached from their mothers. They too have sexualized those dysfunctions into liaisons with other women. The resulting dissatisfaction and shame are the same for both sexes.