September 22, 2000

12:39 PM

"Gee... I'm kinda thirsty... and I think I gotta pee, too... Lemme see, there's this big hotel's lobby, those five or six restaurants... and this hole-in-the-wall-bar with the entrance you could walk right by and not even know it was there, whose patrons all seem to be men casting admiring glances at each other across the room... Seems OK to me..." Yeah, buddy, I believe your story...
posted by m.polo (1 comment total)

I find this kind of sad. Putting yourself back in the closet has to be even tougher than staying there in the first place must have been. As powerful a force as religion is, it's not enough to make you happy, and unhappiness builds up over time. This was inevitable; I feel sorry for Mr. Paulk, as he got himself stuck in a situation with no reasonable way out.

The ironic thing is that we never believed the whole ex-gay line anyway, so this event just confirms what we thought all along. The religious folk who promote these programs, on the other hand, will probably see this as a personal failing on Mr. Paulk's part, and thus further justification for the necessity of their "ministry". Besides, religious groups have a curious talent for explaining away, or flat-out ignoring, anything that might make for bad PR.

-Mars
posted by Mars Saxman at 1:05 PM on September 22, 2000