Pray Away
I cannot imagine what it is like living your life, being told that a fundamental part of you is wrong and a sin. I’m not talking about political ideology or what movie of sports team you like, but sexual orientation. I also cannot imagine someone having the audacity to say that they can help you change that if you only give yourself over to Christianity. In “Pray Away,” we see people who have said that to people for a significant part of their lives, and recall what made them realize that that was wrong, and causing more damage than help.
Being in Boy Scouts when James Dale first brought his case against BSA for reinstatement after he was tossed out for being gay, as well as being a part of a church that had a schism occur when our preachers came out in support of LGBTQ people as they were, meant that considering my own personal thinking on the subject started relatively early on in my teen years. For a while, I will admit that I bought into the “slippery slope” argument about gay men being around teenage boys meant possible pedophilia occurring, and I was cautious and would rather not have been around them. In 2000, years after I had aged out of Scouts, a Rolling Stone article looked at the subject as Dale’s case reached the Supreme Court, and the long history, and controversy, in BSA’s stance, and it changed my perspective entirely. As I have gotten older, my stance as a straight ally- especially when it comes to Scouts- and supporter of LGBTQ rights has only grown. When I first heard about gay conversion therapy, the idea repelled me; how could anyone be so arrogant to think that they could change someone to be someone they’re not?
Listening to some of the former leaders of the gay conversion movement talk in Kristine Stolakis’s documentary, it’s striking not only how many were either “formerly gay” themselves, but also hadn’t grappled with their own sexual identity themselves before they aligned, or founded, ministries like Exodus and Life Hope. Stolakis makes an interesting choice at the top of her film by having the first scene in the movie be of Jeffrey, a self-identified “ex-trans” man who comes to preach about how he was living in sin before he came to Christ. He is one of gay conversion’s “success stories,” and we wonder if we’re ever going to see later that he has a real moment of reckoning with what he was told. I’ll let the film itself reveal that to you.
The interviews with these former leaders of the “ex-gay” movement are revealing in what led them to it, but also, what led them out of it. John was a communications director for Exodus along with his wife, Anne- an ex-lesbian- and listening to him explain how his marriage broke is heartbreaking, not just in what it did to him, but how it wasn’t a breaking point for both he and his wife (who still preaches the gospel of conversion) is something that, I think, he still wrestles with.
Julie, however, has become much happier. She came out to her mother at 16, who took her to Life Hope ministries in hopes of getting the gay prayed away. Julie would gradually become a central figure in their outreach, but eventually, as she was forced to try and explain more and more about herself, she became unhappy. Her breaking point truly came when she was part of a TV special where gay conversion proponents were face-to-face with some of the victims of gay conversion therapy. At that point, there was no going back for Julie and others. She understood the damage she helped cause to them, as well as the damage she had inflicted on her by the cause. Some of what frames “Pray Away” is her and her partner getting ready for their wedding.
There are moments of tremendous emotional power, but “Pray Away” is little more than a “talking heads” documentary about the gay conversion religious grift, and how it became a force, and how it’s still in practice now. Unfortunately, some of the prominent “continued believers” like Anne refused to be interviewed; it’s also unfortunate that we don’t hear from people like Julie’s parents, to see how they reflect on the damage they helped bring upon their loved ones. “Pray Away” is a solid look at the practice, and how people broke free from preaching it; with more voices whose lives it impacted, it might have been even more potent a look at the subject.
