Zach As Tabula Rasa

Tennessee 16-year-old Zach Stark has returned to the blogosphere after a forced stint at the "Love in Action" gay reparative therapy camp.  But now he has removed many of the posts that first drew international attention to his situation, adding these new comments:

Currently I feel annoyed towards a lot of things. Love In Action has been misrepresented and what I have posted in my blogs has been taken out of perspective and context. I don't take back the things I've said, nor am I going to pretend like it never happened. It did. I refuse to deal with people who are only focused on their one-sided (biased) agendas. It isn't fair to anyone. I'm very frustrated with the things going on in my life now, but everyone has their issues. Homosexuality is still a factor in my life--- it's not who I am, it never has been. Those of you who really know me, know that homosexuality was always there but it didn't run my life, and it will not now.

Already, the Web is abuzz on both sides of the ex-gay movement, with armchair Freuds taking a crack at discerning the true meaning of Zach's words.

Towleroad is among those baffled: "It's the kind of inscrutable blog post one could argue on about for hours."

Wayne Besen, a leading opponent of the ex-gay movement, offers one of the more involved dissections of Zach's new posting, dubbing it "disturbingly influenced by right wing lingo and views on sexuality."  Besen also says "it is worth comparing the free-spirited blogs before boot camp with the Stepford post after the ordeal."

Asexual Agenda says: "What I find most amusing about this topic is that parents like Zach Stark's are trying to do to their children exactly what they fear homosexual parents will do to children: change their nature."

Janus Online says: "[R]elease does not equal freedom. As Zach indicated on his blog, there is a less-than-trivial chance that he could come out of the camp with serious emotional issues. He is also still the ward of his parents, who were more than happy to blow Zach's cover by publicly outing him on Pat Robertson's extremist TV network."

And then there is this more basic and human reaction from By the Bayou: "The basic message I got out of it was: Leave me alone. Can't say I blame the kid."

The sentiment is echoed by Ex-Gay Watch: "Leave the guy alone."

Say what you will about this boy and his very public struggle.  But few things speak more eloquently about his mental state than the emoticon that remains attached to his picture on his blog, even after his hefty helping of "Love."

We tend to agree with those who think Zach needs some space to breathe.  He is, after all, only 16.  Back then, the only person we had admitted same-sex attraction to was an adult counselor at a camp for the gifted, and then not again until several years later.  So it is hard to comprehend a young person's discovery of their own sexual identity being played out and debated so prominently across the blogosphere and media.

We also believe that there is something inherently wrong with the ex-gay movement.  While individuals should be free to choose their own sexual paths, the ex-gay movement begins with the notion that there is something about homosexuals that must be, and can be, changed.

That it requires such extreme measures to do so (with a record of success that is highly suspect, to say the least) suggests that our energy might be better spent on loving God's creations (if one believes in such things) in all of their complexity and diversity.

Comments

[Cindy (The Asexual Agendist)]

But few things speak more eloquently about his mental state than the emoticon that remains attached to his picture on his blog, even after his hefty helping of "Love."

I couldn't agree more.

Zach's just a kid right now. I'm sure in ten years (when he's old enough to put things in perspective) we'll be reading his tell-all book.