Gay the Pray Away
this post was submitted on 20 Jul 2026
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But now he's got even more of both!
The hate in these comments is abhorrent. This guy was literally a victim of gay conversion therapy before he preached it. He renounced all of it in 2008 and has been married to a man for 12 years now. People change y'all, and this guy changed for the better. Celebrate that
What has he done to reconcile all the lives he's ruined
A monk decided to meditate alone, away from his monastery.
He took his boat out to the middle of the lake, moored it there, closed his eyes and began meditating. After a few hours of undisturbed silence, he suddenly felt the bump of another boat colliding with his own.
With his eyes still closed, he felt his anger rising, and by the time he opened his eyes, he was ready to scream at the boatman who had so carelessly disturbed his meditation. But when he opened his eyes, he was surprised to find that it was an empty boat that had struck his own. It had probably gotten untethered and floated to the middle of the lake.
At that moment, the monk had a great realization.
that he was gonna have to go launch a whole investigation to find out who the boat belonged to and who didn't tie it up securely so that he could yell at the correct person?
He realized that new interns were starting next month and he should have them build an island in the middle of the lake for him to meditate on, big enough that a bit of flotsam bouncing against the shore would not disturb his meditation.
Also see: brother comment.
bumped into your comment and found it delightfull.
This is my new favorite way to say "Google it lmao"
Most internet summations don't include the realization I read elsewhere, so I just left it as an the exercise for the reader.
Basically, it's this: You know how sometimes you have a bad day and are being a jerk? It's not "you" exactly, it's just all the shit you have to deal with. You just have to shift those bad days to your childhood, and have a lot more of them, and they have to be worse, and you have a person who is permanently a jerk. But, in the metaphor the boat, is that person any more an empty boat than you are on a bad day?
We're all, to a large degree, empty boats bumping into each other, pushed together by the many different currents of reality, so don't take so many things personally.
In this case, the priest is just a result of how he was raised, or whatever influences pushed him into this horrible life of gay conversion; and the good thing, of getting out, was also probably a result of influences pulling him away from it. So, also, don't get hopped up on people's ability to control their lives from some objective moral vantage point that does not exist.
See, I took the metaphor as: don't get irked by every event (boat bump) that affects you if you don't understand where it came from. Don't assume a human is controlling it when it could be an accident if you would just open your eyes and investigate. In this case I was assuming that maybe the pastor had atoned for his past by donating to or starting a charity or something.
So this interpretation of the empty boat being a metaphor for people in general is fine. It's an exercise in an aspect of stoicism (don't worry about people you can't control, you don't know what someone has been through etc.)
But to extend it to moral subjectivity is bizarre. I think you hide behind metaphor but the clear implications in the context of this discussion is that a closeted gay pastor who abused children can't be held morally accountable for their past because they had too many bad days in their childhood. What it boils down to is a platitude (I.e. that almost everyone is a good person in their own personal story), but the guy harmed other human beings.
I hope I don't have to spell out why it's heinous to imagine a world where everyone walks around not judging actions because they think all morality is subjective. It gives license to atrocious behavior.
I replied on a work break without a KB so my reply was briefer than I would have fully liked.
So, there's this problem of free will... I kind of don't believe in it, but I think I personally need and we socially need the concept of personal accountability to function, at the very least because social sanctions and social repercussion DO effect behavior.
At the same time, though, we do make allowances for intent and circumstances. A drunk driver will more likely get manslaughter than murder because the intent is there. An wife may get a lighter sentence for killing an abusive husband. I think we keep extending the totality of the circumstances to the persons entire life, we would be aiming more for rehabilitation than punishment, and I don't see anything wrong with that. However, if someone is not rehabilitated and resocialized and can't be trusted not to commit heinous crimes, then it makes sense to keep them locked up.
I think you replied to the wrong comment again lol.
Not this time... your concern about accountability is a natural part of coming to grips with a universe without the free will we all grow up thinking we have.
Ok... Then I suppose my response is that I don't really see what your response has to do at all with mine.
I actually agree that the idea of free will is at the very least unknowable leaning towards non-existent and whether we have it or not we get better outcomes when we act as if it does.
But my comment doesn't concern free will, or at least it applies whether we think it exists or not. Morality and accountability are both social constructs and despite that they are about as important as anything when it comes to what we think is right for a person to do when they commit what we consider atrocities.
I think you're retreating to a 10,000 ft philosophical view about free will and the subjective morality of the human condition and... I don't really see how it applies or what the point is. Are you just assuming you're educating someone about absurdism and stoicism? If that's the case then I would encourage you to take the walk back down the mountain. As you understand philosophy you must come to grips with the fact that at the end of the day we're all left facing the messy, amoral milieu that we live our lives in and we are able to affect. Despite our acceptance of the empty boats that plague us we still face their consequences and live short lives in a short-lived society that we are able to improve.
You still can hold people accountable for their actions even if those actions were inevitable given their history.
But people obsessed with punishment like things to be simple. Bad people are born to bad things, etc.
Right, so the reaction doesn't make sense given the context. The person asked if the pastor had atoned for their actions by reconciling with the people who's lives they've ruined, which is perfectly in line with holding someone accountable for their actions.
Ah, yes, once again I replied to the wrong comment. Good catch. Sorry for the confusion.
I would say demonstrating he was wrong publicly every day for the last 12 years is a fucking solid service to society
That is the cool thing about propaganda. It keeps ruining lives long after you changed your opinion.
I hope he reached out as much as possible to all the people he preached to tell them how wrong he was and apologized. No he didn't? Oh well, at least he looks happy.
It's never possible to undo all the damage you have made throughout your life. But honestly, it's not what ultimately matters. What matters is who you are now and what do you plan on doing going forward.
The gay cured him
Usually the ones loudest about the gay thing are in the closet. It's because they feel a certain way when they think about it. Then they feel shame because of their backwards ass religion and overcompensate with a bunch of other in the closet religious nuts.
I actually had a friend sorta like this! He never went gay bashing or anything or he wouldn't be my friend but if anybody asked if he was gay or made any inkling he'd freak tf out! He'd also be super weird and uncomfortable if there was anybody gay around when most of us really didn't give a shit one way or the other. I'm not talking about somebody hitting on him, just "this person is gay" and he'd get all uncomfortable and weird. This was middle school to highschool btw so maturity levels should be taken into account.
Years later he came out as bi. Good on him for working on his inner demons I guess.
I’ve found that what I’m most critical of other people is what I’m most critical of in myself.
And this was learned behavior from insecurities of the people around me while I was growing up.
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My theory is they assume everyone else has gay thoughts like they do, so every man married to a woman resisted the urge to go balls deep in their homies, instead choosing to get married to a woman they aren't attracted to and have children as their show of devotion to God. Because they're so sexually repressed, and only talk about how gay their thoughts are while getting fucked by their other gay religious friends, they never put 2 and 2 together that most people actually don't have an attraction to the same sex the way they do.
and some are in sham marriages but still on the down-low.
I don't think that homophobes have to be closeted to be envious of queer folk who are being true to themselves and not living a life of conformity. Of course some of them are though.
Conversion therapy is a form of torture. It's as stupid as expecting someone to change their blue eyes, to green eyes. You can't blame people for genetics, and you cannot just decide, as a blue eyed person, that you are now a green eyed person. It's not a decision, there is no therapy or medication or surgery to "fix" what is not broken. It's just abuse.
We have already been through this with Left Handers. Being left handed is normal. Gay people are normal. Religion does not exist to help people, it's purpose is to control people.
Thank you for attending my Ted Talk.
Growing up in the USSR they forced everyone to write with our right hand. You get beaten if you don't. Was really hard for my cousin because he's left handed. He just learned to fake it for the teachers.
No they didn't
Sometimes you guys make it hard to laugh at you because you're just so damn sad
Cool story kiddo
not only in russia, but christianized countries. or christian schools. Left handness was very discouraged when i was growing up. i only wrote with the left hand.
This was common globally (yes, even the US and Europe) until frankly frighteningly recently
It happened to me and I'm not even 40 yet, and yes I'm from Europe
How did he fake being right-handed?
I'm naturally right-handed and I've tried to do things left-handed before and it is insanely difficult, maddening really.
Developing ambidextrous talent I guess. I remember when they are watching he'd use right, then switch to left for the rest and homework.
Did they renounce their cult and do anything at all to help the victims?
Or are they pretending "progressive christian" is a valid ideology, forgiving themselves and moving on without actually fixing any of the root problems?
Pastors are not good people. They make their living lying to people and almost never face accountability for it. They just shift the lie to suit their needs at the time, at everyone's expense.
💯
So, he got the gay cure after all
I got a fever, and the only cure, is more gay!
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I wonder if the people who suffered for his bigotry will forgive him
probably not, he would be seen as a traitor, and only when it became convenient to him when it AFFECTED him. if he had made it his mission to help LGBTQ+ since then , then maybe.
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I was trying to find an article to verify this info and this was in the top results:
Here is the actual story in OPs post, I think? (different guy btw): https://gay.blog.br/en/gay-en/former-pastor-who-preached-gay-cure-now-lives-in-marriage-with-another-man/
I think both articles are different people. It appears this guys name is John Smid https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Smid
Looks like it, thanks for the assist!
I didn't think the first article was him, but it is just another instance of a "beacon of morality (Christian pastor)" trying to commit one of the greatest evils. Great documentation to show people who think "secularism" indicates a lack of morality.
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