January 20, 2026 • 63 mins
John makes his way to the residential program that will shape his life forever.
There, he meets John Smid, the former director of Love in Action. And the woman who would become his wife.
—
Atonement: The John Paulk Story is a production of iHeart Podcasts and Goldhawk Productions in association with Marks Media Co.
—
If you’ve been affected by any of the issues covered in this series, you can find help and support at the following links:
988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline
The Lifeline provides 24/7, free and confidential support for people in distress. Call or text 988 or chat online.
Crisis Text Line
If you are in crisis, text CONVO to 741741 in the US for free, confidential, 24/7, support.
The Trevor Project
The leading suicide prevention and crisis intervention organization for LGBTQ+ young people. If you or someone you know needs help or support, The Trevor Project’s trained crisis counselors are available 24/7 at 1-866-488-7386, via the website or by texting START to 678678.
RAINN
RAINN - the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network - provide free, confidential, 24/7 help. Call 1-800-656-4673 or the website to chat with a support specialist.
If you’re in the UK, please find a range of helplines and support networks here.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This episode of Atonement includes references to sexual abuse and assault,
including rape. There's also the use of historical language around sexuality.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
There's a video from two thousand and one. I'm on
stage at a book launch at the peak of my
ex gay career working for the organization Focus on the Family.
I'm walking up and down the stage in my gray suit,
no notes, just speaking into the microphone. And there's a
moment where I say I was seduced into homosexuality. That
(00:36):
is a lie. I was not seduced into homosexuality. That's
a lie. This was my response to the footage the
first time I saw it, more than twenty years later.
Do you note, in my knowledge, I had never said
that total lie.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
You don't remember saying it to see self saying I
mean is a surprise.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
There's nothing true about it that makes it sound like
someone seduced me into homosexuality. That didn't happen at all.
That was a very right wing thing that I was
saying there to appease people and to put fear in them.
(01:27):
That's exactly what it was for. And I was paraded
in front of all the luminaries that would come to
focus on the Family ministry leaders, pastors and high places donors.
I felt like I was being marched into a room
like a wind up soldier to tell my story for
(01:50):
financial reasons. But when I see myself telling an audience
and that I was seduced into this, that's a bold face. Lie.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
Welcome to Atonement. The John Polk Story.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
I'm John Paulk.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
And I'm Kate Holland. Episode two. There's no place like Home.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Okay, so I am. Let's see. It is nineteen eighty seven.
I'm twenty three years old. Now, I was sober and
you know, working my twelve steps, and life was good.
I had gone back to school and I was now
(02:45):
the manager of this copy shop that I worked at
on campus. There was this married couple, this man and woman,
who came into the copy store frequently, numerous times, and
I would copy their material. Well, it was apparent to
me it was of a Christian nature. I just kept
(03:08):
running into them all over the place, and I could
tell as weeks and probably months went by, that they
took an interest in me. It felt as though they
could see right through me, like to the deeper parts
(03:29):
of me. This is probably going to sound extreme. Predators
can spot a vulnerable person. Back in nineteen eighty seven,
when the married Christian couple came into my life, I
(03:52):
was in AA. I'd gotten rid of candy and all
the paraphernalia that went with my drag persona. I'd heard
what I believe to be God on the dance floor,
but I didn't have a faith, and I certainly wasn't
calling myself a Christian. But that couple took an interest
in me. The husband was a pastor. One night he
(04:14):
invited himself over to my place after work and I
was making beautiful Valentines for all of my friends, my
gay friends. It was a picture of Marilyn Monroe and
I was glittering the lips. Just hella, good fun. So
we had never discussed the topic of me being gay. Ever,
the topic never came up, and he said, I wanted
(04:37):
to talk to you about the salvation that Jesus Christ
can offer you. I said, I know all about this.
I became a Christian when I was younger, but I
know God can't love me now because I'm gay. My
Christianity as a child had been fleeting but significant. When
(05:01):
I was ten years old, I walked myself to a
church and joined the Sunday School. I even wrote in
my school work about wanting to be a pastor when
I grew up. He said, whatever made you believe that
God can't love you because you're gay? And it was
like this question just slapped me in the face. And
(05:24):
I said, well, because Christians line the sides of gay
pride parades and protest and yell and scream and speak
in tongues and have these horrible signs that say gays
are going to hell, It's understood in our community that
if you're gay, God can't love you. And he just
(05:46):
shattered that right then and there. He said, there's no
truth in that whatsoever. And he said, if you subscribe
that you were born as sinner and Jesus Christ died
for you, and you've accepted his gift of forgiveness, you
will go to heaven. I said, that's great, because what
(06:07):
I want to do is, as I get older, I
want to meet some amazing man. I want to settle
down and have a house with a white picket fence
and live my life. He said, while you might go
to heaven, God would be very unhappy with the life
that you lived. I started pondering that over the next
(06:31):
few days and that God as from a little boy,
awakened in me again. I thought, well, I don't want
God to be unhappy with me. I don't want to
live a life that's not pleasing to him.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
It started that simply, and the pastor said to John.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
Then what you have to do is abandon your homosexuality.
And I remember saying to him, what do you mean
abandon my homosexuality? As it were like a coat that
I could put on and take off. I didn't understand
(07:14):
because I didn't do gay. I was gay, so it
wasn't a thing that was separate from who I was
in my identity. Like, what in the hell are you
talking about? So the couple started to tell me about,
as they saw it, the reasons I was gay. He
(07:34):
was starting to tell me things like, you were not
born this way. You became this way through a combination
of inborn genetics, personality, temperament, but primarily through your life experience.
And if we could go in and change all of
that and repair it, your homosexuality would fade away and
(07:58):
a different narrative to go over inside my mind, it's
being gay that is making me miserable. I imagine this is
hard to get your head around if you've never encountered
these ideas before, perhaps even harder if you don't have
a religious faith. It was like I was in the
middle of a pincher. One very powerful spiritual side is
(08:22):
saying that your sexuality is displeasing God. The other is
saying that all your problems in life are caused by
your homosexuality, and both are saying it can be changed.
But I think he implanted these ideas in me when
a time when I was very spiritually vulnerable. I'd been raped,
(08:46):
I'd been threatened with a knife, I'd been involved in
sex work, I was a recovering alcoholic. I was lost.
As all of this was percolating in my mind. The
couple were fueling a fire inside of me that said
homosexuality was something to be ashamed of, and they were
(09:08):
giving me information that claimed to show me how that
change was possible. So he found a book in a
Christian bookstore called Steps Out of Homosexuality. It was the
story of a man named Frank Worthen who founded a
ministry in the Bay Area of California called Love and Action.
And Love and Action had a one year residential program
(09:30):
that men and women would travel from all over the
country and the world to participate in a year called
Steps Out of Homosexuality, where you would be with other men,
you would live in residences together, and you would go
through these steps to leave your homosexuality behind. And that
(09:51):
was that I had to go to Love in Action.
I filled in the long application form for a place
in the year long residency program. Many people, especially young people,
are forced into conversion therapy. There are so many stories
of people being dragged into it or manipulated into it
by parents, family members are trusted adults. But while I
(10:15):
was introduced to it by a pastor. The way I
saw it, love and Action was my opportunity and I
had to grab it. I could please God instead, I
could change and I could leave homosexuality behind. But that
meant leaving the rest of my life behind too. I
wanted to go to Love and Action so bad. I
(10:36):
used to say I would have crawled through broken glass
to get there. My ex boyfriend turned friend Kurt was
there through it all, Hugh.
Speaker 4 (10:47):
I remember when I learned John was leaning towards leaving
the gay life. I think that's how they called it,
leaving the gay life. He was very happy. You know,
he just had the aura that was unexplainable. I didn't
judge it because you know, he had been so unhappy
(11:08):
and so many times that I was like, well, who cares,
whatever it is. If he feels better, then go for it.
John just seemed like a different person, still funny, still sarcastic,
but willing to do whatever it took. And I'm putting
my own words when I say this.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
To feel normal, my drag friends had the hardest time
with what was happening to me, and instead of taking
a compassionate approach to try to rescue me from this,
it became known to me that a few drag queens said,
(11:51):
if we see Candy out, we'll kill her.
Speaker 3 (11:54):
Where do you think that was coming from?
Speaker 4 (11:56):
For them?
Speaker 2 (11:59):
At the time, homosexuality was preached from pulpits of thousands
of churches that you are an abomination to God if
you commit this sin or engage in this behavior. It
was almost placed above murder that the worst thing you
could possibly be was gay, and that was clearly understood
(12:24):
by gay people. And so the reaction if we see her,
will kill her. I know what that's coming from. I
so get it. I so understand it.
Speaker 4 (12:37):
Friends of ours were horribly angry with John. The message
they felt he was giving was that we could change
if we really wanted to. I had a really close
friend that I had come and speak to John. Doug
was fairly religious, but he was a big queen who
(12:57):
was out and you know, Doug talked and I remember
Duck was crying. He was so passionate, and John was
very strong and said, no, this is this is something
I need to do.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
It took six months before I heard back from Love
and Action, but one day I got word of my acceptance.
I cannot convey to you the sense of relief and
joy that I had. I just felt, like, you know,
I was saved by being able to go there. Before
(13:40):
I packed up and started my own journey to California,
there was some crucial calls I had to make. I
spoke to my dad, Norman, and my stepmom Vicky.
Speaker 5 (13:50):
Love in Action was an interesting proposal. If it was
something John thought would be helpful, then I was supported.
Speaker 6 (13:58):
I had a reaction when and John called to tell
us about Love and Action. When we hung up from
the phone call, I said to Norman, that makes me
very uncomfortable. And the reason is it sounded like, and
this is the word I used, a cult, and I said,
(14:18):
I'm concerned for him. I don't want him to get
caught in something that is going to be a bad
situation for him.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
I wouldn't have he did that warning, even if she'd
said it to me directly. Love an Action here I come.
Speaker 7 (14:42):
I was not in any way aware that what I
was doing was significantly harmful.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
This is John Smith.
Speaker 7 (14:49):
Because everything I did through those years I believed was
based on a biblical viewpoint that any homosexual behavior was
wrong and sinful and would distinctly harm any relationship that
one would have with God as they knew God to be.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
John Smid joined the Ex Gay Ministry in nineteen eighty
seven to be an assistant house manager, a volunteer role.
He would oversee the day to day running of the house.
Twelve men would live there while trying to change their sexuality.
He'd signed up to be a staff member for just
one year, but one became two, and ultimately John Smid
(15:28):
became the director of Love in Action, spending more than twenty.
Speaker 7 (15:33):
Years there, and it was quite a journey.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
Under John Smid's leadership, Love in Action grew and it
wasn't just adults it attracted. There were programs for teenagers too,
many of whom were forced by family members to attend.
John Smid resigned in two thousand and eight.
Speaker 7 (15:51):
I really came to the place where I realized that
the ex gay world X gay culture had really many
lies in it and desces in it. There were many
things about it that were wrong. And then I really
started to dig deeper and discovered that what I had
been doing, although there were many good things in our ministry,
we did so many wonderful things for people and for families,
(16:14):
but the underlying message that being gay was sinful and
wrong and broken was desperately harmful. And it was in
twenty ten that I wrote an apology and I began
making amends, and I'm still pursuing reconciliation, a listening ear,
and a reasonable relationship with people who had been through
(16:36):
our ministry.
Speaker 1 (16:37):
Not long after that apology, John Smid also publicly came out.
He's in his late sixties now and living in Hot Springs, Arkansas,
with his husband Larry.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
His story echoes mine in many ways. Before love and action,
John lived a few different lives. When he was just eighteen,
he married a woman he knew from high school. Divorest
after he came out, and he started living life as
a gay man in his twenties, just like me and
my younger life. John Smith didn't have a religious faith either,
(17:10):
but when he was struggling with relationship problems, he found
solace in a woman he worked with, and she introduced
him to Christianity.
Speaker 7 (17:18):
She began to teach me or talk to me about
Jesus and about the Bible, and she said, well, you know,
being gay has a lot of problems in it, and
you know it's not right, and God's word says it's
not right. And in my insecurity and in inadequacy, I thought,
you know, these people know more than I do. She
seems to have found a better life for herself. Maybe
(17:39):
that's the answer for me.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
So John Smith joined a church and entered the ex
gay world.
Speaker 7 (17:47):
So I turned away from all of my gay friends.
I took him out of my contact list. I just
put that all behind me and completely embraced this Christian world.
Only in that Christian world, I found that there was
someone else that was a part of our ministry that
was gay, and he was really struggling, And I thought,
you know, I'd like to help this guy, because at
that point I was kind of in a like a
(18:09):
honeymoon phase where I really thought I was moving forward.
Being gay was behind me. I was still had attractions,
but it was behind me, and I didn't know what
to do. How do I help this guy. It was
at that point I found out about X Gay Ministries
Love in Action. Within three months, I sold everything, I had,
my house, everything in my possession, and drove fifteen hundred
(18:31):
miles across the country to Santra Fel, California and started
my position there. I really believe that's what I needed.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
And I was finding my own way to Love in Action.
With my place secured and goodbye, said, I packed a
bag with everything I'd need for one year in California.
It was the day before New Year's Eve. The course
would start on the first day of January nineteen eighty eight.
(19:01):
So here he was in San Francisco. It's funny how
you fly to San Francisco to not be gay. And
I remember I had took the shuttle bus from the
airport to Marin County city of sant Rafel, where Love
and Action was headquartered at the time, and this seventy
(19:21):
something year old man was waiting to pick me up,
and that was Frank Worthen. It was Frank's book Steps
out of Homosexuality that had got me here, and now
I was meeting him in the flesh, and I remember
seeing him and I walked toward him and I started
(19:42):
to cry, and he wrapped his arms around me. I
never even met this guy. He wrapped his arms around me.
He goes, You're a home and I just cried in
his arms.
Speaker 1 (19:59):
Frank Than was one of the founders of Love in Action.
He died in twenty seventeen in his late eighties and
remained a prominent and unwavering part of the ex gay
movement until the end. When John Smid became director, it
was Frank that he was replacing.
Speaker 7 (20:17):
Love and Action as an organization had several versions of itself.
It started out as a residential home for people who
were gay to live and to grow together and support groups.
It was fairly minimal in many ways. When I became
the director, we began to look at ways that we
(20:39):
could be more successful because I knew most of the
people who went through Love and Action did not remain
away from their gay behaviors, The vast majority did not.
We knew that. I knew that, and so I'm thinking, Okay,
what can we do to have more success? Because if
God says we need to deal with this, then there
must be a way to make it better. And so
(20:59):
I began to implement more structure into the program, more accountability,
more rules. I thought that would help people to to
minimize negative behaviors while they began to adopt positive behaviors.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
And how were you defining success?
Speaker 7 (21:15):
I wanted to define success that people were finding freedom
from homosexuality. But I knew that wasn't happening, and we
saw that as their fault. You know, it's like, well,
they're not following their program, they're not doing their journaling,
they're not following God's standards, they're not going to church,
they're not you know, they're not doing the right things.
So it's obvious that they're not going to find success
(21:37):
if they don't do the right thing. But inside, when
people would ask me, as the director of the ministry,
you know, what's your success rate? And I said, okay,
this is our success rate. Everyone leaves our program closer
to God than when they came. Don't you think that's
successful because I knew I couldn't say anything else. Then
I have.
Speaker 3 (21:54):
To ask, in all those years, did you ever believe
you were heterosexual?
Speaker 8 (21:59):
Oh?
Speaker 7 (21:59):
No, absolutely not no, no, no. On the Kinsey scale,
I'm way over on the gay side. No, I've never
I've never been heterosexual. Everything about my sexuality and my
relational motivations and my thinking as it has to do
with those areas of my life, I'm a gay man.
(22:19):
I mean I always have been since as small as
I can remember. It's never been changed or it's never
been No, not an inkling.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
But in spite of his own internal contradictions with the program,
it was John Smid who was going to guide me
through my steps out of homosexuality. He was my house leader,
and I would be living with eleven other men, all
going through the same teaching. It was people from all
walks of life, black, white, Hispanic, all there to leave
(22:57):
homosexuality behind, and so we were all in the same boat.
Just north of Golden Gate Bridge, Sanrafell had a small
town feel, but the house itself was massive, bunk beds
in every bedroom, a huge dining table that could sit
eighteen comfortably. I met John Smith on my very first day,
(23:19):
and we became close.
Speaker 7 (23:21):
John was a very present person. He was larger than
life in many ways, his clothing, his fashion sense. He
always wanted to get the absolute best of everything.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
We would always get together and have dinner together as
a quote unquote family. That was tremendous fun. I had
felt lonely before leaving, but now I wasn't lonely anymore.
Speaker 7 (23:49):
The program that John went through was very unique. It
was the only program that was ever a part of
the ministry when I was there, where every person that
entered the program finished the program. And during the twenty
two years I was there, we had four hundred and
seventy five men and women who went through our residential program.
Speaker 2 (24:09):
So here are pictures from Love and Action. Here. I'm
in the second row on the left, long hair, kind
of still a mullet.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
There are twenty one people in the photo John showing me.
John asked me if I wanted to know how many
of those twenty one eventually came out and embraced.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
Being gay seventeen eighteen Eighteen of twenty one people eventually
embraced homosexuality eighteen of twenty one, and that was just
one year.
Speaker 4 (24:42):
Back.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
In my first year, as we began the Steps Out
of Homosexuality program, our time and Love and Action was
pretty regimented. We each had a job to pay for
the program itself, and then.
Speaker 7 (24:55):
A typical week we start Sunday morning that would go
to church. They would oftentimes have some kind a home
group or a Bible study or a Sunday School class
that they would also attend, which was more relationally connected
to the church.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
We would get up at some point and introduce ourselves
to the congregation, and the congregation completely embraced us.
Speaker 7 (25:16):
Monday night they have a group study. Tuesday night they'd
have a Bible study at someone's home. Wednesday night was
their family meeting in the house. Thursday night was a
book study, and Friday night was an open time.
Speaker 2 (25:30):
Everything was about the Steps Out and learning and following
the program. Twice a week we'd go into the Love
and Action Office for class and it was lesson plans
under the covering of here are the Steps out and
away from homosexuality. So we would go and let's say,
(25:53):
for example, the topic was idolatry, Well I do all
Tree was worshiping anything other than God and anything in
life could become an idol to you. In our case,
many times it was the male form or the male physique,
(26:14):
which could be an idol or an idol could be
worshiping sex or physical intimacy with a man, emotional intimacy
of a sexual nature with men.
Speaker 3 (26:27):
And how did you surrender? What would that take?
Speaker 2 (26:30):
Oftentimes you would get in a circle and you would
sit in the middle of it in a chair, and
it would be through prayer, and you would bow your
head and they would gather around you and put lay
their hands on you, on your shoulders and your head,
and you would relinquish whatever your idol was to God
(26:52):
and ask him to fill that empty space and to
take away that idol in your life.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
Men were to be men and women were to be
women in the most stereotypical way at points in love
and action. Clothing was controlled. You couldn't work alone, women
had to carry a purse.
Speaker 7 (27:13):
The sobriety was the focus. Sobriety from anything gay, anything
associated with it. And so, of course we had a
lot of rules in place that helped to create that environment.
No pornography and nothing that related to gay relationships, nothing
that related to gay culture, nothing that related to secular culture.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
You weren't allowed to watch TV because homosexuality could visually
creep in. You were not allowed to associate with anybody
on the outside pretty much anybody, but especially if they
were gay or lesbian. If you engaged in any kind
(27:56):
of sexual activity, that was grounds for immediate dismissal.
Speaker 7 (28:02):
But we also believed that homosexuality was not created in
the person. We believed it was created psychologically or sociologically.
Speaker 2 (28:13):
This was the crux of the message. If you can
find the cause, you can find a fix.
Speaker 7 (28:20):
And so we worked a lot reviewing our family history,
doing timelines, doing family systems theories to see where the
flaws were because we believed we could find the broken areas,
that those could be healed, those could be reconciled, pulling
the power away from the same sex drivenness. That was
our theory. That's what we functioned out of.
Speaker 1 (28:43):
What were the kind of things that you at that
point believed could be a root or cause.
Speaker 7 (28:51):
Well, when we looked at child development theories from our
perspective at that time, because we believed at the base
that homosexual ruality came out of dysunction. So when we
looked at that particular aspect, we thought, well, okay, if
a young boy grows up and he doesn't have a
healthy development of his gender, meaning during puberty, he doesn't
(29:14):
have a healthy association with other boys, other men, with
his dad, then it creates a void, and that void
is something that creates a search to fill it. When
an adolescent reached puberty. We believe the hormones then would
attach to the broken places, the places that are unmet needs,
(29:37):
creating a sexual desire out of that unmet need. For women,
we believed it was primarily out of sexual abuse that
most lesbians were sexually abused. Therefore, the hated men couldn't
connect well to men, say, to look to each other
for a comforting place, for resolution, for association with something
that seemed to be meaningful. And we ever really left.
Speaker 1 (30:01):
That there is no scientific evidence to show causation between
abuse and homosexuality, but John and his classmates had to
find a cause to focus on a reason. Casey Pick
from the Trevor Project says that going over and over
traumatic events true or not, is a dangerous practice taught
(30:23):
by people who aren't trained.
Speaker 8 (30:26):
There is no standard of care or protocol, so effectively,
these people who are operating at the fringes of mental
health are making stuff up. They are rooting it in
outdated and debunked theories, and so what you wind up
with is somebody who keeps digging and digging and digging
(30:47):
into a traumatic experience, and while that doesn't do anything
to change their sexual orientation, it does re traumatize them.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
I spend a lot of time looking back at my childhood,
and when we went to visit my dad and stepmom,
Kate asked him what I was like when I was
a kid, and it stung to hear him describe me
as a child.
Speaker 5 (31:12):
John was different. I remember him sitting on the floor
in front of the radio, just kind of rocking back
and forth, listening to the music, which in itself wasn't different,
but there was just a sense of him being searching
for something different in his life.
Speaker 2 (31:34):
I haven't been able to shake that since I heard
him say that. It like visits me all the time,
and I thought, how sad for him that he missed
out on all the wonders that could have been between us.
But then again, my dad was so young. He was
(31:56):
twenty one. So I'm able to look at my dad
now with eyes of compassion, and I don't hold those
things against him, although hearing that it did hurt.
Speaker 5 (32:12):
I was a weekend father from when John was I
don't know what, age eight or nine or something like that.
I never missed weekends with my children. It was very
important to me. But I wasn't part of his daily
life for so much of his growing up. Really didn't
(32:35):
know John through his teenage years into early adulthood.
Speaker 2 (32:42):
My dad used to love to take Vicky, my sister,
and I to parks. Then there was this particular park
called the Park of Roses, and he took us out.
We were playing and on the jungle gym, and at
the end of the afternoon, he knelt down on the
ground and he very tenderly said, I'm not going to
(33:10):
be living with you anymore. It was like my security
walked out the door. Because my dad has always been
very steady, very stable, no highs or lows, very constant,
(33:32):
very consistent, and my mother was raging, narcissistic, alcoholic, and
with his departure, it just I felt lost. My mom
is no longer with us. She died in nineteen ninety seven,
and she changed a lot by then. But during my
(33:55):
childhood it was my mom who I lived with, and
things weren't easy. Alongside newman arriving in my life via
her relationships, there was her drinking to contend with. I
felt like my mother's caretaker. My needs, they weren't even acknowledged.
They were completely invisible.
Speaker 5 (34:20):
When I was remarried and had two young children, my
second wife was very protective of those children. And John
was having problems apparently in his living situation, and he
asked to meet with me. He put on a suit,
(34:40):
or at least a sport coat, and he met with
me and asked if he could come live with me.
I spoke with my second wife and she was not
for that, and I had to tell John no, and
that was a very difficult thing for me to do.
Speaker 2 (34:58):
So I was to stay with my mom, and at home,
she'd found another fixation. My mother was so obsessed with
her piano. We were not to interrupt her. What mother
would stop what she's doing and greet you when you
walk in the door after school, you know, and it
(35:19):
just reinforced you're not important. But at the same time,
I held my mother on a pedestal an hour after hour,
I would listen to her play. I had her songs
so memorized I could tell if she hit a wrong note.
Yet it was my mother I went to When things
(35:41):
at school got worse. I was diagnosed age ten with
ADHD and dyslexia, which was enough to make an isolated
child film more alone. And on the long journey back
from a school field trip in eighth grade, I was
sat next to a boy from cal and I unintentionally
(36:01):
gave the bully something else to torment me with. I
had fallen asleep and my head leaned over and I
was resting on his shoulder, completely unaware I was asleep,
and someone took a picture of that, And it was
(36:23):
at that time that I first heard the word homosexual
being thrown at me. From that day forward, I was
picked on for being something that I didn't even know
what it was. I was being called gay and a faggot,
(36:48):
and a sissy and a queer. But I remember going
home one afternoon and saying, can you tell me what means?
And you know, this is one memory of my mom
(37:09):
being very tenderhearted with me. She said, you know, it
means you're different. She said, all the most brilliant, wonderful
people in the world have been different. And she said
(37:31):
being different is good, but at love and action, looking
back at our childhoods and finding something to blame was key.
There was a list of things to look into. My
relationship with my parents. I'd seen pornography at an early age.
My mom had a string of terrible relationships, bringing men
(37:54):
in and out of my life throughout my childhood. And
so what I was being taught felt like it made sense.
I could point at things in my history and say, yes,
that's it. I fit this program. Like if there was
a questionneer of ten things these things made you gay?
I would fit ten out of ten based on what
(38:15):
they were laying out. I guess also, we were running
the risk of being just indoctrinated by these theories. These
commonalities amongst us as men were so overwhelmingly similar that
it was uncanny. We all seemed to just fit into
(38:38):
this you know, puzzle of where our homosexuality came from? When,
what the origins were.
Speaker 1 (38:45):
This process of looking back at childhood and childhood trauma
is very typical of conversion therapy and the X gay movement.
It reminds me a bit of horoscopes or personality tests.
It's accurate enough, you say that's me but broad enough
that so does everyone else. And let's be honest, pretty
(39:07):
much everyone had something not great happen in their childhood,
certainly anyone seeking help because they're unhappy. So when you
make those categories broad enough, it strikes me that anyone
can pinpoint something that the so called therapist can focus on.
Speaker 2 (39:26):
And you see, the thing is, there's got to be
somebody to blame. There has to be somebody who's responsible
for causing this. Finding out the roots of your own
homosexuality was of paramount importance because if you couldn't, you
(39:50):
couldn't change.
Speaker 1 (39:52):
Casey from the Trevor Project says, these ideas cause immeasurable hurt.
Speaker 8 (39:58):
A person's sexual orientation or gender identity really is something
that is as much a part of who that person
is as the color of their skin, the hand that
they used to write. It's not chosen. But by pressuring
and shaming someone to try to suppress that, to change it,
(40:19):
what ultimately results is a feeling of deep frustration, shame, isolation,
and so often because of the nature of the theories
that go into this kind of so called therapy, the
idea that it was an absent father, an overbearing mother,
(40:41):
conversion therapy causes deep rifts and pain within families.
Speaker 2 (40:46):
Later, when I was deeper into the movement, my dad
came to visit.
Speaker 5 (40:50):
As he introduced me to different i'd say executives, people
of note, it was always the same. I noticed a
very cold aloof reaction on their part to meet John's father,
and I ascribed this to the fact that if there's
(41:10):
a god, there must be a devil for there to
be a competing influence, and that if John was gay,
it had to be me.
Speaker 1 (41:21):
I asked Norman how he looked past.
Speaker 5 (41:23):
That I experienced it and then moved on. There was
nothing in ad no impact in my life. It's just
something I experienced and noted, and that's why it appeared
to me.
Speaker 6 (41:38):
When I saw this sort of thing happening with Norman
with my husband, I was very angry about it. I thought,
that's so unfair for any father to automatically be the
person who is blamed for a child being gay. I mean,
(41:59):
to me, that's how I looked at it, and I
was very angry at the fact that my husband would
be put in that position.
Speaker 2 (42:08):
There was a point during the residential year that I
went back and looked at the letters my dad had
written to me over the years.
Speaker 5 (42:15):
Dear John, for a long time, there's been an unspoken
tension between us. Some of this was bound to arise
since neither of us have made much effort to maintain communication.
I'm making an effort to change that from my end.
If there are other reasons on your part, I would
like to see them slip away. If part of the
(42:39):
problem is that you think I don't care, then put
that feeling aside. I do care. You are carrying a
burden because you have not chosen to tell me that
you are gay, and I would like to address that.
It's not necessary for a son to have approval from
a father to be able to go forward with life.
(43:00):
What does make a difference is that two people accept
each other with individual rights, ambitions, and choices. I accept
you as an individual. You are your own man, but
you are still my son. All I ask is your
acceptance and return. We don't have to be the same
(43:20):
kind of men to love each other. I love you.
Don't let bitterness about your life interfere with living it.
Love Dad, Come.
Speaker 2 (43:31):
On, come on leave that. Who writes letters like that?
When I read that letter originally, I didn't hear love.
I believed he didn't really care. I was pointing a finger.
Later I reread and saw what I couldn't before. Well,
my god, my dad's left me all these years.
Speaker 5 (43:53):
And been there.
Speaker 2 (43:54):
Why didn't I see that?
Speaker 5 (43:58):
I have all the letters John wrote to me, I
just don't know where they are.
Speaker 2 (44:06):
As time went on in the Love and Action House,
there were, of course times when people broke the rules.
They fell, as we'd put it, into sinful behavior. They
were all about confessing your sins to one another that
you may be healed. You know, it was so based
on shame. You ran the risk of being dismissed if
(44:31):
you all were honest about what you did. It was
also your thoughts were sinful, So if you thought erotically
about men, even the object of your desires were sinful
as well, and you had to tell the leadership. People
(44:52):
like John Smid.
Speaker 7 (44:53):
The Christian movement leads heavily in terms of the confessional
one way or the other, and the confessional does nothing
usually but bring even more shame. And oh boy, do
I wish I could go back over those four hundred
and seventy five people and have a completely different program
for every one of them, how much better life would
(45:14):
have been for them.
Speaker 2 (45:16):
There's an irony. I think of taking a group of
gay men or lesbian women and having them live in
a house together to try and be straight. I felt
and saw it. John Smid did too.
Speaker 7 (45:28):
One of the big big issues was what we called
emotional dependency, and that was if a person became emotionally
attached so much that their entire focus was on that person.
That was one of the hardest things for us to
deal with because we didn't know how to separate the
emotional attraction from the relationships. We didn't know how to
(45:49):
break that, and we'd call it being on level. And
being on level meant that you couldn't talk to this person,
you couldn't walk next to this person, you could sit
next to them in a class. You had to say
separate yourself, which must have been horrifically terrible for these
people to go through. We didn't know what else to
do with it, and we certainly didn't understand that what
(46:11):
the attraction that was there was absolutely totally natural for them.
But when we separated it, it just made it worse,
It made it stronger, it made it harder.
Speaker 2 (46:24):
I have firsthand experience of exactly what John Smith describes.
My first day at Love and Action, I met a guy.
He was from Toronto, Canada, and like we instantly fell
in love. Within the first week, we were French kissing
and making out with each other. And that whole first
(46:50):
year we were very much in love with each other,
but we were separated, which they say made it easier.
It didn't. The end of my oh my gosh. At
the end of that first year, he ended up flying
back to Ohio, where I was from, and we spent
(47:11):
two weeks together, and then we went up to Toronto
to meet his family and we had sex, and I
that's something that I think I have buried all this time.
And I remember having to say goodbye to him, and
he gave me his robe to take with me. Having
(47:37):
to say goodbye to him was excruciatingly painful. He took
me to the airport and I couldn't get out of
the car. I couldn't let go of him, and then
I had to leave and he didn't continue on with
(48:00):
his quest to be x gay. I had his robe
and I took it back to California with me, and
I would go into my closet and hold that robe
and smell it, and I could smell his fragrance, and
I remember just like holding it like a dear treasure.
(48:22):
I'd wrap it in my arms, that robe and smell him.
And I talked about this to my roommate who was
the leader. He said, well, you need to throw that away.
You have sultie with that. You need to have that
soul tie broken, and he prayed for me to have
that soul tie broken. I didn't want to throw that
(48:43):
robe away. That was my last connection with this person.
But I was a dutiful, obedient little man, and I
remember throwing that robe away and I never saw him again.
(49:07):
I changed a lot through the year long residence, but
my desire to leave my homosexuality behind was stronger than ever.
By now I was calling myself x gay. That became
our label. So we weren't gay, we were ex gay.
That was an identity that I clinged to with my life,
(49:28):
and I was very comfortable saying I am ex gay.
One reason being that after that first year in love
and action in my experience with the Canadian man, I
didn't have sex with a man for twenty five years.
My behavior certainly changed, but the deep desires and longings
(49:54):
were always there in one degree or another. However, I
embarked on on a journey that I never looked at
gay erotic material. I wasn't affectionately involved with men. You know,
you're living day to day to day with the thoughts
of you're not doing this, you're getting away from it,
you're celibate. You know, you've committed yourself to God and
(50:17):
living a holy life and living by his rules. Things
do start to change. And I think a very good
question that someone could have is, yeah, but does that
mean you've really changed, haven't you? You've never really changed inside?
Anybody can change their behavior? Well, no, not anybody can.
This was not an easy thing to do.
Speaker 7 (50:37):
John has never been anything but gay. I mean everything
about him. He's just always been a gay man. And
but he really tried hard not to be, you know,
he really really did. And his motivation was his relationship
with God. Mine was my fear of God. John's was
(50:59):
his love of God. It was a distinct difference, and
he still feels that way today. You know, he still
has a deep love for God.
Speaker 2 (51:10):
On December thirty first, nineteen eighty eight, I successfully completed
my residential year at Love and Action. I'd taken the
steps as to fined in the Steps Out of Homosexuality program,
so I stayed. I entered leadership training. I became an
assistant house leader. Over the next few years, I climbed
(51:30):
the ranks. As a child, my mom had put me
into kids' theater school, I played Charlie and You're a
Good Man Charlie Brown, and I had a lead in
Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor dream Coat. I did TV
commercials too, and in the X gay world. These were
praised skills ones that make a leader. It's not that
(51:53):
I ever thought in my conscious mind I was performing
and faking it, but that was mixed in there somewhere.
I have been accused through the years of being a
total fake and a phony, or my entire life was
a lie. I've even said that myself. But there's truth
(52:18):
mixed in. There's nuances, you know, throughout life, and so
you could live at one level up here. I was
living as this celibate X game man, towing the line,
you know, believing in the company message, and starting to
give talks on my own audiences, share my quote unquote
(52:39):
testimony or my story. Who are you going to promote
I was no shrinking violet, so I was in deep.
I was asked to be the administrator of the Love
and Action Office, and that's where I went. This office
was shared by the umbrella organization of Love and Action
(52:59):
called Exodus International.
Speaker 1 (53:02):
Exodus International no longer exists, but for nearly forty years,
it was a non profit group of individual ministries that
did what Love and Action did, basically an evangelical umbrella
to connect organizations that believed in conversion therapy and the
idea that it was possible to change your sexuality. Exodus
(53:23):
was huge. At one point, it had offices on five continents.
At its peak, it included over two hundred and fifty
ministries in North America and had over one hundred and
fifty ministries in seventeen other countries.
Speaker 2 (53:39):
They had a conference that they held every single year
in various locations where hundreds and hundreds of people would
come to a five day conference from these ministries all
around the nation, all with the common purpose under the
Exodus umbrella of supporting that homosec Shwadi was a changeable condition.
(54:02):
When you see hundreds of people standing in an auditorium
worshiping God all from the background that you had, it
only reinforced that what we were doing was right. So
Exodus started taking on a pre eminent place in my
life and the direction that I would later go in.
(54:29):
But first I needed something I'd wanted my whole life,
something that symbolized to me what I thought of as normal.
A gold wedding band. And Edward and I actually met
a year earlier at a Friday night support group where
she was a worship leader. She was looking to become
an ex lesbian and and I didn't hit it off.
(54:54):
I had a very strong nature and she had a
very strong, controlling nature. When I began the leadership program,
Ann entered her own residential year, and in my new
job at the Exodus office, we'd be working just around
the corner from each other, and the only way I
could get there was to carpool with Ann. Not ideal,
(55:18):
but when we would write to work together back and forth,
we actually got to know each other as people. We started,
I think, softening toward one another. During this time, I
started dating as an ex gay man. I dated girls
when I was at school before I ever came out,
(55:39):
and I'd always enjoyed the trappings of it, the romance
of it all. But now it was different. I was
dating with a purpose. I remember one day a group
of people, including Anne, praying over me, hands on my shoulders,
on my head, and I remember someone saying, Lord, we
(56:01):
just hope that you show John who the right woman
for him is. And I felt the Holy Spirit say
to me, it's Anne. It felt like definitive approval. I
remember our first date at a California restaurant with such fondness.
We would go in and we'd, you know, have pie
(56:23):
and coffee, and we would chit chat and chit chat,
and we were all excited, like when you first have
the blushes of a crush or love. And I remember
my pastor taking me out on a hike in the
mountains of Mount tamil Pius, and he sat me down
on a bench during the middle of this hike and
(56:46):
he said to me, you know, John, to get married
and live a successful heterosexual life, you don't have to
be attracted and fall in love to all women and
just one woman for you. For X gays, the way
(57:07):
it works is you first get emotionally connected to a
woman and you feel safe. And once you feel safe,
he went on you'll develop an emotional attachment, and as
time goes by, you'll start God will start bonding you together,
(57:30):
and a sexual attraction will flow out of that. And
he reassured me again the checklist isn't you have a
raging erection for every woman? Just one? And he would say, actually,
a woman is very lucky to have an ex gay
(57:52):
man as a husband, because he's never going to commit
adultery on her with another woman. I remember the first
time we kissed. I go back and tell people, and
you know, my friends, the congregation, they were all in
this with us.
Speaker 3 (58:12):
I'm wondering whether in that as well, there's a feelings
of accomplishment.
Speaker 2 (58:20):
It felt like I was going through adolescence all over again.
That's just what it felt like. And as a matter
of fact, that was one of the premises of love
and action, that if you get to that place, you
will experience adolescence all over again, in the right direction
this time. And so for me it was happening at
(58:41):
the age of twenty eight years old. Does that make sense?
Speaker 3 (58:45):
Two things I think are coming to my mind because
my instant reaction when you said going through puberty or
going through adolessons again is to think, were you broken
down to the point of having to rebuild? And then
(59:05):
secondly on whether it makes sense.
Speaker 8 (59:09):
Are you saying.
Speaker 3 (59:10):
That that's what you believed then or what you believe now.
Speaker 2 (59:15):
It's not at all what I believe now. I'm talking
about In the whole manufactured confines of this world I
was in, it was laid out that homosexuality was the
result one of the results of broken masculinity, damaged masculinity,
(59:41):
and so for your homosexuality to be arrested and for
heterosexuality to grow, you needed to work through all of
those things that you believe. You need to be around
heterosexual men, you need to feel comfortable with heterosexuality, the
trappings of all of those things. For women, you need
(01:00:02):
to grow your hair out, you need to wear a makeup,
you need to wear, you know, feminine clothing. And everybody
interpreted those things a little bit differently. I grew up
around very feminine, very glamorous women in my life, and
I wanted my wife to be that very same person,
(01:00:24):
you know, beautifully quaffed, manicured nails, high heels, full makeup.
That's the kind of women I personally was attracted to.
Speaker 7 (01:00:35):
What crosses my mind is how John reinvented Anne physically.
John Smith again, he helped her with hair and makeup
and clothing, and I believe that he believed what he
was doing was good. But I also remember thinking, you know,
John is a dominant force, and I'm concerned about the
(01:00:58):
dominance here, that he is trying to make his world
into what he needs it to be and needed to
fit that surrounding. I think John needed her to do
that because if we look at former pictures, which their
public and presentation changed dramatically, But of course we at
the time thought, well, Anne is learning more about her
(01:01:20):
own femininity, She's discovering and John is helping her do that.
Speaker 2 (01:01:26):
It was New Year's Eve nineteen ninety one that I proposed.
I planned the perfect night, gorgeous dinner followed by front
row tickets to hear Rosemary Clooney sing, and then we
walked over to the Palace of Fine Arts. I was
so nervous all I could do was giggle. Finally I
(01:01:46):
was able to get down on one knee and she
said yes. We drove back over the Golden Gate Bridge.
We went to where she lived and there was a
party waiting for us, with helium balloons, congratulations, because they
all knew what was going to happen.
Speaker 7 (01:02:05):
We celebrated a man getting married to a woman because
it was like a trophy. It was like, you've accomplished
something phenomenal.
Speaker 2 (01:02:15):
Oh my god, how could you have a bigger success story?
Given the backgrounds up to this point, there was no
one in common knowledge where a lesbian and a gay
man had changed and gotten married. No one knew even
any case where the situation was similar to ours, and
(01:02:39):
we kind of delighted in that, you know, talk about
a miracle. You both changed and you found each other.
I remember people would start saying to us, you know,
when the world finds out about this peculiar story, they're
going to want to hear about it. We had a
(01:03:04):
wedding to plan, one that would be the center point
of our whole ex gay and ex lesbian worlds. And
it was while we were engaged that the first phone
call from a TV show came. When I'd step into
the spotlight and be put under a microscope, He's.
Speaker 1 (01:03:22):
Like, you know, a car wreck, and if people can't
keep their eyes off him, he evokes a reaction he
did with me.
Speaker 2 (01:03:29):
I hated him. I hated young Paul because he was
very good at what he did.
Speaker 1 (01:03:35):
That's next time on Atonement, The John Polk Story. Atonement
is a production of iHeart Podcasts and gold Hawk Productions
in association with Mark's Media Co. For more podcasts from
iHeart Podcasts, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you get your podcasts.
This episode of Atonement includes references to sexual abuse and assault,
including rape. There's also the use of historical language around sexuality.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
There's a video from two thousand and one. I'm on
stage at a book launch at the peak of my
ex gay career working for the organization Focus on the Family.
I'm walking up and down the stage in my gray suit,
no notes, just speaking into the microphone. And there's a
moment where I say I was seduced into homosexuality. That
(00:36):
is a lie. I was not seduced into homosexuality. That's
a lie. This was my response to the footage the
first time I saw it, more than twenty years later.
Do you note, in my knowledge, I had never said
that total lie.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
You don't remember saying it to see self saying I
mean is a surprise.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
There's nothing true about it that makes it sound like
someone seduced me into homosexuality. That didn't happen at all.
That was a very right wing thing that I was
saying there to appease people and to put fear in them.
(01:27):
That's exactly what it was for. And I was paraded
in front of all the luminaries that would come to
focus on the Family ministry leaders, pastors and high places donors.
I felt like I was being marched into a room
like a wind up soldier to tell my story for
(01:50):
financial reasons. But when I see myself telling an audience
and that I was seduced into this, that's a bold face. Lie.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
Welcome to Atonement. The John Polk Story.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
I'm John Paulk.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
And I'm Kate Holland. Episode two. There's no place like Home.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Okay, so I am. Let's see. It is nineteen eighty seven.
I'm twenty three years old. Now, I was sober and
you know, working my twelve steps, and life was good.
I had gone back to school and I was now
(02:45):
the manager of this copy shop that I worked at
on campus. There was this married couple, this man and woman,
who came into the copy store frequently, numerous times, and
I would copy their material. Well, it was apparent to
me it was of a Christian nature. I just kept
(03:08):
running into them all over the place, and I could
tell as weeks and probably months went by, that they
took an interest in me. It felt as though they
could see right through me, like to the deeper parts
(03:29):
of me. This is probably going to sound extreme. Predators
can spot a vulnerable person. Back in nineteen eighty seven,
when the married Christian couple came into my life, I
(03:52):
was in AA. I'd gotten rid of candy and all
the paraphernalia that went with my drag persona. I'd heard
what I believe to be God on the dance floor,
but I didn't have a faith, and I certainly wasn't
calling myself a Christian. But that couple took an interest
in me. The husband was a pastor. One night he
(04:14):
invited himself over to my place after work and I
was making beautiful Valentines for all of my friends, my
gay friends. It was a picture of Marilyn Monroe and
I was glittering the lips. Just hella, good fun. So
we had never discussed the topic of me being gay. Ever,
the topic never came up, and he said, I wanted
(04:37):
to talk to you about the salvation that Jesus Christ
can offer you. I said, I know all about this.
I became a Christian when I was younger, but I
know God can't love me now because I'm gay. My
Christianity as a child had been fleeting but significant. When
(05:01):
I was ten years old, I walked myself to a
church and joined the Sunday School. I even wrote in
my school work about wanting to be a pastor when
I grew up. He said, whatever made you believe that
God can't love you because you're gay? And it was
like this question just slapped me in the face. And
(05:24):
I said, well, because Christians line the sides of gay
pride parades and protest and yell and scream and speak
in tongues and have these horrible signs that say gays
are going to hell, It's understood in our community that
if you're gay, God can't love you. And he just
(05:46):
shattered that right then and there. He said, there's no
truth in that whatsoever. And he said, if you subscribe
that you were born as sinner and Jesus Christ died
for you, and you've accepted his gift of forgiveness, you
will go to heaven. I said, that's great, because what
(06:07):
I want to do is, as I get older, I
want to meet some amazing man. I want to settle
down and have a house with a white picket fence
and live my life. He said, while you might go
to heaven, God would be very unhappy with the life
that you lived. I started pondering that over the next
(06:31):
few days and that God as from a little boy,
awakened in me again. I thought, well, I don't want
God to be unhappy with me. I don't want to
live a life that's not pleasing to him.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
It started that simply, and the pastor said to John.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
Then what you have to do is abandon your homosexuality.
And I remember saying to him, what do you mean
abandon my homosexuality? As it were like a coat that
I could put on and take off. I didn't understand
(07:14):
because I didn't do gay. I was gay, so it
wasn't a thing that was separate from who I was
in my identity. Like, what in the hell are you
talking about? So the couple started to tell me about,
as they saw it, the reasons I was gay. He
(07:34):
was starting to tell me things like, you were not
born this way. You became this way through a combination
of inborn genetics, personality, temperament, but primarily through your life experience.
And if we could go in and change all of
that and repair it, your homosexuality would fade away and
(07:58):
a different narrative to go over inside my mind, it's
being gay that is making me miserable. I imagine this is
hard to get your head around if you've never encountered
these ideas before, perhaps even harder if you don't have
a religious faith. It was like I was in the
middle of a pincher. One very powerful spiritual side is
(08:22):
saying that your sexuality is displeasing God. The other is
saying that all your problems in life are caused by
your homosexuality, and both are saying it can be changed.
But I think he implanted these ideas in me when
a time when I was very spiritually vulnerable. I'd been raped,
(08:46):
I'd been threatened with a knife, I'd been involved in
sex work, I was a recovering alcoholic. I was lost.
As all of this was percolating in my mind. The
couple were fueling a fire inside of me that said
homosexuality was something to be ashamed of, and they were
(09:08):
giving me information that claimed to show me how that
change was possible. So he found a book in a
Christian bookstore called Steps Out of Homosexuality. It was the
story of a man named Frank Worthen who founded a
ministry in the Bay Area of California called Love and Action.
And Love and Action had a one year residential program
(09:30):
that men and women would travel from all over the
country and the world to participate in a year called
Steps Out of Homosexuality, where you would be with other men,
you would live in residences together, and you would go
through these steps to leave your homosexuality behind. And that
(09:51):
was that I had to go to Love in Action.
I filled in the long application form for a place
in the year long residency program. Many people, especially young people,
are forced into conversion therapy. There are so many stories
of people being dragged into it or manipulated into it
by parents, family members are trusted adults. But while I
(10:15):
was introduced to it by a pastor. The way I
saw it, love and Action was my opportunity and I
had to grab it. I could please God instead, I
could change and I could leave homosexuality behind. But that
meant leaving the rest of my life behind too. I
wanted to go to Love and Action so bad. I
(10:36):
used to say I would have crawled through broken glass
to get there. My ex boyfriend turned friend Kurt was
there through it all, Hugh.
Speaker 4 (10:47):
I remember when I learned John was leaning towards leaving
the gay life. I think that's how they called it,
leaving the gay life. He was very happy. You know,
he just had the aura that was unexplainable. I didn't
judge it because you know, he had been so unhappy
(11:08):
and so many times that I was like, well, who cares,
whatever it is. If he feels better, then go for it.
John just seemed like a different person, still funny, still sarcastic,
but willing to do whatever it took. And I'm putting
my own words when I say this.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
To feel normal, my drag friends had the hardest time
with what was happening to me, and instead of taking
a compassionate approach to try to rescue me from this,
it became known to me that a few drag queens said,
(11:51):
if we see Candy out, we'll kill her.
Speaker 3 (11:54):
Where do you think that was coming from?
Speaker 4 (11:56):
For them?
Speaker 2 (11:59):
At the time, homosexuality was preached from pulpits of thousands
of churches that you are an abomination to God if
you commit this sin or engage in this behavior. It
was almost placed above murder that the worst thing you
could possibly be was gay, and that was clearly understood
(12:24):
by gay people. And so the reaction if we see her,
will kill her. I know what that's coming from. I
so get it. I so understand it.
Speaker 4 (12:37):
Friends of ours were horribly angry with John. The message
they felt he was giving was that we could change
if we really wanted to. I had a really close
friend that I had come and speak to John. Doug
was fairly religious, but he was a big queen who
(12:57):
was out and you know, Doug talked and I remember
Duck was crying. He was so passionate, and John was
very strong and said, no, this is this is something
I need to do.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
It took six months before I heard back from Love
and Action, but one day I got word of my acceptance.
I cannot convey to you the sense of relief and
joy that I had. I just felt, like, you know,
I was saved by being able to go there. Before
(13:40):
I packed up and started my own journey to California,
there was some crucial calls I had to make. I
spoke to my dad, Norman, and my stepmom Vicky.
Speaker 5 (13:50):
Love in Action was an interesting proposal. If it was
something John thought would be helpful, then I was supported.
Speaker 6 (13:58):
I had a reaction when and John called to tell
us about Love and Action. When we hung up from
the phone call, I said to Norman, that makes me
very uncomfortable. And the reason is it sounded like, and
this is the word I used, a cult, and I said,
(14:18):
I'm concerned for him. I don't want him to get
caught in something that is going to be a bad
situation for him.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
I wouldn't have he did that warning, even if she'd
said it to me directly. Love an Action here I come.
Speaker 7 (14:42):
I was not in any way aware that what I
was doing was significantly harmful.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
This is John Smith.
Speaker 7 (14:49):
Because everything I did through those years I believed was
based on a biblical viewpoint that any homosexual behavior was
wrong and sinful and would distinctly harm any relationship that
one would have with God as they knew God to be.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
John Smid joined the Ex Gay Ministry in nineteen eighty
seven to be an assistant house manager, a volunteer role.
He would oversee the day to day running of the house.
Twelve men would live there while trying to change their sexuality.
He'd signed up to be a staff member for just
one year, but one became two, and ultimately John Smid
(15:28):
became the director of Love in Action, spending more than twenty.
Speaker 7 (15:33):
Years there, and it was quite a journey.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
Under John Smid's leadership, Love in Action grew and it
wasn't just adults it attracted. There were programs for teenagers too,
many of whom were forced by family members to attend.
John Smid resigned in two thousand and eight.
Speaker 7 (15:51):
I really came to the place where I realized that
the ex gay world X gay culture had really many
lies in it and desces in it. There were many
things about it that were wrong. And then I really
started to dig deeper and discovered that what I had
been doing, although there were many good things in our ministry,
we did so many wonderful things for people and for families,
(16:14):
but the underlying message that being gay was sinful and
wrong and broken was desperately harmful. And it was in
twenty ten that I wrote an apology and I began
making amends, and I'm still pursuing reconciliation, a listening ear,
and a reasonable relationship with people who had been through
(16:36):
our ministry.
Speaker 1 (16:37):
Not long after that apology, John Smid also publicly came out.
He's in his late sixties now and living in Hot Springs, Arkansas,
with his husband Larry.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
His story echoes mine in many ways. Before love and action,
John lived a few different lives. When he was just eighteen,
he married a woman he knew from high school. Divorest
after he came out, and he started living life as
a gay man in his twenties, just like me and
my younger life. John Smith didn't have a religious faith either,
(17:10):
but when he was struggling with relationship problems, he found
solace in a woman he worked with, and she introduced
him to Christianity.
Speaker 7 (17:18):
She began to teach me or talk to me about
Jesus and about the Bible, and she said, well, you know,
being gay has a lot of problems in it, and
you know it's not right, and God's word says it's
not right. And in my insecurity and in inadequacy, I thought,
you know, these people know more than I do. She
seems to have found a better life for herself. Maybe
(17:39):
that's the answer for me.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
So John Smith joined a church and entered the ex
gay world.
Speaker 7 (17:47):
So I turned away from all of my gay friends.
I took him out of my contact list. I just
put that all behind me and completely embraced this Christian world.
Only in that Christian world, I found that there was
someone else that was a part of our ministry that
was gay, and he was really struggling, And I thought,
you know, I'd like to help this guy, because at
that point I was kind of in a like a
(18:09):
honeymoon phase where I really thought I was moving forward.
Being gay was behind me. I was still had attractions,
but it was behind me, and I didn't know what
to do. How do I help this guy. It was
at that point I found out about X Gay Ministries
Love in Action. Within three months, I sold everything, I had,
my house, everything in my possession, and drove fifteen hundred
(18:31):
miles across the country to Santra Fel, California and started
my position there. I really believe that's what I needed.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
And I was finding my own way to Love in Action.
With my place secured and goodbye, said, I packed a
bag with everything I'd need for one year in California.
It was the day before New Year's Eve. The course
would start on the first day of January nineteen eighty eight.
(19:01):
So here he was in San Francisco. It's funny how
you fly to San Francisco to not be gay. And
I remember I had took the shuttle bus from the
airport to Marin County city of sant Rafel, where Love
and Action was headquartered at the time, and this seventy
(19:21):
something year old man was waiting to pick me up,
and that was Frank Worthen. It was Frank's book Steps
out of Homosexuality that had got me here, and now
I was meeting him in the flesh, and I remember
seeing him and I walked toward him and I started
(19:42):
to cry, and he wrapped his arms around me. I
never even met this guy. He wrapped his arms around me.
He goes, You're a home and I just cried in
his arms.
Speaker 1 (19:59):
Frank Than was one of the founders of Love in Action.
He died in twenty seventeen in his late eighties and
remained a prominent and unwavering part of the ex gay
movement until the end. When John Smid became director, it
was Frank that he was replacing.
Speaker 7 (20:17):
Love and Action as an organization had several versions of itself.
It started out as a residential home for people who
were gay to live and to grow together and support groups.
It was fairly minimal in many ways. When I became
the director, we began to look at ways that we
(20:39):
could be more successful because I knew most of the
people who went through Love and Action did not remain
away from their gay behaviors, The vast majority did not.
We knew that. I knew that, and so I'm thinking, Okay,
what can we do to have more success? Because if
God says we need to deal with this, then there
must be a way to make it better. And so
(20:59):
I began to implement more structure into the program, more accountability,
more rules. I thought that would help people to to
minimize negative behaviors while they began to adopt positive behaviors.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
And how were you defining success?
Speaker 7 (21:15):
I wanted to define success that people were finding freedom
from homosexuality. But I knew that wasn't happening, and we
saw that as their fault. You know, it's like, well,
they're not following their program, they're not doing their journaling,
they're not following God's standards, they're not going to church,
they're not you know, they're not doing the right things.
So it's obvious that they're not going to find success
(21:37):
if they don't do the right thing. But inside, when
people would ask me, as the director of the ministry,
you know, what's your success rate? And I said, okay,
this is our success rate. Everyone leaves our program closer
to God than when they came. Don't you think that's
successful because I knew I couldn't say anything else. Then
I have.
Speaker 3 (21:54):
To ask, in all those years, did you ever believe
you were heterosexual?
Speaker 8 (21:59):
Oh?
Speaker 7 (21:59):
No, absolutely not no, no, no. On the Kinsey scale,
I'm way over on the gay side. No, I've never
I've never been heterosexual. Everything about my sexuality and my
relational motivations and my thinking as it has to do
with those areas of my life, I'm a gay man.
(22:19):
I mean I always have been since as small as
I can remember. It's never been changed or it's never
been No, not an inkling.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
But in spite of his own internal contradictions with the program,
it was John Smid who was going to guide me
through my steps out of homosexuality. He was my house leader,
and I would be living with eleven other men, all
going through the same teaching. It was people from all
walks of life, black, white, Hispanic, all there to leave
(22:57):
homosexuality behind, and so we were all in the same boat.
Just north of Golden Gate Bridge, Sanrafell had a small
town feel, but the house itself was massive, bunk beds
in every bedroom, a huge dining table that could sit
eighteen comfortably. I met John Smith on my very first day,
(23:19):
and we became close.
Speaker 7 (23:21):
John was a very present person. He was larger than
life in many ways, his clothing, his fashion sense. He
always wanted to get the absolute best of everything.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
We would always get together and have dinner together as
a quote unquote family. That was tremendous fun. I had
felt lonely before leaving, but now I wasn't lonely anymore.
Speaker 7 (23:49):
The program that John went through was very unique. It
was the only program that was ever a part of
the ministry when I was there, where every person that
entered the program finished the program. And during the twenty
two years I was there, we had four hundred and
seventy five men and women who went through our residential program.
Speaker 2 (24:09):
So here are pictures from Love and Action. Here. I'm
in the second row on the left, long hair, kind
of still a mullet.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
There are twenty one people in the photo John showing me.
John asked me if I wanted to know how many
of those twenty one eventually came out and embraced.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
Being gay seventeen eighteen Eighteen of twenty one people eventually
embraced homosexuality eighteen of twenty one, and that was just
one year.
Speaker 4 (24:42):
Back.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
In my first year, as we began the Steps Out
of Homosexuality program, our time and Love and Action was
pretty regimented. We each had a job to pay for
the program itself, and then.
Speaker 7 (24:55):
A typical week we start Sunday morning that would go
to church. They would oftentimes have some kind a home
group or a Bible study or a Sunday School class
that they would also attend, which was more relationally connected
to the church.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
We would get up at some point and introduce ourselves
to the congregation, and the congregation completely embraced us.
Speaker 7 (25:16):
Monday night they have a group study. Tuesday night they'd
have a Bible study at someone's home. Wednesday night was
their family meeting in the house. Thursday night was a
book study, and Friday night was an open time.
Speaker 2 (25:30):
Everything was about the Steps Out and learning and following
the program. Twice a week we'd go into the Love
and Action Office for class and it was lesson plans
under the covering of here are the Steps out and
away from homosexuality. So we would go and let's say,
(25:53):
for example, the topic was idolatry, Well I do all
Tree was worshiping anything other than God and anything in
life could become an idol to you. In our case,
many times it was the male form or the male physique,
(26:14):
which could be an idol or an idol could be
worshiping sex or physical intimacy with a man, emotional intimacy
of a sexual nature with men.
Speaker 3 (26:27):
And how did you surrender? What would that take?
Speaker 2 (26:30):
Oftentimes you would get in a circle and you would
sit in the middle of it in a chair, and
it would be through prayer, and you would bow your
head and they would gather around you and put lay
their hands on you, on your shoulders and your head,
and you would relinquish whatever your idol was to God
(26:52):
and ask him to fill that empty space and to
take away that idol in your life.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
Men were to be men and women were to be
women in the most stereotypical way at points in love
and action. Clothing was controlled. You couldn't work alone, women
had to carry a purse.
Speaker 7 (27:13):
The sobriety was the focus. Sobriety from anything gay, anything
associated with it. And so, of course we had a
lot of rules in place that helped to create that environment.
No pornography and nothing that related to gay relationships, nothing
that related to gay culture, nothing that related to secular culture.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
You weren't allowed to watch TV because homosexuality could visually
creep in. You were not allowed to associate with anybody
on the outside pretty much anybody, but especially if they
were gay or lesbian. If you engaged in any kind
(27:56):
of sexual activity, that was grounds for immediate dismissal.
Speaker 7 (28:02):
But we also believed that homosexuality was not created in
the person. We believed it was created psychologically or sociologically.
Speaker 2 (28:13):
This was the crux of the message. If you can
find the cause, you can find a fix.
Speaker 7 (28:20):
And so we worked a lot reviewing our family history,
doing timelines, doing family systems theories to see where the
flaws were because we believed we could find the broken areas,
that those could be healed, those could be reconciled, pulling
the power away from the same sex drivenness. That was
our theory. That's what we functioned out of.
Speaker 1 (28:43):
What were the kind of things that you at that
point believed could be a root or cause.
Speaker 7 (28:51):
Well, when we looked at child development theories from our
perspective at that time, because we believed at the base
that homosexual ruality came out of dysunction. So when we
looked at that particular aspect, we thought, well, okay, if
a young boy grows up and he doesn't have a
healthy development of his gender, meaning during puberty, he doesn't
(29:14):
have a healthy association with other boys, other men, with
his dad, then it creates a void, and that void
is something that creates a search to fill it. When
an adolescent reached puberty. We believe the hormones then would
attach to the broken places, the places that are unmet needs,
(29:37):
creating a sexual desire out of that unmet need. For women,
we believed it was primarily out of sexual abuse that
most lesbians were sexually abused. Therefore, the hated men couldn't
connect well to men, say, to look to each other
for a comforting place, for resolution, for association with something
that seemed to be meaningful. And we ever really left.
Speaker 1 (30:01):
That there is no scientific evidence to show causation between
abuse and homosexuality, but John and his classmates had to
find a cause to focus on a reason. Casey Pick
from the Trevor Project says that going over and over
traumatic events true or not, is a dangerous practice taught
(30:23):
by people who aren't trained.
Speaker 8 (30:26):
There is no standard of care or protocol, so effectively,
these people who are operating at the fringes of mental
health are making stuff up. They are rooting it in
outdated and debunked theories, and so what you wind up
with is somebody who keeps digging and digging and digging
(30:47):
into a traumatic experience, and while that doesn't do anything
to change their sexual orientation, it does re traumatize them.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
I spend a lot of time looking back at my childhood,
and when we went to visit my dad and stepmom,
Kate asked him what I was like when I was
a kid, and it stung to hear him describe me
as a child.
Speaker 5 (31:12):
John was different. I remember him sitting on the floor
in front of the radio, just kind of rocking back
and forth, listening to the music, which in itself wasn't different,
but there was just a sense of him being searching
for something different in his life.
Speaker 2 (31:34):
I haven't been able to shake that since I heard
him say that. It like visits me all the time,
and I thought, how sad for him that he missed
out on all the wonders that could have been between us.
But then again, my dad was so young. He was
(31:56):
twenty one. So I'm able to look at my dad
now with eyes of compassion, and I don't hold those
things against him, although hearing that it did hurt.
Speaker 5 (32:12):
I was a weekend father from when John was I
don't know what, age eight or nine or something like that.
I never missed weekends with my children. It was very
important to me. But I wasn't part of his daily
life for so much of his growing up. Really didn't
(32:35):
know John through his teenage years into early adulthood.
Speaker 2 (32:42):
My dad used to love to take Vicky, my sister,
and I to parks. Then there was this particular park
called the Park of Roses, and he took us out.
We were playing and on the jungle gym, and at
the end of the afternoon, he knelt down on the
ground and he very tenderly said, I'm not going to
(33:10):
be living with you anymore. It was like my security
walked out the door. Because my dad has always been
very steady, very stable, no highs or lows, very constant,
(33:32):
very consistent, and my mother was raging, narcissistic, alcoholic, and
with his departure, it just I felt lost. My mom
is no longer with us. She died in nineteen ninety seven,
and she changed a lot by then. But during my
(33:55):
childhood it was my mom who I lived with, and
things weren't easy. Alongside newman arriving in my life via
her relationships, there was her drinking to contend with. I
felt like my mother's caretaker. My needs, they weren't even acknowledged.
They were completely invisible.
Speaker 5 (34:20):
When I was remarried and had two young children, my
second wife was very protective of those children. And John
was having problems apparently in his living situation, and he
asked to meet with me. He put on a suit,
(34:40):
or at least a sport coat, and he met with
me and asked if he could come live with me.
I spoke with my second wife and she was not
for that, and I had to tell John no, and
that was a very difficult thing for me to do.
Speaker 2 (34:58):
So I was to stay with my mom, and at home,
she'd found another fixation. My mother was so obsessed with
her piano. We were not to interrupt her. What mother
would stop what she's doing and greet you when you
walk in the door after school, you know, and it
(35:19):
just reinforced you're not important. But at the same time,
I held my mother on a pedestal an hour after hour,
I would listen to her play. I had her songs
so memorized I could tell if she hit a wrong note.
Yet it was my mother I went to When things
(35:41):
at school got worse. I was diagnosed age ten with
ADHD and dyslexia, which was enough to make an isolated
child film more alone. And on the long journey back
from a school field trip in eighth grade, I was
sat next to a boy from cal and I unintentionally
(36:01):
gave the bully something else to torment me with. I
had fallen asleep and my head leaned over and I
was resting on his shoulder, completely unaware I was asleep,
and someone took a picture of that, And it was
(36:23):
at that time that I first heard the word homosexual
being thrown at me. From that day forward, I was
picked on for being something that I didn't even know
what it was. I was being called gay and a faggot,
(36:48):
and a sissy and a queer. But I remember going
home one afternoon and saying, can you tell me what means?
And you know, this is one memory of my mom
(37:09):
being very tenderhearted with me. She said, you know, it
means you're different. She said, all the most brilliant, wonderful
people in the world have been different. And she said
(37:31):
being different is good, but at love and action, looking
back at our childhoods and finding something to blame was key.
There was a list of things to look into. My
relationship with my parents. I'd seen pornography at an early age.
My mom had a string of terrible relationships, bringing men
(37:54):
in and out of my life throughout my childhood. And
so what I was being taught felt like it made sense.
I could point at things in my history and say, yes,
that's it. I fit this program. Like if there was
a questionneer of ten things these things made you gay?
I would fit ten out of ten based on what
(38:15):
they were laying out. I guess also, we were running
the risk of being just indoctrinated by these theories. These
commonalities amongst us as men were so overwhelmingly similar that
it was uncanny. We all seemed to just fit into
(38:38):
this you know, puzzle of where our homosexuality came from? When,
what the origins were.
Speaker 1 (38:45):
This process of looking back at childhood and childhood trauma
is very typical of conversion therapy and the X gay movement.
It reminds me a bit of horoscopes or personality tests.
It's accurate enough, you say that's me but broad enough
that so does everyone else. And let's be honest, pretty
(39:07):
much everyone had something not great happen in their childhood,
certainly anyone seeking help because they're unhappy. So when you
make those categories broad enough, it strikes me that anyone
can pinpoint something that the so called therapist can focus on.
Speaker 2 (39:26):
And you see, the thing is, there's got to be
somebody to blame. There has to be somebody who's responsible
for causing this. Finding out the roots of your own
homosexuality was of paramount importance because if you couldn't, you
(39:50):
couldn't change.
Speaker 1 (39:52):
Casey from the Trevor Project says, these ideas cause immeasurable hurt.
Speaker 8 (39:58):
A person's sexual orientation or gender identity really is something
that is as much a part of who that person
is as the color of their skin, the hand that
they used to write. It's not chosen. But by pressuring
and shaming someone to try to suppress that, to change it,
(40:19):
what ultimately results is a feeling of deep frustration, shame, isolation,
and so often because of the nature of the theories
that go into this kind of so called therapy, the
idea that it was an absent father, an overbearing mother,
(40:41):
conversion therapy causes deep rifts and pain within families.
Speaker 2 (40:46):
Later, when I was deeper into the movement, my dad
came to visit.
Speaker 5 (40:50):
As he introduced me to different i'd say executives, people
of note, it was always the same. I noticed a
very cold aloof reaction on their part to meet John's father,
and I ascribed this to the fact that if there's
(41:10):
a god, there must be a devil for there to
be a competing influence, and that if John was gay,
it had to be me.
Speaker 1 (41:21):
I asked Norman how he looked past.
Speaker 5 (41:23):
That I experienced it and then moved on. There was
nothing in ad no impact in my life. It's just
something I experienced and noted, and that's why it appeared
to me.
Speaker 6 (41:38):
When I saw this sort of thing happening with Norman
with my husband, I was very angry about it. I thought,
that's so unfair for any father to automatically be the
person who is blamed for a child being gay. I mean,
(41:59):
to me, that's how I looked at it, and I
was very angry at the fact that my husband would
be put in that position.
Speaker 2 (42:08):
There was a point during the residential year that I
went back and looked at the letters my dad had
written to me over the years.
Speaker 5 (42:15):
Dear John, for a long time, there's been an unspoken
tension between us. Some of this was bound to arise
since neither of us have made much effort to maintain communication.
I'm making an effort to change that from my end.
If there are other reasons on your part, I would
like to see them slip away. If part of the
(42:39):
problem is that you think I don't care, then put
that feeling aside. I do care. You are carrying a
burden because you have not chosen to tell me that
you are gay, and I would like to address that.
It's not necessary for a son to have approval from
a father to be able to go forward with life.
(43:00):
What does make a difference is that two people accept
each other with individual rights, ambitions, and choices. I accept
you as an individual. You are your own man, but
you are still my son. All I ask is your
acceptance and return. We don't have to be the same
(43:20):
kind of men to love each other. I love you.
Don't let bitterness about your life interfere with living it.
Love Dad, Come.
Speaker 2 (43:31):
On, come on leave that. Who writes letters like that?
When I read that letter originally, I didn't hear love.
I believed he didn't really care. I was pointing a finger.
Later I reread and saw what I couldn't before. Well,
my god, my dad's left me all these years.
Speaker 5 (43:53):
And been there.
Speaker 2 (43:54):
Why didn't I see that?
Speaker 5 (43:58):
I have all the letters John wrote to me, I
just don't know where they are.
Speaker 2 (44:06):
As time went on in the Love and Action House,
there were, of course times when people broke the rules.
They fell, as we'd put it, into sinful behavior. They
were all about confessing your sins to one another that
you may be healed. You know, it was so based
on shame. You ran the risk of being dismissed if
(44:31):
you all were honest about what you did. It was
also your thoughts were sinful, So if you thought erotically
about men, even the object of your desires were sinful
as well, and you had to tell the leadership. People
(44:52):
like John Smid.
Speaker 7 (44:53):
The Christian movement leads heavily in terms of the confessional
one way or the other, and the confessional does nothing
usually but bring even more shame. And oh boy, do
I wish I could go back over those four hundred
and seventy five people and have a completely different program
for every one of them, how much better life would
(45:14):
have been for them.
Speaker 2 (45:16):
There's an irony. I think of taking a group of
gay men or lesbian women and having them live in
a house together to try and be straight. I felt
and saw it. John Smid did too.
Speaker 7 (45:28):
One of the big big issues was what we called
emotional dependency, and that was if a person became emotionally
attached so much that their entire focus was on that person.
That was one of the hardest things for us to
deal with because we didn't know how to separate the
emotional attraction from the relationships. We didn't know how to
(45:49):
break that, and we'd call it being on level. And
being on level meant that you couldn't talk to this person,
you couldn't walk next to this person, you could sit
next to them in a class. You had to say
separate yourself, which must have been horrifically terrible for these
people to go through. We didn't know what else to
do with it, and we certainly didn't understand that what
(46:11):
the attraction that was there was absolutely totally natural for them.
But when we separated it, it just made it worse,
It made it stronger, it made it harder.
Speaker 2 (46:24):
I have firsthand experience of exactly what John Smith describes.
My first day at Love and Action, I met a guy.
He was from Toronto, Canada, and like we instantly fell
in love. Within the first week, we were French kissing
and making out with each other. And that whole first
(46:50):
year we were very much in love with each other,
but we were separated, which they say made it easier.
It didn't. The end of my oh my gosh. At
the end of that first year, he ended up flying
back to Ohio, where I was from, and we spent
(47:11):
two weeks together, and then we went up to Toronto
to meet his family and we had sex, and I
that's something that I think I have buried all this time.
And I remember having to say goodbye to him, and
he gave me his robe to take with me. Having
(47:37):
to say goodbye to him was excruciatingly painful. He took
me to the airport and I couldn't get out of
the car. I couldn't let go of him, and then
I had to leave and he didn't continue on with
(48:00):
his quest to be x gay. I had his robe
and I took it back to California with me, and
I would go into my closet and hold that robe
and smell it, and I could smell his fragrance, and
I remember just like holding it like a dear treasure.
(48:22):
I'd wrap it in my arms, that robe and smell him.
And I talked about this to my roommate who was
the leader. He said, well, you need to throw that away.
You have sultie with that. You need to have that
soul tie broken, and he prayed for me to have
that soul tie broken. I didn't want to throw that
(48:43):
robe away. That was my last connection with this person.
But I was a dutiful, obedient little man, and I
remember throwing that robe away and I never saw him again.
(49:07):
I changed a lot through the year long residence, but
my desire to leave my homosexuality behind was stronger than ever.
By now I was calling myself x gay. That became
our label. So we weren't gay, we were ex gay.
That was an identity that I clinged to with my life,
(49:28):
and I was very comfortable saying I am ex gay.
One reason being that after that first year in love
and action in my experience with the Canadian man, I
didn't have sex with a man for twenty five years.
My behavior certainly changed, but the deep desires and longings
(49:54):
were always there in one degree or another. However, I
embarked on on a journey that I never looked at
gay erotic material. I wasn't affectionately involved with men. You know,
you're living day to day to day with the thoughts
of you're not doing this, you're getting away from it,
you're celibate. You know, you've committed yourself to God and
(50:17):
living a holy life and living by his rules. Things
do start to change. And I think a very good
question that someone could have is, yeah, but does that
mean you've really changed, haven't you? You've never really changed inside?
Anybody can change their behavior? Well, no, not anybody can.
This was not an easy thing to do.
Speaker 7 (50:37):
John has never been anything but gay. I mean everything
about him. He's just always been a gay man. And
but he really tried hard not to be, you know,
he really really did. And his motivation was his relationship
with God. Mine was my fear of God. John's was
(50:59):
his love of God. It was a distinct difference, and
he still feels that way today. You know, he still
has a deep love for God.
Speaker 2 (51:10):
On December thirty first, nineteen eighty eight, I successfully completed
my residential year at Love and Action. I'd taken the
steps as to fined in the Steps Out of Homosexuality program,
so I stayed. I entered leadership training. I became an
assistant house leader. Over the next few years, I climbed
(51:30):
the ranks. As a child, my mom had put me
into kids' theater school, I played Charlie and You're a
Good Man Charlie Brown, and I had a lead in
Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor dream Coat. I did TV
commercials too, and in the X gay world. These were
praised skills ones that make a leader. It's not that
(51:53):
I ever thought in my conscious mind I was performing
and faking it, but that was mixed in there somewhere.
I have been accused through the years of being a
total fake and a phony, or my entire life was
a lie. I've even said that myself. But there's truth
(52:18):
mixed in. There's nuances, you know, throughout life, and so
you could live at one level up here. I was
living as this celibate X game man, towing the line,
you know, believing in the company message, and starting to
give talks on my own audiences, share my quote unquote
(52:39):
testimony or my story. Who are you going to promote
I was no shrinking violet, so I was in deep.
I was asked to be the administrator of the Love
and Action Office, and that's where I went. This office
was shared by the umbrella organization of Love and Action
(52:59):
called Exodus International.
Speaker 1 (53:02):
Exodus International no longer exists, but for nearly forty years,
it was a non profit group of individual ministries that
did what Love and Action did, basically an evangelical umbrella
to connect organizations that believed in conversion therapy and the
idea that it was possible to change your sexuality. Exodus
(53:23):
was huge. At one point, it had offices on five continents.
At its peak, it included over two hundred and fifty
ministries in North America and had over one hundred and
fifty ministries in seventeen other countries.
Speaker 2 (53:39):
They had a conference that they held every single year
in various locations where hundreds and hundreds of people would
come to a five day conference from these ministries all
around the nation, all with the common purpose under the
Exodus umbrella of supporting that homosec Shwadi was a changeable condition.
(54:02):
When you see hundreds of people standing in an auditorium
worshiping God all from the background that you had, it
only reinforced that what we were doing was right. So
Exodus started taking on a pre eminent place in my
life and the direction that I would later go in.
(54:29):
But first I needed something I'd wanted my whole life,
something that symbolized to me what I thought of as normal.
A gold wedding band. And Edward and I actually met
a year earlier at a Friday night support group where
she was a worship leader. She was looking to become
an ex lesbian and and I didn't hit it off.
(54:54):
I had a very strong nature and she had a
very strong, controlling nature. When I began the leadership program,
Ann entered her own residential year, and in my new
job at the Exodus office, we'd be working just around
the corner from each other, and the only way I
could get there was to carpool with Ann. Not ideal,
(55:18):
but when we would write to work together back and forth,
we actually got to know each other as people. We started,
I think, softening toward one another. During this time, I
started dating as an ex gay man. I dated girls
when I was at school before I ever came out,
(55:39):
and I'd always enjoyed the trappings of it, the romance
of it all. But now it was different. I was
dating with a purpose. I remember one day a group
of people, including Anne, praying over me, hands on my shoulders,
on my head, and I remember someone saying, Lord, we
(56:01):
just hope that you show John who the right woman
for him is. And I felt the Holy Spirit say
to me, it's Anne. It felt like definitive approval. I
remember our first date at a California restaurant with such fondness.
We would go in and we'd, you know, have pie
(56:23):
and coffee, and we would chit chat and chit chat,
and we were all excited, like when you first have
the blushes of a crush or love. And I remember
my pastor taking me out on a hike in the
mountains of Mount tamil Pius, and he sat me down
on a bench during the middle of this hike and
(56:46):
he said to me, you know, John, to get married
and live a successful heterosexual life, you don't have to
be attracted and fall in love to all women and
just one woman for you. For X gays, the way
(57:07):
it works is you first get emotionally connected to a
woman and you feel safe. And once you feel safe,
he went on you'll develop an emotional attachment, and as
time goes by, you'll start God will start bonding you together,
(57:30):
and a sexual attraction will flow out of that. And
he reassured me again the checklist isn't you have a
raging erection for every woman? Just one? And he would say, actually,
a woman is very lucky to have an ex gay
(57:52):
man as a husband, because he's never going to commit
adultery on her with another woman. I remember the first
time we kissed. I go back and tell people, and
you know, my friends, the congregation, they were all in
this with us.
Speaker 3 (58:12):
I'm wondering whether in that as well, there's a feelings
of accomplishment.
Speaker 2 (58:20):
It felt like I was going through adolescence all over again.
That's just what it felt like. And as a matter
of fact, that was one of the premises of love
and action, that if you get to that place, you
will experience adolescence all over again, in the right direction
this time. And so for me it was happening at
(58:41):
the age of twenty eight years old. Does that make sense?
Speaker 3 (58:45):
Two things I think are coming to my mind because
my instant reaction when you said going through puberty or
going through adolessons again is to think, were you broken
down to the point of having to rebuild? And then
(59:05):
secondly on whether it makes sense.
Speaker 8 (59:09):
Are you saying.
Speaker 3 (59:10):
That that's what you believed then or what you believe now.
Speaker 2 (59:15):
It's not at all what I believe now. I'm talking
about In the whole manufactured confines of this world I
was in, it was laid out that homosexuality was the
result one of the results of broken masculinity, damaged masculinity,
(59:41):
and so for your homosexuality to be arrested and for
heterosexuality to grow, you needed to work through all of
those things that you believe. You need to be around
heterosexual men, you need to feel comfortable with heterosexuality, the
trappings of all of those things. For women, you need
(01:00:02):
to grow your hair out, you need to wear a makeup,
you need to wear, you know, feminine clothing. And everybody
interpreted those things a little bit differently. I grew up
around very feminine, very glamorous women in my life, and
I wanted my wife to be that very same person,
(01:00:24):
you know, beautifully quaffed, manicured nails, high heels, full makeup.
That's the kind of women I personally was attracted to.
Speaker 7 (01:00:35):
What crosses my mind is how John reinvented Anne physically.
John Smith again, he helped her with hair and makeup
and clothing, and I believe that he believed what he
was doing was good. But I also remember thinking, you know,
John is a dominant force, and I'm concerned about the
(01:00:58):
dominance here, that he is trying to make his world
into what he needs it to be and needed to
fit that surrounding. I think John needed her to do
that because if we look at former pictures, which their
public and presentation changed dramatically, But of course we at
the time thought, well, Anne is learning more about her
(01:01:20):
own femininity, She's discovering and John is helping her do that.
Speaker 2 (01:01:26):
It was New Year's Eve nineteen ninety one that I proposed.
I planned the perfect night, gorgeous dinner followed by front
row tickets to hear Rosemary Clooney sing, and then we
walked over to the Palace of Fine Arts. I was
so nervous all I could do was giggle. Finally I
(01:01:46):
was able to get down on one knee and she
said yes. We drove back over the Golden Gate Bridge.
We went to where she lived and there was a
party waiting for us, with helium balloons, congratulations, because they
all knew what was going to happen.
Speaker 7 (01:02:05):
We celebrated a man getting married to a woman because
it was like a trophy. It was like, you've accomplished
something phenomenal.
Speaker 2 (01:02:15):
Oh my god, how could you have a bigger success story?
Given the backgrounds up to this point, there was no
one in common knowledge where a lesbian and a gay
man had changed and gotten married. No one knew even
any case where the situation was similar to ours, and
(01:02:39):
we kind of delighted in that, you know, talk about
a miracle. You both changed and you found each other.
I remember people would start saying to us, you know,
when the world finds out about this peculiar story, they're
going to want to hear about it. We had a
(01:03:04):
wedding to plan, one that would be the center point
of our whole ex gay and ex lesbian worlds. And
it was while we were engaged that the first phone
call from a TV show came. When I'd step into
the spotlight and be put under a microscope, He's.
Speaker 1 (01:03:22):
Like, you know, a car wreck, and if people can't
keep their eyes off him, he evokes a reaction he
did with me.
Speaker 2 (01:03:29):
I hated him. I hated young Paul because he was
very good at what he did.
Speaker 1 (01:03:35):
That's next time on Atonement, The John Polk Story. Atonement
is a production of iHeart Podcasts and gold Hawk Productions
in association with Mark's Media Co. For more podcasts from
iHeart Podcasts, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you get your podcasts.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Betrayal Season 5
Saskia Inwood woke up one morning, knowing her life would never be the same. The night before, she learned the unimaginable – that the husband she knew in the light of day was a different person after dark. This season unpacks Saskia’s discovery of her husband’s secret life and her fight to bring him to justice. Along the way, we expose a crime that is just coming to light. This is also a story about the myth of the “perfect victim:” who gets believed, who gets doubted, and why. We follow Saskia as she works to reclaim her body, her voice, and her life. If you would like to reach out to the Betrayal Team, email us at betrayalpod@gmail.com. Follow us on Instagram @betrayalpod and @glasspodcasts. Please join our Substack for additional exclusive content, curated book recommendations, and community discussions. Sign up FREE by clicking this link Beyond Betrayal Substack. Join our community dedicated to truth, resilience, and healing. Your voice matters! Be a part of our Betrayal journey on Substack.