Confess the Gay Away? Media, Religion, and the Political Economy of Ex-Gay Therapy
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Confess the Gay Away? Media, Religion, and the Political Economy of Ex-gay Therapy Michael Thorn A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY GRADUATE PROGRAM IN COMMUNICATION AND CULTURE YORK UNIVERSITY TORONTO, ONTARIO April 2015 ©Michael Thorn, 2015 ii Abstract The “ex-gay” movement does not encourage people to pray the gay away but confess the gay away. As a loose organization of mostly Christian ministries and psychotherapy practices that offers “freedom from homosexuality,” the movement offers religious and psychological confessions of sin and disease and testimonies of truth and belief as technologies of both self- sacrifice and identity formation. The aim is to control unwanted same-sex desire through life- long labour and struggle so as to sacrifice one’s gay or lesbian identity for an ex-gay identity. However, in the debate surrounding the movement, those opposed use confessions of trauma and harm, and testimonies of their own truth and belief, to try and sacrifice the movement in favour of gay and lesbian identities. Confession and testimony, then, which are two sides of the same coin, underlie the discourses and practices of all involved in ex-gay truth games. In the 1970s and 80s the ex-gay movement operated in the shadows of Christianity as an embarrassing secret. This dissertation analyzes the movement from the 1990s, when, in alliance with the Christian Right, it “came out of the closet” through a cross-platform advertising campaign that generated fifteen years’ worth of “earned media” in news and popular culture entertainment. By deploying an economic discourse of consumer choice, the movement hoped to justify itself as a legitimate form of religious and psychological intervention, but the Christian Right hoped to use it to encourage the repeal of legislation protecting gay rights. Those tactics backfired, resulting in a consumer fraud lawsuit, legislation banning conversion therapy for minors, and scathing critiques and satires in mainstream popular culture. Nevertheless, the movement has legitimized itself within its own conservative Christian communities. In this dissertation I show that limiting the ex-gay debate to commercialized and politicized concepts and strategies neglects the real problem at the heart of the controversy: the paradoxical use of confessions of self-renunciation and true-belief as technologies of self- emergence sacrifices the self to unstable and “fundamentalist” truth games; on both sides of the debate. The real problem is not whether ex-gay change is possible; the problem is confession itself, which encourages unyielding testimonies of fundamental beliefs from supporters and antagonists of the movement alike. Using a Foucauldian discourse analysis, I examine the confessional logic governing a wide range of media texts and statements, which are treated as events that seek to govern thought and behaviour in a broad sense: to influence, persuade, encourage, and convince people to govern themselves so they can govern others. I do not analyze ex-gay language itself, but trace how it functions and operates as discourse within the North American cultural wars. I analyzed the movement as a mediated cultural phenomenon currently constituted by cost-benefit calculations and marketing protocols but historically constituted by the psychological and religious governmentalities that pervade its thought and practices. iii Acknowledgements Dissertating is no walk in the proverbial tulips. It is an exhausting, lonely and often frustrating process. One sits, day after day, writing and writing, sending most of one’s work back to the cook for being half baked. Except, in this case, I was the cook, and sending half-baked food back to yourself just means it piles up on the floor next to you until it surrounds you and you cannot escape. Oh the humanities. Oh the social sciences. Thankfully I had a dissertation supervisor, Dr. Paul Moore, to whom I could also send my work. Were it not for Paul, who kindly pointed out that much of what I thought was half-baked was actually pretty good, and also nearly done, I may never have finished. Paul’s tireless efforts to keep me on track during moments of despair—and just as important, his efforts to get me back on track after I fell down multiple research rabbit holes—could not have been more appreciated. I also want to thank my committee members, Dr. Bruno Lessard and Dr. David Skinner, both of whom supported me during my writing with Teaching Assistant and Research Assistant work, and, when the time came, gave me invaluable feedback that helped me make the final sprint to defense. Additionally, I want to thank Bruno for introducing me to the work of Michel Foucault and guiding me to understand Foucault’s work holistically, as so much more than just one repeatedly cited chapter on the panopticon. Of great assistance also was Dr. Anne MacLennan, who, as Graduate Program Director, organized and led a dissertation boot camp that provided some much needed focus at a time when time and focus were difficult to find. For providing moral support and a community with which to stay connected while spending most of my long days locked in a basement apartment with my face buried in a computer screen I want to thank my friends, fellow volunteers, and people I met through the Metropolitan Community Church of Toronto. In particular, I want to thank Darin Squire for introducing me to my topic from an insider’s point of view, and I want to thank Adrian Borrmann for providing me his insight on the topic as well as invaluable tech support whenever my computer would revolt against my writing efforts. I would also like to thank Jonathan Mackereth and Robert Walker (and Adrian as well), for proofreading so much of my work, and Robert again for supporting me in person at my defense. Finally, I want to thank my pastor and friend, Rev. Dr. Brent Hawkes, not just for knowing when to ask how my writing was going and when not to ask, and not just for attending my defense to support me, but also for spending most of his life building the church community I could not have done without these last seven years. Thank you all. iv Table Of Contents Abstract .......................................................................................................................................... ii Acknowledgements ...................................................................................................................... iii Table Of Contents ........................................................................................................................ iv Introduction: Confess Thy Self? .................................................................................................. 1 Sacrificial Confessions of Self-Emergence and the Christian Ex-gay Movement...................... 6 Neoliberalism, Neoconservatism, and “True Believing” Fundamentalism .............................. 15 Describing an Analytic Approach and Method: A Governmental Discourse Analysis ............ 23 Providing an Original Contribution: a Political Economy of Ex-gay Communication ............ 32 Outlining the Chapters: From Confession to Political Economy and Back Again ................... 37 Chapter One: Confess the Gay Away? ..................................................................................... 41 A Brief History of the Christian Ex-gay Movement ................................................................. 45 The Problem of Desire: A Short Genealogy of Confession ...................................................... 51 Acts and Identity in the Discourse of Our True Sex ................................................................. 58 Confession, True Belief, and Identity Crisis in the Christian Ex-gay Movement .................... 64 The Governmentality of Biblical Psychology in Ex-gay Discourse ......................................... 77 The Straightjacket of Gay Rights and Pro-gay Confessions ..................................................... 85 The Science and Work of Confessing Sexuality: Biology, Fluidity, Struggle .......................... 89 Conclusion: Confession is Today’s Christian Work-Ethic ....................................................... 95 Chapter Two: What is the Cost of Truth and Confession? .................................................... 98 Ex-gay Advertising and Truth in Fraud .................................................................................. 100 Rational Choice and the Commodification of Sexuality through Supply and Demand ......... 107 Resisting Ex-gay Commodification through True Belief ....................................................... 113 Psychological Health Risks and Confessional Cost-Benefit Ratios........................................ 121 Heterosexual Entrepreneurs of the Self in a Psychologized Enterprise Culture ..................... 131 Ex-gay Neoliberalism Eats Itself: Consumer Fraud Versus True Belief ................................ 142 Conclusion: From Advertising Truth in Fraud to the Culture Wars ....................................... 151 Chapter Three: Neoconservatism and Ex-gays in the Culture Wars .................................. 157 Queer Political Economy and the Social Misarticulation of Desire........................................ 160 Neoconservatism, Neoliberalism, and the Culture Wars ........................................................ 166 v Matthew Shepard and Ex-gay Advertising in the