Series posted by Michael Kline (MKLINE@VDH), early 1993.

Understanding Homosexuality and Experiencing Genuine Change. John Ankerberg / Barry Pintar Show 2, Part 1

John: Welcome. Today you're going to hear from men and women who were in the homosexual lifestyle their entire life, but who came to understand what homosexuality is, turned away from it, and experienced real change. My guest in this studio today is Joe Dallas, American family counselor who specializes in counseling those struggling with homosexuality. He's an author, founder of the Genesis Counseling Center in southern Califor- nia, and also president of Exodus International, a coast to coast counseling ministry.

Joe, welcome to our program. I suppose in our society today that we're surprised to find out, many people who have homosexual feelings don't really want to have them. Now what about this?

Joe: We're going to take a look this time, John, at the stories of men and women who were motivated to change at some point in their lives even after they realized that they were homosexually oriented. Now I believe that there is almost always a natural aversion to homosexuality early in life. When most of these people found that they had homosexual desires, they were afraid, they were repulsed by them. But they struggled against them, couldn't seem to over come them, and finally reached a point where they said "Forget it, I'll join the gay community and get my affirmation there." But something happened. More often than not, the intervention of religious beliefs, a change of belief system, possibly a dissatisfaction with the gay lifestyle, led all of them to reevaluate whether or not homosexuality was really a viable option for them.

John: All right. You know for most of us, it's hard to imagine, the trauma of being a young teenager and feeling painfully different. So I'd like you watch a short dramatization of a 15 year old actor playing someone his own age, who is confused and scared to death.

Actor: Why? Why me? God, I'm so sorry. Sorry for what?!?! What did I do to deserve this?!? Why me? It's dirty, disgusting, I don't want these feelings. Please, take them away! What do I do now. What if my friends find out? What if my family finds out? Why won't You help me? It's not my fault, it's not my fault... It's NOT MY FAULT!

People say accept it. I don't want to accept it. But what else do I do? Live myself trapped in a lie? I feel so scared. So alone...

John: Now, Joe, as we watched that. We can't help but wonder, "What causes people to have homosexual feelings?" I know that you believe people are not BORN homosexual, so what causes these feelings?

Joe: We are all born with a set of emotional needs that have to be satisfied in a legitimate way or else they will seek satisfaction in illegitimate ways. They won't just go away.

From infancy, we have the need for bonding with both of our parents. For security, as men and women, we especially need early bonding with our parent of the same sex, boys need to be close to their fathers. Girls need to be close to their mothers. Because through those relationships, they become secure not only as people, but as specifically as male or female, through the acceptance and nurturing of the parent of the same sex.

We need emotional support from our peers, of the same sex, early in life. You'll notice the little boys and little girls tend to congregate together, before they begin to move on into adolescence and begin to interact via heterosexual relationships. Those normal needs for bonding early in life have often not been met in the lives of homosexual men and women.

Most of them, including them in the tapes we are looking at, were all feeling very cut off from members of their own sex early in life, and longing for some interaction with people of their own sex. That longing became stronger and stronger, and as they entered into the preadolescence phase, as their sexual feelings were developing, it seems as though the two became crossed, and what was once an emotional longing, has now become a sexual AND emotional longing, and that is the beginning of the homosexual condition.

------------------------------------------------------------------------- Understanding Homosexuality and Experiencing Genuine Change. John Ankerberg / Barry Pintar Show 2, Part 2

John: All right. Now the people that you're going to hear next in our video excerpts, grew up knowing only homosexual desires. You're going to hear them talk openly about how they discovered that they had these feelings, and how these feelings made them feel ashamed and frightened.

Barry: Few if any children or adolescents embrace their feelings of homosexuality. Frankly, most are scared to death, and it's anyone's guess where these feelings of fear will lead.

Jonathan: I couldn't got to ANYBODY. There was so much shame, as you said, the pain of it, and the confusion, like "I didn't chose this. I mean, where's this coming from?" It's coming from deep down. And nobody wants to listen. Then, "Well, I'm going to go where I get affirmation. I'm going to go to the gay bars. That must be who I am. Oh." And that's what happened to me, I thought. I finally to the point, nobody gave me a good answer, I wasn't a Christian yet, and nobody offered any help, and I though, "Well, fine. I've tried walking out heterosexuality, and I still got these feelings, and these feelings are powerful, and they're going to explode. I'm just going to go with that. I mean I must be GAY!"

Barry: Linda felt the same kind of aching need for affection. Her father was distant and unemotional. Her mother, spreading her attention upon 10 children.

Linda: In my own life, I've had a lot of childhood deficits, and for me it started early on, started early on, and the deficits.. (Barry: Now what does that mean, childhood deficit?) Deficit, childhood lacks. There were things in my childhood that I did not get from my parents. Love, affirmation. My father called me "Dum, dum." growing up, and I struggle to this day with myself, with my self esteem.

You know I think "Oh, I'm a dum, dum.", and even though I've gone to college and even though I have a degree, and I'm teaching. I still feel I'm not adequate. Because my whole life, my father called me dum, dum. Because my father didn't love me. He didn't put me up on his lap, or tell me stories, or hug me. I've never heard once from my parents that they loved me. Never, once, growing up. You know?

So I grew up with that lack of just needing to be loved. And men were not safe, because look what's happened to me here, therefore I need to get love from somewhere, and I found women who would just love me.

Diane: As I've seen a difference, the nurturance need for women is great in the lesbian lifestyle. There is much more of a need for nurtu- rance. And that's the mother's role, isn't it? And in being raise up. The mother's role is to nurture. The father's role is to take you out and to have you become a person in the world who is confident and secure with the opposite sex.

Now I didn't have either of those real strong. My mother nurtured me, she loved me, and I adored her, but it probably was not as much as I needed, given my temperament and given 5 children. My father was an absent father, and was not really there to show me how to be close to a guy.

Barry: Throughout this video we will be showing you examples of people like Greg and Jonathan and Linda and Diane, who have worked to pinpoint the roots of their homosexuality, so they can later go on to heal the source of their hurts.

John: Now Joe is it true that people who consider themselves to be homosexual really don't like having homosexual feelings?

Joe: Well, it's more prevalent than anybody realizes, John. There are many homosexuals who are completely satisfied with their lifestyle and their orientation and they're not going to seek change, but there are many others who are going to seek change. And these stories just point out to us how important it is that the church be prepared to deal with these people, because when they are dissatisfied with their homosexu- ality, they begin to look for normal relations that can satisfy some of the needs that got them into homosexuality in the first place.

------------------------------------------------------------------------- Understanding Homosexuality and Experiencing Genuine Change. John Ankerberg / Barry Pintar Show 2, Part 3

John: Next we're going to listen to two people talk about how they were molested or raped as children. Then we're going to ask Joe, how prevalent is child molestation among those who eventually turn to homo- sexuality, and how does it affect them?

Greg: My first recollection of sexual feelings happened during a sexual molestation of a man who was older than me who took me to bed some time around the age of 4 or 5. And interesting enough when I look back on the consequences, and anybody who studies anything about child sexual abuse knows that it does have some serious consequences, but I think that it happened to be tied in with the fact... When I look back on the sexual molest, I think that it had a tremendous impact upon me and my life because there were other deficits going on at the same time.

My father while he and my mother were married and he was in the home, he was very busy, he was young, he was hard working. He was emotionally very distant. And so there had never been any sense of warmth, connec- tion, or positive feelings between him and me, and I look back at the sexual molest and it was as if that were the first form of positive male affection I'd ever received.

Starla Allen: I had strict upbringing as I mentioned before, mom and dad instilled in me the virtues of chastity and wanted to give me defenses against men in the world who are out to hurt children and I took all of that in, and at the age of 12 was raped by a family friend, and what that did was take all of those messages that mom and dad were giving me to help protect me, and it said "Men were bad. Men were dangerous. You can't trust them. Don't be attracted to them, because look what's going to happen."

John: After watching that, Joe, how prevalent is child molestation among those who eventually turn to homosexuality, and how does it affect them?

Joe: Molestation is prevalent to a point. I certainly don't think that sexual molestation always creates homosexuality or that every adult homosexual has at some time been sexually molested. I can tell you that a good number, between 40 and 50% of the men that I've worked with have had sexual contact with adult men when they were children, and over 70% of the women that I have worked with who have struggled with lesbianism have been sexually violated when they were younger.

But, let's keep 2 things in mind, John. Number 1, as terrible as those molestations and violations were, they did not keep these people from reaching a point in life where they still wanted change. Number 2, let's remember that as devastating as a molestation can be, it does not necessarily determine future homosexuality.

Now the rule that it seems to have played in the lives of these men and women is that it reinforced ideas about themselves as either sexual objects for men, or as people who cannot trust men, and that played into the identity problems that they were already developing, so definitely molestation was, in these cases, a contributing factor, but not the only factor.

------------------------------------------------------------------------- Understanding Homosexuality and Experiencing Genuine Change. John Ankerberg / Barry Pintar Show 2, Part 4

Maks A new person, John Smid wanted to find the "one true man" of his dreams. His psychiatrist said it will never happen. "Monog- amy is NOT a fact of life in the homosexual community." he told John.

John: All right, next we are going to listen to these men and women talk about the reasons that they became dissatisfied with their homosex- ual orientation. And, Joe, what should our audience be listening for, that will help us understand why they turned to homosexual relationships in the first place, and then what caused them to want to change.

Joe: We should be looking for their statements about deficits and emotional needs versus sexual acts. Listen to how carefully they will say "It was some kind of a void I was trying to fill in these relationships. There was some sort of an emptiness that I was looking for my partner to fill in me." This just reiterates the idea that the homosexual condition is not a choice. Now, acting on it, is certainly a choice that they may have made, but the condition itself was not chosen, it was the result of earlier emotional conflicts that eventually became sexual conflicts and through the sexual activity, they sought to resolve them.

John: Alright, well let's listen to their stories.

Barry: Why leave this lifestyle that was okay for you, that you were in for as long as you remember? Why leave the homosexual lifestyle? You were getting needs met there?

Linda: The homosexual lifestyle is fun, you know, but after a while it also gets draining. It gets draining 'cause when I was involved in lifestyle, I was so enmeshed with other women. My whole life. They became my whole life and when they would leave me, when we'd break up, I'd be devastated. Totally devastated, to the point, one time I even attempted suicide, because it's like this whole thing has got me by the throat and it won't let me go.

John Smid: I decided at a point homosexuality is what I wanted. I divorced my wife, went into the lifestyle completely, living in a gay society, a gay apartment building. I knew that homosexuality was every- thing I had dreamed for. The only thing that came into that was that I was looking for the one man of my dreams, the one man I could live with happily ever after. I didn't have an interest in sexual promiscuity. I didn't have an interested in playing the field. I just wanted one person.

One of the first men that I talked to at that point was a psycholo- gist. He told me "John, you will never accomplish that." and he'd been in the lifestyle for 10 years. He said "Monogamy is NOT a fact of life in the homosexual community." and I, in my rebellion, I didn't call it rebellion then, but I was fueled by rebellion to accomplish everything *I* WANTED, everything I DESIRED. I knew *I* would find the man of my dreams.

At that point in time I did find a couple of men. I had a couple of short medium length relationships. They both ended because my curiosity grew and I wanted someone else. So I ended the first relationship, meet- ing another man. That relationship ended in that person wanting someone else, so I was left on the string at that point, which is typical in our world today in heterosexual and homosexual relationships, but my emotions couldn't handle any more abandonment. I had suffered enough from abandon- ment, which caused me to get into a pretty heavily depressed state.

Well that started me on a daily prayer cycle. Daily praying "God get me out of this." That was my only prayer, just "GOD GET ME OUT OF THIS." for 2 years I prayed. No one knew that I had a desire to leave the lifes- tyle. None of my homosexual friends, none of my family members, none of my new founded, couple of Christian friends knew that I wanted to be set free.

Starla: But I chose to protect myself, in a way that I knew best how to do that, and that was to not be under a man's thumb, and to not be a weak woman, and to definitely not trust men. But there was a need for love. There was a need for connection, so I had pretty much limited my options, and I began to find that women could be very understanding. They could connect at some of those emotional levels. They could be trusted. And as I went through high school, and into early college, I got caught up with some of the feminist things that were going on at that time and the myths said, the MYTHS said, that women understand women better, women make better lovers with women. There's just more communication, more con- nection that can go on.

And I ate it up, and got into a relationship, with a woman that involved, you know, on going sexual contact. That was for about 5 years, and I won't lie to you and say that it wasn't exciting. In the beginning, first 2 to 2-1/2 years it was wonderful. It was like you fall in love and there is euphoria, and everything was great. And at the end of the first 2-1/2 years, the mutual neediness kind of set in. There was a little more selfishness. There was a little more accusation of you're not meeting my needs, so there was more fighting.

Toward the end of the 5 years of that relationship, what I found hap- pening was that we were growing farther and farther apart, and when the one woman of my life began having a relationship with another man, I was devastated. I couldn't hold men. I couldn't hold the one woman that I loved. I was feeling pretty useless.

Jonathan: Well I had friends. After I became a Christian, I thought "I'm a gay Christian." I had still not met anybody who had made that real change in their life. And so I just went and got into gay relationships and finally I thought "This is not healthy. This isn't working either. I can't even share the Lord with them for some reason."

But I remember saying to God one time, one day, "Lord, look. I'M WILLING TO BE MADE WILLING THAT THIS IS WRONG. To be shown this is wrong. You're gonna really have to come up with something really good, 'cause it's still there."

Maks I don't hear this from those on the list, but if they are not looking for help, then they won't find it. This comes in the next series though...

------------------------------------------------------------------------- Understanding Homosexuality and Experiencing Genuine Change. John Ankerberg / Barry Pintar Show 2, Part 5

John: Now, Joe, what do you want our audience to remember from what they've heard today?

Joe: Let's remember that everything we've heard in these stories today confirms everything I'm learning while I'm training for a counsel- ing license in California, and that is that homosexuality is not in born. That it is the result of many early conflicts in childhood or early adolescence that have come together and evolved into a sexual condition, not chosen of course, a condition. That at some point the person with that condition may act on it, reinforce it, and become entrenched in the homosexual lifestyle, but thank God at some point that person is also called out of the gay lifestyle, into something better.

Now as we're going to be seeing in next week's program, these men and women reached a point where they felt God had called them into a differ- ent way of relating, a better way. We can look at some of the steps that they needed to take to overcome their homosexual behavior, and to learn a different way of responding sexually and emotionally both to men and women.

John: To the person who's listening, that is fighting those exact feelings and hasn't told anybody, what hope would you offer to them?

Joe: Take heart from the story of Greg, Diane, Jonathan, Linda, people who understand exactly what you may be going through, who've been through that journey themselves and can tell you firsthand "Hey, there is a way out."

John: As we close our program today, I'd like to thank emmey award winner Barry Pinter, for giving us permission to use excerpts from his new documentary, "Understanding Homosexuality and the Reality of Change." It's available from Impact Resources.

Now, what have we seen today? Well, we've seen that people are not born gay, rather legitimate needs for parental love and proper relation- ships with friends of the same sex that go unmet, can lead people into trying to meet their needs in the wrong way, that is in same sex rela- tionships.

For Christians, the standard of right and wrong is given by God, and it's revealed in the Bible. And God very plainly says that heterosexual sex, between a man and woman, in marriage, is where we will find God's blessing, and the fulfilling relationship that we seek. Homosexuality is a sin. It is a choice to try and fulfil our needs in a way contrary to God's design for human relations.

If we have been neglected, or missed out on proper love and guidance in our childhood. If we have never experienced the rich bonding friend- ships with parents or members of our own sex, God wants us to trust Him and believe that it's possible to establish such relationships. He invi- tes us to ask for His help as we set out to find the true sexuality He has spoken about.

Now the church should not shun those who struggle with this sexual disorder, but be willing to lovingly and understandingly help restore them to healthy male and female identities, and full relationships.

You know our goal in these programs it to help you understand how homosexuality develops and to convince you that true change is possible. Now next week, in our third program, you will hear men and women describe the steps that they took to overcome their homosexual orientation, and what part Jesus Christ played in changing their lives.