Setting the record straight on Love in Action (pun intended)

Three years ago, I found myself on a plane headed to Memphis, Tennessee. Perhaps the last place I would have ever thought I’d end up, but I was going to begin three months of residence at Love in Action. A rudimentary search on Love in Action will yield little information other than being denounced by people who never went through the program, negative accounts by men and women who went through the program and the vague “finding freedom through the power of Jesus Christ” motto on their official website. Anyone who knows of Love in Action will quickly ask me what it was like once they find out I came out of that program in April of 2007.

Love in Action started out in San Francisco in 1973 by a man named Frank Worthen. Worthen lived as a homosexual in San Francisco during the 60’s and 70’s but had since become a Christian and left the homosexual lifestyle. He recorded a tape sharing his story of freedom from homosexuality and placed an ad in a local gay magazine offering the tape to anyone who inquired. He received 60 replies and began a Bible study at his church geared solely for men and women struggling to come out of homosexuality and eventually wrote a book. Eventually, men and women began showing up at his door step with luggage in hand asking for help. They had read his book or heard his tape and wanted out too. They left their homes, friends and jobs with a one way ticket to San Francisco in hopes that this man could help them come out. Not wanting to turn them away and quickly realizing the need for housing, Worthen opened up a house where they all could live while they were walking away from homosexuality. Thus, Love in Action became the first residential program in the United States geared specifically to help men and women come out of homosexuality. By 1992, John Smid took over the ministry from Worthen and in 1994 moved Love in Action from San Francisco to Memphis, Tennessee. There they met with local recovery group leaders and implemented a more holistic, structured recovery curriculum which included the “12-steps,” support groups, daily teaching and weekly meeting with lay counselors who had walked out of homosexuality themselves. Eventually, they opened up the ministry for those struggling with any form of sexual addiction, but it still remained primarily a ministry for overcoming homosexuality.

Since then, some of the men and women who have gone through the program have come out against it. Some have gone as far as to say that they have done irreparable harm, and called for the ministry to be shut down. They have been protested against, maligned by the media and parodied in movies such as “But I’m a Cheerleader.” And though I cannot dismiss the claims of detractors, I find the silence of those who benefitted from Love in Action strangely alarming. Not because there are so few, but because there are so many! I still stay in contact with most of the men and women I was in program with and they run the gamut. some may be in the lifestyle but they don’t hate Love in Action, they simply moved on. One is still friends with his counselor even though he has claimed a gay identity, and many have just assimilated back into their daily lives having been empowered to live a life according to their convictions. Here’s my story:

I went to Love in Action on February 5, 2007 having signed up for three months. I actually left the night before but it was superbowl sunday, and the superbowl was being held in Miami. Tickets leaving miami on Monday were very expensive while tickets that sunday were very cheap. So I left sunday and missed the superbowl. The Colts won that year, not so much this year. It was raining that year and I had a layover in Atlanta. My flight was delayed and so I missed my layover in atlanta and subsequently had to sleep in the airport which was not really happening. All in all, I had stayed up the whole night watching music videos on my laptop and superbowl commercials on youtube waiting for my next flight at 9am. When I finally reached Memphis and was picked up by the staff I knew this was going to be the start of defining moment for me. I reached the office and signed some wavers which stipulated whom the staff was allowed to give information on me, ie my mother, aunt whoever. Otherwise they will not deny/confirm your existence. they value the clients privacy.

They went through my luggage and took certain articles of clothing out. They took my Ramones T-shirt, a hot topic t-shirt I had, my little skinny punk rock ties, my skull and cross-bones belt... apparently they were false images. I didn’t understand it then, but they were right. I had worked so long to be different and stand out that it had become a false image. I had lost the real me. I portrayed a tough punk rock persona in hopes that people would think I was cool and would like me, but really that wasn’t me. I learned the full extent of the false image I was presenting when on a special trip to starbucks with the other clients I ordered a drink. I stepped up to the counter and ordered a “Decaf, Half Shot, Tall, Extra-Caramel, No whip, Caramel Affogato, Vanilla Bean Frappucino Blended Creme.” The thing is, I don’t even like coffee! I was confronted by one of the other clients who said “Frank, you don’t have to order a fancy drink for us to like you... we like you because of who you are not what you drink or what you wear.” Since then I’ve ordered a tall Calm tea. I learned its ok to have blue hair, or punk rock ties or skull and cross bones if you really like them. Some people really are into that stuff... but its not ok if you lose yourself in them, if you wear them as a costume to play a part... I still have those punk rock ties, and I still have that belt and that shirt, but interestingly enough I found I like wearing long sleeve oxfords with jeans.

That first day, they told me I was to be on sanctuary. Sanctuary is a step every client goes through in which you’re not allowed to speak for the first three days or so. It may be extended as in my case, but I’ve not seen it extended past a week. I couldn’t keep my mouth shut, and it was obvious the first couple of days that rebellion would play a big role in my stay there. I’ve heard some accuse that forbidding one to speak like they did at Love in Action is a tool of brainwashing. Perhaps. Perhaps I needed to be brainwashed. Perhaps I had become so ingrained in my destructive life patterns that I needed to be washed of that... but no, its not brainwashing. It was a tool, it was meant to free me from the impulse of making sure everyone liked me, free me from taking control of the group, free me to have time to myself where I can take everything in.

That night, I arrived at the house I was staying in. we sat at the dinner table, shared some praises and prayer about our day and bonded. I went to my bed and fell soundly asleep. It had been about 30 some hours I had been awake in total so I was dead tired. But before I fell asleep I remember breathing a sigh of relief and thinking “wow, I really made it. I’m finally safe.” I didn’t have to hide anymore, I didn’t have to worry about people rejecting me for being tempted with homosexuality, and I didn’t have to worry about people labeling me something I didn’t identify with. I could be totally honest about everything, and they could handle it. I was safe.

there was no seances, no electro-shock therapy or lobotomies. Here is what a typical week looked like:

On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays we woke up to go to the Gym. We hated it, at least most of us did. My friends and I typically got away with playing wally-ball... a sort of indoor volleyball. We thought it was silly, and would have preferred to sleep, but hey exercise is good right?

There were schedules for everything. Every night two clients had to cook dinner for the house. There was a recipe book and rotation for every 28 days. People made fun of the food, some was good, some were not so great, hit or miss but hey, it was food. If we wanted to go anywhere like target or kmart to pick some stuff up on the weekends, we had to fill out a form, formally requesting permission to go to these places. Fridays we watched a movie, which had to be requested as well, and saturdays we had game night (I totally ruled at RISK.) Saturday mornings was “stewardships” ie Chores.

It wasn’t all fun though, there was alot of hard personal work to be done. I was made to take long hard looks at myself, something I couldn’t stand to do very often or for very long periods of time. It was all theraputic. Like when I had to look at myself in the mirror and compliment myself. I couldn’t do it. I broke down. I was so filled with self hatred, and they helped me over come it. I had to look at my relationships back home to see which were healthy and which were not. Which I had to cut, which I could keep and which I should work on. I had to work on my sense of entitlement, rebelliousness, pride, trust, anger and self esteem. All this was done in an environment of love. As hard as any one of my assignments was, as hard as any of the challenges they gave me were, the staff made sure I knew they loved me.

By the end of the three months I had become comfortable there. I had the opportunity to extend my stay another three months, or I could go back home. I had never been loved like they loved me at Love in Action, I wanted to stay. The relationships and challenges that awaited me at home seemed too daunting to face I just wanted to run away and stay at Love in Action. I filled out an application to extend my stay, and was denied. They could have extended my stay and taken my money. Perhaps I would have learned a little more had I stayed for 3 more months... but they understood I would benefit more from going back home than I ever would retreating into the safe world of Love in Action.

I came back and I was a changed person. I carried myself differently, I thought differently, became a man of greater restraint and was generally more comfortable letting others get to know the real me. I took risks and developed friendships like I had never had before. I moved out of my mothers house within a month and entered the world of adults. I went back to school to study Psychology and Political Science. By all accounts, going to Love in Action made me a better person not a lesser one. Some portrayals in media or the blog-o-sphere would have you believe that someone going into the program is sure to come out socially inept, sucking their thumb and retreating into a fetal position for the rest of their lives. This hasn’t been my experience or that of any of the clients I’ve come to know over the years. I can’t account for those horror stories which seem to be the majority on the internet but the minority in real life. I can only add my voice and say I was different, and those I know were different.