Homosexuality is a ‘distortion caused by Satan’ – Open Democracy
After a while, the pastor arrives and greets me silently with a smile. It makes me feel uncomfortable, to say the least, but I try to stay composed.
She carefully reads through my answers, then asks blatantly if I was abused as a child. I say “no”. She is quick to respond: “One of the things I have found in some people who have these problems is masturbation. Masturbation and pornography.”
The pastor says that she “treats” homosexuality as a personality disorder or an addiction.
“It involves the same thing, the destruction of the self,” she says. She adds that most gay people “use drugs” and asks me to read out Romans 1:24–32, biblical verses condemning homosexuality. I comply. “They know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death,” one passage reads. My stomach churns.
She is quite clear about the implications of my “sin” – being attracted to other men – and explains that if I have had any “sexual relations with another man”, my body is “contaminated”.
The pastor also claims that probably I was conceived after my parents “watched pornography” and therefore I was “born tainted”. But, if there are other LGBTIQ people in a family, there is a greater chance that others will be LGBTIQ people too, she adds.
“Satan is coming,” she says, “and he touches a member of the family and then goes to the people who come next. He will not allow this chain to break.”
The session lasts more than an hour. At the end, she offers a diagnosis: I suffer from a “distortion caused by Satan” that makes me go against God’s creation. At this point, I’m not sure whether to laugh or cry.
However, she adds, these “practices” can be beaten, and she promises to stand by me as I undertake the journey to repress my sexual orientation. “With God’s help you are leaving this behind, you are going to have a normal home. You are going to marry a woman. You are young; you will be able to have children and raise them well.”
She suggests praying, listening to Christian music and studying the Bible, and avoiding other gay people, pornography and masturbation. I can’t help myself and ask which music bands she recommends.
She also says I should attend weekly sessions at her church and meet other people who have been through the same process and now have “normal” heterosexual lives.
The pastor then summons her assistant and another woman, who introduces herself as a “prophet” of the church. All three pray for my “healing” and “conversion”, the pastor’s voice rising as the minutes tick by. It feels quite intimidating.
“You will be free if you want to be,” the pastor says, looking in my eyes. “Do your part and God will do his.” She asks if I feel better. I don’t know what to say.
When the session is over, they offer me some coffee. I decline, saying I have an urgent appointment. I rush outside without leaving any cash for the disposable tissues that wipe away the tears of those who endure this.
I do not use the word ‘gay’
Months later, openDemocracy sent the church a request for comments on our findings.
In response, the pastor defended her claims about the links between homosexuality and drug use, pornography, sexual abuse, parental sins and masturbation, which, she said, are “conclusions” drawn from her “40 years of experience as a Christian spiritual counsellor” and from biblical verses that she quoted for each of the claims in her reply.
She objected to the use of the term ‘gay’ in our account of her session, as the word is not part of her “vocabulary”. She also said that I took the session voluntarily and, when asked, said I was a Christian. “If he had answered no, he would not have received counselling,” she said.
The pastor also criticised our undercover reporting, labelling it “unprofessional”. She said her services are free, and not just for “people with ‘loss of sexual identity’ issues, but also for people with panic attacks and depression. I have testimonies from people in these situations who, by the power of Jesus Christ, were set free.”