Friday, July 13, 2007

'Gay'-rights leader quits homosexuality

He was a rising star in the "gay rights" movement, but Michael Glatze now declares not only has
he given up activism – he's no longer a homosexual.

Glatze – who had become a frequent media source as founding editor of Young Gay America
magazine – tells the story of his transformation in an exclusive column published today by WND. Although Glatze cut himself
off from the homosexual community about a year and a half ago, he says the column likely will
surprise some people. "This will actually be news to anybody I used to relate to," he told WND.
The radical change in his life, Glatze recalls, began with inner "promptings" he now attributes to God.
"I hope I can share my story," he said. "I feel strongly God has put me here for a reason. Even in the
darkest days of late-night parties, substance abuse and all kinds of things – when I felt like, 'Why am
I here, what am I doing?' – there was always a voice there.


"I didn't know what to call it, or if I could trust it, but it said 'hold on.'" Glatze said he became aware of
homosexual feelings at about the age of 14 and publicly declared himself "gay" at age 20. Finally,
after a decade in which his leadership role in the homosexual activist world grew – but alongside it,
a mysterious inner conflict – he says he finally was "liberated." In fact, he writes in his WND column
today, "'coming out' from under the influence of the homosexual mindset was the most liberating,
beautiful and astonishing thing I've ever experienced in my entire life." Before "coming out" in his
column today, Glatze contacted WND Managing Editor David Kupelian after reading his book, "The
Marketing of Evil, which Glatze said "has given me so much help in my process of healing from the
profound influences of evil in our current society." "There is nothing that would give me more
pleasure," he wrote to Kupelian, "than to say the Truth about 'homosexuality' and atone for my sins
in that regard."

Glatze's transformation calls to mind that of another prominent "gay" magazine publisher who also
has renounced her former lifestyle. Lesbian activist Charlene Cothran, longtime publisher of Venus
magazine, became a Christian and gave her magazine a new mission "to encourage, educate and
assist those who desire to leave a life of homosexuality." She adds: "Our ultimate mission is to win
souls for Christ, and to do so by showing love to all God's people."

In his column, Glatze doesn't mince words, calling homosexual sex purely "lust-based," meaning it
can never fully satisfy. "It's a neurotic process rather than a natural, normal one," he writes. "Normal
is normal – and has been called normal for a reason." After becoming editor of Young Gay America
magazine at age 22, Glatze received numerous awards and recognition, including the National Role
Model Award from the major homosexual-rights organization Equality Forum. Media gravitated toward
him, leading to appearances on PBS television and MSNBC and quotes in a cover story in Time
magazine called "The Battle Over Gay Teens."

He produced, with the help of PBS affiliates and Equality Forum, the first major documentary film to
address homosexual teen suicide, "Jim In Bold," which toured the world and received numerous "
best in festival" awards. Young Gay America's photo exhibit, telling the story of young people across
North America, toured Europe, Canada and parts of the U.S.

In 2004, Glatze moved from San Francisco to Halifax in eastern Canada where his partner, Young
Gay America magazine's publisher, had family. The magazine, he said, sought to provide a "virtuous
counterpart" to the other newsstand media aimed at homosexual youth. But Glatze contends "the
truth was, YGA was as damaging as anything else out there, just not overtly pornographic, so more
'respected.'"

In 2005, Glatze was featured in a panel with Judy Shepard, mother of slain homosexual Matthew
Shepard, at the prestigious JFK Jr. Forum at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. "It was after
viewing my words on a videotape of that 'performance,'" he writes, "that I began to seriously doubt
what I was doing with my life and influence." "Knowing no one who I could approach with my questions
and my doubts, I turned to God," he says. "I'd developed a growing relationship with God, thanks to a
debilitating bout with intestinal cramps caused by the upset stomach-inducing behaviors I'd been
engaged in."

Toward the end of his time with Young Gay America, Glatze said, colleagues began to notice he was
going through some kind of religious experience. Just before leaving, not fully realizing what he was
doing, he wrote on his office computer his thoughts, ending with the declaration: "Homosexuality is
death, and I choose life." "I was so nervous, it was like I wasn't even writing it myself," he said.

Inexplicably, he told WND, he left the words on the screen for others to see. "People who looked at it
were stunned; they thought it was crazy," he said. But he left his co-workers wondering about where
he stood, never having fully explained his decision to step down. Looking back on his old lifestyle,
Glatze told WND whenever he had a sense that he was doing something wrong, "I would I just
attribute it to, 'that's just the way life is.'"

"If ever I were to question anything, [my colleagues] would say, 'You're such an idealist.'" Glatze said
he thought opponents of homosexual activism were "mean and crazy, and they wanted to hurt me."
"I thought they were out to get me," he said. "They made me really, really mad – and scared, I think.
I wanted them to go away." Glatze said he couldn't allow himself to think they were sincere in
their beliefs. But he now has deep respect for a Christian aunt who disapproved of his lifestyle.

She "was never judgmental, but always firm," he said.

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