Dear Zach,
You were very brave to come out to your parents and you don’t need to regret that, no matter what they are doing now. It’s hard, I am sure, because we think the world of our parents when we are growing up and we always believe them and whatever they say or at least we want to, because they are our whole world. It is painful to realize that our parents can be wrong. What your parents are doing to you is wrong. Being gay is nothing to be ashamed of. Love in Action is more like Hate in Action. I am sorry that you are there and I can’t imagine the horrible things you must be going through. From what you have written it sounds like hell. But no matter what, don’t stop writing to us out here. There are many, many people who are in that same hell with you, hoping that you are okay, sending you the love and support that your parents should have the sense to give you.
Love in Action claims to “find freedom in Christ,” but they are grossly misinterpreting the Bible to serve their own warped needs. Jesus would want you to be yourself. Jesus would love you as you are. True freedom in Christ is to know that Christ resides in all of us, regardless of sexual orientation, and that we are born already free. There is no need to seek it, just to accept it.
Jesus did have a nelly side to him as well, which I am sure the Love in Action folks would love to forget. He was always hanging out with those twelve guys and one fag hag, he always wore a dress and he always made sure he had enough food when he was entertaining. Jesus was probably a big fag. They say that Jesus experienced every human emotion, so I am sure he felt really bitchy, really butch – maybe even like a really big bottom.
Jesus doesn’t have a problem with homosexuality. It is just that some of the people who claim to represent him do. I grew up in the church. My grandfather was a Methodist minister and we had church right in our living room 7 days a week, so I understand a little about where you might be coming from.
The most important thing for you to do is to maintain contact with the outside world, with all the people emailing and forwarding your story all around the globe. Don’t let them take the you out of you. They will tell you it is wrong to be gay, your mother will say awful things, you will feel like dying because they are telling you that suicide is better than living as you are, but please please remember – THEY DON’T KNOW SHIT!!! THEY ARE LYING TO YOU!!! And when you get out of there and get into the real world you will see how great it is, how gay it is, and all that pain and suffering will be a distant memory which will only serve to remind you that you survived. Your reward for surviving is living life without lies as God made you. You are going to live through this and tell us all about it.
I love you and so do many people you don’t even know. Hang in there for us. – m
Note From Team Cho: Margaret has received many letters describing Zach’s plight. Here is one of them:
From: “Ben”
To:
Sent: Wednesday, June 15, 2005 3:55 PM
Dear Margaret,
Days after revealing his sexuality to his parents, Zach was shipped off to a facility in Memphis Tennessee run by fundamentalist Christian group, Love in Action. The facility specializes in the brainwashing of gay children into believing that “They simply are not gay.”
The group’s leader, John Smid, put the organization’s position as such: “I would rather you commit suicide than have you leave Love In Action wanting to return to the gay lifestyle. In a physical death you could still have a spiritual resurrection; whereas, returning to homosexuality you are yielding yourself to a spiritual death from which there is no recovery.”
Apparently, suicide is preferable to homosexuality to this man. What is being asked is that you take the consideration of exposing this group for what it is; a radical terrorist organization which desires to deny our children of their right to be individuals by means of psychologically brainwashing them. Is this what we desire our children to be born in to? No! We must work together for change!
Sincerely,
Ben
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Read Zach’s journal
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