Former gay leader goes straight and leaves helm of magazine he founded

Washington D.C., Jul 6, 2007 / 09:03 am

A young and prominent gay rights activist has abandoned his homosexual lifestyle and written about it in a column this week for World Net Daily.

“In my experience, ‘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,” writes Michael Glatze.

In his column, Glatze tells of the success he had as the founder of Young Gay America and editor of YGA Magazine. He received the National Role Model Award from Equality Forum, produced the first major documentary film to tackle gay teen suicide, and made several media appearances — including being featured in a cover story of Time magazine.

He was also invited as a panelist at the JFK Jr. Forum at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Business in 2005. It was after this event, however, that he began to have serious doubts about what he was doing with his life and his influence.

“Knowing no one who I could approach with my questions and my doubts, I turned to God,” he writes. “I'd developed a growing relationship with God … Soon, I began to understand things I'd never known could possibly be real, such as the fact that I was leading a movement of sin and corruption.”

He said it became clear to him that “homosexuality prevents us from finding our true self within.” At this point, Glatze was 30, and had been living with a homosexual identity for 16 years.

He came to realize that homosexuality is pornographic; “[it] destroys impressionable [young] minds and confuses their developing sexuality.”

“Homosexuality came easy to me, because I was already weak,” he writes.  He explained that he noticed his attraction to men a year after his father died.  “At an early age, I was already confused about who I was and how I felt about others,” he writes.

“My confusion about ‘desire’ and the fact that I noticed I was ‘attracted’ to guys made me put myself into the ‘gay’ category at age 14.” He came out as gay at age 20, a year after his mother died.

Glatze is frank in saying that homosexuality is “lust and pornography wrapped into one.” He recounts how he has had to learn to deal with lust and to grow in love for himself. He said his homosexuality ended “once I ‘cut myself off’ from outside influences and intensely focused on inner truth – when I discovered the depths of my God-given self at age 30.”

He reflects on his relationship with God through this period of growth and change: “God came to me when I was confused and lost, alone, afraid and upset. He told me – through prayer – that I had nothing at all to be afraid of, and that I was home; I just needed to do a little house cleaning in my mind.”

Galtze says he believes “all people, intrinsically, know the truth. I believe that is why Christianity scares people so much. It reminds them of their conscience, which we all possess.”

“Sexual truth can be found, provided we're all willing and driven to accept that our culture sanctions behaviors that harm life,” he states.