Waymon Hudson's column, "Karate Kick the Sissy Out of Your Son: Gay Panic as Advertising," rightly excoriates a Key Biscayne karate "academy" for urging parents to sign their sons up in order to ensure that they will not become gay.
In the kind of "academy" I inhabit, the hucksters make the same pitch. Notre Dame law professor Gerard Bradley put himself in the news recently by claiming that Judge Walker should have removed himself from deciding the challenge to constitutionality of Proposition 8 because the judge was "openly gay." What few know is that Bradley's key ally in the campaign to prevent homosexuality claims that sport is the gay antidote.
Bradley co-edited Same Sex Attraction: A Parent's Guide with Fr. John F. Harvey, the director of Courage, a Catholic homosexual-recovery agency (as described by their publisher). Bradley and Fr. Harvey want to help parents prevent their children from engaging in gay sex and, wherever possible, turn them into heterosexuals. Bradley and Harvey also select articles for their guide from the leading Catholic therapists who advertise that no one need be gay. They can, through therapy, make you straight. The common theme is that gays are insufficiently manly. This is supposedly evidenced by their lack of athletic interest and skills. Their athletic deficiencies result from being alienated from their fathers and made effeminate by their overbearing mothers, which impairs their ability to bond with heterosexual boys on the playing fields. It follows that sport is the path to converting gays to manly men. (Does the opposite work for lesbians? Should you take a hacksaw to their aluminum softball bats to save them from eternal damnation?)
For many men with SSA [Same Sex Attraction], childhood memories of competitive sports can be sparse or worse, filled with shame and trauma. It's what's called "the sports wound."
We offer a safe and supportive environment for men to learn the rules, gain the skills and compete with their teammates in softball, flag football, volleyball and basketball.
Join UsHave some fun! Every evening we have our fellowship (aka PAR-TAY!).
Saturday night after the Sports Camp championship... join us, as we celebrate with cigars and cognac.
Help us spread the word by requesting flyers or mimeograph this flyer for each member of your local Courage chapter.
Greetings my brothers!SCE 2006 has given me the courage to leave the plateau on which I've been for some time and press on to higher ground. Thank you all for accepting me as a MAN DOING MANLY THINGS!Your new friend,-J
Yo-The Sports Camp East 2006 was nothing short of amazing, incredible, powerful and anointed!!!! Did I use enough adjectives, bro!!!?? I would not hesitate for a moment in recommending it.
The training and coaching was great, the fellowship sweet. The worship was anointed, especially Sunday morning's service. The men sang accapella in Latin, the holiness, reverence, and humility moved me to tears.... thought I was going to lose it there for a minute!!!Your bro,-R
Dear C-MAC,I just wanted to drop you a note and say "Thank You" for this weekend. Although I am 43 years old, I believe that this was the most fun I have ever had in my life. And meeting all of the guys from Courage was a great blessing. Luckily my final connection was dark and almost empty, since I sat in the back and wept for almost the entire hour.Sincerely in Christ-D
If Courage wants its sports camp to create stereotypical manly men, it must first hire Tom Hanks and have him teach the campers the fundamental rule: "There's no crying in baseball!"
Cross-posted from New Deal 2.0.