With the passage of a bill prohibiting gay marriage in Wisconsin and controversy bubbling in the Anglican church over New Hampshire's newly installed gay bishop, Wayne Besen's Madison appearance seems especially timely.
Besen will discuss his book, \Anything But Straight,"" at A Room of One's Own Bookstore, 307 W. Johnson St., at 7 p.m. today. Besen is a former spokesperson for the Human Rights Campaign, the nation's largest gay and lesbian organization. His book decries conservative efforts to promote the notion that gay people can be ""reformed"" into heterosexuals.
""People are given the lie that they can change and that homosexuality is a casual choice-like tying your shoelaces in the morning-and it's just not,"" Besen said.
A major object of his criticism was a $1 million ad campaign launched by conservatives in 1990 that said gay people could change through ministry and prayer-in his words, an effort to show homosexuals they could ""pray away the gay."" He said the campaign was politically motivated.
""It's not about changing gay people, it's about changing laws,"" he said. ""What the right wing particularly hates about this book is that it will hurt their ability to see so-called ex-gays as props to raise money and deny gay people equal rights.""
In Besen's eyes, the idea that one can change one's sexuality is misguided. He refutes the notion that gays are merely ""heterosexuals with bad behavior,"" saying even the American Medical Association and American Psychological Association reject the proposition.
Additionally, the methods suggested by religious and right-wing leaders for becoming straight do not have any credibility, according to Besen. He gave examples of several techniques lauded by proponents of gay reform.
""They tell you to wear a rubberband around your wrist and when you see somebody attractive, to snap it, to snap you out of the so-called spell,"" he said. ""They try to make lesbians attend lipstick seminars [and] teach gay men touch football.""
As further evidence of the movement's ineffectiveness, Besen will discuss the cases of people who ostensibly rejected their homosexuality but were later exposed as frauds. He said stories of such individuals can be a method of defense for gays who are told they can change.
Patrick Emanuel, a Sex Out Loud program facilitator and UW-Madison sophomore, agreed ""reforming"" gays is an impossible task.
""I definitely don't think it's a decision someone makes,"" he said. ""The feelings that someone has, whether sexually or emotionally, certainly come from within. Those emotions are natural to oneself, otherwise I don't think they would be as readily and equally expressed.""
A Room of One's Own is an independent bookstore that has carried gay and lesbian titles for years, according to employee Sashe Mishur.
