Peterson Toscano's A Musing

Ex-Gay Survivor Vince Cervantes Featured at XGW

Emily K at Ex-Gay Watch posted a piece about Vince Cervantes, an ex-gay survivor and fellow theatrical performance artist.

When Vince Cervantes began to notice his strong attractions to other men in his first year of college, he immediately panicked. At that time he was a student at Azusa Pacific University, a Christian school that taught that homosexuality was immoral. The only thing that made sense to Vince was to enter into ex-gay therapy, and he did so, with an Exodus-trained counselor at an Assemblies of God church. Otherwise, he feared, he would be kicked out of school, disowned by his parents, and worst of all, end up in Hell. His therapist told him to give up activities he loved, like musical performance. He complied, believing this would help him go straight.

After going so far as to consent to exorcism, Vince realized nothing was making a difference — he wasn’t going to change. At first depressed over this, Vince came to an “epiphany” that caused him to look at homosexuality and the Bible from a different perspective. He realized God was going to love him no matter what. “I knew that as a Christian I am taught that I can’t bear false witness, and to say that I wasn’t gay, meant that I was denying something that God made a part of me.” His parents had to take some time to “get used to” Vince’s decision to be true to himself, but they were able to eventually fully accept him.

Read Vince Cervantes: Former Ex-Gay: Proud Latino

Labels: ex-gay, ex-gay survivor, Spanish

posted by Peterson Toscano @ 1:38 PM