Former conversion therapist is now looking for love with a male partner
David Matheson admitted he is ready to embark on a 'new life-giving path'
By Steve Brown
Words: Steve Brown
A former conversion therapist has stepped away from the ‘ex-gay’ movement and is looking to find love with a male partner.
David Matheson spent years of his life attempted to convert gay men and even wrote the book ‘Becoming a Whole Man’ which detailed a ‘six-year quest to understand and respond to the most difficult challenges facing men with unwanted homosexuality’.
He also helped co-write programs for the gay conversion treatment centre Journey into Manhood which sees men engage in ‘manly’ activities in forests to try and change their sexual identity.
But now, in a private Facebook post to Journey into Manhood’s director, Rich Wyler, Matheson revealed he is now looking for a male partner.
According to Wyler, Matheson wrote: “David… says that living a single, celibate life ‘just isn’t feasible for him, so he’s seeking a male partner.
“He has gone from bisexuality to exclusively gay.”
Matheson then wrote a statement to Truth Wins Out – an organisation that fights anti-gay therapy – and said he will not apologise but will always remain faithful to Christianity.
He said: “My time in a straight marriage and in the ‘ex-gay’ world was genuine and sincere and a rich blessing to me.
“I remember most of it with fondness and gratitude for the joy and growth it caused in me and many others. But I had stopped growing and was starting to die.
“So, I’ve embarked on a new life-giving path that has already started a whole new growth process.
“I wasn’t faking it all those years. I’m not renouncing my past work or my LDS faith. And I’m not condemning mixed-orientation marriages.
“I continue to support the rights of individuals to choose how they will respond to their sexual attractions and identity.
“With that freedom, I am now choosing to pursue life as a gay man.”
Wayne Beson of Truth Wins Out added that the so-called archaic conversion therapy should be outlawed.
He said: “If conversion therapy does not work for authors like David Matheson who write books on the discredited practice, it is naïve to expect it to work for those reading such deceptive publications.
“Conversion therapy employs guilt and shame to browbeat desperate and vulnerable people into renouncing their humanity. This is the latest evidence that conversion therapy is consumer fraud.”