A01=Tanya Erzen
Author_Tanya Erzen
born again christians
Category=JBSJ
Category=QRM
Category=QRVS2
christian conversions
christian lives
christian ministries
christian right
christianity
conservative christianity
eq_bestseller
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
evangelical christians
ex gay ministries
ex gay movement
gay identity
gay men
heterosexuality
homosexuality
human rights
jesus
lesbians
lgbtq
men and women
new hope ministry
nonfiction
political rights
religious transformation
romantic relationships
same sex desire
sexual conversions
sexual desire
sexuality
social history
transnationalism
Product details
- ISBN 9780520245822
- Weight: 408g
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 27 Jun 2006
- Publisher: University of California Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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Every year, hundreds of gay men and lesbians join ex-gay ministries in an attempt to convert to non-homosexual Christian lives. In this fascinating study of the transnational ex-gay movement, Tanya Erzen focuses on the everyday lives of men and women at New Hope Ministry, a residential ex-gay program, over the course of several years. "Straight to Jesus" traces the stories of people who have renounced long-term relationships and moved from other countries out of a conviction that the conservative Christian beliefs of their upbringing and their own same-sex desires are irreconcilable. Rather than definitively changing from homosexual to heterosexual, the participants experience a conversion that is both sexual and religious as born-again evangelical Christians. At New Hope, they maintain a personal relationship with Jesus and build new forms of kinship and belonging. By becoming what they call 'new creations', these men and women testify to religious transformation rather than changes in sexual desire or behavior.
"Straight to Jesus" exposes how the Christian Right attempts to repudiate gay identity and political rights by using the ex-gay movement as evidence that 'change is possible'. Instead, Erzen reveals, the realities of the lives she examines actually undermine this anti-gay strategy.
Tanya Erzen is Assistant Professor of Comparative Studies at Ohio State University. She is the coeditor of Zero Tolerance: Quality of Life and the New Police Brutality in New York City (2001).
