Ex-Gay Like Me

When I decided to go undercover and infiltrate an ex-gay ministry I expected to be privy to a lot of prayer, self-loathing and maybe some heavy-handed personality realignment.

I didn't expect to be doing the handjive at sing-along Grease, which is where I sit, clap-and-slap happy in a row of fold out chairs inside a cozy Colorado living room.

Now can you hand-jive, baby,

Oh can you hand-jive, baby?

Surrounding me in giddy spectatorship are 25 men and women who suffer from "unwanted homosexuality."

But no one's suffering at the moment. There are Twinkies to eat, margaritas to drink, and a DVD player set on closed caption so we all get the lyrics right.

Projected on the sort of fold out screen normally reserved for family vacation slideshows, Danny Zuko has dissed his summer love for the last time.

Stumbling into his former flame, the notorious Cha Cha DiGregorio, the two doff their dates and set Rydell High's gym floor ablaze with 1950's dancing as envisioned through the sexed up lens of the disco decade.

About half the guests are decked out in leather jackets, cut off T-shirts, chiffon dresses, even a few satin "Pink Ladies" jackets.

Oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah,

Born to hand-jive, oh yeah!

The woman to my right has decided that Cha Cha's having a little too much fun on the dance floor.

"Slut!"

She follows her exhortation with a naughty giggle.

In the middle of "Greased Lightning," with its none-too-coded lyrics (you know that I ain't braggin, she's a real pussy wagon), Scott, a sprightly ministry staffer, stands up, shakes his arm and tells the young Travolta:

"Danny, Stop Being a Potty Mouth!"

Scott has spent the last 13 years in this ministry and tonight's party is his brainchild --a follow up to last year's sing along Sound of Music. Normally, he patiently ministers to those on the frontlines of the "struggle with sexuality and relationships." But tonight he's letting loose, facing the audience while his outstretched arm hovers across the room in lock step with the T-Birds.

Before going undercover to see what ex-gay America was all about, I imagined it might be any number of things: hook up central for closeted Christians, a cracked out revival meeting or merely a cult.

What I found was less sensational and a lot stranger.

Because I couldn't have imagined an experience that revealed less about the divide between straight and gay America, than the deeper chasm of understanding that separates secular and Christian America.

And I could never ever have imagined I'd be singing show tunes with a bunch of people dressed straight outta the malt shop.

The Gayest Summer

I first set foot in the ex-gay ministry Where Grace Abounds at the start of what was to become the gayest summer in American history.

Let's review:

June 26, 2003, the Supreme Court strikes down sodomy laws in 13 states, decriminalizing consensual gay sex and setting the stage for the culture war's ultimate battle royale: gay marriage.

August 5: The Episcopalian Church votes in the Rev. Gene Robinson as its first gay bishop; dissidents talk splits.

And oh, those summer nights where Queer Eye for the Straight Guy's preening power fags teach heterosexual men in the ways of applying product, grilling asparagus, and all things fabulous.

Where Grace Abounds is located where gays abound, in the heart of Denver's Capital Hill neighborhood -- a place where rainbow flags hang proudly from apartment balconies, where King Soopers is better known as "Queen Soopers," and where Diedrich's coffee shop brims with well groomed boys.

But outside a church around the corner, Where Grace Abounds' smiling greeters welcome scared strangers, and hug returning friends. The person I notice first is Scott, the de facto cruise director for Thursday night's meetings and one of five people on the ministry's fulltime staff.