A number of socially conservative sites are abuzz over a man named Michael Glatze, described as a "gay rights activist and founding editor of Young Gay America magazine" who "came out" in a "column written for WorldNetDaily.com" and now says he's straight.

I support the right of anyone to change his sexuality as often as he wants, any way he can, and to discuss it freely, but there's something a bit suspicious about the political 180 which seems to have accompanied Mr. Glatze's sexual 180 which just makes me a bit skeptical. It just seems a little too convenient.

I mean, I can go down and switch my registration from Republican to Democrat. I've switched it before, and I can do it again. Nothing complicated about it. Lots of times I get sick of being a RINO. The more I read WorldNetDaily, the more I doubt my true conservatism, and in my weaker moments I often wonder whether I might be (perish the thought!) a closet liberal yearning to breathe free! But if I drive down to my local courthouse today and fill out the requisite form, that would not alter the fact that I still have the same opinions. I am still resolutely opposed to socialism and identity politics, I still suffer from Anthropogenic Global Warming Defiance Syndrome, and I still don't want Hillary Clinton to be the president of the United States.

What that means is that I'd be a DINO. And even though I'm an admitted RINO, I still think I'm better off as a RINO than a DINO despite my inner issues and doubts. Switching my party registration would be as easy as checking a box, but there's no way that switching what I might check in a box could switch what I think.

I'm not sure that changing one's sexuality is quite as simple as checking a box on a form at the courthouse, though. Not for most people. That's because sexuality is more than just a label; it's a personal thing, and something to be lived. As I've said in this blog more times than I can count, I don't believe in the sexual labeling system anyway, so I could probably check the sexual boxes with impunity, but that's because I think the labels are no one else's business at all, and arbitrary box-checking would be my way of ridiculing them. Of course, I realize that most people don't feel as I do, which is entirely their business.

Glatze's is an especially interesting case, because on the one hand he seems (like me) to resent the sexual labeling system, while on the other he is adding reinforcement to it. It's this contradiction that intrigues me, and I don't think it's going to get the media attention it deserves.

After contrasting Glatze's previous statements with what he says now, Clayton Cramer expressed doubt that the Glatze story would receive much press attention:

I don't think he's going to be getting much press attention now, because of this article

Here's my two cents worth. I think that Glatze (if in fact he has "gone straight") is probably a bisexual man who (doubtless buying into or bullied into the prevailing hype that you have to be one or the other) became a believer and advocate of gay identity politics and a gay rights activist, only to later decide he'd be better off going "straight." Rather than simply do what he wants and get on with his life, he's still as public about his sexuality as he ever was, only he's now advocating a very anti-gay religious mindset despite his own documented prior antipathy to that. Again, this is something he has every right to do, but the political 180 reminds me of David Brock.

An inconsistency I see is that while he claims to condemn gay identity politics, he's actually feeding it by buying in to the gay versus straight dichotomy while evading the more obvious question of bisexuality. I think bisexuality is feared by gay activists (as well as many activists on the left) because they want to create and maintain a species of human with a palpable, identifiable, sexual identity for political reasons. And OTOH, it is also feared by religious anti-gay activists because it does not fit into the black-versus-white, good-versus-evil, Bible-versus-Satan view of the world. It's a bit tough to tell a bisexual that only Jesus can help him love a woman (or her love a man) if that capacity is already there.

Whether Glatze is an opportunist, I have no way to know. But it appears that he is now judging people as evil without knowing them, and above all, he is maintaining that he is ashamed of what he did.

For defying identity politics, I applaud his courage. But I don't understand why he is ashamed, because I do not hold his religious opinion and am thus unable to see his former homosexuality as evil. I have even more trouble understanding why he thinks others should feel ashamed of what they do just because he now says he is ashamed of what he did. It seems to me that he has bootstrapped his own sexual evolution into a religious argument which the anti-gay crowd wants to bootstrap into a political argument.

What is being forgotten here is the dignity of the individual, and the right to choose. In his WND piece, Glatze doesn't seem to own up to ever having made a real choice:

Sexual truth can be found, provided we're all willing and driven to accept that our culture sanctions behaviors that harm life. Guilt should be no reason to avoid the difficult questions.

Homosexuality took almost 16 years of my life and compromised them with one lie or another, perpetuated through national media targeted at children. In European countries, homosexuality is considered so normal that grade-school children are being provided "gay" children's books as required reading in public schools.

So is claiming to be ashamed of it and to be guilty for it:

I was repulsive for quite some time; I am still dealing with all of my guilt.

I'm reminded of the anti-smoking activists, the Critical Mass bicycle activists, the people who want to make me mutilate my dog, and the anthropogenic global warming people.

Do what you want with your life, but it's my car, my dog, my lungs, my stomach, my view of religion, and my penis. (Etc.) I like to think this is a very simple concept, but there are a lot of people who seem hell-bent on making it profound.

(I'd hate to think they have no choice.)

MORE: I forgot to add "my guns." My bad. I was sick of the post long before I wrote it.

(If I thought about it, though, I'm sure I could find a lot more to add to the "Etc." category.)

UPDATE: From a gay web site site's reaction to Glatze's announcement:

....perhaps Glatze was never gay to begin with. Sexual orientation can be a confusing thing and it is certainly something that a person has no immediate control over. Perhaps Glatze was confused and was straight the entire time.

Similarly, Roy Masters (the man said to be responsible for Glatze's recent conversion) has a long screed here which does not contemplate or posit the existence of bisexuality.

Does this mean both "sides" are agreed?

For whom do these people speak?