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Creep of the Week: Lou Sheldon

Lou Sheldon

Sometimes listening to right-wingers blow smoke would actually be funny if there weren't people who actually believe the stuff they say.
Take a recent exchange between Lou Sheldon, the chairman and founder of the Traditional Values Coalition, and American Family Association President Tim Wildmon during an Oct. 11 broadcast on American Family Radio. Sheldon and Wildmon devoted some air time to waxing pathetic on two subjects they clearly know nothing about: psychotherapy and homosexuality – or, more specifically, how the former can get rid of the latter.
"I'm not a psychologist, or a psychiatrist, or a social scientist, or anything like that," Wildmon said. "But I have heard from people who know and understand these things that two of the most difficult sins or bondage to break out of are alcoholism and homosexuality."
Sheldon responded, "Oh definitely, because the groove is built, and I've talked to many psychotherapists who are Christian, and they say once you enter into that lifestyle — Now, you may have gender identity conflict — that's the medical-scientific name for homosexuality — where you're attracted to the same-sex person, but once you enter into the culture, into the music, into the gay bars, into the gay literature, into the gay theater, and all of that kind of — and gay travel — once you immerse yourself into that, you have really put yourself into a groove that only a sort of an exorcism can release you from."
Sheldon is full of it, but he does nail one thing a lot of gays don't like to talk about: gay travel. All those other things Sheldon mentions are small potatoes compared to the homo-endgame that is gay travel. You can read "The Well of Loneliness," you can see "Gypsy" on Broadway, you can bump and grind to the tribal beats of DJ Fist, but once you travel – and not just travel but travel gay, be it to France or Fire Island – there's no going back. Not even the exorcism Sheldon suggests can get the gay out of you.
As the good people at Media Matters point out, "gender identity conflict" is not the "medical-scientific name for homosexuality." Sheldon's confusing it with Gender Identity Disorder, which isn't the same thing.
And, of course, any reputable psychotherapist isn't going to recommend an exorcism for any condition, let alone one that both the American Psychiatric Association and the American Psychological Association agree is not a mental disorder.
However, to folks like Sheldon and Wildmon, gays and lesbians are demon-possessed, and propagating that idea is in their best interests. They're the ones, after all, with an agenda to push.
If only there weren't so many folks listening and eating this garbage up. According to Media Matters, the mission of American Family Radio is to "inform Christians about what is happening in America."
Inform, mislead – what's the difference? Sure, telling lies is unchristian, but folks like Sheldon have proven for years that a lie ain't a lie if you hate the truth hard enough.
Of course, a psychotherapist might classify that idea as a delusion.

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