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Controversial gay conversion therapy still remains an option in the South

Although gay conversion therapy has been called pseudoscience, the practice still remains an option in some southern states.

Boy Erased, a film starring Academy Award winning actors Russell Crowe and Nicole Kidman, tells the story of an Arkansas family. But it also spotlights the efforts over the years by churches and church ministries to convert gay people to live straight, Christian lives.

Other states are moving to ban so-called conversion therapy at the center of that story, with New York the latest to have lawmakers proclaim the theory as bunk.

But in and around Arkansas, devout believers here do not have to look far to find people continuing the practice.

It's just a web click, a call and a five hour drive from Little Rock. That drive could be a metaphor for the long road many travel to find true love and abide in faith.

"I thought there was going to be real answers there for me,” said John Smid, whose long road brought him to the windswept ranch lands of northeast Texas, by way of California and Tennessee.

Ricky Chelette traveled the same road, but never took the off ramp, landing in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex.

“Our mission is to proclaim God's Truth as we journey with those seeking sexual and relational wholeness,” he said in the lobby of a prominent church within sight of AT&T Stadium.

Both Smid and Chelette say they feel attraction to other men, and both spent or spend time counseling or converting people who feel the same way.

“We had parents who drove to parents' meetings,” said Smid, referring to people from Arkansas who sought his counsel. “We had people who drove to our local support groups. I remember a guy from Jonesboro.”

Smid met those people while leading an organization called "Love in Action." It’s that program that is depicted harshly in "Boy Erased." It's based on a memoir from native Arkansan Gerrard Conley and his family trying to become ex-gay through prayer.

READ: Boy Erased makes an emotional case against gay conversion therapy

"I bought the package. The whole evangelical, Christian package and said, 'Okay, if that's the way it's going to be, then I'm going to live it to the fullest,” Smid said. “I feel a tremendous amount of regret. I also feel some embarrassment that I allowed a message, I allowed a line of thinking to so dominate my life.”

Today, Smid is twice divorced from women and now married to a man in northeast Texas.

On the other hand, Chelette has been married for about 30 years to a woman and has a family. He founded Living Hope Ministries.

“The majority of people who I have known through the years who have done these types of ministries have been incredibly caring, compassionate people who just want folks to know that there is another option,” Chelette said. “And there is another option, because what do you do with me?”

This is where a civil discussion between both sides becomes difficult. 

Smid and Chelette are familiar with each other and now stand at opposite sides in the argument over how to counsel LGBT Christians, or whether to do it at all because it may be harmful and ineffective.

“The harm comes from the message that people are inherently broken or flawed if they're gay,” Smid said, noting that he gradually came to doubt the mission several years into his work in west Tennessee. “I felt so isolated from other ministries because I didn't see the outcomes that I thought other ministries were experiencing.”

Chelette is unapologetic about terming much of his ministry "recovery" from living a sinful lifestyle and points to he and others as examples that it does work if the goal is to live as a heterosexual.

“Our ministry has been around for 30 years and we've had thousands of people who when they came never imagined that they could even have a heterosexual relationship with a person of the opposite sex, or be a father or a mother,” Chelette said.

But terms like “recovery” anger Smid, who thinks it’s wrong to say a gay person has to recover from anything.

"Ex-gay ministries, as they are called, are not organizations that are respected or embraced by professional therapeutic training or experience,” he said while alluding to cultural wave that has moved homosexuality out of the closet.

That movement now frames groups like Chelette's as quackery, hateful and dangerous.

Credit: KTHV
John Smid, standing on his property in Texas.

It is for that reason Chelette asked us to avoid specifically locating the church in Texas that houses Living Hope because it has led to Sunday morning protests. 

Today, the organization consists of group meetings for both those seeking a straight life and Alcoholics Anonymous-style sessions for family and friends.

Chelette acknowledges there is a so-called discipleship house that offers what he describes as a "change of venue for men seeking help on the journey." Two men were staying there when we met in January, and Chelette insists that counter to the movie depiction, no one is there against their will, especially people under the age of 18.

“If there's any sense on my part when they come in that they've been forced to be there or they've been coerced in some way, I'm pretty notorious for getting up and saying, 'I'm sorry, this is over. We're not going to do this,’” Chelette said.

Smid is encouraged to see that cultural wave gradually sweeping away the movement he once espoused. He hopes it leaves room for living a quiet life of carpentry and car collecting with his husband.

“We need to encourage people of faith to listen to their heart,” he said. “Listen to their soul. Do they really, truly believe that God condemns a loving, committed faithful gay relationship?”

Chelette remains fervent and steadfast in his belief that organizations like his need to survive or else yield to an erosion of religious rights in America.

“I am convinced there needs to be organizations like ours out there for those who want help,” he said. “And that's all we're trying to do.”

A total of 15 states have banned the practice of conversion therapy in America.

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