John J. Smid is the former director of the

Memphis, Tennessee Memphis is a city in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is the seat of Shelby County in the southwest part of the state; it is situated along the Mississippi River. With a population of 633,104 at the 2020 U.S. census, Memphis is the second-mos ...

ex-gay The ex-gay movement consists of people and organizations that encourage people to refrain from entering or pursuing same-sex relationships, to eliminate homosexual desires and to develop heterosexual desires, or to enter into a heterosexual relat ...

ministry

Love In Action Restoration Path, known as Love in Action (LIA) until March 2012, was an ex-gay Christian ministry founded in 1973. History It was founded in 1973 by Frank Worthen, John Evans, and Kent Philpott. The program was founded in Marin County, Californi ...

, a group that claims to convert lesbians and gay men to heterosexuality.

Career

During his time directing Love In Action, Smid faced controversy over the organization's treatment of gay teens in their youth program "Refuge". Smid subsequently resigned his position in 2008, and in 2010 apologized for any harm he had caused, noting that his teen program "further wounded teens that were already in a very delicate place in life". In 2011, three years after leaving Love In Action and stepping down from its leadership, Smid announced he was still homosexual and stated he had "never met a man who experienced a change from homosexual to heterosexual." In 2012, Smid wrote and self-published the memoir ''Ex'd Out: How I Fired the Shame Committee''. In the 2018 film ''

Boy Erased ''Boy Erased'' is a 2018 American biographical drama film based on Garrard Conley's 2016 memoir of the same name. It is written and directed by Joel Edgerton, who also produced with Kerry Kohansky Roberts and Steve Golin. The film stars Lu ...

'', based on the book of the same name, the character Victor Sykes, portrayed by

Joel Edgerton Joel Edgerton (born 23 June 1974) is an Australian actor and filmmaker. He is best known for his appearance in the ''Star Wars'' films ''Attack of the Clones'' (2002) and ''Revenge of the Sith'' (2005) as a young Owen Lars, a role he reprised i ...

, is based on Smid. A November 2018 ''

Radiolab ''Radiolab'' is a radio program produced by WNYC, a public radio station in New York City, and broadcast on public radio stations in the United States. The show is nationally syndicated and is available as a podcast. Live shows were first off ...

'' podcast titled "UnErased: Smid" features Smid's life story.

Personal life

Before claiming he had changed from homosexuality to heterosexuality, Smid lived for years married to a woman and fathering children. It was during this marriage that he realized he was gay, divorcing his wife in 1980. Four years following his divorce, Smid became a Christian and sought conversion from homosexuality to heterosexuality. In November 2014, Smid married his husband, Larry McQueen. The couple live in

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Smid, John American evangelicals People self-identified as ex-ex-gay American gay writers Living people Conversion therapy practitioners LGBT Protestants 21st-century American male writers American Protestant ministers and clergy Year of birth missing (living people)