WASHINGTON − Growing up in a conservative and religious family in Arizona, Matt R. Salmon was desperate not to be gay.
He prayed, fasted, read scripture and pleaded with God to change him.
“Even at other kids’ birthday parties, when they were blowing out their birthday candles, I would try to make my wish before they could, to try and steal it,” Salmon, now 37, recounted.
When that didn’t work, he agreed at age 18 to see a counselor he was told could help.
Not only did his attraction to men not go away, but Salmon said he absorbed the therapist’s message that something was deeply wrong with him. Although he’s worked hard to undo those two years of what he called “psychological abuse,” Salmon said he still feels “so hurt and, to this day, broken by the experience.”
