In this weekend’s New York Times Magazine, writer Benoit Denizet-Lewis confronts his former friend Michael Glatze, with whom he once worked at XY, a San Francisco–based magazine for gay men, back when Glatze was a self-assured, queer theory-spouting, gay activist; ten years before Glatze became a Wyoming-based Christian fundamentalist who writes derogatorily about being gay. You should really read the whole thing (we know: no, we should really figure out how to summarize 4,000 words in three sentences), but Kudos to Denizet-Lewis on his self-restraint. Not even once did he try the age-old reporter trick of pretending you’re going to sleep with your ex-gay subject and seeing if he bites so that, if he does, you can yell, “Suckaaa. Knew it: You’re still gay,” and then report it. That would be cheap. And easy. And sort of cruel. What’s more, Denizet-Lewis leaves room for us to all agree on one thing: Though their relationship may have gone south, Michael Glatze and his boyfriend, pictured, were extremely cute in the nineties.
My Ex-Gay Friend [NYTM]
