Of course the irony here is that churches set up the very conditions by which gay people stand to lose economically and socially if they don’t appear to make a good faith effort to change who they are.

It’s similar to when you and I served in the Air Force. Even though I had a little more freedom to be out (as long as I was discreet) than you had, I left the Air Force because of the ongoing threat to my security clearance. If the wrong people had learned about my sexual orientation, I would have lost my clearance and career under the theory that being gay made me subject to blackmail.

The only reason blackmail might have ever worked against a gay person in the military was because of the threat the military itself held over gay people’s heads.

Likewise, religious communities create the conditions of stigma gay people experience.

A gay man who feels pressure to enter or remain in conversion therapy because of his church is effectively being blackmailed. This is one thing when you consider that some Christians probably believe in good faith that conversion therapy has at least a small chance of working.

It’s another thing entirely when you consider that most of the people actually practicing conversion therapy know it doesn’t work, even if they’re in deep personal denial.

Which is a subject I understand you might have more to write about on another day.