National Review Online (NRO) editor-at-large Kathryn Jean Lopez praised an organization that practices discredited “ex-gay” therapy techniques, urging gay men and lesbians to choose the path of “conversion and renewal,” reports Media Matters for America in their latest post.
In a July 22 review for NRO, Lopez lauded Desire of the Everlasting Hills, a documentary about three Roman Catholics who left gay relationships to pursue lives of celibacy. As Lopez noted, the documentary was a project of Courage, a Catholic organization that aims to help people with “homosexual desires” to lead “chaste lives.”
Hailing the documentary as a potential “game changer,” Lopez wrote that Desire of the Everlasting Hills could help viewers “make sense” of our “fallen world” and point audiences in the direction of “alternative conversions” (emphasis added):
Desire of the Everlasting Hills is like nothing you’ve ever seen before. In no small part, it’s about conversion and renewal, and knowing oneself and what one truly wants, for life and eternity. To watch it is to know that you cannot caricature it. It’s about living and learning; it reveals the truth of our lives, as discovered by three individuals who today are overflowing with a grace-filled, transparent joy — a joy deepened by redemptive suffering. All three leave regrets about the past to God’s mercy and entrust their future to His Providence, always acknowledging that the Way of the Cross is a rough road, but believing it to be the one with eternal rewards.
[…]
I wish you could have felt the peace and seen the joy at the premiere of Desire of the Everlasting Hills. At the annual Courage conference, it drew a crowd that knows and sees some of the most heartbreaking crosses of life; many people there would have a lot to teach us about courage. For anyone who feels in a fog, Desire of the Everlasting Hills is a light. To watch it is to see that people who have attractions different than yours are not all that different from you. They are people living in a fallen world — our universal condition. We can work to make sense of it together.
[…]
Watch Desire of the Everlasting Hills and know that you are not alone; watch and never let anyone feel alone. Our politics can make things seem intractable, but our lives with one another can be a balm; and this movie can be a catalyst for hope and for alternative conversations filled with honesty and compassion and love for life, living as we were made.
The journey to the Everlasting Hills is one for us to take together, joined by a shared desire for the good and the beautiful — for God. Desire of the Everlasting Hills will inspire you to give to another the true look of love we crave.
Courage’s efforts to illuminate “the true look of love” entail the use of discredited theories about sexual orientation, including the notion that homosexuality could be caused by domineering mothers or distant relationships with one’s same-sex parent. The organization also runs a sports camp that aims to instill masculinity in gay men.
Lopez’s glowing endorsement of Courage’s work fits NRO’s larger pattern of churning out anti-gay drivel. In February, as Arizona debated a bill that would have allowed businesses to refuse services to LGBT people, NRO championed the measure as a “live-and-let-live law.” But Lopez’s call for “conversion and renewal” offers a revealing look at the real agenda that undergirds her employer’s bigoted commentary.
