John Smid: Multiple marriages to women and decades in the "Ex-gay" movement didn't change a thing. He's gay!

Chapters
00:00
Introduction and Community Life
03:03
John's Early Life and Struggles
05:54
Coming Out and Embracing Identity
08:58
The Journey into Ex-Gay Ministry
11:48
Family Dynamics and Healing
15:01
The Cracks in the Ex-Gay Ministry
19:57
Transitioning Away from Ex-Gay Beliefs
25:04
New Relationships and Personal Growth
35:03
Redefining God and Spirituality
38:32
Living Authentically and Embracing Life
42:41
Exploring Sexual Freedom and Relationships
50:17
The Impact of Ex-Gay Ministries
56:23
Supporting the Transgender Community
58:01
Lessons Learned and Guiding Principles

TAKEAWAYS:
John was raised in a complicated household that impacted his emotional development.
He discovered his identity as a homosexual later in life after years of confusion.
John believed he was doing God's work while involved in ex-gay ministries.
He struggled with intimacy in his marriage due to his sexual orientation.
John's journey led him to question the beliefs he had held for years.
He found freedom in accepting his identity and moving away from ex-gay beliefs.
John emphasizes the importance of living authentically and being true to oneself.
He is actively involved in supporting the LGBTQ community in Hot Springs.
John reflects on the impact of ex-gay ministries and the harm they cause.
He believes in making amends to those affected by his past actions.

SUMMARY:
In this conversation, John Smid shares his journey from a complicated upbringing to discovering his identity as a gay man. He discusses his experiences with ex-gay ministries, the struggles he faced with family acceptance, and his eventual transition away from those beliefs. John reflects on his current views on faith, sexuality, and the importance of community support, emphasizing the need for authenticity and personal growth.

From John J. Smid:
I was born in July of 1954. Throughout my life I have lived through the mantra, “How can things be better?” As I continue to ask that question, my life has gone through several quite impactful life transitions.

I have been married three times. I have two children and four grandchildren from my first marriage. Each marriage was a classroom of life for me through which I grew more aware each time that being a gay man wasn’t always easy to embrace.

I spent over 25 years trying to suppress my natural sexuality in order to please God and my then, religious beliefs. 22 of those years I was deeply entrenched in the Evangelical ExGay movement. I was the Executive Director for Love In Action, a residential ExGay ministry and a board member for eleven of those years with Exodus International, a worldwide coalition of ExGay ministries.

I resigned from Love in Action in 2008 and at that time began a search for what was really true for me and my religious beliefs. I’ve spent these last 17 years working to make amends whenever possible for the messages I taught and the impact they had on hundreds of people very personally. Through personal reconnections with program clients and speaking out I hope I am at least making a dent in the harm done.

After 24 years in my second marriage, I finally grew the courage to answer that life question once again. For life to be better I needed to fully embrace my homosexuality and life a more authentic life.
Today, I am married to my husband Larry. We spend most of our time managing our acreage in central Arkansas and our little Airbnb cabin.  We have a wonderful LGBTQ+ community here and are very active socially with our friends.

Website:
http://www.johnjsmid.com

John's book: https://johnjsmid.com/exd-out-2/

Contact via email: js@johnjsmid.com

To contact Wilkinson:  BecomingW

Transcript

WILKINSON (00:00)
Bam, there we are. John Smith, how you doing?

John Smid (00:03)
I'm doing well Wilkinson.

WILKINSON (00:04)
You're in, what part of the godforsaken country are you in? What town?

John Smid (00:08)
That's Springs Arkansas.

Hot Springs, it's really good. We have a good life here. it's, of course, we're in a difficult state politically, but Hot Springs as a community has really been good to us. And we have a fantastic gay community here.

WILKINSON (00:13)
Okay, how is it there?

really?

John Smid (00:32)
Yes, very active and we have a nonprofit corporation which is the Hot Springs LGBTQ plus community network which I'm a part of and it just started about a year and a half ago and it's just doing wonderfully. We just have, we have men's groups, women's groups, trans groups, activities, picnics.

We have Taco Tuesday every week. There's 15 to 20 people every week that come together for that at a local restaurant.

Yeah.

WILKINSON (00:58)
All right, so I put out a blurb about what a month ago, saying I need interesting stories and people for my podcast. And you approached me and you kind of have a little interesting story. Tell us a little about yourself.

John Smid (01:11)
Well,

I've listened to your podcasts and I knew you did them and quite a while back I thought, you know, maybe I would pursue contacting you and to do that. But I just kind of put it on the back burner and then I saw your blurb and I thought, okay, he's inviting people. Here we go.

WILKINSON (01:27)
Right, here we go.

So what's your story? Let's hear it.

John Smid (01:33)
you know, my story, I was born a small child. I'm just kidding.

WILKINSON (01:37)
That

must have hurt if you were a small child and not a baby.

John Smid (01:43)
I was born in 1954 and raised in a period of time in the United States where everything was going up, everything was wonderful. We lived in Nirvana, we thought. me, my household was really complicated. And that caused me to really pull within myself.

I answered like in my high school years, all I had to do is try to survive emotionally and mentally. I just tried to survive. So my, my sexuality and my relationship history at that point was very introverted. I was very naive. I, and again, this would have been in the sixties. We didn't talk about stuff. You know, we didn't have the kind of opportunities people have now. And, and so for me,

identify myself as anything other than I was just me and yet I struggled with a couple of male relationships that were to me intimate close friends. I really loved being around these people and yet

I struggled emotionally because there was something amiss. was something I wasn't catching. they moved on in their lives and I felt abandoned and it was painful for me because I couldn't identify, you know, what's the real issue here. so I escaped that pain by getting married to a girl I was dating in high school.

WILKINSON (02:48)
Right.

So, you realize you were having gay feelings or what?

John Smid (03:00)
Not at all.

no awareness. No, I had no sexuality really. It was just not present. I didn't explore anything. was really, I just emotionally was so just trying to survive that the sex part of my life was just not on the, it was not on the front burner. So my first wedding night, 1973, I was petrified.

I didn't have any idea what I was going to do or what I should do or how do you do this? You know, how do you do this? And so I, in retrospect, I believe my wife had previous experience. So I didn't really have to know what to do. It all kind of worked its way through. But still I was, was naive move. had two kids.

WILKINSON (03:33)
Right.

John Smid (03:48)
So yeah, we had sex, it was there, the action was there, the product was there, the two babies. But I just began to look around my life at other men and other men's lives and other men's relationships. And I felt so distant and estranged from that piece of my puzzle that...

I just started to develop this kind of voyeuristic experience with other men in my neighborhood and on the commuter bus I rode, I found myself deeply attracted to these men, but still it was not, I wasn't looking to be sexual with them. I just felt so estranged from that piece.

So finally I'm sitting at work one day, I worked in a, for the railroad in an office building and the ladies in the key punch office were talking and all of a sudden they said the word homosexual. They'd read some article in the paper or something and I heard that word and I thought, my God, that's it. It just, it just gelled homosexual. That's me. That's all these years. That's what I have felt all this time.

WILKINSON (04:40)
Thank

John Smid (04:49)
I am homosexual. And so I took that awareness and contacted a guy that worked in our office that I knew was gay. See, here's the duality of it all. We knew he was gay. We didn't know what to do with that. didn't. It wasn't conscious, but we knew he was. So I contacted him. Hey, you know, I'd like to talk with you sometime. Well, our first conversation at a bar that about a week or so later ended up in

WILKINSON (04:58)
Bye.

John Smid (05:13)
an apartment having sex with each other. And when that happened, I just immediately thought, that's what sex is. That's what.

WILKINSON (05:15)
Wow.

So

you were still married at the time, right?

John Smid (05:26)
Yes, and I just thought that that makes sense to me that is that's who I am I Know that to be true now so I went home to my wife and two weeks later told her I'm gay and I want a divorce and And I just I just that was it. It's like okay now I know I don't have any more questions about this. That's it. So so that turned into a four-year period of me living

completely immersed in the gay community. mean, in Omaha, Nebraska at the time, 1979, I had all gay friends. I went to the gay bars. I lived in an apartment building. There was all gay people, all gay men. I found my community. I found my niche. That was it. I was comfortable with it. And I didn't care who knew. I mean, you know, back then, I don't know, it wasn't as open as it is now, but I didn't care. I was gay. I told everybody, didn't hide that. But...

What I was still feeling inside was I still feel like I'm not resolved in some areas and I need to be the best person I can be. I just was driven. I've always driven to find out how could life be better. That's always been a question in my life. So.

I met a girl that was in our office who started telling me about Jesus and telling me about the Bible and telling me about religion and and That was not something that I'd ever really attached to I was raised Catholic, but that was not a part of my identity at all So I thought okay. Well, maybe I need to accept this Jesus thing, you know, maybe that's what I need to do That's probably going to help me be the best person I could be so I

went through the motion, went to her church, accepted Jesus, and immediately met with the pastor that was there. It was a Singles pastor. It was a new Singles ministry. He had just moved into the scene. And I sat down with him in his office, and his first words out of his mouth were, well, John, you know, the problem here is, you know, being gay is wrong, and this is what Roman says, and this is what whatever. And I just went away, and I thought, you know, maybe he's right.

I don't know. I don't know the Bible. I don't know anything about religion. He's the expert. He went to school. He knows what he's talking about, I guess. So I embraced what he said and immediately separated myself from all my gay friends, from all the gay associations and got involved in the singles ministry. So here I am now.

WILKINSON (07:27)
Right.

John Smid (07:39)
I'm celibate. I'm where I want to be. I chose to be here and I liked it. I enjoyed the people and the relationships in the community that I found there. It was very positive and very helpful to me. But I have this place again where I'm thinking I'm still not intimate with anybody. Like I'm missing that relationship that I really hunger for. Well, they say I can't have a man. So

I guess I got to figure out the woman thing. Somehow, and if I'm obedient, and if I'm following God, and if I'm really true to my faith, then I trust that God, in his miracle ways, can help me find an attraction to a woman. I don't have to be attracted to them all.

but surely he can help me do this. So I found a girl that I got close to after dating a couple of other girls and we ended up getting close, we dated, but there became an emotional barrier. A conflict in me started to become present and I was scared to death that I was gonna hurt somebody again, that I was gonna fail again. So at that point I heard a radio broadcast on Focus on the Family

And you might have even heard of her Barbara Johnson. A lot of people had, she wrote these books called fresh out elastic for stretched out moms and some other things. Well, she had a gay son HIV positive. And I wrote focused on the family. it's okay. heard the podcast, send me information on these ministries you're talking about. So they responded by, I got a letter from desert stream international, which was in Los Angeles. I got a letter from,

WILKINSON (08:52)
stuff.

John Smid (09:08)
Exodus International, which was the overall organization. And then I got a phone call from Love in Action, which was in San Rafael, California, from the wife of Frank Worthen, Anita Worthen called me and she said, Hey, John, we got your letter. We're looking for somebody to manage our residential homes to be a house manager for one of our houses. I wonder if you would like to apply for that job. Well, she didn't know me from, you know, a house cat.

But I just felt so strongly that that is where I needed to go. It's like they know the answers. They're professionals in this. They know what to do. And Frank and Anita are a married couple and maybe they'll help me through this problem I'm having. So that was the beginning of a 22-year leadership position at Love and Action International.

WILKINSON (09:34)
Right.

John Smid (09:59)
I was on the board of directors for Exodus for 11 years. All of that, I did eventually marry the girl that I was dating. We got married about a year later. That 22 years was a time for me, the positives I got out of it is that it gave me time to heal from my family background. I I really did a lot of internal work, a lot of internal resolution, a lot of internal healing from my family origin.

WILKINSON (10:21)
Right.

John Smid (10:22)
I really thought I was doing God's work. I really believe that if these are the standards, if this is God's word, if this is what it says, then I'm helping people to be reconciled with God. And that's a wonderful thing to do. It's a positive thing to do. And I never thought for a minute what I was doing was harming anybody because I believed so strongly in that conservative biblical viewpoint. And yes,

WILKINSON (10:45)
Right. No, stop. Stop. So you

mentioned you mentioned your family. So did where were they when you came out to them at one point of the first time?

John Smid (10:50)
Yes.

Yes.

WILKINSON (10:55)
And that didn't go well.

John Smid (10:56)
That was really no problem. My mom, it didn't even, but my mom was sociopathic and diagnosed sociopathic later in life. So she had no emotional capacity to care or not care. It just was not on her periphery. My dad was always an extremely loving man, never judgmental or critical.

And for him, it was almost not even a hiccup. He just keep loving me. There was never a problem with my dad. My sisters had become Jehovah's Witnesses. And so in that situation, that was a greater issue than me being gay. So thankfully, my family was never a problem. My aunts and uncles, cousins, no one ever, they just loved me. The bigger problem came

when I got involved in the ex-gay ministry because I put myself above them religiously. And so I separated myself from them more than they ever did from me.

It was kind of a reverse situation. So I'm thankful because now, you know, I have a relationship with my cousins again, and they have proven to me how much they have loved me all the way through the years, even when I put myself outside of their periphery.

WILKINSON (12:08)
So when you said you had to do healing from your family stuff, is that what you're talking about? Okay, okay.

John Smid (12:12)
Yes, yes. My mom,

my mom, because of her sociopathy, she was extremely cruel to my dad.

She was cruel to everyone in our family. She divorced my dad when I was 10 and immediately married my stepdad and had another two children with him. And my stepdad was a very angry, abusive alcoholic. My mother was the inspiration for all of their fights and arguments. She would constantly spark fights and arguments. And it's like she was addicted to that rush of fighting and arguing and...

Our home was just an absolute nightmare. It was a complete nightmare. was there for about, I lived in that home for five years all the way through my adolescence. And it was just, I, because of the way I'm wired, was just day after day after day of pure emotional torture. so I left there when I was 16, my dad gave me the opportunity to live with him. And it was like he gave me the key to my prison cell. finally got out.

but the wounding was there.

WILKINSON (13:11)
so now you're doing all the X-Gate Ministry stuff, thinking you're on the right path.

John Smid (13:15)
Yes,

I thought it was right. I thought it was the best. And nothing ever challenged that because I didn't allow myself to read anything, what we call like pro-gate theology, because that would have been the enemy that was deceiving and we couldn't allow ourselves to get into any of that. So I didn't look at anything other than that narrow belief system that I was in. And I was in mostly

Charismatic to Baptist like churches, know, just non-denominational typically but we were amongst people that all believed the same thing and We were in places where we didn't really question it the communities I was in we didn't question what we believed We just affirmed what we believed was right So being a questioner My questions were all deeply buried. I just kind of support them all and I was afraid

WILKINSON (14:03)
Alright.

John Smid (14:05)
that if I did question it, if I would let loose of anything, I would lose the potential that I would be attracted to my wife, which I wasn't. I mean, I never, of course that never happened.

WILKINSON (14:17)
Wait a minute, so

wait, you were not attracted to her? Well then, what do you mean you were to lose the attraction? You didn't have it.

John Smid (14:20)
No, not at all.

lose the potential. It was the parrot. It was the parrot. I kept hoping if I'm obedient enough, if I follow this tightly enough, I mean, so this is public information that I'll share. I was so committed to being the best ex-gay I could be, believing even masturbation was a violation of the marriage covenant.

WILKINSON (14:26)
lose the potential. Okay. All right.

John Smid (14:47)
I didn't masturbate for over 18 years. And I held that up as almost a trophy of my obedience. It's like, this is how obedient I am.

I'm not going to even allow that to get in the way of the potential that God's going to give me attraction. I was just so hopeful that I would succeed, that I would finally find that intimacy, which never occurred. you know, about the last 10 years of our marriage, there was no sexual intimacy at all. So I was completely celibate. Didn't look at pornography. Nothing. I couldn't. I just was so rigid.

And that rigidity came out in other ways, obviously. I mean, I was very judgmental and very legalistic because I was that way. I was worse with myself than I was anybody else.

WILKINSON (15:33)
So where was your

second wife in all this? Did she feel that you were not attracted to her or where was she at?

John Smid (15:40)
I try to find ways to talk about that without exposing her. But there were things, I believe, in her life where it created a relationship that she was satisfied with being married to me.

WILKINSON (15:44)
Okay.

John Smid (15:54)
Without the intimacy for some reason she never brought it up, but that was that was the pink elephant the middle of our living room That was the codependency of our relationship for 25 years and that was we are not going to talk about our sexuality I Brought it up on a couple of occasions and when I brought it up to her

which I had to work up. mean, my gosh, I was so anxious about this conversation. And she was just not able to respond.

And so I just said, you know, I'm not going to bring it up again. I worked too hard to bring this up the first time. And if she's not going to open up and join me in the conversation, then I'm going that vulnerable. I'm going to bring it up again. So it just went further into the recesses of our marriage. We got along. We were compatible. didn't fight and argue. We had friends. We hung out. We did things. We traveled, you know, in many ways. It was just a very platonic relationship. And

WILKINSON (16:29)
Right.

So she was

a very good roommate. So when did the cracks appear in the ministry stuff?

John Smid (16:49)
A good room, yes. And the last.

The ministry crack occurred in 2005. There was a world viral protest against our ministry that happened. And it happened as a result of a youth program we had and a guy named Zach.

when before he came in the program, was 15 or 16 before he came in the program. And it was, it was a day camp, like a day program in the summer where they came to our office during the day. And he put it up, posted on MySpace that his parents were sending him to this ex-gay camp. And in MySpace was out at that time and all of his adolescent and high school friends decided they needed to rescue him. So they orchestrated a protest.

And they got in front of our property for eight weeks, morning and night. They were in front of our property and it was chronicled by a guy named Morgan John Fox, who was a filmmaker and he produced a film eight years later called This Is What Love and Action Looks Like. And it was the chronicle of the protest and the fallout from it.

So the protest created a crack, not in my belief system, it created a crack in our staff because there was so much going on as a result of that. We had legal authorities, we had child protective services, we had drug and alcohol licensure people, we had mental health licensure people all coming in and challenging our ministry, challenging everything we did. And it was just one day after the other of battles. And my staff and I, I needed their support.

they needed to be separated from it. They kept saying, we don't wanna deal with this. You have to deal with that. We're down here. And I said, but I need your support. We got it. Well, it became a rift in between us where they became my worst enemy. They started writing letters against me. They were very much in opposition to me being the director of the ministry. And so eventually in 2008, almost three years later,

after all kinds of water under the bridge, I went into my board and said, I'm resigning. You can have it. I don't want it anymore. Do whatever you want with it. And it was still fairly successful at that point. And we had a $750,000 a year budget and I had a five acre campus with buildings and houses. it was very, as far as a nonprofit organization, was, I had taken it to a very successful place financially.

But emotionally I was ruined and I was really almost at the point of an internal breakdown. So I just went in and resigned. So when I resigned, it opened the door for me to no longer be beholden to an organization or to a church or to a board or anybody. I could finally step back and say, who am I? What do I believe?

WILKINSON (19:35)
it.

John Smid (19:36)
Just me, separate from all these other choices. And that was the beginning of me asking the questions. And immediately I started discovering some quite shocking answers that really shocking because I discovered how much I had been lied to. You've heard of Michael Bussey. Michael Bussey was one of the founding members of Exodus International back in 74.

He was one of the first people I had a conversation with. And when I entered the conversation, I was still in a fairly critical and judgmental place. And I was was judgmental about Michael having left his marriage for this other guy, because I was still married and I was still proud about my my track record there. So I went into that conversation with a defense of even talking to him.

So we ended the conversation and his kindness and his humility completely broke me down. And I said, my gosh, Michael was somebody that the leaders of love and action before me and the leaders of Exodus for years had condemned Michael Bussey publicly all through the years as being this terrible person who, you know, this backslidden divorced, you know, whatever.

And I found Michael to be one of the most incredible people that I had met. And I discovered that they had lied to me about this person all through these years. And so I said, OK, what other lies are there? What else have I been lied to about? I said, I've been deceived. I have been completely deceived, not just by an organization. I've been deceived by a particular understanding of the Christian faith.

And I came to realize that it was a cult. I it was just absolutely a cult where you were not allowed to, you're not allowed to question, you're not allowed to, know, and if you dare you do, you're put out on the outside of town. And so then that's what happened to me. I was just fellowshiped and put outside the village basically.

WILKINSON (21:13)
Hello.

John Smid (21:27)
which was a gift. mean, all of these things, the protest was a gift. The disfellowship was a gift, you know, because it freed me up finally to be who I really want to be, not just as a gay, but as a person.

WILKINSON (21:38)
Alright.

So what happened with the second marriage at that point then? At what point did things shift there?

John Smid (21:42)
bye.

Okay, so from 2008 to 2010, I started working through a lot of the church stuff, separating myself from mainline church stuff. But in 2010, I went to, quite secretly, I went to a gay Christian conference. My wife knew, but my closest Christian friends didn't know because I couldn't dare disclose that I was going to a gay Christian conference. And it was held in

WILKINSON (22:09)
What was the conference?

John Smid (22:10)
It was called the evangelical network. was led.

WILKINSON (22:13)
Okay, and

where was that held?

John Smid (22:15)
It was held in Southern California in Sino.

WILKINSON (22:17)
I think I was involved with that for a while.

John Smid (22:20)
could be

the it was the 10 conference. It was started by a couple of people and I was invited once the leader, Todd Farrell, found out that where I was at and he and I had a conversation. One of the second people I met, he says, John, I want to invite you to our conference. I said, you don't understand. I don't have any money. I can't fly across the country. Thank you for the invitation, but there's no way I could possibly go.

But right after he invited me, I was invited to speak at an ex-gay parents meeting that I by that time had changed my content quite a bit. And so I accepted the invitation. And because really what I just wanted to do is help parents learn how to love their kids. That was my motive. And so I was able to go to that conference and to work into that a circle trip so that I could use the air to take me to Southern California based on the same basic budget.

And I had some friends in LA that invited me to stay with them during a few days prior to that conference. So it all worked out that I was able to go. the first person I met at the conference, I'm going in there thinking, boy, Todd even told me, said, remember, these people are probably not going to be friendly to you. So just be mindful that you're not their favorite person on the world. Well, the first person I talked to was a guy that was in the Love and Action program.

the very first year that I was there in 1987, I walked up to him and I said, my gosh, you are, you know, I'm so and so. And he says, I don't remember you. you're kidding me. What do you mean you don't remember me? Don't you know who I am? But the reason he didn't is I was an assistant house manager in another house. And so we weren't personally connected every day, but I found in him the joy.

WILKINSON (23:48)
you

Okay.

John Smid (24:02)
and the piece that just radiated from him was so mind-blowing to me because we always believed that could never be possible. You can't be Jewish Christian. And he just was so incredible. Then I met a trans woman who was a pastor of a Sunday church for trans people. And I'm talking to her and I'm going...

WILKINSON (24:11)
Right.

Thank

John Smid (24:25)
No, no, this, no. Women can't even be pastors, much less a trans woman. Are you kidding me? She was again, an incredibly humble, and I don't want to put these people on a pedestal, but I just got to say these people were pretty incredible people. I mean, their heart, their love, their peace, their joy was just unarguable. And so I went to a six hour workshop.

in that conference and I don't sit still for 20 minutes, much less six hours. Six hours on the Bible on homosexuality. And I was just glued. I was glued to what I was hearing. In my mind, everything made sense. It's like this. I can't. I can't. So I went up to the teacher afterwards who is now deceased. But I said, are you telling me that you think the Bible could have been mistranslated through an anti-gay bias?

And he said, yes, absolutely. And I says, I absolutely agree with you. Because through my years of X-Gay ministry, I was in a lot of conversations with people about these issues, about sexuality, about humanity, about relationships, about all of that stuff. And I continued to see an incredible patriarchal bias to everything that I saw and learned.

And I said, because of that heavy patriarchal bias, I absolutely believe that it's possible that men meeting in groups about the Bible to come out with their translations would have been impacted by their anti-gay bias. And so I agree with you. And in other words, that conference, it just attacked every single one of my potential questions. And I came away an absolute changed person, just completely changed.

WILKINSON (25:42)
right?

John Smid (25:55)
So that just caused me to go even more into this transition. So that was 2010. So by the time I got to 2012, I'd been to two more gay Christian conferences.

I had a lot more conversations and I actually had by that time started making amends with clients from Love in Action. And I started pursuing reconnections. During the 22 years I was there, we had 475 people who went through our residential program. And I had a list of all those people. I took with me from Love in Action. I hope that isn't HIPAA wrong, but.

I have because I care about those people. I really cared about every one of them and I had a relationship with everyone because Love in Action was a long term program. We knew these people intimately. We knew their parents. had families. So I had this list and I started reconnection just to listen, just to hear their stories, to find out where they're at, to answer whatever not to solve anything. I wasn't there to try to make things good. I just wanted to reconnect and

WILKINSON (26:38)
Right.

John Smid (26:53)
And now I'm into several hundred of those people that I reconnected with, which has been the joy of my life is to do that. It's been wonderful. But so I'm working along, answering these questions, dealing with all this stuff. Finally, by the time I'm at 2011, I went to a conference and I had met this guy named Larry McQueen. And he.

Approached me and said he'd heard of my name and we had a common friend who's Jeremy Marx who lives in in England and we just connected and that relationship then became kind of a friendship and We had some conversations and again I wasn't even Anywhere aware that that was going to that I was gonna separate from my marriage or that Larry and I were gonna ever be together That was not on my periphery because I'm still

not believing that I can really do this thing. just have to learn how to love gay people. That's what I need to learn. So, let's go back to the end of 2012. I realized, you know, the marriage has to go. It's time. It's just too much. But previously in that year, a little out order here, in January 2012, I sat down with my wife and I said, I'm done. I'm not going to do this anymore.

WILKINSON (27:45)
Right.

John Smid (28:03)
It's been 22 years. No, at that point it was 24 years and This is crazy. This is called insanity and I'm willing to live the rest of my life as a celibate man. I'm not willing to do that so This has to go and her response was well, can't you pray about it? And I said, what do you think I've been doing for 25 years? mean my guts out. No, no, I'm not

WILKINSON (28:21)
All right.

John Smid (28:24)
And so that year was the process of ending our marriage, of selling our home, downsizing our dating, and moving towards the eventual separation, which happened at the end of 2012. And so when that ended, by that point, I realized that Larry was somebody I really wanted to get to know better, and there was something significant. So we started long-term dating, and in July of 2013, after my divorce was final, we moved in together.

And so now we've been together since 2013. Which again, he has been just this incredible resource of grace and care and love and acceptance of me being whoever I am. No attempt to make me to be anything else. It's been such a healing place. mean, it's really been phenomenal for me. And he had never had a significant relationship prior to that.

He was 52. Yeah. So I'm his first, you know, I'm his, I was his first kiss. Yeah. First, first intimate contact. And I'm surprised that it's worked because, know, typically people would say that would never work. But Larry's been amazing. And so we've been on our own journey since that point.

WILKINSON (29:19)
Right.

where are you and God now in church and all that stuff?

John Smid (29:41)
Right now I have no definition of God Because I believe God Through the years whatever is too too mysterious Nobody really knows I don't think anybody I'm just I really don't believe anybody knows who God is Everybody has a different God. I believe everyone has a different understanding a different definition a different

WILKINSON (29:56)
Right.

John Smid (30:03)
connection to whatever God is for them. And even in the old evangelical church world, everybody had it different. They just couldn't talk about that. So today, I don't really think God is a being. I don't think that we can pray to God and have life changed. I don't think that can happen. But at the same time, I believe that our consciousness, that our connection with creation, with people,

WILKINSON (30:10)
Right.

John Smid (30:29)
does in fact impact our future and it impacts our present. Whether that's God or not, call it whatever you want. I don't believe in an eternity. I don't believe that when I die I'm going to go to heaven, but I also don't believe I'm going to hell. I don't know what happens after our last breath.

And that was a very significant transition for me because all during my evangelical years I wanted to die. Because life was hard, heaven's perfect. Life is hard, eternity's beautiful. I just want to die in Jesus. When I let go of the certainty of those beliefs and realized that this is the only life I have, I finally wanted to live.

And since that has happened, I find more joy and more connection and more happiness living than I have ever had in my life. Because this is the only life I'm guaranteed. So I want to make the most out of it. And I want to live to be 100 years old. That's my goal. And before, I couldn't wait to die. So the truth has really set me free.

WILKINSON (31:33)
When I was trapped back in those years, I would pray that one of us would die, and I honestly, God didn't care which one of us it was. That's how bad it was. It was bad.

John Smid (31:41)
Yeah. Yeah.

I used to kind

of, I used to kind of, and this is terrible to say, but it was to kind of pray and say, God, maybe it'd be easier if my wife would die, then I would be free. Then I wouldn't have to get a divorce. It wouldn't be failure. It would be seen as a failure. But for me, I had to eventually, and I just wrote this today on a post on Facebook of an XXGay page. And I said, you know, really, we have to live in our gut.

WILKINSON (31:56)
Right.

John Smid (32:10)
That's the only happiness we'll ever find. The only peace we'll ever find is when my gut becomes my authenticity. And I was not living by my gut at all. I was living by others' expectations. And that's where the conflict was. And finally, when I said, what is my gut telling me? What is my gut? What do I really want? What do I really feel? And when I started walking with that integrity is when life started to finally settle.

WILKINSON (32:17)
Thanks

So you don't go to church today.

John Smid (32:39)
No, not at all. I don't want anything to do with an organized church. I don't even like to go into a church for a wedding. I do, but I have. It just unnerves me. that's still not something that's completely reconciled in me. I acknowledge that. I still have visceral reactions to it. But I was deceived and lied to for so many years. And I oppressed myself from that.

WILKINSON (32:54)
Right.

John Smid (33:04)
You know, I suppressed everything about who I am and that hasn't worked its way out yet. I mean, I recognize that Larry and I in our relationship are still impacted by lifelong expectations that were abusive. We haven't resolved all that yet. We're working that through little by little, year by year. I just found it. You might find this funny because I.

WILKINSON (33:18)
Right.

John Smid (33:27)
You were on my mind when I read this book and you'll know why when I say what it is. I received a copy of a book from a friend who thought maybe I should read it called The Ethical Slut.

WILKINSON (33:37)
to them.

John Smid (33:38)
my gosh. It is an interesting read. And the term.

WILKINSON (33:42)
Wait, why

did you think of me? You said you thought of me?

John Smid (33:45)
Because I've, well, in knowing you from what I've seen of you, you have quite a profound freedom in your sexuality.

WILKINSON (33:46)
Yeah

Yeah

I do.

John Smid (33:56)
I would say you do. And I have not had, I have not had that. And the ethical slut is all about looking at sex through healthy, free places where sex is a gift, sex is a freedom.

that finding our expressions sexually is something that we should be free to do, as long as we're ethical. And so the ethical slut is all about healthy communication, healthy boundaries, healthy ability to say yes and no, healthy ways to coexist with other people that are sexually free. It's really...

It is a very challenging read for people like me who have come out of such puritanism. It talks about polyamory. It talks about group sex. It talks about open relationships. It talks about single people mixed with open relationships, mixed with polyamory, mixed with gay and straight. And it just explores.

WILKINSON (34:42)
Right.

John Smid (34:57)
But everything that it communicates is coming from a place of learning to be healthy and appropriate. And I'm thinking, I never.

WILKINSON (35:06)
Right.

John Smid (35:08)
kind of like the trans woman as the pastor, you I never thought that could be the case. I never thought that was allowable. No, you can't do that. my gosh, married for life, monogamous, that's the only way. Well, I broke all of that with three marriages. But still, you know, at the same time, I'm...

WILKINSON (35:14)
Right.

John Smid (35:27)
70 years old, but I'm still a sexually active man and I'm still wanting to know about sex What does this mean for me? And how do I approach that in my marriage to Larry? He's reading it too. We haven't talked about it but I'm in what he is thinking about it But it's it's that's really kind of what's on my burner these days is like, okay in my process now

WILKINSON (35:33)
Right.

Ha

John Smid (35:51)
I've found freedom in many, ways, but I haven't really come to grips with that piece of my life yet.

WILKINSON (35:57)
Wait, so do you think I'm ethical or do you think I'm a slut?

John Smid (36:00)
I think you're probably both. Well, the term slut, the term slut is used, I think it's used almost intentionally to spark that reaction because people have used the word slut so negatively, just like they use the word prostitute. I've met a friend who's a sex worker and she says, I'm not a prostitute. And I said, okay, tell me the difference.

WILKINSON (36:01)
No.

Right.

John Smid (36:24)
And I'm thinking, wow, you know, another shock to my life is like, I need to really think about that. You know, I need to open my mind even further without the criticism and judgment that I lived in for so many years.

WILKINSON (36:38)
next

I think the next podcast that's going to be released is you'll you'll find that one interesting. The guy's name is David Wichman. You want to watch that one? But that's coming up. But as far as myself, I don't know, I've changed. mean, when I I mean, I was totally repressed as a kid. My parents never talked about sex. my God. You know, they never I never heard the word penis from them.

John Smid (36:47)
I'll watch.

yeah.

WILKINSON (37:03)
It was so weird. was like, know, close the door to close the box, forget it. so then when I got divorced, then figured out I was gay when I was in Europe. Wasn't pulled around, but just figured it out and then came home and came out. But I was a slut for, I'd say, year because it was like, boy, first time in the candy shop.

John Smid (37:03)
I never heard that.

Yeah. Yeah.

WILKINSON (37:26)
You

know, and I've had, so I've got one ex-wife, three ex-partners and a COVID boyfriend. Talk about a loser, right? A COVID boyfriend that I had for seven months. But I don't know. I'm not, I mean, here I am in Palm Springs, of course. You know, it's the gay Mecca and there's opportunity for whatever you want. But it's like, I don't want it.

John Smid (37:32)
And a foot.

Yeah.

WILKINSON (37:49)
It's like, don't go out and hook up and fool around a lot. I mean, obviously there's things here and there that happen, but that's really not where I'm at. Where I'm at now is I want connection with somebody and if I don't have it, I'm not interested. So, I mean, that's it. And if I find another partner, which I'm getting up there, who knows if I ever will, but if I do, it's gonna be an energetic connection, absolutely.

John Smid (38:14)
Yeah.

WILKINSON (38:14)
I

mean, that's where I'm at now, so.

John Smid (38:16)
And I hope you weren't taking offense at what I said about the ethical slut thing. That was the term in title of the book. But I just...

WILKINSON (38:20)
Well, you yeah,

mean I know I know you've seen some of my photography right So I mean a lot of it is naked men so come on So that's got that's got that's got to play a part in there, right?

John Smid (38:27)
Yes.

But that's the healthy part. It's like, that's for me, that is something that's part of the ethical nature of our sexuality. You know, what you're doing is obviously you're not raping people, you're not selling people, you're not, you know, you're not, you're...

WILKINSON (38:35)
Right.

Right.

Right?

John Smid (38:50)
you're working in a context of being ethical with the work you do. People are willing participants. They are there for whatever reason they're there. You're there for whatever reason you're there. And it's really no one else's business. But you have a, because of your photography, which I have seen,

I'm constantly challenged. What happens inside of me is the challenge of what is this doing in me? What is it in me that stirs? Of course I'm attracted to men, of course I am, but I've come out of, like you said, my family, my parents, my God, we never talked about anything.

WILKINSON (39:17)
Right?

John Smid (39:28)
I never had any of it. No exposure, no conversation. I didn't even have friends that I talked with about it. I come out of that going into the purity culture of evangelical Christianity. I've never had the opportunity to explore myself, my sexuality, my thoughts on it from an ethical place because nothing outside of Monago's marriage would be ethical in my former.

WILKINSON (39:29)
Right.

Right. Right.

John Smid (39:52)
But listening to podcasts like there's podcasts about the purity movement that I listened to and I said, my gosh, that was another place where evangelicalism raped their people, you know, by telling people sex is bad, sex is bad, sex is bad, don't have it until your wedding night. Then all of sudden it's supposed to be.

WILKINSON (40:09)
Well,

yes, it's so weird because I went to NIA at college, which was Christian Missionary Alliance outside New York City. And I was going to go to seminary, but I bagged it before I went there. But a lot of my friends were pastors. And so you have no sex before marriage. That's the line, right? And they all told me like 95 % of the couples in pre-marital counseling were having sex, like 95%.

John Smid (40:28)
Yes.

undoubted.

WILKINSON (40:36)
It's like,

because they're human. it's like, there's such a disconnect between what they're saying and what they're doing, which of course is the reflection today of everything going on politically, you know, with the exact, you know, say you're a Christian, but you know, all the stuff that's the exact opposite of what's in the Bible, you know, doesn't, it doesn't add up.

John Smid (40:48)
Yeah.

And what does

that do to a person's psyche? And how does it impact their sexuality? And certainly not positively. And yet when Larry and got together, when we first agreed that we were gonna have a relationship, we started talking about that from an angle of there's no model for gay couples, it's all heterosexual couples. So what do we do? What's our model? What do we believe? And finally I discovered for me,

WILKINSON (40:58)
Yeah, it's crazy.

Yeah.

John Smid (41:19)
The absolute best way to form a relationship is to discover each other emotionally, sexually, financially, before you ever sign on the dotted line. If you don't know who you're marrying, are you literally gonna sign a legal document that says I'm bound to you legally? I don't know who you are.

You know, that's ridiculous. I mean, people absolutely must be together before they sign a legal document. And so we didn't get married until we got together, we had a commitment service, and then we legally got married after that. And for us, the legal marriage was just a financial agreement. That's all a business agreement. It's like, okay, we're to agree on binding ourselves together legally for these purposes. And I mean, I...

I just, I looked back and I thought it's just a consignment to failure. You know, to say you can't have sex while we're having sex. you shouldn't have sex. It's sinful. but we're having sex. You get married. And then what? You know, it's to me, it's very unhealthy and certainly in my mind, not ethical.

Ha ha ha ha!

WILKINSON (42:17)
Whoa. So are any of the ex-gay ministries active today?

John Smid (42:22)
Yes, yes, there are. And some of them are people that I was in leadership with back in the day. Many of them are new ones that have come on the scene. There is an organization called Restored Hope Network that is headquartered in Colorado Springs. It used to be in Portland. And they have a coalition of ex-gay ministries that are a part of it. They're hardline.

very, very fundamental, very reactionary. It's not a good thing, but they're supported by conservative evangelicals because they're in the same camp. They believe the same things.

You know, the leader of it was someone who went through love and action. Her name is Ann Edward. She used to be Ann Polk. She was married to John Polk. And I was the best man at their wedding. I've known John all through the years. He and I go way back to 1988. John and I have been just best of friends. We've gone through it all together.

WILKINSON (43:04)
Right.

John Smid (43:16)
And now today, of course, we're obviously in very different places. But yeah, she's not a really wonderful person. And yet she's the leader. And I say that openly. I've experienced her words publicly to me personally and also what she writes and things. I'm thinking, know, girl, you better deal some stuff because you got a lot underneath there.

WILKINSON (43:27)
Ha.

Right.

Wow.

John Smid (43:42)
anger.

So that's the ex-gay ministries. They don't really teach transformation anymore. They teach celibacy or

faithfulness and marriage. They don't teach that somebody can become straight because they can't. They know that's not true. There's no way they could ever even do that. There's too much out in the public now. Way too much has been exposed. So they just help people to live according to God's standards. And there's someone else that's very prominent on the scene. His name is Christopher Yuan.

And Christopher Yuan comes from an Asian family. I knew him back in the Exodus days and he's very, he's doing all kinds of film series. He's very prominent on Facebook. And he's a celibate single man that is very easy. He's very palatable. He's a really nice guy. And he was really nice when I knew him. And he's really nice now.

But his message is feeding a lot of people negative things about sexuality and about being a human being. And I go on his page every now and then and confront some of the things he says. He never responds, never has a comment back, nothing at all. And that would be him. He's just a really nice guy. But I do show my presence every now and then. And he knows who I am. I know who he is, you know.

WILKINSON (44:40)
Wow.

does he delete your

comments or not? He leaves them out there.

John Smid (44:58)
Nope.

He leaves them on there. Yeah. And then there's someone else that is, her name is Christine Sneeringer. She's the leader of Worthy Creations in Fort Lauderdale. And I knew her way back in the day. We were like brother sister. I mean, we were just very close. Her major message today is on transgender people.

WILKINSON (45:02)
Wow.

John Smid (45:20)
She's very, and I have confronted her too numerous times because she follows a Bible line but not a science line. And today transgender issues are all, they all to me hang on what is genetically and biologically scientifically proven. And that is that gender is a spectrum.

They're all variations of chromosomes and DNA and hormones that impact people in terms of who they are in their gender separate from their sexuality. And Christine is out there just hammering, hammering, hammering that anyone who's transgender is against God's standards, against God's laws, that they're lying, they're deceiving, they all de-transition. I mean, she's just out there publicly.

And I just want to smack her. I just want to grab her and shake her. say, Christine, come on. Get off your stool there. mean, this is not true. Listen to the science of this. Our young people, thankfully, our young people today are learning it. They're learning it in pre-med. They're learning it in college. They're learning it in grad school. They're exposed to the truth of the science behind gender.

WILKINSON (46:09)
Ha

John Smid (46:31)
But we've got these people that are out there, armchair scientists, armchair doctors, armchair counselors, whatever, that are completely denying the truth of what is really there. So yeah, because I'm a co-facilitator of the trans group here in Hot Springs, and it has been an incredible experience. I mean, we started it just a few months ago, and immediately,

WILKINSON (46:41)
Right.

John Smid (46:55)
We had 15 people. said, yes, I want to come 15 people the first meeting larry now hosted it our house We had a we had a meal together with 15 other transgender people and uh It was the first opportunity and we've had another group this last weekend and they're they're taking it and running with it It's like hot springs is like this transgender hub. I can't believe how many transgender people live in hot springs and And it's i'm really really glad

WILKINSON (47:19)
thought.

John Smid (47:22)
to be able to provide opportunities for them to feel visible and seen and affirmed. And I think we're really making a difference. We had a name change clinic two weeks ago at the public library, and 12 people came to the name change clinic after just one announcement that we're doing it. And we had 12 people come in to get their names changed. And we're doing another one in a couple of weeks, and then we're going to do another one later in the summer.

WILKINSON (47:46)
Is this legally changing names or what?

John Smid (47:48)
Yes, legally changing their names. We have a transgender attorney that lives in Little Rock that she and her partner who is her paralegal came over and they offered legal advice and we did all the computer work. just, she brought with her a web page where all of the documentation is there that you just need to fill in the new names, fill in the information.

and print it out and then the person takes it to the courthouse and gets it registered. So we're basically helping them to streamline the process so they can get their names changed. Yeah. So that's, mean, that's something I felt in this political climate, what can I do? What can I do that's positive? And the first thing that came to mind was I can help support

WILKINSON (48:19)
Cool.

Right?

John Smid (48:30)
the support for transgender people. That's something in my little world that I can do that makes this political climate maybe a little bit better for some people. Yeah.

WILKINSON (48:40)
All right, well we come to the point where I ask you my final question. Right, drum roll, da da. So what have you learned in your life? Like what do you live by? Some of it has already come out, like what is your guiding light? What is it?

John Smid (48:44)
Okay.

That's it.

I think, and I have said it, I think for me, the question that I have lived in my whole life that I finally identified is how can things be better? And so I am always asking questions. How can life be better? And what that means is that I learn more every day.

And when I learn more, I act differently, I do differently. And so I'm constantly in transition, hopefully in self-improvement, hopefully.

And that's in my world too. You know, I'm a creative artistic type person. My husband and I work together. We build furniture, custom furniture, and we do some restoration projects for people. We help people get their heirlooms back in better condition. And what Larry said about me is he said, John, you make the world a better place everywhere you go. And that's kind of...

That affirmation helps me in my creative life to constantly think about how can things look better? How can things be experienced? So that's kind of what I live by. And the other thing is making amends. You know, I spent decades.

doing something that was harmful to a lot of people and I feel it is it is a deep responsibility of mine to do everything I can whenever possible to make amends to those people that that I can

And so every day, I mean, I even last week I had a lengthy conversation with a guy that went through love and action and I had not had a conversation with him. He was in the program back in the early 2000s and and now we're talking back and forth and I'm helping him to work through some of the residuals and and another guy called me and he says I'm calling you because John you were you were there through it all like, you know all sides of it.

WILKINSON (50:14)
Right.

John Smid (50:41)
You know my family, you know my life, you've been around. How can I deal with this? you're dealing with parents that are major Trump supporters. and I'm, I'm, and again, I'm in, in many ways, that's my way of making amends. It's like, how can I be there for you? Cause yes, I do know your family. I know your parents. I've met with them personally and, and let's talk this through. Let's help this to be healthy and appropriate here. You know, I'm not here to slam your parents, but how can I help you to relate to them?

WILKINSON (51:09)
So

you said you've gone back to maybe a couple hundred people.

John Smid (51:12)
Yes.

WILKINSON (51:13)
How many of them are gay today? What'd say? They are.

John Smid (51:16)
All of them.

I just, I figure, I mean, I don't know the statistics, but probably at least 95 % and probably more of the people that went through Love in Action did not maintain a belief that being gay was wrong. Many of them thankfully are reconciled today. Many of them have partners, husbands, wives.

Many of them are grappling with it. There are some who remain single and celibate. There are some who are married to the opposite gender. The ones I know who are married to the opposite gender are struggling with their sexuality, but they have reconciled themselves that they want to remain in the marriage and family.

And they seem to be successful at some level in doing that. And so that's fine. mean, that's good if it's working for them. But no, don't know. mean, nobody became straight. Nobody. I don't know anyone that became straight. And that's the sad part of it is that here we were to do something that was 100 % failure in that regard. But.

WILKINSON (52:14)
Right.

John Smid (52:19)
And what they will tell me and have told me many times is our program is really, really good at helping people to communicate better. It was really, really good at reconciling families. I would say all the people who had families come to the family weekends have a better relationship with their family than they did before. And I gave them tools to process this. And so I think most of them are not

angry about the program. Most of them are not and they're honest about that. Some are. There are a few. I just got a letter a month or two ago from a guy that was just venomous and at the very end he says and I want to hear nothing back from you and I said okay that's fine then you know I'm glad you wrote it if that helped you process fine I don't have any I don't need to respond so I was able to release it but

It's sad, you know, I'm angry too, you know? I get that. I'm angry too, I'm angry too, you so I get it.

WILKINSON (53:04)
Okay.

She isn't

All right, sir, it's been fun. Have a great week and we will chat soon.

John Smid (53:13)
Alright.

All right, Wilkinson, thank you for the opportunity.

WILKINSON (53:20)
You're welcome.