SCRIPT #4

RYAN KENDALL: DID YOU TRY TO BECOME HETEROSEXUAL DURING THERAPY

SESSIONS? (PLAINTIFFS' WITNESS)
Testimony as given in U.S. District Court on January 20, 2010

Speaking:
RYAN KENDALL
RON FLYNN
THE COURT (JUDGE WALKER)

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acting an excerpt from Perry v. Schwarzenegger, the federal Prop. 8 trial.
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which eliminated the right of same-sex couples to marry
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TO BE READ ALOUD:
Hear ye, hear ye! The following scene is a re-enactment of Perry v.
Schwarzenegger, the Prop 8 trial heard in U.S. District Court. Ryan
Kendall is a gay man who works for Denver Police Department, and who was
subjected to “conversion therapy” as a youth. He is a fact witness for the
plaintiffs and is under direct-examination by the plaintiffs’ intervenors
lawyer, Ron Flynn. The plaintiffs in this case are two loving same-sex
couples who simply want to marry, just as any heterosexual couple in
America has the right to do.

Court is now in session!

RON FLYNN, PLAINTIFFS’ INTERVENORS ATTORNEY:

Good morning, Mr. Kendall. Where do you live?

RYAN KENDALL, PLAINTIFFS’ FACT WITNESS:

I currently live in Denver, Colorado.

FLYNN:
And who do you work for?

KENDALL:
I work for the Denver Police Department.

FLYNN:
What do you do for the Denver Police Department?

JUDGE WALKER:
Keep your voice up, Mr. Flynn.

FLYNN:
Yes, Your Honor.

KENDALL:
I'm an NCIC agent.

FLYNN:
Can you briefly tell us what an NCIC agent is?

KENDALL:
NCIC stands for the National Crime Information Center. It's a database
maintained by the FBI. And I have a clearance to work with secure criminal
information that's on that database.

FLYNN:
Mr. Kendall, I want to talk about when you were younger, when you were a
child. Where did you grow up?

 
 
 

KENDALL:
I grew up in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

FLYNN:
And when were you born?

KENDALL:
In 1983.

FLYNN:
So you are 26 years old now?

KENDALL:
That's correct.

FLYNN:
Where did you attend elementary school?

KENDALL:
I went to a school called ECA, Evangelical Christian Academy.

FLYNN:
While you were a child in Colorado Springs, did you learn of the concept
of gay people or homosexuality?

KENDALL:
Yes. I remember during the discussion about Amendment 2, during the
Amendment 2 campaign, my parents would talk about homosexuals seeking
special rights; and how they were essentially evil people; and how they
felt threatened and how our family was threatened by homosexuals.

FLYNN:
At that time, did you know what a homosexual was?

KENDALL:
No, I didn't. I just knew it was a big, long, scary word. And I found the
whole concept very frightening.

FLYNN:
Mr. Kendall, what is your sexual orientation?

KENDALL:
I'm a gay man.

FLYNN:
When did you first realize that you were gay?

KENDALL:

 
 
 

When I was a little kid, I knew I liked other boys. But I didn't realize
that that meant I was gay until I was, probably, 11 or 12 years old.

FLYNN:
How did you come to realize that it meant -- that that meant you were gay?

KENDALL:
I was a precocious kid. So one day I ended up looking up the word
"homosexual" in the dictionary. And I remember reading the definition,
something along the lines of a romantic attraction between members of the
same sex. And it slowly dawned on me that that's what I was.

FLYNN:
Given your prior testimony about homosexuals, how did you feel when you
realized that you were gay?

KENDALL:
Well, once I connected this all together, I realized that what a
homosexual was, the fact that I was a homosexual and the fact that my
family and community did not like this concept, I was scared by that. I
realized this was bad news for me. So I kept this a secret, and I hid it
as far away from everyone as I could.

FLYNN:
Around this time, did anyone talk to you about being gay?

KENDALL:
When I was in seventh grade, I remember being taunted about being gay.
Some of the older boys and boys in my class would call me names, and
things like that.

FLYNN:
What kind of names would they call you?

KENDALL:
I was called a faggot. I was called a homo, a queer, or even just gay.

FLYNN:
Other than name calling, did these boys do anything else to you?

KENDALL:
I remember one incident -- I have worn glasses since I was like in the
third grade. I need them to see. And a couple of the boys took my glasses
and played monkey in the middle, keep away, and threw them over my head
until, eventually, they broke them.

FLYNN:
What was it like for you to be in that school? How did you feel?

 
 
 

KENDALL:
It was scary going into that building, realizing these kids were taunting
me with a word that was so close to the truth. And it was very upsetting.
I would go home and get in the car when my parents would pick me up,
crying and telling them what had been going on.

FLYNN:
What did your parents do?

KENDALL:
My parents were horrified that I was being treated so poorly, so,
eventually, they took me out of that school and placed me in another one.

FLYNN:
At the time they did that, did your parents know that you were gay?

KENDALL:
No, they did not.

FLYNN:
Did your parents ever find out that you were gay?

KENDALL:
Yes, when I was 13 years old. At one point my parents discovered my
journal. And for the first time in that journal, I had admitted to myself
that I was gay. And I had actually written those words. And they found
that and read it.

FLYNN:
What happened when they found that journal?

KENDALL:
My parents flipped out. They were very upset. They were yelling. I don't
remember a lot of what they said, but it was pretty scary, the level of
their reaction.

FLYNN:
Can you remember anything they said to you when they found the journal?

KENDALL:
Yes. I remember my mother looking at me and telling me that I was going to
burn in hell.

FLYNN:
Were you in a religious family?

KENDALL:

 
 
 

Yes. I grew up in a very religious family. Church and God were everyday
parts of our life.

FLYNN:
So what -- what did you think when your mother told you that?

KENDALL:
It was shocking. I never heard anything like that from my mother. I never
thought that my parents would ever say anything -- I mean, hell was the
worst. You don't get much worse than eternal damnation. And I was just
totally stunned that they had said that.

FLYNN:
Did your parents later tell you anything else about you being gay?

KENDALL:
After my parents found out, my home life changed a lot. And my parents
didn't take it very well. And I remember my mother calling me names.

FLYNN:
Did they make any efforts to -- to put you in any therapy or to change you
in any way?

KENDALL:
Yes. Shortly after this incident, I was sent to a Christian therapist for
reversal therapy.

FLYNN:
Why do you say it was a Christian therapist?

KENDALL:
That's how he was identified to me.

FLYNN:
Can you tell us the goal of the Christian therapy?

KENDALL:
Yes. I was told that the goal was to make me a heterosexual.

FLYNN:
How many times did you go to this therapy?

KENDALL:
I went two or three times.

FLYNN:
Do you remember anything you did at that therapy?

 
 
 

KENDALL:
I remember a little bit. I remember the therapist telling me that
homosexuality was inconsistent with Christian teaching, and that my
parents didn't want me to be gay, and I needed to change, and that
homosexuals were bad people.

FLYNN:
Did Christian therapy make you feel better about the situation?

KENDALL:
No, it didn't. I -- I always wanted to be a good kid and to make my
parents proud. And, suddenly, I was in a situation where they were taking
me to see this guy who was telling me I was a bad person, and they were
telling me I was a bad person. And I remember feeling very, very alone.

FLYNN:
Was the therapy successful? By that I mean, did it reach its goal of
making you into a heterosexual?

KENDALL:
No. I was still gay.

FLYNN:
Did you try to become heterosexual during those therapy sessions?

KENDALL:
No, I didn't think it was possible.

FLYNN:
Why not?

KENDALL:
I knew I was gay just like I knew I'm short and I'm half Hispanic. And I
just never thought that those facts would change.

FLYNN:
When you stopped going to this therapy program, did you go to any other
therapy programs?

KENDALL:
Yes. My parents had been referred by Focus on the Family, to another
organization called NARTH.

FLYNN:
What's Focus on the Family?

KENDALL:
Focus on the Family is a Christian family ministry based in Colorado

 
 
 

Springs, Colorado, where I grew up.

FLYNN:
And what's NARTH?

KENDALL:
NARTH stands for the National Association for Reparative Therapy of
Homosexuality. It's a reversal therapy organization based in Encino,
California.

FLYNN:
Did you voluntarily go to NARTH?

KENDALL:
No. My parents made all of those decisions for me.

FLYNN:
How long were you at NARTH?

KENDALL:
About a year and a half.

FLYNN:
From what ages?

KENDALL:
14 to 16.

FLYNN:
During the time that you were at NARTH, how was your home life?

KENDALL:
My home life had changed a lot. It was like night and day. I remember
before this all started I had the kind of parents who would drive me to
school, and make my lunches, and write notes and put them in my lunch. And
after this, they were always yelling at me. They were calling me names.
Uhm, and they were just telling me really horrible things. And it became a
really emotionally and verbally abusive environment.

FLYNN:
What kind of names were they calling you?

KENDALL:
Uhm, my mother would tell me that she hated me, or that I was disgusting,
or that I was repulsive. Once she told me that she wished she had had an
abortion instead of a gay son. She told me that she wished I had been born
with Down’s Syndrome or I had been mentally retarded. Things like that.

 
 
 

FLYNN:
Who did you meet with at NARTH?

KENDALL:
I met with Dr. Joseph Nicolosi.

FLYNN:
Who was Dr. Joseph Nicolosi?

KENDALL:
Nicolosi was the executive director of NARTH.

FLYNN:
Was he also a therapist?

KENDALL:
Yes.

FLYNN:
Where would you -- where would you meet with Mr. Nicolosi?

KENDALL:
Most of the time, I would go into my parents' room. And my dad had a
separate line at his desk. And I would call in and do over-the-phone
sessions, for like an hour or hour and a half. But I did, actually, fly
out to California to do some in-person sessions.

FLYNN:
What would you talk about during those sessions?

KENDALL:
I don't recall a lot of what was said during those sessions. I recall
Nicolosi saying that, you know, "Homosexuality is incompatible with what
God wants for you, and your parents want you to change," and that this is
a bad thing.

FLYNN:
Were you given any advice on how you would be able to suppress your
homosexuality, in these therapy sessions?

KENDALL:
I remember it as a general admonishment, but not a specific technique, no.

FLYNN:
You remained a religious person through your experience at NARTH, correct?

KENDALL:
Yes.

 
 
 

FLYNN:
Is it possible that your experience at NARTH helped you reconcile your
faith with your identity as a gay person?

KENDALL:
At NARTH, I was being told that I had to reject who I was on the most
fundamental level because what that was was dirty and bad. While I
reconciled my faith with my identity, the therapy I went to at NARTH
played no role in that.

FLYNN:
How old were you when you stopped going to reversal therapy?

KENDALL:
I was 16 years old.

FLYNN:
And was it successful in that you were able to suppress your
homosexuality?

KENDALL:
No. I was just as gay as when I started.

FLYNN:
Why did you stop going to reversal therapy?

KENDALL:
During this whole thing, my life had kind of fallen apart. I didn't have
the world that I grew up in; my faith, which was very important to me; my
family, which was even more important. Everything had just kind of
stopped. And I just couldn't take any more. And I realized, at one point,
that if I didn't stop going I wasn't going to survive.

FLYNN:
What do you mean by that?

KENDALL:
Uhm, I would have probably killed myself.

FLYNN:
How is it that you were able to stop going to reversal therapy?

KENDALL:
When I was 16, I separated myself from my family and surrendered myself to
the Department of Human Services in Colorado Springs.

FLYNN:

 
 
 

And what happened when you surrendered yourself to that department?

KENDALL:
I -- I went in, and I spoke with the case worker. And I told her what had
been going on in my family, what had been going on with reversal therapy.
And I told her that if I went back to that house, I was going to end up
killing myself. And so they started a dependency and neglect proceeding to
revoke my parents' custody.

FLYNN:
So did you stop living with your parents and stop going to therapy?

KENDALL:
That's correct.

FLYNN:
And did things get better?

KENDALL:
I was a 16-year-old kid who had just lost everything he ever knew. I
didn't really know what to do. I was very lost. And so the next few years
I wandered in and out of jobs. I wandered in and out of attempts at
school. I was incredibly suicidal and depressed. I hated my entire life.
At one point, I turned to drugs as an escape from reality and because I
was, you know, trying to kill myself. So, no, things did not get better.

FLYNN:
How long did this period last?

KENDALL:
Four or five years.

FLYNN:
During this period, were you able to support yourself?

KENDALL:
It was a struggle for survival. I wasn't really able to support myself.

FLYNN:
Did you rely on any public benefits, or anything like that, during this
period?

KENDALL:
Uhm, well, when my healthcare ran out, you know, I had to go to emergency
rooms to get medical care. And the only counseling I could get were
through state schools, because I couldn't afford anything else.

FLYNN:

 
 
 

Mr. Kendall, you told us that you now work for the Denver Police
Department, correct?

KENDALL:
That's correct.

FLYNN:
How long have you done that?

KENDALL:
Over two years now.

FLYNN:
So it would be fair to say that you've now -- you're able to support
yourself and you're stable?

KENDALL:
Yes. It's been a -- a long, hard journey. But I have fought with every bit
of myself to take care of myself, to get a good job, to get someplace to
live. And I've been able to do that.

 
 
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