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Greg
Quinlan is out and proud. Out of the gay lifestyle and proud of it,
that is. This is the story of his escape. Greg's mom was a born-again
Christian who married an atheist with an attitude. That's where the
trouble began My dad identified with Archie Bunker in every way,"
Greg explained. "The only difference was Archie had some mixed-up
belief in God and wasn't violent. My dad was violent. And in an abusive
situation usually one kid is the abused one, and I was it."
Mom still took the kids to church~Greg, his brother and two sisters.
"I knew the Scripture and liked going to church," he said.
But at age 10, a neighbor boy introduced Greg to sex. His double life
had begun. "But I kept going to church and playing the Christian
role," he said. "Growing up as a teen, I was interested in
sex with other men only because of that introduction," he added.
"I've known thousands of homosexuals and I've never met someone
who was not introduced to sex at an early age, generally with the same
sex.
At age 23 Greg made his sexual behavior public, "blowing the doors
off the closet," as he describes it. He had many sexual encounters,
visited gay bathhouses all across the state, was a regular patron of
porn shops and lived the party life within gay social circles. "I'm
HIV-negative but it's just a miracle I'm not infected," he admitted.
As a registered nurse, Greg began taking care of AIDS patients when
the crisis hit the Dayton-area in the mid 80s. He took these men to
the doctor and cared for them at home. "Then this guy I was dating
invited me to a dinner in Columbus in 1986, the Human Rights Campaign
Fund (HRCF) reception," he recalled. "That's how I was introduced
to gay politics, at age 28."
Two years later he started an HRCF branch in Dayton. "HRCF is the
largest gay and lesbian political organization in the country, chiefly
responsible for securing AIDS research money from the federal government,"
Greg said. "I raised several thousand dollars out of Dayton and
really got involved because of the AIDS project. But in all my work
with HRCE I was trying to justify being in the lifestyle, because I
was miserable."
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Gregory
Quinlan testifies before
Ohio House Commitee |
Having
grown up in church and still possessing a good knowledge of the Bible,
Greg was often asked by friends to do their eulogies.So he ended up
speaking at funerals and reading Scriptures. "There was the Lord's hook,"
Greg commented. "Like it says in Scripture, Train up a child in the
way he should go and when he is old, he will not depart from it'," he
offered, quoting from Proverbs 22:6.
So the Lord was beginning to draw Greg to himself But it took an event
of worldwide importance to really shake, him out of his sinful stupor.
"It
was 1989 and I was watching the wall in Berlin fall on television,"
he remembered. "One of the Scriptures I learned in church was
Matthew 24:14, And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the
whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.'
It was like somebody pressed a button on the recorder in the back of
mind, this verse just kept sounding off in my head. "I
thought at the time, 'Communism has fallen, that's over a billion
people (with access to the Gospel), the Lord is coming back.' This
was another way the Lord got to me.
At the time Greg was a Medicare review nurse and traveled all over the state. "I
knew where all the bathhouses were. I knew the location of every porn shop
in the state. I was still pretty active but the Lord was working on me.Greg
started listening to Christian radio and watching Christian TV shows. "I
had this hunger and craving," he recalled. "I missed the
hymns, the music and the worship. Even while I was in the gay lifestyle
I made a point of going to church on Easter Sunday. I still had that
hunger to be satisfied, to worship the
Lord. It was still there after all those years.
He was watching the 700 Club and TBN several months before his conversion.
One show featured a number of former homosexuals who had left the gay lifestyle. "I
watched intently~ partly making fin, partly wishing it was true," Greg
said. "I thought, 'Can it happen to me?' I was really miserable." Friends
and acquaintances began asking Greg to start an Ohio hag Cabin society, the
name for the gay and lesbian coalition in the Republican Party. He never did.
It was Thanksgiving weekend, 1993 and he decided to call TBN.
"You know I had been on TV, radio and in newspapers (as a homosexual activist)," Greg
said. "I was not ashamed of being a homosexual and talking about the AIDS
crisis. I'd go to Washington D.C. two to three times a year to lobby Capitol
Hill. But I had a lot of trouble telling this guy what my problem was. I was
suddenly ashamed of being gay. I wasn't happy about it."
Greg fought through his angst and finally revealed his problem He said a prayer
over the phone and accepted Jesus Christ as his savior that very night "There
were no bells or whistles but I slept that night he said. "There was peace.
Greg's decision resulted in a sudden and abrupt turn in his life. He got into
church immediately changed his telephone number stopped hanging out at gay
bars and discontinued his volunteer nursing with the Dayton Area AIDS Task
Force. "I stopped cold turkey doing anything in the gay lifestyle," he
said.
But stopping the wrong behavior was merely the first step. One Sunday a guest
preacher at church had a special message for Greg. Her sermon had convicted
him sharply and he had gone forward to the altar where he was crying uncontrollably.
"She told me, 'Son, there's a call on your life'," he related. "She
told me some things only God could tell her, that what the devil had trained
me to do God was going to use for his glory." Shortly after this event the
director of Ohio Christian Coalition called Greg looking for help. He worked
there four years and a year ago last March left to start the Pro-Family Network.
PFN's goal is to place a pro-family lobbyist in every state capitol, someone
to address conservative Christian issues, such as an Ohio bill to establish
a commission on Youth and Suicide, that is beyond the scope of organizations
like Right to Life. They have accomplished that goal in nine states so far.
"As
a grass roots lobbyist I went to Capitol Hill for the lunatic left," Greg
said. "HRCF trained me how to do it and a year later I was using my training
for the other side. The Lord turned it all around."
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