An ex-gay leader’s public redemption legitimately authorizes his movement’s condemnation of others.

Evidence

The way that Domen wrestles with his sexual demons—not in private but out in the open, in front of makeshift podiums in town squares—makes him the prized embodiment of what the members of his movement might call the “good homosexual.” By standing up as living “proof” that those who choose to do so will be redeemed, paradoxically he underwrites the license to revile those who do not. The troubled young man from Yorba Linda has indeed managed to transform his “brokenness” into the source of his own success and that of the movement he so ably represents. — Katherine Stewart, The Power Worshippers, 426

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: The paradoxical mechanism — the redeemed insider’s testimony underwrites rather than softens the license to revile — rewards extended reflection.
• XREF: connects to: A committed revolutionary can later reverse his moral disengagement — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 2217

Broader Connections

• A committed revolutionary can later reverse his moral disengagement #corroborates (0.72) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 2217