In many ways, the tragic upbringing that helped Anthony turn to homosexuality is representative of many gays and lesbians. As the seventh child of Italian immigrant parents, he spent little time with his father, who worked 10 hours a day to support his family.
While Anthony was still young, his father had a nervous breakdown and later became psychologically absent from the home.
At age 12, Anthony was molested by an older brother. Then
one day while hitchhiking, he was picked up by a man who
offered him money for sex. That began a pattern of
prostitution that eventually took him to the highest reaches
of "gay" living.
He eventually became a "kept boy" of Roy Cohn, the attorney who won fame in the early 1950s as an aide to Senator Joe McCarthy. As one of "Roy's Boys," Anthony lived a privileged life of instant sex and material riches. But "having it all" as a gay prostitute did not satisfy.
Then one night, after an anonymous sexual encounter, the man Anthony was with got out of bed horrified at what he had done. He turned to Anthony with a shame-filled voice, wishing he could undo what had happened. Saying he was a Christian who had fallen, he sparked a turning point in Anthony's life by showing him scriptural passages that proscribe sodomy.
That sparked a transformation. The young gay prostitute began to develop deep reservations about his behavior, and gave up performing sex for money. Soon his conscience began to trouble him every time he had sex with a man. "Slowly but surely I stopped the promiscuous life-style I was an addict to," he said.
Nevertheless, Anthony continued to experience bouts of homosexual temptation. Despite these urges, he and an old friend who was helping him through his ordeal, Dianne, became engaged. They were married in 1983.
Although happily married to his supportive wife, Anthony continued to "suppress" his homosexuality. Then, a year after the wedding, he received a call from a "former boyfriend" who was dying of AIDS and who urged him to get tested for the deadly virus.
"I remember hanging up the phone and kneeling down on the floor, and it hit me that I had slept with over 400 people in the 1970s. I said, 'God, I must be infected,'...So I prayed: 'God, if you can give me a negative test result, I will kill this off inside of me.'"
Anthony received his miracle. He tested negative for the virus that causes AIDS, and has done so ever since. He kept his prayerful promise. Still, occasional thoughts persisted.
He was eventually directed to a counseling group and then to an ex-gay ministry that helped him understand the root causes of his homosexuality. After a two-year period of introspection and extensive therapy to understand why he had homosexual urges, Anthony was able to walk free from the gay life-style. Now in his tenth year of marriage, he and Dianne have two children.
"Homosexuality is certainly not innate," Anthony says. "It is a learned behavior." He urges deep compassion toward homosexuals but grieves over the "gay" churches that affirm men and women in their homosexuality.
To assist men and women struggling with homosexuality, Anthony Falzarano founded Transformation Ex-Gay Ministry, incorporated in July of 1993 in Washington D.C. Transformation Christian Ministry is a branch of Exodus International, the International umbrella group for ex-gay ministries. Transformation Christian Ministry, now headed by Rev. Earle Fox, is located in Alexandria, Virginia.
Copyright (c) 1993 Lambda Report. Editor: Peter LaBarbera. Used by permission.
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