Page 76 of Man On

The footage jumps back and forth between the two men, who both describe a similar process that started with a church service where the entire congregation surrounded them, one at a time, and prayed over them.

"It was embarrassing to be singled out like that, and uncomfortable. It went on for a really long time. I remember I had to use the bathroom, but I was too afraid to ask," the blurred man says.

"The prayers continued after I was led to the basement of the church building," the man in the shadows says. "It went on for a long time. Long enough that I lost all sense of time. There were no windows or clocks, and the people came and went in shifts. The praying never stopped, and they wouldn't let me sleep."

"Whenever I'd nod off, they'd start screaming the prayers in my face," says the blurred man. "At some point, when I was far past exhaustion, the things they were saying weren't prayers."

"What would they say?" the interviewer asks.

Both men have similar answers. Slurs were hurled at them. Hateful rhetoric and twisted scripture passages. One of them describes a man yelling in his face that all the atrocities of the world—war, sickness, poverty—were all punishment for his sins.

After what felt like days, the program changed. Pastor Warren would come in and send the other men away, acting like some kind of savior. He'd sit down with the boys, act fatherly, and ask them questions about themselves. About whether they wanted to live a life of abomination and depravity, and if they understood that he and his staff were here to help them.

Even when they swore they weren't gay, and spent hours on their knees praying and crying and begging, the process would start all over again. And with each cycle, different tactics would be introduced. They were forced to ingest unidentifiable substances to ‘purify them.’ Both men mention that sometimes the little food they were fed was drugged. There were even staged exorcisms, and one of the men said he believed it was real at the time because of hallucinations he was having, probably because of whatever drugs he’d been given.

Most of the abuse occurred in one of two rooms. The documentary shows windowless tiled rooms, one with a hospital bed for the ‘treatments’, and the other a chair with straps. When they were allowed to rest, they slept in rooms that resemble what I imagine solitary confinement would look like. They showered in a dingy-looking room with a drain in the floor, and weren't allowed privacy. One of the men describes being stripped naked and sprayed with a cold hose. He says it was one of the worst parts for him, not just because it hurt, but because it drove home that he was, "less than nothing. Worthless." His words.

Just when they didn't think they could live through another hour of torture, they would be returned to the congregation like nothing happened. The other children never even mentioned their absences, going on as if everything were normal.

While the two men answer the interviewer's questions, the screen shows footage of the camera crew walking through the grounds of the compound. They walk past small houses, a little town square with a massive marble cross statue, and into the church. It all looks pretty normal, but behind the pulpit, they take a staircase to the basement. The voices of the two victims speak as the viewers get a look at the very rooms the victims were tortured in. There’s no other word for what happened to them there.

"The first time, I thought it was over. I thought I'd passed their test. That I was cured," the man in the shadows says. His silhouette dips as he hunches over, putting his head in his hands.

The camera switches to the other man, who corroborates being given freedom, only to have it taken away again. "After the first time, I didn't know how long I'd have. Could be an hour, could be a couple days."

Both men were returned to their families after four or five weeks, with certificates in hand, signed by a church-approved mental health practitioner. They were declared cured by the Grace of God.

"Of course I wasn't cured," the shadowy man spits, his voice hoarse with unseen tears. "All that place gave me was PTSD and an incurable disdain for anything involving organized religion. I still have nightmares."

"I was never gay to begin with," rasps the other man.

My body is trembling with rage and bone-deep sadness. I can't imagine what it would have been like to be raised around this stuff, to think that whatever was happening with your playmates is normal. To listen to that kind of hateful talk day in and day out. It’s no wonder Lane is repressed.

I'm only halfway through the documentary, but I don't think I can stomach any more, and I’m about to turn it off. But then the interviewer asks the men if they'd known or heard of a young man named Christian Blakely, and I perk back up.

"Chris."

It's the name he said the other day. The friend whose voice he hears in his head. And Lane's last name…

Neither of the men being interviewed recognize the name, but they'd been kept separate from each other and were only allowed to speak to or play with the kids that lived on the compound.

This is how the documentary segues into talking about how the church landed on the fed's radar. They introduce a woman named Colleen Blakely, who looks visibly distraught. This woman sent her fifteen-year-old son to Deliverance Camp, believing that Pastor Warren was a kind man of God. She'd met him, and he'd only expressed to her a gentle, faith-based therapy that could ‘cure’ her son.

"I just wanted the best for him," is the first thing she says." I was afraid. I thought Pastor Warren was going to help him."

But when he returned after six weeks at the camp, things were bad. He'd lost so much weight, his ribs were showing, and he had bruises. The pictures from the reports are blurred, but you can get a good enough idea of how terribly he’d been injured.

"Christian was such a happy boy. He loved to play soccer and his guitar. His father, who died when he was very young, loved The Beatles. Chris taught himself almost every one of their songs." She pauses and looks down at her hands, where she's twisting a tissue between her fingers, taking several shuttered breaths before she can continue. "After the camp, he was a shell of the kid I knew. He barely talked to anyone, fell behind in school, and became sickly. He had horrific nightmares. I'll never regret anything more than handing my child's life over to those monsters. They killed my son."

I'd been searching for social media accounts for Christian Blakely while I listened, but now my eyes are back on my laptop screen. Overwhelming sadness grips me as the journalist's voice confirms that a year after returning home from Deliverance Camp, Chris Blakely killed himself.

My sadness turns to anger as the interviewer asks questions about the contracts, clearly signed by Colleen Blakely, that gave permission for Pastor Warren and the Deliverance Summit staff to perform all manner of experimental treatments.

"They assured me that extreme tactics were never used anymore. Pastor Warren seemed so gentle and loving." She sniffs. "I was more afraid that I'd caught him kissing another boy than the possibility of someone hurting him in an effort to save him. I was wrong. I was so wrong," she repeats, her voice cracking. "I got in contact with the police within six months of Chris getting home. He didn't want me to, otherwise I would have sooner. It's taken years to finally see any progress being made."

Colleen Blakely breaks down when the interviewer tells her that Gideon Larsen, second in charge of the conversion therapy camp, and reportedly the cruelest of them all, was denied bail, and will await trial from a state penitentiary. With the charges against him, it’s likely he’ll spend the rest of his life in prison if convicted, and the evidence against him is significant. The information hadn't been released to the public at the time the interview was recorded, but it would be by the time it aired, so they could give her that small amount of peace.

After taking some time to compose herself, Ms. Blakley finally takes some responsibility for her part in her son's death. With a montage of pictures and video clips playing in the background—of Chris playing soccer, playing his guitar, doing a cannonball into a pool—she implores parents everywhere to love and accept their children for who they are.

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