John Smid spent nearly 20 years leading Love in Action, one of the most influential ministries in the United States dedicated to the so-called ‘gay cure.’ Thousands of people went through its programs believing they could stop being homosexual. He himself was married twice to women, convinced that this was the right path.
In 2008, he resigned from his position. In 2010, he publicly apologized and acknowledged that there had never been evidence that sexual orientation could be changed. A year later, in 2011, he divorced his second wife and openly admitted that he was gay.
On November 16, 2014, in Oklahoma, he married Larry McQueen after three years of dating. They had to travel from Texas because same-sex marriage did not yet exist in their state. The man who spent two decades trying to cure something that was not a disease ended up being living proof that his own therapy never worked.