I was looking for info about the James Franco movie I Am Michael and found these comments about Michael Elliott Glatze:
"I met Michael and Benjie when they came through Boise on their tour for XY to meet with LGBT youth across America. I was (and still am) running a support group here in Boise, Idaho.
They struck me as sincere and enthusiastic and i did what I could to facilitate a conversation with them and the area youth. I found out afterwards that they had invited some of the younger folks out to party – some were underage. I also heard from some other youth group leaders in Florida where Benjie and Michael had just visited. They warned me that the duo had allegedly fooled around with some of the underage kids there and to keep an eye on them. Alas, the warning came to me after the two had left.
I spoke to the youth afterwards and they denied having sex but that they were offered alcohol and were asked where to buy weed.
Needless to say I was disillusioned and disappointed.
I still keep the business card that Michael gave me on my desktop to remind myself to never fully trust anyone without good reason and that even the best of us have our faults."
"Mike's decision to leave the gay lifestyle has less to do with it being a sin and more to do with what years of partying on XTC and having threeways with teenage boys will do to one's psyche. Mike and his then partner Benjie were guests in my home during their road trip days. I invited them to stay with my partner and I for a week during Gay Days in Orlando and to speak to the local GLBT youth group that I had just started working with. A few days into their stay the topic of teens dating adults in their 20's, 30's, 40's etc came up and to say that I was shocked by their take on this topic is an understatement. They spent several days telling me things like "It is our duty and it is our right to have sex with guys as young as 14 so that they might know how wonderful and loving and beautiful it can be." They also spent a good amount of time pushing the idea that XTC is not harmful and that the government wants people to think it is bad so that they do not try it. I, and many others in our local community, were left feeling like the two of them were wolves in sheeps clothing. They continued to try and convince me sex with teens was ok, even going as far as to tell me they would let me talk to the parents of a teen friend of theirs in the midwest who allowed and encouraged their teen son to date men in their 30's or even older. They kept emailing me about the whole thing, emails that I still have to this day. It was only when I told them that my editor was encouraging me to write a piece on the age of consent issue in the gay community that they started to step back. They told me that I needed to study and read up on the subject and that I should not even think about writing such an article for at least 1 to 3 years. I never wrote the article but I have continued to work with our GLBT youth group and sadly I have learned that Benjie and Mike are not the only people within our community who think nothing of taking advantage of gay teens who long for guidance and unconditional love and are instead given drugs and sex in their place. I ended up telling them that I wanted all mention of me and the youth group I worked with removed from their site, which they eventually did. Over the years I have continued to hear stories about them and what they were really into, the drugs, the orgies, the pictures they would take of young men in their underwear...young men who looked up to them and probably expected something different, something better, but never got it. I would like to hear what Mike has to say about these things. If he is such a good Christian now he should be asking all of those young men he had sex with and did drugs with to forgive him. I think that Mike's conversion has more to do with his guilt and shame than it does his repulsion of the entire GLBT lifestyle."
Is this famous pastor a sexual predator? • r/Christianity
"I met Michael and Benjie when they came through Boise on their tour for XY to meet with LGBT youth across America. I was (and still am) running a support group here in Boise, Idaho.
They struck me as sincere and enthusiastic and i did what I could to facilitate a conversation with them and the area youth. I found out afterwards that they had invited some of the younger folks out to party – some were underage. I also heard from some other youth group leaders in Florida where Benjie and Michael had just visited. They warned me that the duo had allegedly fooled around with some of the underage kids there and to keep an eye on them. Alas, the warning came to me after the two had left.
I spoke to the youth afterwards and they denied having sex but that they were offered alcohol and were asked where to buy weed.
Needless to say I was disillusioned and disappointed.
I still keep the business card that Michael gave me on my desktop to remind myself to never fully trust anyone without good reason and that even the best of us have our faults."
"Mike's decision to leave the gay lifestyle has less to do with it being a sin and more to do with what years of partying on XTC and having threeways with teenage boys will do to one's psyche. Mike and his then partner Benjie were guests in my home during their road trip days. I invited them to stay with my partner and I for a week during Gay Days in Orlando and to speak to the local GLBT youth group that I had just started working with. A few days into their stay the topic of teens dating adults in their 20's, 30's, 40's etc came up and to say that I was shocked by their take on this topic is an understatement. They spent several days telling me things like "It is our duty and it is our right to have sex with guys as young as 14 so that they might know how wonderful and loving and beautiful it can be." They also spent a good amount of time pushing the idea that XTC is not harmful and that the government wants people to think it is bad so that they do not try it. I, and many others in our local community, were left feeling like the two of them were wolves in sheeps clothing. They continued to try and convince me sex with teens was ok, even going as far as to tell me they would let me talk to the parents of a teen friend of theirs in the midwest who allowed and encouraged their teen son to date men in their 30's or even older. They kept emailing me about the whole thing, emails that I still have to this day. It was only when I told them that my editor was encouraging me to write a piece on the age of consent issue in the gay community that they started to step back. They told me that I needed to study and read up on the subject and that I should not even think about writing such an article for at least 1 to 3 years. I never wrote the article but I have continued to work with our GLBT youth group and sadly I have learned that Benjie and Mike are not the only people within our community who think nothing of taking advantage of gay teens who long for guidance and unconditional love and are instead given drugs and sex in their place. I ended up telling them that I wanted all mention of me and the youth group I worked with removed from their site, which they eventually did. Over the years I have continued to hear stories about them and what they were really into, the drugs, the orgies, the pictures they would take of young men in their underwear...young men who looked up to them and probably expected something different, something better, but never got it. I would like to hear what Mike has to say about these things. If he is such a good Christian now he should be asking all of those young men he had sex with and did drugs with to forgive him. I think that Mike's conversion has more to do with his guilt and shame than it does his repulsion of the entire GLBT lifestyle."
Is this famous pastor a sexual predator? • r/Christianity