David Benkof, 44, led a gay lifestyle from college through 2001, and in 1995 created Q Syndicate, for a time the largest supplier of content for the gay and lesbian press. He became a celibate Orthodox Jew in 2001. Note correction and clarification following this article.

When did you decide you were gay? I had been feeling for a long time attraction to men. I went through a period where it was all I could think about. Stanford had a peer counseling center: I started to talk to gay counselors and realized that was the direction I wanted to take in my life.

How did your parents take it? My mother wanted me to be tolerant. She took me to see Torch Song Trilogy and La Cage aux Folles so I could learn about gay people and accept them. She had a gay hairdresser cut my hair so I would be exposed to different lifestyles … but that didn’t mean she wanted me to have that identity. She was shocked, upset, but came to accept me.

How did you found the Q Syndicate when you were 25? I found travel and politics columnists, a crossword maker, a horoscope, editorial cartoons …

You sold it when you changed? I realized it was not consistent with how I felt religiously, spiritually, politically.

How did you realize that? I was growing more conservative, but I also learned one of the things that gay historians and anthropologists know: having that sexual orientation, being gay, is about 150 years old. I had been told, “God made you gay,” and realized that doesn’t make sense. If God makes people gay, why wouldn’t He have made people gay in Paris in the 17th century?

You mean gay people were there, but … No! No! People had gay relationships, but before about 1850, homosexuality was something you could do, not something that you could be. The idea that God makes people gay, that it’s in our genes, that it’s how we’re born: The evidence just doesn’t support that.

Are you saying that ancient Greeks had lots of homosexuality, but they would never have defined themselves in that way? They might have done it, but that’s not who they were? Yes, and in general they also had wives—and we have no evidence they were just going through the motions with their wives.

They did many things, and sex was just one of them? It’s common in the gay community to say, “You need to accept me for who I am.” My reaction: I hope you’re a lot of things—your faith, your politics, your family, your hopes and dreams and plans, your career and jobs and hobbies. Being gay, which is libido, romantic interests, and family format, is either a very narrow conception of what identity is, or it’s sad.

‘Being gay, which is libido, romantic interests, and family format, is either a very narrow conception of what identity is, or it’s sad.’

So this is sinful activity, but we’re all sinners. If someone has a penchant for lying you would not reduce his identity only to “liar.” Three times you’ve composed crossword puzzles that made it into The New York Times, the apex of the crossword world. That is part of who I am. So is “gay.” The Torah has 613 commandments, and one of those 613 says men should not have a certain kind of intercourse with other men. One message I have given Jewish gay people is, “Focus on the other 612.” That doesn’t mean the one doesn’t apply to you: It does. But if you’re not ready for that one, work on keeping kosher and praying and giving to charity.

When did you decide that 612 weren’t enough for you—you had to work on number 613? January 2001.

You stopped and have been able to stay stopped? Yeah. 14 years.

One rabbi said this is virtually impossible. That rabbi was straight. Some straight Jews want to be sympathetic, kind, and understanding, but there’s some condescension in this idea that the gays can’t control themselves. And it’s inconsistent: We expect our young people to be celibate before they get married. We expect a 21-year-old not to have any expression of sexuality, but we drop that expectation when someone is 44 because he’s gay? “Oh, yeah, go ahead!” Other categories of people have similar challenges within Judaism and we feel sympathetic, but we don’t say, “Go ahead and violate the law, I’d hate to be you.” It’s condescending, patronizing, and false.

Are your former colleagues upset when you say, “You’re not born gay”? They just don’t understand because it’s a subtle point. But research about when people started to identify as gay, and about various countries throughout the world that didn’t have gay or lesbian people in them, has been done by LGBT persons themselves, big supporters of gay rights and marriage equality. Top gay scholars who are experts say what I am saying.

Why do you particularly upset them? My argument is very powerful against the “born gay” perspective. People will point to this study on the brain and science and genes, but all these studies are preliminary and haven’t been replicated. Yet mounds of evidence from the social scientists say “gay” is 150 years old. If you look at all the research together, overwhelmingly it says you’re not born gay.

You also say it’s not a choice, but the result of many factors, including cultural ones. It doesn’t make sense to change laws regarding sexual orientation because “it’s something people are deep down.” Privacy and equality before the law are good reasons to support gay rights, and if people want to make those arguments, I don’t necessarily agree with them, but that’s a fair part of the dialogue.

What about same-sex marriage? Marriage has a definition and that definition comes from God. We refer to “the week” because God created the world in six days and rested on the seventh. What would happen if someone said, “We should have a four-day week and then two days of rest so that the labor will be less.” We’d have to rewrite the week.

Haven’t the French already tried that? Shabbat comes after every sixth day no matter what the government says. Marriage is between a man and a woman no matter what the government says. Some people say: “Well, it’s a civil marriage.” OK, what if the government announced a civil bar mitzvah when boys are 10 years old? That wouldn’t be a bar mitzvah: Bar mitzvahs are at 13! The government doesn’t get to decide what a bar mitzvah is or what a marriage is. That’s not its business.

Do you support adoption by two gays? Kids whenever possible need both a mom and a dad. I felt this even when I was actively gay. If a kid doesn’t have any parents, it’s better for that kid to have two moms or two dads, but in many states adoption agencies can’t even put a thumb on the scale in favor of the family with a mother and a father. When a lesbian couple says, “We’ll get some sperm and make a baby”—I think that is selfish and cruel, because you are saying to your own kid, “You will never have a father.” I’m appalled by that.

Correction and clarification

As always is the case with WORLD’s Q&As, what’s published above is a shortened and tightened version of the interview. I tell interviewees I’ll be editing for length, clarity, and flow as I turn about 7,000 words into not more than 1,200 on the pages of our magazine. The entire interview can be viewed in the video posted above.

David Benkof was unhappy with the editing of this interview, and I think he has a good point regarding the interview’s first question. Here was the rough transcript:

You were coming out at Stanford. Please tell us about that whole experience. Sure. I had been feeling for a long time attraction to men, and I went through a period where it was all I could think about, and I came to the conclusion that being gay was who I was and I started to talk to—they had a peer counseling center and I started to talk to gay counselors about that and realized that that was the direction I wanted to take my life. And I sort of came out with a bang, you know? By the time it was winter break, I told my family and started to become an activist.

And here’s what we published, as I went from 115 words to 57:

When did you decide you were gay? I had been feeling for a long time attraction to men. I went through a period where it was all I could think about. Stanford had a peer counseling center: I started to talk to gay counselors and realized that was the direction I wanted to take in my life.

Given Benkof’s statements that he “came to the conclusion that being gay was who I was” and “came out with a bang,” I thought it made sense to change my vague, sloppy 13-word question and make it punchy: “When did you decide you were gay?” But my choice of “decide” was poor from an LGBT perspective that a person cannot decide this. Benkof said he “recognized” and embraced his gayness but never decided—and he would have zinged me had I used that particular word with him.

Fair enough. Instead of summarizing Benkof’s experience as a “decide,” I should have echoed his wording: “come to the conclusion.” It’s a sensitive subject within the LGBT world and I should have been more sensitive.

When one of our staff members informed Benkof that we were appending this note from me to the interview, he wrote:

“I would like to encourage anyone interested in my interview with Marvin Olasky to watch the video rather than read the interview. The ‘transcript’ of interview was grossly mis-edited, with questions added that I was never asked, and my words twisted to imply that I believe with the evangelical worldview on homosexuality when I most decidedly do not. The video of the interview, however, gives the full picture of what I said and what I believe and is actually a fun and fascinating conversation about homosexuality, faith, and politics.”

—M.O.