For Religious Reasons, He Stopped Having Sex With Men

From wikipedia:

David Benkof (born David Bianco in 1970) is an American journalist-entrepreneur. He was raised St. Louis, Missouri and then went to college at Stanford University, where he came out as gay his freshmen year. He served as the international president of United Synagogue Youth.^[1]

In 1995, he founded Q Syndicate, gay-press syndication service that provides columns, cartoons, crossword puzzles and horoscopes to about 100 gay and lesbian newspapers. In 2001, he sold a majority interest in Q Syndicate to Rivendell Marketing, and served as vice president for two years before selling the rest of the company.^[2] He is a prolific writer, publishing Modern Jewish history for everyone in 1997 and Gay Essentials: Facts for Your Queer Brain in 1999. In 2002 and 2003 he wrote the column “Over the Rainbow” for Q Syndicate.^[3]

In 2003, he announced that he was going to stop having sex with men for religious reasons, and that he was shedding the label gay, preferring not to label his sexuality.^[4] He continued on to say “I believe that within a couple years I’m probably going to be married with a growing family.”^[5] He has always been a devout Jew, and says that one reason he changed was because "Gay sex is just inconsistent with traditional religious life." To reflect his change in sexual identity, and to honor his grandfather, Julius Benkof, David Bianco changed his name to David Benkof.^[2] David identifies as bisexual, but abstains from having sex with men.^[2]

He has since become a strong opponent of same-sex marriage.^[6] In response to arguments for gay marriages, he wrote “This reasoning is not only flawed, it insults the millions of Americans whose traditional faiths call on us to defend marriage as a central institution in society defined as a union between a man and a woman.”^[7]

He now lives in St. Louis.

[edit] Notes

1. ^ Alexandra Wall Queer Jew ‘comes out’ again — as celibate, Orthodox j., March 7, 2003.
2. ^ ^{a b c} Seeley, Christopher. Gay Jewish writer gives up sex with men Dec. 19, 2003
3. ^ Over the Rainbow
4. ^ Rex Wockner David Bianco Would Rather be a Traditional Jew than Gay
5. ^ Homosexual Reparative therapy of the ‘GOD’ kind
6. ^ David Benkof, Beautiful and loving — but don’t call it holy j., November 26, 2003
7. ^ David Benkof The Law and Religion: Religious views have a place in same-sex marriage debate, j., January 18, 2004