A survivor of the 2016 mass shooting at the Pulse nightclub says he is no longer gay, crediting his "deeper" Christian faith since the Orlando, Florida, massacre that killed 49 people.
"I should of been . . . number 50 [sic]," gay-club shooting survivor Luis Javier Ruiz wrote in an April 27 Facebook post.
"Going through old pictures of the night of Pulse a memory were my struggles of perversion, heavy drinking to drown out everything and having promiscuous sex that led to HIV my struggles were real [sic]," Ruiz wrote on Facebook.
"The enemy had its grip and now God has taken me from that moment and has given me Christ Jesus I've grown to know his love in a deeper level."
A sexuality conversion has more support among some conservative Christians than in scientific evidence, Newsweek reported, citing a 2009 review of 83 studies by the American Psychological Association that concluded there was no evidence to prove "gay conversion therapies" work.
Ruiz's post was accompanied by hashtags promoting the Freedom March on Saturday in Washington D.C., organized by the fundamentalist Christian organization Voice of the Voiceless.
In his post, Ruiz did not explicitly state he had undergone such treatment.
LGBT groups discredited conversion therapies, Newsweek reported.
"Conversion therapy has been discredited and is increasingly being outlawed," Jessica Stern, executive director of the LGBT charity OutRight Action International, told Newsweek. "It amounts to bunk science, a financial scam, and in some cases even torture. LGBTIQ people don't need to be saved or changed. We are perfect the way we are."
A spokesperson for the LGBT charity Stonewall told the outlet: "All forms of 'therapy' that attempt to change a person's sexual orientation or gender identity are unethical and wrong. Lesbian, gay, bi and trans people are not ill."
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.