The "pay away the gay" was always a grift. That goes beyond simply the gay shit though. Lots of failed parents despondent that their shit parenting has produced an out of control wild drug addled or sex addled teenager or something ready to outsource the kid to some camp to "shape them up".

No surprise it often happens with more "traditional authoritarian" types. But they've usually missed the memo on how respect works and that usually makes them vulnerable to the grifter types.

For the gay camps there's a couple ways they can go. They can either all be secret gay pedophile types at these camps themselves and they teach the kids how to "act straight" to avoid the wrath of the their parents. Or they're naive spiritualist types who will get the kids to knot themselves up with all sorts of ways to save the spirit or resist temptation. Again no surprise that a lot of them are repressed gay themselves.