The Exodus Global Alliance hosted a conference of antigay religious groups in Melbourne, Australia, on Saturday. The conference accused all sexually honest, same-sex-attracted persons of being sexually “broken.” Exodus declared that homosexuality is “unwanted,” and it contended that sexually honest, openly gay persons are required to lead what Exodus calls “the homosexual lifestyle.”
According to PinkPaper.com, the conference planned to promote “reparative therapy [to] communicate the message of liberation from homosexuality through the power of Jesus Christ.”
The church hosting the conference dismisses its same-sex-attracted parishioners as “sexually confused.” Organizer Shirley Basket told the Melbourne Herald Sun that her ex-gay path was “the right path” for everyone. And, that in order to choose Jesus, gay people must combat their sexual orientation.
Equality advocates countered the conference, declaring that it is immoral to offer false promises of sexual conversion and to promote prejudice toward LGBT family and church members.
“You can’t choose to become straight just because your religious leaders tell you that homosexuality is a sin,” Melbourne equality advocate Tim Wright told the Sydney Star-Observer. “Churches need to be teaching their gay and lesbian members to be proud of who they are, not ashamed. This conference will only cause more pain and anguish for the participants, not help them…Our message to participants is: if your church rejects you because of your sexuality, you should reject your church. Closets are for clothes, not people.”
In Australia, several religious communities including the Uniting Church welcome LGBT people of faith unconditionally.
In the United States, Exodus International spokesman Randy Thomas falsely claimed that the Australia conference is “there to speak with and minister to those seeking their advice and opinion on how to live with same sex attractions in congruence with their faith.” Not true: Exodus coaches conference attendees not only to deny their attractions, but also to reject Christian faith perspectives that accept the attractions or permit expression of those attractions.
Thomas sidesteps Exodus’ affirmation of Australia’s law against marriage for gay couples.
Earlier last week, Australian former ex-gay Anthony Venn-Brown discussed the pressure that Exodus and similar organizations place upon ex-gays to enter doomed heterosexual marriages. Here’s video of Venn-Brown’s reflections:
Australia’s national breakfast show, Channel 7′s Sunrise
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Sydney Morning Herald’s Sexperts
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Don’t the ex-gay people realise that people don’t choose those with whom they fall in love? Attraction is not simply based upon gender but upon all kinds of factors, and surely the essential matter is the quality of relationship, not the gender of those involved in it.
Its sad to read these articles.
I have been through these type of anti-gay programs in the past and they only served to promote greater shame and confusion. Reparative Therapy is innately destructive at its core, an instrument which invalidates our gay lives, and sends more people to their deaths than they care to admit. There is no freedom to be yourself in these organisations, instead they seek to manipulate and force conformity to their own set of standards at the expense of the individual.
If being gay is unwanted in the world of Exodus then have nothing to do with Exodus. I didn’t stick around with Exodus, it was a joke. I wasn’t healed of my “sexual brokeness” because I was never broken! But they did successfully contribute to my sense of shame. I found my own way through without them and discovered being gay is perfectly normal.
The leaders of this group are dangerous and misguided people.