I guess some people on the Religious Right are starting to figure out that their actions have had awful, awful consequences:
A national Christian organization will stop sponsoring an annual event that encourages school students to “counter the promotion of homosexual behavior” because the event has become too divisive and confrontational, the group’s president told CNN on Wednesday.
“All the recent attention to bullying helped us realize that we need to equip kids to live out biblical tolerance and grace while treating their neighbors as they’d like to be treated, whether they agree with them or not,” said Alan Chambers, President of Exodus International, the group that sponsored the event this year.
Called the Day of Truth, the annual April event has been pushed by influential conservative Christian groups as a way to counter to the annual Day of Silence, an event promoted by gay rights advocates to highlight threats against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students.
The Day of Truth, held on the same day as the Day of Silence, “was established to counter the promotion of homosexual behavior and to express an opposing viewpoint from a Christian perspective,” according to a manual for this year’s event published by Exodus International.
[...]
It’s unclear how other conservative Christian groups will react, but an expert in evangelical responses to homosexuality says Exodus’ decision is likely to be criticized by some conservatives.
“This is a very significant move, a very real break,” said Warren Throckmorton, an associate professor of psychology at Grove City College. “Some will say that simply naming sexual orientation provides legitimacy for homosexuality.”
APPLAUSE.
Now stop lying to your clients, Alan.
The fact that people come to you semi-voluntarily does not mean you’re not still bullying them with the anti-science methods of self-loathing promulgated by groups like Exodus.










I don’t imagine it has anything to do with them actually feeling pangs of conscience, but more to do with the heat being on right now. Nonetheless it’s a tiny step in the right direction.
Probably.
Good riddance to bad rubbish.
I’m sure that’s exactly what it is Buffy, they’ll be back as soon as they think that things have died down a bit.
Might have a little to do with their budget being in the tank as well.
I don’t know. I think Alan Chambers is beginning to have a change of heart. Read his comment on the bullying article. Reading between the lines, he effectively shoots down the Family Research Council’s statement that gays can go straight if they want to.
I saw this first early this morning. I did report on it, as I thought the site was down due to technical glitch. What a pleasant surprise…
Wayne,
It looks to me like the folks at Exodus have decided that they can’t provide the “change is possible” cover story anymore. Do you see that also or is it just me?
I’ve been following Randy Thomas’s blog and he seems to edging towards a position of ‘how to live as as a gay christian’ – in so many words. Of course he still refers to being ‘post-gay’ but his semantic distinction is too fine to be credible and conflates and mis-uses arguments regarding deconstruction or social construction of homosexuality.