There ain’t no insanity like religion-based insanity:
El Paso Pastor Tom Brown is never afraid to voice his opinion on gay issues. But one of his most controversial claims is that he can convert gay people back to being straight.
Some people say his teachings are harmful and dangerous. But News Channel 9′s Monique Griego spoke with one man who said he’s been cured by him.
“Some people.” God, when will the media grow up? ALL CREDIBLE EXPERTS say “ex-gay” teachings/methods are harmful and dangerous. It is not biased to say so.
“As far as homosexuality do you think your cured?” asked Monique Griego.
“Yeah I’m not going that route. No.”
But there was a time when “Joe”— as he would like to be called— did go that route. For several years in his 20′s, he was gay and openly slept with men.
“It was like drugs, sex, and rock and roll were all tied into this lifestyle,” said Joe.
Joe compares the urge he had to be with men to the need a drug addict has for a fix. Then, after nearly a decade of being gay, Joe quit the lifestyle— cold turkey.
“I was able to put my foot down and say forget it step away from it,” said Joe.
How’d he do it? Joe said he found God and Pastor Tom Brown.
Anyway, as usual, the pastor acknowledges that some of his devotees admit they still are sexually attracted to their own gender, but says he considers them “cured” if they no longer act on their feelings. That, ladies and gents, is called “moving the goalposts.”
There’s video at the above link if you want to see how fey Tom Brown is. Luckily, the news station has the decency to consult an actual psychologist in order to rebut the witch doctor’s pastor’s claims.
Wonder if he used the patch system or the gum. :-X
Be nice to talk to “joe” in 5 years to just see how things are going for him.
I do believe his present “christian lifestyle” is probably a vast improvement overr his self-reported thoughtless wandering in hedonism, however his error (like the error of so many ignorant or untravelled people) is to conflate being constitutionally gay with hedonism. This is why I am so pedantic about correcting people when I hear them use the term “gay lifestyle”: it perpetuates this destructive fallacy.
Basically these charlatans convince people to blame all of their personal screw-ups on their sexuality.
Okay now that I’ve made my snarky comment for the day, seriously, WHY are our media continuing to give air time to these insane predators? Not only do they take vulnerable and insecure people and make them worse, they give the faith they represent a bad name, because since the Fundy strain tends to be VERY LOUD, the fact that most of the more mainline Christian denominations have either become accepting of LGBTs or are moving in that direction (sometimes progress is slow, as we well know) gets pushed back into the shadows and people get the idea that ALL Christians hate LGBT persons, which is just not true.
I would think people would be on to these con games by now. This isn’t the 1800s where some peddler could instantly “cure” actors in front of credulous audiences in order to sell his snake-oil…or at least it shouldn’t be.
“It was like drugs, sex, and rock and roll were all tied into this lifestyle,”
It’s like the typical behavior of 20 year olds expressed with a well worn cliche. (Seriously, is he suggesting he was also cured of listening to rock? Dork!)
“Be nice to talk to “joe” in 5 years to just see how things are going for him.”
Hopefully he’ll have figured out he’s just a common or garden bisexual and gotten over himself.
If people can be “cured” of homosexuality, why is there no record of Jesus “curing” people of homosexuality? And why is there no record of Jesus saying a word about homosexuality or same sex relationships? And if Joe’s sexual attractions to men went away and he is so happy now, why is he hiding in the shadows? In the Gospels, sometimes when Jesus cured people, he had to stop them from telling everyone about their cures. The real Joe is hiding. I wish the best for Joe. I doubt he has really changed.
As far as early childhood trauma is concerned, I can’t remember any trauma I ever experienced from my two loving parents or my siblings. I can remember traumas from bullying classmates after I already knew I was different.
‘he can convert gay people back to being straight.’ Ummmm, you can’t convert people BACK to something they never were in the first place and never will be.
@Scott-I belong to an inclusive Episcopal Church with an lgbt fellowship and the priest actually told us that if it weren’t for gay men, this particular Church would probably have had to close down a long time ago. And my church is a large gothic architecture building from the early 1800s in a major city. The fact that gays were responsible for keeping this beautiful old building open and running is something that the homophobes should be mindful of, it may be them some day.