FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: John Becker, Truth Wins Out
Phone: 920.265.6023
Email: john@truthwinsout.org
Exodus International Holds Conversion Therapy Conference in St. Paul as Minnesota Marriage Vote Looms
St. Paul, MN – Truth Wins Out, the national LGBT rights group fighting the dangerous “ex-gay” industry, will hold a press conference this Thursday, June 28 to counter the “pray away the gay” propaganda of Exodus International. Exodus, the country’s largest “ex-gay” umbrella group, is holding its annual Freedom Conference in St. Paul from June 27-30.
“Exodus’s decision to hold its annual conference in St. Paul is no mere coincidence, but part of a concerted effort to spread misinformation about LGBT people in Minnesota ahead of November’s vote on the marriage amendment,” said John Becker, TWO’s Director of Communications. “Truth Wins Out is teaming up with equality-minded Minnesotans to fight ‘ex-gay’ fiction with the facts.”
WHO:
John Becker, Truth Wins Out
Jeffry G. Ford, psychologist and former leader of Minnesota “ex-gay” group
Monica Meyer, OutFront Minnesota
WHEN:
Thursday, June 28, 2012
12:00 noon (CDT)
WHERE:
St. Paul Reformation Lutheran Church, Tidemann Hall
100 Oxford St. N
St. Paul, MN
(Church faces north; enter via side entrance on building’s southwest corner)
Background: Exodus International promotes the discredited notion that people can change from gay to straight through therapy and prayer. In January, however, the group’s president, Alan Chambers, told a group of gay Christians that 99.9% of his clients do not change their sexual orientation. Every respected mainstream medical and mental health organization, including the American Psychological Association, the American Medical Association, and the American Academy of Pediatrics, all say there is no evidence that sexual orientation can be changed and that attempts to do so can be harmful. The American Psychiatric Association says that conversion therapy can be dangerous and lead to “anxiety, depression, and self-destructive behavior.”
The only mainstream research that contradicted the APA’s claims was a controversial 2001 study by Dr. Robert Spitzer. This year, however, Dr. Spitzer renounced his study and said his work was no longer valid. He told so-called “ex-gay” organizations to stop citing his work and to take down any mention of him and his retracted 2001 study from their websites.
Monica Meyer is the Executive Director of OutFront Minnesota, the state’s leading advocate for LGBT individuals and families.
Jeffry G. Ford is a licensed psychologist who formerly directed Minneapolis-based OUTPOST Ministries, an “ex-gay” operation that claimed to help people go from gay to straight. He has since come out of the closet and speaks out against the very industry he once championed.
John Becker is the man who went undercover with hidden cameras to Marcus and Michele Bachmann’s Minnesota counseling clinic last year and exposed them for offering “pray away the gay” therapy.
Exodus International’s Freedom Conference is being held in St. Paul from June 27-30 at Northwestern College, a private Christian college located at 3003 Snelling Avenue.
Truth Wins Out (TWO) is a nonprofit organization whose goal is to create a world where LGBT individuals can live openly, honestly and true to themselves. TWO monitors anti-LGBT organizations, documents their lies and exposes their leaders. TWO specializes in turning information into action by organizing, advocating and fighting for LGBT equality.
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Not that it matters, but I believe Chambers no longer engages in any sort of ex-gay therapy. He seems to have almost completely severed ties with NARTH. I think Exodus now focuses it’s efforts on behaviors instead of orientation. They accept that orientation does not change but encourage gay people to live (as they say) biblically. They’re no less harmful, but let’s call them out accurately.
Biblically as in with multiple wives, concubines and incest??? Because if you are NOT including these you are NOT speaking “biblically.” Let’s keep it real.
Not quite the right place here but, out of genuine curiosity, doesn’t the new social science tend to say that sexually is supposedly fluid, rendering the idea of an unchangeable orientation invalid? I only ask as a friend of mine had to take some bs course at an art school that said just that.
No.
Sexuality may be fluid for bisexual people, but i’ve met very few truly bisexual people in my life. That i had sex with two different women 30-37 years ago doesn’t make me biseuxal.
Sexuality isn’t fluid for bisexual people either. We cannot stop being attracted to both sexes and become only attracted to one or the other. The whole idea of sexual fluidity is bunk.
Ben, you’ve met lots of bisexual people in your life as has everybody else. Bisexual people just usually pretend to be heterosexual.
Yeah, i just wasn’t sure what the prevailing opinion was from actual gay people and not sociologists. I’ve read a number of different things and assumed that this was like, the “cutting edge” of sociology or something. At least that’s what they made it out to be. Also, the far out stuff about gender being created by society… pretty funny. I just assume people want to hold on to the orientation paradigm because it serves their political arguments far better than alternatives. Anyway, thanks again for the clarification.
Hey Wing Nut–is this the new thing for anti-gay people? To say that “sexuality is fluid” so gay people can become straight?
@Priya Lynn: In some cases, we come off as gay because our partners/spouses are of the same gender. But we’re still wired to be bi, even when in a relationship, and that holds true regardless of the type of relationship.
It’s hardly “new” Daniel.
One of the commonest forms of misstatement is the kind in which “all” is implied, but only “some” is true. Yes, SOME people’s sexuality may be fluid, but MOST people’s clearly is not. When people’s sexual relationships break up, which they unfortunately sometimes do, they almost invariably form new relationships (if they do) with people of the same sex as before, male or female as the case may be. Yes, the contrary does occasionally happen, but when it does – unless the people in question are already known to be bi-sexual – their friends and family are surprised. If people’s sexuality IN GENERAL were fluid, such changes of “lifestyle” would be an utterly humdrum, unremarkable occurrence and would occasion no more surprise than someone getting a new job or moving to a different part of town.
I just assume that SOME people want to hold on to the fluid sexuality paradigm because it serves their political arguments far better than alternatives.
Michael C: before you accuse us of calling out Exodus “inaccurately,” remember that Alan Chambers, like many “ex-gay” activists, speaks one way to the mainstream media when he wants to appear less extreme/more palatable and socially acceptable, and another way entirely when he addresses “ex-gay” insiders. We’re plenty aware of what they’re saying, but actions speak louder than words, and there’s been precious little on that front..