Commenting on Exodus International’s claim this week that there is no cure for homosexuality and their public acknowledgment that they have rejected NARTH’s junk science, a blogger named Denny Burk had this to say:
But the AP also reports on the response from a homosexual activist named Wayne Besen who has worked to discredit reparative therapy. His remarks are very revealing.
We appreciate any step toward open, transparent honesty that will do less harm to people. But the underlying belief is still that homosexuals are sexually broken, that something underlying is broken and needs to be fixed. That’s incredibly harmful, it scars people.
Take note of Besen’s remarks. You would think that he would be happy to see Exodus leave behind reparative therapy, which he regards as junk science. But he’s not. It’s not really the so-called junk science that was ever the most offensive aspect of Exodus’ ministry. The offensive part is the fact that Exodus holds to a Christian sexual ethic. In other words, Exodus regards homosexual behavior as sin.
Don’t expect Exodus’ opponents to let up on them. They won’t. Exodus’s commitment to a Christian sexual ethic has not changed, and that is the part that the activists cannot tolerate.
That’s right Denny, Truth Wins Out will criticize junk theology just as much as we criticize junk science. It seems that some fundies think they are so special that they should be immune from fair questions or justified criticism, even if their destructive ideas harm people.
Demonizing LGBT people is wrong. Period.
It is evil when it is done by quacks in lab coats. It is just as insidious when it is done by “holy” men in flowing robes. If a man of faith speaks folly, we will not be afraid to say so. There is absolutely nothing wrong with homosexuality. But, there is plenty wrong with bigoted views wrapped in the mantle of religion.
And what is up with the utterly absurd idea of reducing my love to a “sexual ethic?” Such political rhetoric shows the emptiness and ignorance of those who speak it and highlights that they have a hidden agenda.
Well said, Wayne.
Thanks, Ahab. I’m not sure why these folks think that because they are religious they get a free pass from reality. They don’t.
Denny…living by a Christian sexual ethic doesn’t mean you have to badmouth gay people or same-sex couples. Plenty of gay people still identify as Christian despite the best efforts of spiritual dictators to push them away from their faith, and plenty of same-sex couples live by what they sincerely believe to be a Christian sexual ethic, and more and more their families and churches support them. Stop casting stones and listen to their stories sometime.
You don’t get to force your so-called “sexual ethics” on other people. It’s as simple as that. Live how you want in your private life. But that as far as it can go.
To turn Denny’s words around, you’d think that anti-gay Christians such as those in Exodus would be happy to see gay men and lesbian embracing a lifestyle that they hold so dear – settling down as committed, loving couples, marrying, raising children, and contributing positively to society. But they’re not. Because this was never about sin. It was about power. And nothing makes a miserable, narrow-minded person who feels trapped by ignorance or tradition or family obligation into toeing a line drawn 3000 years ago by a bunch of superstitious shepherds with s**t between their toes more angry than when they spy someone else having a better time or living a better life than they are.
Michael, I couldn’t have said it better. The best way to make the fundagelicals fume is to live life fully and well. It is such a contradiction to their invented, self-serving “theology” to see GLBT people healthier than they and their coreligionists are that they cannot stand it. If you are miserable, better yet miserable and “repentant” they are overjoyed. Be well and it drives them batshit crazy.
To paraphrase the founder of christianity, living well by us will “heap burning coals upon their heads”.
True Christians know that reality of following Jesus, and targeting religious God schtick for the dust bin. That’s why smart Christians w/o the bull ring in their noses, know when “God” speak by the Pat Robertson types of ancient history, is just flat out wrong. A least some Christians retained their inherant ability to act on common sense, while others just went flippy.
If Exodus has ceased to make the deceptive claim that sexual orientation can be deliberately changed, either by religious or by secular means, and is therefore no longer encouraging people to waste years of their lives hoping and striving for something that they are almost certainly never going to get, then that is undoubtedly a development to be welcomed.
Exodus continues, however, to maintain that being gay is a form of “sexual brokenness”; that gay relationships are immoral; and that people with a homosexual orientation must either remain celibate, whether they wish to or not, or contract counterfeit marriages with people of the other sex. They must be free to proclaim this message. Others, however, must be equally free to point out that it is pernicious and abusive (whether you call it “a Christian sexual ethic” or whether you call it something else) and to advise people not to touch Exodus or similar organizations with a barge-pole. It can’t be otherwise in a free, democratic society.
“I’m not sure why these folks think that because they are religious they get a free pass from reality.”
Because it usually works. We’ve been so thoroughly trained to respect people’s religious beliefs simply because they’re religious. “It’s my religion” normally shuts down all criticism or questioning of whatever a person is saying/doing. If it doesn’t, they just start up the cries of “persecution”.
Bravo. These Christian fundies think that they are immune from criticism and that they have a special dispensation to lie. After all, they are doing so in the service of a higher “Truth.” Buffy is right: we too often give them a pass as though freedom of religion means freedom from any criticism of religion.
The “Dr” Burk is a coward. Write something on his blog that hurts his little feelings, and he folds like the coward he is and deletes it.
He is EXACTLY the type of coward that can dish it out but not take it, must desperately avoid facts he does not like, and has no empathy (while thinking he is the fount of human kindness) that makes people who are not Christians AVOID churches.
mainly though, the man is a coward. Simple as that.
Just to show how attitudes are changing; my brother and his girlfriend had a beautiful baby girl last week and my brother asked me and my partner Jacques to be Godparents to her. He said that of all of the couples he would consider, we were the best examples of Christan loves he knew. We’re of course thrilled to do this! We’ll be sure to send photo’s to Exodus.