Former Love in Action director John Smid dropped by our website today and had this to say:
I have come across some awareness lately that has been unsettling for me. When I found that my life was in a downward spiral and that I needed help, I turned to the Ex-gay community. I thought that they, thinking they were like me, would be able to help me. So when I went to them. I thought they were peers and safe. So, they told me that they had been “delivered” from homosexuality and that I could be too. Of course the word “delivered” is a tremendously confusing concept.
So I followed them and began to bring others along behind me. I discovered that in fact they had not been delivered from homosexuality (my understanding of their words was that homosexuality was eradicated from their lives) and that some of the most significant leaders in fact still had all of the same sex attractions they had always had
So, my awareness is this. I was led down a deceptive path, drank the koolaid and began to live the same deception they had been living and teaching. My own peers who should have been the safest ones to trust actually led me astray
Then they said to follow straight men! They told me that I could be like them. So, I turned to straight men thinking they had the answers for my new life! Straight men didn’t know anything about what it is like to be gay. How could they possibly know how to help me find a life of value and blessing????
I am sorting through the personal affects of living through over two decades of being told I could find deliverance. I am also sorting through the after affects of being an Ex-gay leader for over two decades.
I walked alongside many of the foundational leaders of the Exodus movement. One of the more significant leaders said over and over that he had been delivered from homosexuality. While riding with him in his car one day, many years ago, he said he was still very attracted to the younger men he sees every day.
I should have listened to my heart then and ran away. But instead I just stuffed this experience and continued to hope for my own deliverance.
Today I am attempting to deconstruct the faulty foundation and going through a very challenging time with it all.
The Restored Hope Network will not succeed. Far too many truth tellers exist today. It is a remnant alright, but one that will quickly sink. It may have worked in 1974, but it will not work today. They do not have the goods, nor the truth.
Thank you John for offering a realistic portrait of what people can expect from the Restored Hope Network, a new organization that is vying to replace Exodus International as the largest “ex-gay” organization. As we discussed yesterday, the group is already trying to rewrite history in order to boost its shaky credentials.
Religion is a con. Always has been, always will be.
how do you operationalize the concept ‘delivered’? serious question ….
That’s a bit harsh, Michael.
Religion, at its best, attempts to explain things that can’t yet be explained by science, and motivates people to act selflessly. Things go downhill when one creates hierarchies to control religion, and when hierarchies or followers choose to be seduced by prosperity, self-pride, and fear.
Could thete be a $$ more predatory debilitating desperate example of the $ blind leading the blind? Other $$ than pedophilia, and religion being $$ “total con” (well said) ,,, $ I don’t think so. $$$
Woops, my auto Twitter fact checker was turned “on” for that last comment.
John,
So sorry this road has been so difficult for you. I can only imagine that the reversal of thought you’re going through is probably just as difficult as any other step of the way. I think helping kids/parents/adults i.e. like an evening weekly support group, who are suicidal or anxiety ridden about their gay/bi sexuality could help them and you immensley.
It must suck to be around 45 – 50 years old (guessing) and look back at your life’s work and realize that you were a key participant in one massive coverup that has deeply wounded thousands and thousands of people. All those families who drank the “You to can be straight” kool-aid and disassociated from their very own children who must not have been trying hard enough, it must be hard to publicly admit that you caused so much harm.
And yet John Smid does it, he steps up and finally tells the truth. I know they say the Truth Will Set You Free, but as for me I have always believed that rather than the Truth, Making Amends and Righting Your Wrong is what Sets you Free. We all make mistakes in life, most of us do not however make 20 year mistakes. The deeper and longer your mistake the deeper and longer must be your duty making amends for it.
The problem with religion Michael, is that it is rarely humble and very rarely receives joyfully nor easily embraces, the new information that DOES become explainable by science. Religion is built on emotions, ignorance and tradition. None of these are bad in themselves, but they become a deadly combination when married to power and control. Uneducated, frightened and insecure people often glom onto religion like drowning sailors to a life raft, which is a good description IMHO of the fundagelical christianists we suffer with today.
Once again John, thank you for standing for truth, and not a broken truth. Yes, that message did harm to those we sought to help…and it did harm to each of us who stood as “authorities” I am the keeper of many secrets of my former peers…Their journey is still unfolding. I’m glad to stand with you on your journey! With great fondness and respect.
“Uneducated, frightened and insecure people often glom onto religion like drowning sailors to a life raft, which is a good description IMHO of the fundagelical christianists we suffer with today.”
as a fellow probation officer told me a long time ago: Schizophrenics tend to glom onto religion. It’s something they can relate to.
Persistent overgeneralizations about (all) religion say more about the commenter than the topic.
I was merely speaking about schizophrenics, not religion.
I watched the video called this is what love in action looks like and I am glad that John Smidd is speaking out. However, I can not imagine the damage done to youth who were made to go there and sit through all these conferences. That is like torture and punishment for being gay in my eyes. I invite anyone to write me at farrelledward2@gmail.com because I know that a person can not be dilivered from their lifestyle by the fundamentalist christians. In all honesty, can a person really be delivered from sexual addiction from the inside out when years later they still are attracted to others in what Christians call an unholy way? I do not see it happening. Everybody in the gay lifestyle and in the sex addiction straight lifestyle I have ever read say that they years later have the same attractions. They state they do not act on these but I do not believe it. And even if you do not act on them, what a miserable life.
Love your work John and Wayne
Well, I suppose I can admire this nasty little clique’s hardihood in deciding to give this discredited scam another try, but hardly their good sense.