Exodus International is the nation’s foremost organization claiming to use Christianity to turn LGBT people into “ex-gays.”
And while Exodus says it “loves” gay people, the Gay Liberation Network says Exodus’ fake attempts to change gays into straights is rooted in their “hatred of gay people.” GLN points out that Exodus opposes all civil rights for LGBT people; in just the past few months, Exodus has taken extreme actions to oppose the human rights, health, and safety of same-sex-attracted people.
In March, Exodus board member Don Schmierer traveled to Uganda to keynote a conference which declared that life imprisonment for homosexuals is too lenient and that tougher laws should be accompanied by involuntary detention in ex-gay re-education camps. More recently, Exodus joined the religious-right “Freedom Federation” which promotes the myth that conservative Christian freedom requires that liberal and non-Christian Americans be denied their own freedom and equality under the law. Exodus opposes laws that would require that violent crimes against gay and transgender persons be punished just as harshly as violent crimes committed on the basis of the victim’s race or religion; Exodus claims that the punishment of violent crime threatens the “freedom of speech” of antigay pastors, even though such laws contain safeguards for religious speech. Finally, Exodus refuses to publicly oppose ex-gay exorcisms performed against a 16-year-old youth by an amateur pentecostal church in Connecticut.
Every major professional mental-health association has denounced Exodus’s efforts to suppress and lie about individuals’ sexual orientation as potentially very damaging to the very people Exodus claims to “help.”
As the American Psychiatric Association notes: “The potential risks of ‘reparative therapy’ are great, including depression, anxiety and self destructive behavior, since therapist alignment with societal prejudices against homosexuality may reinforce self hatred already experienced by the patient. Many patients who have undergone ‘reparative therapy’ relate that they were inaccurately told that homosexuals are lonely, unhappy individuals who never achieve acceptance or satisfaction. The possibility that the person might achieve happiness and satisfying interpersonal relationships as a gay man or lesbian is not presented, nor are alternative approaches to dealing with the effects of societal stigmatization discussed.”
GLN invites Midwesterners to help expose the “ex-gay” fraud, and help show young LGBT people that there is an alternative to the damaging quack “therapy” that Exodus International promotes.
The Gay Liberation Network is organizing a protest against the opening of Exodus International’s annual “Freedom [from Gay Equality] Conference” and it invites you to join them:
6:30 PM
Tuesday, July 14
Wheaton College
500 College Avenue
Wheaton, Illinois Related Facebook group
GLN is organizing transportation from Chicago to the protest, and may be able to offer it from some suburban locations. If you need transportation or are willing to offer it, please email LGBTliberation@aol.com.
When I first came out, around age 19 in the mid-1970s, several older gay gentlemen that I knew took it upon themselves to teach me what they called “the ropes.”
“Which woman do you want to be?” they asked me.
My choices were Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Tallulah Bankhead, Marilyn Monroe and Judy Garland. Looking back, all these years later, I now see that I was being taught to emulate women–great Hollywood stars to be sure–who had severe substance abuse issues. None of them had ever enjoyed a successful, lasting relationship. Two of them, Marilyn and Judy, are now known to have been mentally ill. Yet my elders insisted that, as gay men, they were what we were “supposed” to be.
If anyone ever asked me to name the most mean spirited “bitchy queen” I ever knew, it would no doubt be Jeffrey, someone I was acquainted with during those early years. Jeffrey’s “hobby,” for lack of a better term, was to break up other people’s relationships, which he did through manipulative lies and vicious gossip mongering–watch any episode of Dynasty and you’ll see Jeffrey’s techniques.
I recall one night, around 1977, when Jeffrey had literally torn a once loving gay couple apart. He sat in his easy chair, smirking joyously over what he had just done. He wasn’t smoking his cigarette, he was posing with it, while his many gay male enablers congratulated him on a job well done. (”Oh, Miss Thing. Aren’t you fabulous!! You sure know how to work it, girl.”)
For the next twenty years, I met one Jeffrey after another. For awhile, I too, was a Jeffrey. It was all I knew. It was what I had been taught.
Around 1999 I began to realize what some of us were turning into. That year I traveled to Crystal City, Virginia, to attend Fanex, an annual convention that celebrated classic horror films, my guilty pleasure. Fanex had nothing to do with gay rights or gay culture, yet many of the gay men I encountered there behaved as though they were at a circuit party. Like Jeffrey, they spread as many vicious, false rumors as they could. They made it clear that it was beneath them to speak to one another, doing everything they could to make a public performance out of their behavior. These actions were unprovoked, yet no less than two gay attendees cited “gay pride” as the reasoning behind the actions. Heterosexual attendees at Fanex, who were there to talk about their favorite horror movies and weren’t even thinking about who was gay and who wasn’t, were appalled.
For the first time in my life, I became acutely aware of how the choices of some of us were making us look to other communities. (Read More)
Reuters and numerous blogs today announced the public formation of the Freedom Federation, a coalition of long-time members of the religious-right Arlington Group including the ex-gay member ministries of Exodus International.
freedom from contraception, phrased as “right to life”
freedom from same-sex marriage and single parenting
freedom from parental responsibility laws that protect children, phrased as “parental rights”
freedom from non-evangelical religious faiths, phrased as “religious liberty [for conservative Christians]“
freedom from undefined “indecency”
freedom to use one’s property in ways that harm neighbors and community, phrased as “the right to property”
freedom from international obligations and agreements, phrased as “national sovereignty”
The federation declares war against the legality of single-parent families as well as same-sex parents and their children. The federation does this by declaring as a top goal: “To secure our national interest in the institution of marriage and family by embracing the union of one man and one woman as the sole form of legitimate marriage and the proper basis of family.”
Overwhelmingly Caucasian and evangelical, the Freedom Federation defines freedom, in short, as freedom from freedom: Freedom from the beliefs, values, cultures, circumstances, and activities of people who are not conservative evangelicals and who are therefore deemed untrue Americans and untrue Christians.
This “true” freedom is sometimes called “Freedom in Christ” — which has come to be redefined by evangelical partisans as a freedom from responsibility to co-exist with liberal Christians as well as Jews, Muslims, agnostics, and others. (Read More)
The fortieth anniversary of Stonewall, the 1969 bar riot that kicked off the modern gay rights movement, was supposed to be a time of reflection. Judging from the gushing media coverage and flowery political speeches, it momentarily seemed that the struggle for equality had ended in victory. Out with marches and in with museums, where gay and straight people could walk the marble corridors and gasp in astonishment, “The police actually used to raid gay bars?”
When the Fort Worth police stormed the gay Rainbow Lounge at 1AM on Sunday, June 28, the patrons could be forgiven for thinking it was a quaint cabaret show in memory of Stonewall – very much like the Civil War reenactments so popular in the south. But, no, this was the real deal – a gang of gun-wielding thugs using their badges to badger helpless patrons who committed the crime of drinking beer while gay.
It was the third such raid of the night by the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission and Fort Worth police. They were allegedly harassing bar customers to crack down on public intoxication, which is as ridiculous as raiding the mall for public displays of shopping. While they claim they were carrying out their duty, it sure seems to me like a band of good ole boys with too much time on their hands. Instead of fighting real crime, becoming the criminals must have provided a greater adrenaline rush.
By the time these taxpayer supported public servants reached the gay bar, they unleashed a viciousness and violence not seen at the other establishments. According to the Dallas Voice, seven bar patrons were arrested on charges of public intoxication. One customer, Chad Gibson, suffered brain injuries during the raid and is still hospitalized, reportedly suffering from bleeding on his brain, which may require surgery.
The armed hooligans tried to excuse their thuggish behavior by reviving the stereotype of gay men as sexual predators. Incredibly, they claimed that as they stormed the bar, patrons made sexual advances.
Yeah, right.
They actually want people to believe that their magnetic, sexual appeal triggered the insatiable sexual appetites of the drunken gays, who thought they were being rushed by the Village People. That’s odd, because the patrons describe the invasion as more terrifying than titillating. (Read More)
At 8 a.m. June 26, I showed up at the San Francisco Police Department to answer charges of disturbing the peace and blocking traffic. (My earlier TWO post, Getting Busted For Marriage has details of my arrest at a Prop 8 protest the day the California state Supreme Court issued its unjust ruling.)
Along with nearly 200 other people, my name was posted on list at the courthouse door, with a note that said:
“Please report to room 322. No court for you. Bye Bye!” (Yup! The note actually said Bye Bye!)
In room 322, a clerk signed us in, proving we had shown up. “Charges were dropped,” she told us. “You may go.”
So, my dreams of telling the judge why I felt justified in standing up for marriage equality were dashed. But I’m glad I did this. Footage of our arrests continues to be recycled on local news broadcasts.
We stood up for equality, and will continue to do so until we achieve it.
While Exodus International maintains a don’t-support-don’t-oppose policy, some ex-gay activists have spoken out against the ex-gay exorcist church in Bridgeport, Conn.
Rev. D.L. Foster, who heads Gay Christian Movement Watch, an Atlanta-based “ministry” that opposes the acceptance of homosexuality in the church, posted [the video] on his Web site.
“I thought what I saw in the video was bizarre and I don’t think [the practice depicted] is biblical,” Foster says. “There is a sense of spiritual coercion. You have a young man on the floor being stepped on, being videotaped.” He says he has seen incidents like this (he doesn’t condone them), but “this is extreme.”
Truth Wins Out has been monitoring the unfortunate news of a Connecticut church that performs ex-gay exorcism; Exodus International has refused to explicitly oppose the practice.
A minister and trusted source of Rod 2.0 reports the 16-year-old boy no longer attends the church and has found an LGBT “inclusive and affirming” church.
McKinney suggested to CNN that her church may exorcise people for many reasons: “It’s not just the homosexuality spirit. It could be the alcohol spirit, the crack cocaine spirit, the adultery spirit. Everything carries a spirit.”
McKinney’s church remains under investigation by the Connecticut Department of Children and Families.
Truth Wins Out reported earlier this week on Manifested Glory Ministries, a “church” in Connecticut that performs ex-gay exorcisms.
We immediately called upon Exodus’ member church in Connecticut, New Life Church in Meriden, to comment on the exorcism. The church did not respond. Today, however, MSNBC quotes Exodus International in Orlando stating that it does not support exorcism — but does not oppose exorcism, either.
And a fringe group called the “Christian Anti-Defamation Commission” has declared the abuse of gay youths and young adults by so-called churches to be an exercise in “religious liberty” and, strangely, a response to white racism. (Perhaps the demons of homosexuality are white?) Hat tip: Ex-Gay Watch.
I understand the magnetic allure of Washington, DC. I worked there for several years and it could, at times, be mesmerizing. I’ve attended press conferences on the steps of Capitol Hill with Ted Kennedy and marveled that I was standing next to the real icon, not a replica from Madame Tussauds wax museum. I have stood only a stone’s throw from President Clinton, as he greeted foreign dignitaries on the White House lawn. (I might have actually thrown the stones at Bush)
It makes one feel, well, important.
From a media perspective, there is also nothing like being swept into the tidal wave of presidential politics. Last year, I made national news by slamming candidate Barack Obama for sponsoring a South Carolina gospel tour featuring “ex-gay” singer Donnie McClurkin. My second foray into the spotlight involved Sarah Palin’s church promotion of an “ex-gay” conference in Anchorage.
Getting thrust into the national storyline means hundreds of news stories that feature your name and the bright lights of television. Of course, such massive media hits are important and serve a larger purpose. But, the downside is our movement can become intoxicated with Washington at the expense of broader issues. (Read More)
