The conference, called “Love Won Out” and sponsored by the conservative Colorado-based Christian organization Focus on the Family, has sparked controversy and outrage with several billboards in Orlando and other cities that host the traveling event. The billboards declare: “I Questioned Homosexuality and discovered love won out.” The group’s message is that change is possible.
“For gays, this is the same as saying you don’t have to be black, you don’t have to be Jewish,” said Wayne Besen, executive director of TruthWinsOut.org, a Brooklyn-based gay advocacy group. “They represent us as broken and incomplete people.” (Read More)
‘Ex-gay’ survivor Jaylen Braiden discusses his time in Desert Stream and Portland Fellowship ministries as a teenager. While in Desert Stream, Jaylen was taken advantage of by an Exodus team leader, who later got in trouble for sexually abusing other minors. Exodus has yet to come clean and publicly discuss the Desert Stream scandal.
Brian Nesbitt grew up in a religious household. He went to NARTH-affiliated therapist Dr. Chris Austin (later convicted of sexually abusing clients).
When Brian couldn’t change, Dr. Austin introduced him to “rubber band therapy.” After this failed, Dr. Austin tried aversion therapy, using ammonia.
Brian escaped the “ex-gay” horrors and has gone on to live as an out gay man.
In Aug. 2003, TruthWinsOut.org founder Wayne Besen received a call from Virginia attorney Michael Hamar. He had a client who believed he may have been infected with HIV from ‘ex-gay’ leader Michael Johnston.
Johnston was the founder of National Coming Out of Homosexuality Day. He was Rev. Jerry Falwell’s personal ex-gay leader. Johnston also starred in a video for the American Family Association, “It’s Not Gay, and an ad for Coral Ridge Ministries. Additionally, he partnered with anti-gay activist Peter LaBarbera, who paraded Johnston around and hawked his tale of change.
In Aug. 2003, Besen took the train down to Norfolk, where Hamar introduced him to two men who claimed to have had unsafe sex with Johnston. Others have since been identified.
Atlanta’s GLBT newspaper Southern Voice broke the story. In the article, a spokesperson for the American Family Association admitted that Johnston had what he called, a “moral fall.” Johnston was shipped off to Pure Life Ministries, a sex addiction facility in rural Kentucky. He never left the facility and works there today.
Johnston was not prosecuted because the men involved were worried about losing their jobs. Both men, however, are grateful, that TruthWinsOut,org is telling the Michael Johnston story.
Sadly, the American Family Association still sells Johnston’s fraudulent video, “It’s Not Gay,”- without warning buyers about Johnston’s moral morass. The video is also shamelessly promoted by LaBarbera, who cares little for the truth and has yet to apologize for his role in giving Johnston a platform.
In this video, we interview Hamar and he discusses this case.
Wayne Besen has been exposing the “ex-gay” myth for many years and in this funny but yet sad clip recalls finding an “ex-gay” leader at a seedy gay bar in Washington DC. Scene is from the documentary FISH CAN’T FLY.
