It seems that Exodus International doesn’t like the attention it’s receiving lately. They were under the impression that they were going to coast through a poorly researched special on the Oprah Winfrey Network, as they grasp for relevance in a society that increasingly rejects their “work” for the junk science it is and the harm it causes. Instead, they have come under increased scrutiny as Truth Wins Out has led the effort to expose the shoddy reporting of Lisa Ling’s special, and now with our project demanding that Apple remove Exodus’s bigoted iPhone app:
Truth Wins Out today urged people to continue signing its Change.org petition to demand that Apple remove an offensive and scientifically bankrupt “ex-gay” iPhone app that was created by Exodus International, a group that believes people can and should “pray away the gay”. Truth Wins Out also released a new video today highlighting why Apple should be socially responsible and remove the app.
Truth Wins Out has reached out to Apple several times and the company has not yet responded. If Apple continues to bury its head in the sand, we will hold a press conference in front of their offices featuring sexual and spiritual abuse victims of “ex-gay” programs.
[...]
“Apple doesn’t allow racist or anti-Semitic apps in its store, yet it gives the green light to an app written by an anti-gay extremist group that targets vulnerable sexual-minority youth with the message that they are ‘sinful’ and ‘perverse,’” said Truth Wins Out’s Director of Communications and Development John Becker. “This is a double standard that should not stand.”
Now, Alan Chambers and Randy Thomas are pulling out the tiny violins, claiming on Facebook that they are “under attack.” Seasoned watchers of the Religious Right will recognize this language as a plea for sympathy, and also money. Randy is very upset that people are saying mean, terrible things to them on their blog and on Facebook. [In all likelihood, people are simply robustly telling them how wrong they are, about everything.]
As most of you are probably aware, especially if you have been on facebook or twitter, the protest against the Exodus iPhone app is escalating. As of this email the petition to have Apple remove it has grown to over 48,000 signatures. http://www.change.org/petitions/demand-that-apple-remove-ex-gay-iphone-app#?opt_new=t&opt_fb=t For some context,Thursday it was around 7,000.
This weekend we are getting slammed with terrible, truly nasty emails, tweets, facebook and blog comments. I allowed some difficult ones through on the blog and could use your help in responding to some of those. http://exodusinternational.org/2011/03/exodus-releases-new-smartphone-application/
Don’t worry, I will not let any ugliness develop. On the blog I catch them before anyone else sees them. That said, if your comment doesn’t immediately go through it is because I have to approve it. I can also toggle trusted friends to be automatically approved in the future. The comments I have let through that oppose our app, might be difficult but they do not represent the many more that were very hostile toward Exodus. I am hoping that a direct but loving response to these comments will be informative to all the people (literally thousands and thousands) who are being directed toward that page.
We could also use your help on the facebook page http://facebook.com/exodusinternational and our Twitter account at http://twitter.com/exodusintl. I can’t stop facebook comments before they come in and we obviously can’t stop someone from tweeting about us. Leah and I have been all over the hateful Facebook comments when they do come in so they don’t stay on the page long. Even so, ANY supportive comments and encouragement would be welcome on Facebook and Twitter as well.
Of course, Truth Wins Out readers are free to visit any of those links above. Please do not be cruel, as most of the cogs in the Exodus machine are professional victims, but feel free to robustly explain to them why they are getting this attention right now. A bit later, Randy’s whine gets really good:
Please pray for Exodus, Exodus Member Ministries, Counselors and Churches. We need your prayers for wisdom as we seek a way to answer this baseless all-out assault on our lives and beliefs. It’s much more than just an iPhone app. God’s work through Exodus is being mocked, ridiculed and stigmatized. And while we do not fight as the world fights, we can speak up lovingly and redemptively in the face of persecution. Truth never comes back void and God’s love and grace abound much greater than anything the world has to offer.
“As we seek a way to answer this baseless all-out assault on our lives and beliefs.”
Gee golly, Randall, isn’t that what the Religious Right, and their willing tools in Exodus, have been doing to LGBT people for decades? The projection here is simply unreal. Moreover, any human with Google and a brain can do a little research and see that this project to have the iPhone app removed is anything but a “baseless all-out assault.” When scientists are coming forward and asking that an app be removed [your app], because it blatantly misrepresents their work, and when that is only the icing on the cake, you’ve got a problem. The entire mission of Exodus International is based on lies, verifiable harm, and unrepentant bigotry against an entire class of people. And now you’re going to take to your computer and whine about being “attacked”? Please.
Also participating in the whining is Alan Chambers himself, who posted the following status on Facebook:
With some of the hate messages I am getting I am about ready to move my family to a gated community. Feeling a bit unsafe at the moment.
6 hours ago
OH GIVE ME A BREAK. Nobody is going to hurt you or your family, Alan! You are the one who hurts families. NOT US.
Later on, Alan asks what I find to be a very simple question, for which there is a very simple answer:
Alan Manning Chambers Do these people not listen to our message? UGH!
2 hours ago
YES. And that is why this is happening, because people are truly listening to the two-faced, dishonest bile that comes out of the spokesmouths of your organization.
Period.
At the moment, there are 96,514 signatures on our petition to have the Exodus iPhone app removed. Go here to add your name to the list if you haven’t already.
…’a direct but loving response’….where is their loving response when gay kids are being bullied, sometimes to the point of hanging themselves from a tree or jumping off a bridge; thanks in part to THEIR lies and rhetoric. Some of the blood from people who have been gay bashed or died from suicide induced by shame and/or bullying is on YOUR hands exodus.
….’Exodus is being mocked, ridiculed and stigmatized.’ It’s called KARMA! Now exodus knows how they and people like them have been making lgbt people feel for eons! We can’t wait for the day when your shitty rotten organization and others like are nothing more than another dark, sad, pathetic chapter in history.
Poor babies. :c They’re so used to getting away with doing whatever they want, they see any form of disagreement as attacks.
For the first time in a very long while I am ASHAMED to be part of th community! This is disgraceful. We constantely fight for EQUAL rights, not SPECIAL rights, yet here you are trying to take away their freedom of speech. I know what they do to people, trust me, I am an exodus SURVIVOR! I want nothing more than to close the camps, but you guys need to respect their rights. We have thousands of gay apps that they disgree with why can’t we let them have one app witghout protest!
For the first time in a very long while I am ASHAMED to be part of th community! This is disgraceful. We constantely fight for EQUAL rights, not SPECIAL rights, yet here you are trying to take away their freedom of speech. I know what they do to people, trust me, I am an exodus SURVIVOR! I want nothing more than to close the camps, but you guys need to respect their rights. We have thousands of gay apps that they disgree with why can’t we let them have one app without protest!
nat, I get it. You’re so upset that you had to post it twice. Since you didn’t bother to really find out what the issue is I guess we can’t expect you to understand.
Apple does have standards as to what they will allow (supposedly). They won’t allow racist aps, they won’t allow anti-Semetic aps, we should hold anti-gay aps to the same standard.
Nat, apps that contain defamatory and offensive content aren’t allowed, according to Apple’s TOS, which Exodus agreed to when they submitted the app.
Apple is a private corporation — Exodus’s free speech isn’t affected in any way by this.
It’s not special rights to not want to be defamed or have our loved ones preyed upon by unscrupulous a******s like Exodus. Those are rights that every human being should be privy to.
Brilliantly written, Evan, as always. We’re at just over 108,000 signatures now. Keep them coming, everyone!
yeah but they have the RIGHT to say it just like we have the roght to say being okay is okay!!!
and yes i know what the app is about, i have it. IM PROUD TO BE GAY and not afraid to say it, but i want to respect their rights!
Nat, their rights are not being affected one teeny little iota. They’re held to the same rules that everyone else who submits an app to Apple is held to.
Why should Exodus get special privilege to break the rules when other people don’t? Why do they get to stay when the Manhattan Declaration and any racist apps don’t? Why do they get to stay when Ellen’s pro-gay app about a movie doesn’t?
Why do you think Exodus gets to break the rules when no one else does?
…Er, not to say that Ellen’s app is breaking rules, because it isn’t. Ellen’s app is an example of an app that is unfairly targeted despite the fact that it breaks no rules.
But I guess her “freedom of speech” doesn’t matter so much?
Pointing out fraud is not “hate” and it’s not “attacking.” All this fundraising, I mean, whining from the radical anti-gay pressure group Exodus sounds like Someone is trying to convict their hearts and they are ignoring the Someone. Perhaps if they keep praying, they will hear Him?
[...] Exodus Leaders Whine About Being ‘Under Attack’. Read more [...]
Nat said “yeah but they have the RIGHT to say it just like we have the roght to say being okay is okay!!!”.
No one said they don’t. No one is interfering with their right to say what they want, what they don’t have is a right to have an Apple app. Would you say that if jews and blacks have accepting apps that Apple should allow apps that reject and slander jews and blacks? Of course not. Would you say that a quack has a right to an app that sells a fake cancer cure and advises people to forgo accepted medical treatment to spend thousands on snake oil? Of course not. Its the same with the Exodus app, apple should no more allow it than it should allow anti-semite, kkk, or medically dangerous apps.
Priya, I WILL Say to Nat they they do not have the right to say that.
BULL f*****g s**t they have a right to advertise a destructive quackery that destroys people. We make WAY to much of a fetish of the so called freedom of speech, and in better countries (Canada, most of the EU) this has been dealt with.
I want hate crime laws to start covering things like this, and PUNISHMENT for anyone who dares spread such b******t, their careers shortened, there bank accounts emptied, and their status as decent and respectable members of society put on a par with other people who abuse (and it is abuse, as Nat should know, and I do from listneing to my friends who are survivors) other people.
Their “rights”? f**k that, and Nat, trust me, I Am FAR more ashamed that you are a part of the community than you are of it.
Yes, you’re right Gene. No one has a right to peddle a harmful product by advertising that it enhances health.
I mean, these people have death threats. Their ideas may be harmful, but they’re done with good intentions. They’ve never killed anyone. Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if any of these people who made the app were killed, and as much as I disagree with them, I think that’s sad. Let’s not forget that one of our congresswomen was recently shot in the head over people getting a little too crazy and excited when they’re offended.
I agree with you guys 100% but I just think the level of hatred and aggressiveness showcased in this article is exactly the spirit in which gay and lesbian people are killed every year. You’re encouraging hatred by being hateful.
Amy, they SAY they have death threats. And please tell me when the last time a liberal pulled a gun on someone for political reasons. The 1960′s? I think you need to work on your definition of “hate.”
The hatred extends even more in the comments at the end.
:(
Congratulations, you guyzzzzzzzzz!
Our readers who have been though Exodus’ programs say they have already been to Hell.
Haha, Wayne, look at “anonymous’s” comment again ;-)