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Truth Wins Out joined local Boston GLBT advocates to demonstrate against Exodus International, which hosted a training seminar on Tuesday to teach people to “pray away the gay.” The protest was held at the site of the “ex-gay” symposium – the Park St. Church.
“We thank Join the Impact MA for coordinating an effective response to the damaging misinformation Exodus International peddles to vulnerable people,” said TWO Executive Director Wayne Besen. “Speaking up and educating the public is the first step in exposing the ex-gay myth. I was honored to be part of this bold action.”
The protest, at one point, moved to the burial grounds of some of America’s Founding Fathers, which was next to the church where the seminar was held. The radical, anti-gay organization, Massachusetts Family Institute (FMI) filmed a poorly shot video of the protest. Interestingly, their own video shows that protesters had not “desecrated” the graveyard, as they had stated in a press release.
“It is amazing that people who claim to represent ethics and morality would not only lie – but capture their dishonesty on videotape,” said Besen. “What the Massachusetts Family did was reprehensible and they should be ashamed of their blatant lies.”
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Speakers at the protest included: Arline Isaacson of The Massachusetts Gay and Lesbian Political Caucus, Stewart Landers, Scott Gortikov of MassEquality, Tom Lang of KnowThyNeighbor.org, Paul Sousa of Join the Impact MA, and keynote speaker Wayne Besen, founder of TruthWinsOut.org. Co-sponsors include MassEquality, the Mass G/L Political Caucus, the Anti-Violence Project, Know Thy Neighbor, CourtingEquality.com, and LBGT@MIT.
James
Good questions and challenges man. Sorry that at times I cannot get back to you quick enough. It is not for lack of interest.
I never said i had a problem with your decisions. I do not condemn you. I wish you to reconsider it but that is fully your life and you live it the best you know how. I just note the almost heterophobic/ex-gayphobic anger and rage on this site and it makes me wonder about the confidence of these gay life decisions. For a site about truth there is more heat than light here. You have no idea what you speak of to say ex-gays are harmed, that is not the whole truth and I think you know it and if you don’t find out. If you have not ever done that, call an Exodus office, a bold step, and start to explore if the truth is not what you have been led or felt to believe. I can cite numerous studies of the harm that comes from the gay life. If you want I will but I think we both know deeply that harm. If you don’t know that harm then you are ok and let’s not war over studies.
Heterosexuality is a finding of the male and female in complement, they are opposites that show wondrous and beautiful difference and bring to each the offering of the others sexuality, a giving to each that the other does not have. Selves know and are known in relationship and in the depths of our sexuality, (and you cannot divorce homosexuality from homosex), the desire for the other that is also the same is like trying to know myself in a mirror. I think you fully see your sexual identity in the other, the different. What do you think?
I will think about your “is” notion.
No my link to the APA was not a weird or an opposite point made in error. I asked you to note that the APA is softening its views on leaving the gay life. I asked you to read the former pamphlet and see if that is not true.
Craig
Craig,
Being gay is NOT a life, nor is it a “lifestyle” it is a valid sexual orientation just like heterosexuality is. That link to the APA also says that the evidence is clear that homosexuality is NOT a choice, and is not a mental illness.
If homosexuality was in fact, abnormal, then there would be no way that a man could be happy with another man, there would be no way a woman could be happy with another woman. If men and women are meant for each other, and that is the only normal form of romance, then it would be impossible for same-sex couples to be happy together.
I am part of a LGBT alliance at my college and the advisor is a gay male and he has been with his partner for 25 years. He is 52 now. Now if homosexuality was a “lifestyle” and was abnormal, then how can he do that? How can he be so happy in that relationship? Surely, his internal “nature” would eventually tell him, “No he’s another guy, I’m only meant to be with a woman, I cannot find happiness in this other man!” But he’s still with him and happy as ever. And the feelings they have for each other to stay together that long, cannot be “chosen”.
I have known gay men in their 40′s and 50′s who are just now accepting their sexuality. Back in their day (as they like to call it) homosexuality was even more unaccepted as it is now. They have tried to be with women, going back and forth between them, but they could not bring peace to themselves unless they were with another man.
I go to LGBT community meetings in my city, and there are people there as normal as can be who are gay. We have, for example, gay men and lesbian women who are police officers, who are lawyers, who are doctors, who are members of the city government, some are teenagers on the high school football team, who are your everyday people you would meet on the street, living happy, healthy, and successful lives with their partners (most of them, in long-term relationships). I’m just trying to figure out how all that is possible if it were “abnormal”.
YES, there are some who into clubbing, and hooking up, and make sex their focal point in their life, but then again, there are some heterosexuals who do that also.
It’s NOT abnormal, it’s just the way a minority is. It’s the way they naturally are. No one knows why homosexuality occurs, or why it exists, but we just know that it’s here, and that gay people exist and when they accept their sexuality and are at peace with it, they live lives indistinguishable from any heterosexual.
If they want to change, then they have the right to try. The purpose of this website is to educate people on the potential danger of “ex gay” therapy. Like I said, your sexuality is natural to you. When you try and change it, you’re ripping something out of you that is supposed to be their and trying to replace it with something that isn’t supposed to go there.
Some people claim that “ex gay” therapy is successful for them. I just think they either learned to suppress who they are real good, or that they never were REALLY gay to begin with.
“You have no idea what you speak of to say ex-gays are harmed, that is not the whole truth and I think you know it and if you don’t find out. If you have not ever done that, call an Exodus office, a bold step, and start to explore if the truth is not what you have been led or felt to believe.”
I do.
Been there, done that.
All frauds. And in many cases, rapists.
The happy criteria can be misguided in assessing normal and abnormal. There are a whole range of acts and thoughts, sexual, relational, dietary that can make one happy but does that make them normal? And why can’t you be consistent with your principle of happiness in applying it to others? You disallow that ex-gays are authentic. That is a cheap shot and pretty common among ex-gayphobics on this site. You can do better than that. Our friend Scott boldly calls them “rapists and frauds.”
To your happiness principle since ex-gays I know are also happy your happiness principle = normal would seem to acknowledge their legitimacy and leave them alone in their happiness wouldn’t it?
Saying homosexuality is valid needs some explanation. What is your criteria for determining the validity of homosexual orientation or any orientation? Would you not agree this site all about excluding ex-gay as a valid sexual orientation? Is that fair and reasonable?
I’d also be real careful to not let the APA inform our view of sexuality. They shift with the winds of culture and political pressure.
Here is a statement of a member of the APA published by the Harvard University Press: “…it may be that for now, the safest way to advocate for lesbian/gay/bisexual rights is to keep propagating a deterministic model: sexual minorities are born that way and can never be otherwise. If this is an easier route to acceptance (which may in fact be the case), is it really so bad that it is inaccurate?”
Does that not imply you are being lied to about this notion of an immutable born that way nature?
Well Craig, no “ex gay” is NOT a valid sexual orientation. The actual sexual orientations are, homosexual, heterosexual, and bisexual. “Ex gay” is not a sexual orientation. “Ex gays” simply consider themselves heterosexual.
Now maybe there are some “ex gays” but I have tried to change my sexual orientation and it did not work for me. I was unable to change. You just sit there like a whiny baby saying, “Oh some gays can change, that AUTOMATICALLY makes homosexuality abnormal, that AUTOMATICALLY makes YOU able to change.”
No Craig, sexual orientation is innate. It is natural for a minority of people. Any “ex gay” is simply a person who is still gay, but has their heterosexuals suppressed, or was ALWAYS a heterosexual all along.
Now it’s not just the APA. EVERY RESPECTED MENTAL HEALTH ORGANIZATION IN EXISTANCE SAYS THIS!!! And no, they were NOT pressured by gay activists. It is physically impossible for a minority to influence a scientific conclusions and get away with it, for ALL this time.
Every respected mental health organization says that homosexuality is NOT abnormal, is NOT a mental illness, and is NOT a choice. “Ex gay” therapy is NOT mainstream and NONE of those organizations support ANY attempt to change sexual orientation. That’s it! That settles it! When you go to a doctor and he gives you intructions, for when you’re sick, do you go against his advic? No you don’t.
Well every mainstream mental health professional says this about homosexuality: “It’s best to learn to accept yourself for who you are, ALL of the evidence shows that change, hardly, if ever occurs, and the chances of success in such therapy, is VERY rare.”
So why are you arguing with professionals here??? Why can’t I accept my sexual orientation? Why can’t I accept myself for who I am, who I am comfortable acceping? Any heterosexual out there would tell you the thought of being with someone of the same-sex makes them uncomfortable, well the thought of being with someone of the opposite sex makes me uncomfortable and terribly sick. WHY do I need to be FORCED into being with a girl? Why do you need to tell me that that would be the right thing to do, when I know it’s not for me, and for the rest of my minority that ALSO likes the same sex instead of the opposite sex?
Tell me Craig, why? Why aren’t I unhappy with another man, if it is unnatural? With how great you say being straight is, and with how uncomfortable being with a member of the same sex YOU say it is, why do I feel the complete opposite?
Just because you don’t understand something, does NOT mean it’s “abormal”.
This is such a shockingly long section to read. In the end, heterosexuals who had a few MSM encounters will think they are “gays”, so when they return to their original path, they brand themselves “ex-gays” ie the “lifestyle”. Really, Alan Chambers only had ONE YEAR of MSM experience and he calls himself gay; yet there are thousands out there that have had same sex attractions since young. These ex-gays think they know so much from that little box of theirs, they totally ignored the bigger picture of a sexual orientation.
Let us not forget the asexuals. They perhaps represent the worse state of sexual orientation to be in. If heterosexuals so much wants to share the “joys” of relationship fulfilment, why not start a ex-asexual ministry or something? No? Of course not. In the end, it ends up as biases and prejudice. Look ex-gays, again as many of us stress here, we have no qualms of what you do in your life. But when you politicize it, and attempt to indoctrinate everyone into thinking that you are “X” and everybody can be “X”, then you are parroting a blatant lie when the truth is there is nothing wrong to have a homosexual attraction. Period.
I am bisexual. But I do not have sex. I do not even like sex. Does that make me an ex-gay? Of course not, silly. I am still attracted to both women or men. Of course, I can claim to have been an ex-gay, or ex-ex-gay, or ex-ex-ex-gay etc because of the relationships I have across the years. Now do you understand why there is simply NO SUCH THING as EX-GAY? You cannot EX a part of you. Can you be EX-hormoned? Can you be EX-neuroned? Can you be EX-haired? Oops, you can of course shave your head bald. But it will certainly grow back. Unless you have major hair problems dears.
Craig:
There is no such thing as an “ex-gay” because smart human beings learn from experience and history teaches us:
1) Many of the top ex-gay leaders have failed.
2) The process has harmed many people. Survivors have spoken out on this site, Ex-Gay Watch, Box Turtle Bulletin and Beyond Ex-Gay. The victims extend to spouses who marry (and divorce) people who are not attracted to them.
3) The ex-gay camp consistently must use scare tactics and lie about legitimate research to make its points. Ex-gay therapists do not have a track record of peer review studies and must resort to quoting each other.
4) The centerpiece of all ex-gay theory is that a person is gay because of bad parenting or abuse and neglect. There is not a shard of evidence to back this fabricated cause and effect model. In other words the very core of ex-gay theory is a lie.
5) Ex-gay must resort to bizarre “healing” methods, such as touch therapy, slamming tennis rackets and calling friends “dude”. No serious, thinking person would give such nonsense the time of day.
6) Ex-gay groups must rely on disreputable people, such as Richard Cohen, Joseph Nicolosi and Alan Chambers. I can’t think of another group in America who would depend on such people and then expect to be taken seriously.
5) Ex-gays tell us it really does not work. They are unable to lose their same-sex attraction and also unable to develop notable opposite sex attraction. Consider these quotes:
“By no means would we ever say change can be sudden or complete.” Alan Chambers. (LA Times, June 18, 2007)
I realize that I do live a life of denial. Not denial of who I used to be, not denial of who I could be today, but I deny what comes naturally to me. (Phoenix Love Won Out 2007)
“No one has ever left therapy saying, “Wow, I have absolutely no homosexual thoughts.” Joe Dallas (Los Angeles Times, April 5, 1990
“If an attractive man and an attractive woman enter a room, it is the man I will look at first.” Alan Medinger (The Wall Street Journal, April 21, 1993)
Obviously, if sexual orientation is not changing – this leaves us with suppressing basic human needs and desires. This denial may make a few people happy – because they have convinced themselves that depriving themselves of their needs will please God and get them into heaven.
But, for most people, this process is dehumanizing, depressing and degrading. Human beings need and deserve to love and be loved. Most people – but not all- require satisfying sexual expression. Ex-gay groups tell clients that these basic needs are emotions and feelings that they can eliminate or put a lid on them.
Clearly, such programs usually lead to a psychological crisis that can damage the individual.
Some people are gay. Others are bi. Some are hetero. That is just the way it is. Efforts at sexual engineering to make everyone cookie-cutter straights do not work and they never will. Get over it.
Reading back, I find all of the conversations disturbing. Ex-gays, even after they are told to live their lives as they see fit without politicizing and parroting a snake oil cure; continuously attempt to impose unwarranted questions of homosexual’s existence to the point of invalidity. If there is any evidence that heterosexist behaviour is primarily an ex-gay trait, then this is the proof.
And the stark obsession with sex “acts” among men, and only the mention of men, shows mysoginy. It is troubling that “mutual masturbation” is all they can think of, and parrot out “ex-gay” as if woman are meant to be born on the world to “satisfy” their ex-gay lust.
It is incredible that they still wish to challenge medical norms, as if they are of a higher authority than them. With such behaviour, with all due respect, it has the printings of a cult, bent on intangible genocide of gays.
It has long been proven that ex-gays are but a social term, and homosexuals are norm; but however many times this very fact of life is pointed out, they shove it aside as zero. It really makes me wonder, what are they?
Every one has sexual desires. That fact needs no research to know. Gays and Lesbians are telling the truth when they say they have desires for the same-sex. I don’t believe ex-gay therapy works to rid someone of their thought life. Having said that, I do think that if someone comes under the conviction that it is wrong to act on those desires, then they need to deny it, and find expression in right ways. That IS possible. We all have to do that. Even I, as a married heterosexual, have to deny desires for other women. That is not easy, but that self-denial is actually better, healthier and makes for a better society. Can you imagine if everyone was allowed to express every sexual desire they had? Our society would would be a mess. So, just because someone has an internal desire, does not mean they should be fooled to think they should express it in the name of love. That is not love. jeffh
I agree, Jeff, no one should be compelled to behave in ways that they believe are wrong.
Which is precisely why ex-gays should stop using unscientific lies, discrimination, ostracism, antigay laws, vigilantism, and religious heresy to compel gay and transgender people to behave in ways that they know are wrong.
Yes Jeff, no one should be required to behave in ways that they believe is wrong. I am gay and that’s who I am, and NOT straight, therefore it is wrong for me to try and be straight or to have heterosexual sex, or to attempt to suppress my innate human sexual needs. Because that’s wrong.
Jeff:
That you deny yourself (allegedly) sex with many women is one thing. But, to compare that to a gay person NEVER having sex, never knowing love, never having a real date, never holding a hand or sharing a deep kiss, never knowing the warmth of holding a spouse in bed — is patently absurd and shows a moral blind spot.
It is the equivalent of you telling a starving man that you feel his pain because you are forced to only eat your favorite ice cream flavor.
Finally, not all beliefs are good. That includes bigoted beliefs that condemn homosexuality. Such rancid and outdated beliefs should be forcefully condemned at every opportunity.
Having a gay person destroy him or herself – in the here and now – so they can supposedly sit on a fluffy cloud with an angry God when they die, is a cruel waste of a life. I can’t imagine why any God worth praying to would create millions of people to suffer such a lonely and frustrating existence. That is the kind of cruel, evil joke that only Satan would play on good people who have hurt no one.
We can both agree that people have the right to make that poor choice and live in denial. But, we should also be honest and agree that this is inhumane and often psychological torture for those who make such cruel religious bargains.
As for Craig’s suggestion of heterophobia, I have seen no trace of any such thing on this blog.
Speaking for myself, I am all in favour of heterosexuality for three reasons.
Firstly, a loving heterosexual relationship is a beautiful thing (as is a loving homosexual relationship).
Secondly, procreation through heterosexual relationships ensures the continual replenishment of the heterosexual majority.
Thirdly, procreation through heterosexual relationships ensures the continual replenishment of the homosexual minority.
Altogether a very satifactory state of affairs. It makes me realise that what we were frequently told years ago in junior church was right: “God gives us more than we ask, desire or deserve.”
[...] the story of what was actually happening there, let’s just cover it again. This is from our press release on the event, last year: Truth Wins Out joined local Boston GLBT advocates to demonstrate against [...]