For decades, John Smid had been the leader of Love in Action, the infamous “ex-gay” ministry that took away the underwear of clients if the undergarments appeared too gay. The strict Memphis-based ministry also used an egg timer in the bathroom to make sure its clients would not masturbate while showering.
Of all the “ex-gay” ministries this was the most cult-like – with Smid keeping tight control over the social lives of his clients, who paid a pretty penny to live in the residential program.
The amount of mind control employed by Smid to turn gay people into heterosexuals was stunning. In a 1997 interview with the Memphis Flyer, Smid, spoke of his own special technique for denying reality: “I’m looking at that wall and suddenly I say it’s blue,” Smid said, pointing to a yellow wall. “Someone else comes along and says, ‘No, it’s gold.’ But I want to believe that wall is blue. Then God comes along and He says, ‘You’re right, John, [that yellow wall] is blue.’ That’s the help I need. God can help me make that [yellow] wall blue.”
This high level of brainwashing was not uncommon for Love in Action’s star clients. For example, Anne Paulk, co-author of Love Won Out, wrote about the mind games she played to allegedly overcome her lesbian thoughts: “…I would start to experience a sexual response…So I’d look out the car window and say something like, ‘Gosh, lord, there’ a tree out there! That tree is green, and it has leaves on it. It’s got brown bark.’ I would fix my mind on anything and everything to distract myself…over time that process made me mentally disciplined enough to displace all lesbian thoughts, period.” (I photographed her “ex-gay” poster boy husband John in a gay bar)
Of course, such techniques can temporarily instill discipline to change sexual behavior – but not one’s sexual orientation. In a stunning admission this week, Smid said that altering one’s attractions are highly improbable – indeed so unlikely that he claims that he has not met a single man who truly prayed away the gay. According to Smid:
Yes, there are homosexuals that make dramatic changes in their lives as they walk through the transformation process with Jesus. I have heard story after story of changes that have occurred as men and women find the grace of God in their lives as homosexual people. But, I’m sorry, this transformation process may not meet the expectations of many Christians. I also want to reiterate here that the transformation for the vast majority of homosexuals will not include a change of sexual orientation. Actually I’ve never met a man who experienced a change from homosexual to heterosexual.
Wow. If the “ex-gay” myth did not work for Smid, then it won’t work for anyone. After all, he had incredible dedication, adhered to a hardcore form of fundamentalism, and enforced a strict cult-like regimen on his charges. Yet, years later, he is faced with the daunting reality that “ex-gay” programs are a Religious Right marketing program, not a legitimate movement.
Needless to say, leaving the past completely behind is not easy. Smid is still married to his wife and on a journey to discover his inner-truth. He has one foot in the reality-based community and one foot in a fantasy world. But the first step in leaving the “ex-gay” charade behind is admitting that the programs do not work.
It is never easy for one to acknowledge being wrong, especially after decades of investing mentally, spiritually and financially in a big lie. I wish Smid the best of luck on his continued evolution and am grateful that he is beginning to honestly discuss the limitations of “ex-gay” programs.
Smid’s timing is exquisite because desperate GOP presidential candidates are pandering to the Religious Right by touting the “ex-gay” myth. For example, on ABC’s The ViewHerman Cain said that he thought homosexuality was a “choice.” The ever-gay-bashing Rick Santorum also jumped on the “ex-gay” bandwagon falsely claiming there is credible evidence that say LGBT people can change from gay to straight: “There are all sorts of studies out there that suggest just the contrary,” Santorum stated. “And there are people who were gay, and lived the gay lifestyle, and aren’t anymore.”
Additionally, there are junk science peddlers such as Regent University’s Mark Yarhouse who produces bogus studies that claim that sexual orientation change is possible. I strongly suggest these crass political operatives stop the propaganda long enough to listen to Smid.
But, of course, that would require putting peoples’ lives ahead of political lies – so don’t expect this to happen anytime soon.
There are two really interesting articles in this past Sunday’s New York Times Magazine dealing with the intersection of religion and sexuality, and both merit a careful look. In another piece, I’ll examine the one about gay activist turned “ex-gay” activist Michael Glatze, but that’s going to take some time, so I’m tackling this one first. It’s about the idea of therapists — not complete wingnuts, mind you – helping clients either stay in the closet or live lives which are completely counter to who they really are, based on the clients’ religious desires to remain “pure.” Or something. Let me say on the front end that this article makes me want to throw things, because it elucidates so clearly the harmful effects that fundamentalist religious indoctrination has on people. Having experienced such indoctrination myself, it makes me furious, but simultaneously grateful that I was able to, over a period of years, to abandon that indoctrination entirely.*
The article presents us with a conundrum: what to do when a client comes in and can’t balance their religious indoctrination/beliefs with their sexuality? Which wins out? How do good, well-meaning therapists treat these clients for whom tweaking the specific doctrines of their religious beliefs isn’t an option? As it turns out, some mental health specialists have some ideas, but I don’t think they’ve found the answers yet:
“I’m a very strong believer in people’s rights,” [therapist Denis Flanigan] said one gray morning at a Starbucks in Houston. But during his early training, he encountered a few clients who either would not come out of the closet or suffered mightily when they did. Christians of the kind who earnestly believed that the Bible deplored homosexuality were particularly troubled as they tried to reconcile their faith with their sexual orientation. The more Flanigan studied this conundrum, the more he came to see it as intractable. Some gay evangelicals truly believe that to follow their sexual orientation means abandonment by a church that provides them with emotional and social sustenance — not to mention eternal damnation. Keeping their sexual orientation a secret, however, means giving up any opportunity to have fulfilling relationships as gay men and women.
“When these clash, what do you do?” Flanigan recalled thinking, and when he began to research the topic about a decade ago, he found few answers beyond the obvious. Antigay religious groups would not condone homosexuality; they thought gays should just give up their orientation, and the most extreme among them offered frightening “conversion” practices. Nonreligious gays thought the conflicted should just walk away from churches that won’t accept homosexuals as they are. “Which trumps which?” Flanigan asked himself. “Religion or sexual orientation?”
So basically, the approach they’ve taken is to focus on the client’s needs and desires first and foremost. Is the religious angle so important to them that they want to find a way to be authentic within that framework? Are they looking to keep a job in that religious framework while remaining husbands and fathers in public?
“Psychological ethics say that we’re supposed to support religious beliefs and support sexual orientation,” Flanigan told me. “But there was nothing I knew of that says what to do when they conflict.” As far as he could tell, the only choice those people had was to give up one or the other.
Here is the tragedy in all of this. They’re working with these clients, trying to meet them where they are, but they’re addressing none of the root causes of people’s anguish, which is caused by religious indoctrination. It’s sad that there are so many people brought up in those sorts of environments, where the idea of “Christian love” has a lot more to do with judgment and guilt than it does with any human definition of “love.” It should be taken as a given that this article is dealing with grown-up, reality-based mental health professionals, so the crock of shit known as “ex-gay” or reparative therapy is not even on the table. No, that has been successfully laughed out of intelligent, educated company in this country, and for good reason.
So these mental health professionals are essentially helping people stay in the closet. That might be a band-aid, but it’s not a solution. The difference here is that we’re dealing with therapists who actually do mean well and have their clients’ best interests at heart, unlike the Joseph Nicolosis of the world, who go about their work with the empathy of common sociopaths. Another therapist, Douglas Haldeman, discusses the approach he came up with to deal with these sorts of cases:
Haldeman found in his research that the vast majority of people seeking to change their orientation held strong religious beliefs; often, these were married men with families who grew up in a church and who felt that they had far too much to lose by coming out.
[...]
In other words, Haldeman was certain that conversion therapy didn’t work, but he wasn’t sure that gay-affirmative therapy — helping gay clients to see that their discomfort with their orientation might come from internalizing a prejudice — would help them find peace of mind, either. In these circumstances, Haldeman tried a different approach.
[...]
The approach Haldeman used was, in the therapeutic parlance, client-centered; that is, the client’s desires took precedence over any values or opinions held by the therapist. So if John wanted to be a gay man who lived as a straight man, Haldeman would help him become that person.
I said before that this article makes me want to throw things. It still does. I was raised in a marginally conservative home, but ended up being exposed to seriously hateful religious indoctrination in high school in two churches I was involved with. Perhaps it was because I’ve always been strong-willed that I was able to at least put the self-hatred I had learned, along with the religious spew, in order to at least start on the journey out of the closet. It makes me seethe knowing that there are others who truly believe what they have been taught, that who they really are is unworthy of God.
Again, these therapists are certainly well-meaning, as they try to find answers for how to treat those who have been spiritually bullied and abused into believing that self-hating religious beliefs are truly what is best for them, or worse, that those beliefs are actually true in any sense. But the mental health community doesn’t have the real answers yet, possibly because we still haven’t wrapped our heads around the notion, in this nation at least, that spiritual abuse is itself a sickness inflicted on unwitting individuals. And as you read this piece, you’ll see that this sort of “client-centered” therapy leads to some serious double-lives, some grade-A hypocrisy, in the pursuit of giving these poor souls a little inner peace.
Warren Throckmorton is discussed in the piece as well. Most of you are familiar with him, but if not, in a nutshell: Warren is a Christian psychologist who used to preach the “ex-gay” nonsense, but became disillusioned when he realized that the luminaries of the fundamentalist/”ex-gay” industries are common liars, and started to question everything he thought he knew about human sexuality and its intersection with religious faith. In the section about Throckmorton and Mark Yarhouse, our own Wayne Besen is quoted:
Yarhouse and Throckmorton came up with what they called sexual-identity therapy (SIT). At first, Yarhouse told me, many left-leaning therapists saw SIT as a trick — conversion therapy by another name, and many remain skeptical: Wayne Besen, the founder of Truth Wins Out, an organization devoted to debunking the ex-gay ministry, told me that though he respects Throckmorton, he still believes that SIT is just another way of encouraging repression. “I think Throckmorton means well and really wants to help people reconcile their faith and sexuality,” Besen said. “However, the more appropriate way is for people to find a more moderate religion that doesn’t force them to live at cross purposes with their sexual health.”
Therein lies the rub. Some people of faith are raised to view it as a source of comfort, support, love and fellowship. The fundamentalist world is lacking in those departments, though, if you don’t easily conform to their definition of “normal.” The sad thing, though, is that while Wayne is completely right about the best way to handle these things — find a more moderate religion, do some research and go through the long, arduous process of abandoning religion altogether, etc. — some people are just far too tortured by their religious faith to do so. Abusers like to break their victims down until they feel that they are powerless and weak without the abuser around. You see this with abusive husbands, child rapists and anyone else who gets off on controlling people. These are also the hallmarks of fundamentalist religious indoctrination. Find comfort from the pain at the source of the pain, etc.
I wish I had the answers. Instead I just encourage the mental health community to keep working on their side of it, keep trying new things that, above all, respect people’s integrity and their true selves. The good news is that more and more people are abandoning religious fundamentalism every day, so future generations of Americans, perhaps, won’t need such therapy as much. Moreover, more and more people are getting the counter message of love and acceptance and equality — the It Gets Better project comes to mind — far earlier, even while they’re still being drowned in the baptismal font. The bad news is that as they lose power, religious abusers are digging in their heels and will certainly be around to hurt a few more generations of their own gay offspring.
I quoted liberally from the article, because it’s long and hits a lot of topics, but you all should take the time to read it if you haven’t already. We all have a lot of work left to do.
*I also abandoned religious faith in general, but that’s not the point, as there are several valid ways to unshackle oneself from religious indoctrination. My atheism has very little, if anything, to do with my sexuality, as I didn’t actually become an atheist until age 28, nine years after I came out of the closet.
Regent University’s Dr. Mark Yarhouse spoke this week at the national conference of the American Association of Christian Counselors in Branson, Missouri.
According to the Facebook page of the Institute for the Study of Sexual Identityat Regent University, Yarhouse spoke to a “full room” on “key concepts for understanding homosexuality and sexual identity. A lot of good discussion on the concepts and their applications in various church settings.”
Yarhouse’s talk topic paralleled that of his new book, “Homosexuality and the Christian: A Guide for Parents, Pastors, and Friends.” Note that the book’s title and theme ostracize the very people at issue: people of non-heterosexual orientation. Instead, the book addresses the pastors, parents, and peers whom Yarhouse seeks to alienate from LGBT relatives and friends.
Dr. Yarhouse shifts the focus away from orientation toward identity, and then he uses that focus to inform how the church might respond to the challenges facing sexual minorities within the Christian community. He also provides chapters for parents and spouses who are responding to family members who experience same-sex attraction.
The blog article quotes two endorsements of the book:
“This is a must-read book for anyone who wants sound guidance and trustworthy information about homosexuality, including its relevance to Christians and the church.” –Gary R. Collins, Distinguished Professor of Coaching and Leadership, Richmont Graduate University
“Homosexuality and the Christian is the best book I have seen for evangelicals who want an accessible book that provides accurate, research-based information.” –Warren Throckmorton, Associate Professor of Psychology, Grove City College, and Fellow for Psychology and Public Policy at the Center for Vision and Values
Longtime readers may recall that Yarhouse co-authored an informal study of ex-gays in 2007. That study failed to achieve publication in any peer-reviewed journal, and it was criticized by mental-health professionals for serious flaws, biases, and intentional oversights.
While I am disappointed at Yarhouse’s latest apparent efforts to badmouth sexual minorities and to alienate people from their non-heterosexual peers, I am also puzzled that a presumably successful organization representing supposed mental-health professionalism would host its annual conference in Branson. That isolated community near the Arkansas-Oklahoma border is a last-resort destination for almost-forgotten musical acts such as Andy Williams, the Oak Ridge Boys, Mickey Gilley, Roy Clark, and Tony Orlando — not to mention Elvis impersonators, disgraced preachers (Anita Bryant had a theater there), and discount buffets that inspire comparison to the cuisine of Reno, Nevada.
What exactly was Yarhouse’s room “full” of — tourists who couldn’t get tickets for the dinosaur wax museum?
Speaks volumes, I think. And it leads me to believe that the fundies know/understand something that Marin’s water-carriers in the gay Christian community don’t. Guess who else speaks highly of Andrew Marin in this report? Mark Yarhouse!
The rhetoric is so nice. Unfortunately, all he seems to be telling Fundamentalist Christians is that they should try to stop hurting people, which is of course good, in theory. But where is the message about actually affirming the dignity of gay people, our lives, and our equality?
As far as I can see, the jury is still out on whether or not Andrew Marin is a force for good or evil. Hopefully that question will be answered satisfactorily at some point. Until then, I would advise taking everything he says with a full shaker of salt.
The latest lying Lothario is Rep. Mark Souder (R-Ind.) who announced that he would resign from Congress because he had an affair with a woman on his staff. Rep. Souder had received a zero on every single Human Rights Campaign scorecard since entering Congress in 1995. He has consistently voted against employment protections, hate crime laws, increases in HIV/AIDS funding and providing equality to same-sex couples.
Clearly, the state of the GOP Family Values fraud is such, that Republican leaders were probably relieved that Souder’ sinful shenanigans were with a woman – not an undercover cop in a bathroom stall (Sen. Larry Craig) or with male congressional pages (Rep. Mark Foley).
Like most sexual scandals, there was an element of tragic comedy. In November 2009, Souder’ mistress, Tracy Jackson, interviewed Souder for a video on abstinence.
“You’ve been a longtime advocate for abstinence education and in 2006 you had your staff conduct a report entitled ‘Abstinence and its Critics’ which discredits many claims purveyed by those who oppose abstinence education,” Jackson said as she introduced Souder.
Technically, there was no hypocrisy in this instance, because Souder believes in abstinence before marriage — and he was clearly married at the time he and Jackson put in a little overtime protecting the morals of taxpayers.
However, there was quite a bit of duplicity in Souder’ rabid and reactionary opposition to LGBT equality. For example, he opposed the Domestic Partnership Benefits and Obligations Act, which would give federal employees in gay relationships access to health benefits. In voting against the bill Souder told the Federal Times, ”I am against taxpayer funding for these benefits because it is totally inconsistent with the belief that marriage should be one man and one woman.”
Social conservatives would do themselves a huge favor if they edited their marriage creed to, “one man, one woman and one mistress.” Although, it is doubtful even this amendment would sate their voracious sexual appetites. One just has to consider the outrageous behavior of Gov. Mark “Appalachian Trail” Sanford (R-S.C.) and Sen. John “I slept with my best friend’ wife” Ensign (R-NV) to realize that conservative politicians are as addicted to extramarital porking as they are in procuring big government pork.
The most predictable part of the salacious Souder scandal is his attempt to blame unnamed political opponents for exploiting his tryst.
“I sinned against God, my wife and my family by having a mutual relationship with a part-time member of my staff,” Souder said. “In the poisonous environment of Washington, D.C., any personal failing is seized upon and twisted for political gain. I am resigning rather than put my family through a painful drawn out process.”
Souder is clearly confused. The only thing that was likely “twisted” was the bed sheet used during his extramarital affair. The congressman seems blithely unaware that it was opportunistic puritanical phonies — such as he — that are responsible for creating the toxic environment in Washington that he now ironically bemoans.
It was right wing ideologues looking to mine conservative churches for votes and money that made “protecting” the family a matter of United States policy. They launched a destructive culture war and divisive debate, even as they behaved like whores who fornicate. Yet, the money-grubbing morality machine soldiers on — blaming everyone and everything but the shallowness and emptiness of their wanton worldview.
A perfect example of deflecting blame came from The Liberty Counsel’ Matt Staver who suggested outside forces were out to get anti-gay researcher George Rekers, who got nabbed with a male hustler he met on Rentboy.com.
“I think that it’s the classic [tactic], ‘If you can’t destroy the message, you destroy the messenger,’ … and I think this is a personal attack (on Rekers) designed to cast aspersions on his character and reputation,” Staver said.
Is Staver suggesting that a gay organization or mischievous LGBT activist sent Rekers to RentBoy.com? Furthermore, isn’t the alleged rectitude and righteousness of these holier-than-thou messengers a key part of the moralistic message?
Miami Herald columnist Daniel Shoer Roth said it best this week when he wrote, “When these cases come to light, it is a victory for the public, because you open your eyes to the veiled nature of these two-faced individuals. And, hopefully, you will better appreciate those who are honest with themselves and others.”
Right wing activists and politicians have no one to blame for their troubles but themselves. People would not care one bit about their tawdry affairs if they had not made “family values” a central part of the affairs of state.
In 2007, Mark Yarhouse of Pat Robertson’s Regent University co-wrote an informal study of ex-gay therapy. The study was funded by Exodus International — the North American network of evangelical ex-gay activists — and co-written by Stanton Jones, another evangelical who is employed by the conservative Wheaton College in Illinois.
Exodus falsely marketed the study as “peer-reviewed” — it wasn’t — and Yarhouse and Jones were criticized for rigging the sample of subjects and standards of success or failure in order to guarantee a result that would satisfy Exodus.
Specifically, Jones and Yarhouse’s work suffered from the following flaws:
The study originally sought 300 participants, but after more than a year of seeking to round up volunteers, they had to settle on only 98 participants.
During the course of the study, 25 dropped out, and one participant’s answers were too incomplete to be used.
Of the remaining 72 only 11 reported “satisfactory, if not uncomplicated, heterosexual adjustment.” Most of these 11 remained primarily homosexual in attraction or, at best, bisexual, but were satisfied that they were just slightly more attracted to the opposite sex, or slightly less attracted to the same sex.
After the study ended, but before the book was finished, one of the 11 wrote to the authors to say that he lied — he really wanted to change, had really hoped he had changed, and answered that he had changed. But he concluded that he hadn’t, came out, and is now living as an openly gay man.
Dozens of participants experienced no lessening of same-sex attraction and no increase in opposite-sex attraction, but were classified as “success” stories by Jones and Yarhouse simply because they maintained celibacy — something many conservative gay people already do.
The study purposely declined to interview any ex-gay survivors: people who claim to have been injured by ex-gay programs and who have formed support groups such as Beyond Ex-Gay. Despite — or because of — this omission, Yarhouse and Jones made the unfounded claim that there is little or no evidence of harm resulting from unproven, unsupervised, unlicensed, and amateur ex-gay counseling tactics.
In short, the study design was so flawed that no mainstream, peer-reviewed, mental-health journal would publish it.
Nevertheless, Exodus, Focus on the Family, and other Christian Right political groups immediately cited the study as proof that anyone can change their orientation without fear of ill effects from disproven methods or disreputable amateur counselors.
Now, however, Yarhouse is backing away from some of the early reactions to the study.
At a Sept. 25 symposium at Regent, Yarhouse said — according to The Virginian-Pilot — that while same-sex attraction may be changeable in some individuals, not everyone can change.
“For me, in my own practice, I would not focus on change of orientation,” said Yarhouse, a psychologist and counselor who teaches at Regent, an evangelical Christian school. …
Yarhouse’s study focused on those who said their same-sex attractions collided with their religious beliefs. He said his research found that there was “modest” movement away from homosexuality among some Exodus participants, but categorical conversions to heterosexuality were rare.
Yarhouse recommended that counselors avoid uniformly steering struggling gays toward heterosexuality and focus instead on the best outcome for the individual.
That could include celibacy or exploring different faith groups with various attitudes toward gays and lesbians, he said.
Despite Yarhouse’s statements, no one on the Christian Right who misreported the study’s findings in 2007-2008 has yet retracted their false boasts. Until Yarhouse becomes much more vocal, the public in general and Christian Rightists in particular will remain purposely misinformed about the inability of most same-sex-attracted persons to change their orientation.
The American Psychological Association’s newly released report on Appropriate Therapeutic Responses to Sexual Orientation evaluated peer-reviewed studies of sexual orientation change efforts that were conducted between 1960 and 2007. The report criticized these studies’ measurements of efficacy and safety as methodologically unsound.
Among the studies found to be unreliable was a 2007 study by evangelicals Mark Yarhouse and Stanton Jones. Their work was funded by Exodus and it utilized activist research subjects who were recruited with help from Exodus and the ex-gay therapy lobby NARTH. Critics said the study suffered from the following shortcomings:
The study was conducted by two supporters of ex-gay ministries.
Jones and Yarhouse originally sought 300 participants, but after more than a year of seeking to round up volunteers, they had to settle on only 98 participants.
During the course of the study, 25 dropped out, and one participant’s answers were too incomplete to be used.
Of the remaining 72 only 11 reported “satisfactory, if not uncomplicated, heterosexual adjustment.” (direct quote). Some of these 11 remained primarily homosexual in attraction or, at best, bisexual, but were satisfied that they were just slightly more attracted to the opposite sex, or slightly less attracted to the same sex.
After the study ended, but before the book was finished, one of the 11 wrote to the authors to say that he lied — he really wanted to change, had really hoped he had changed, and answered that he had changed. But he concluded that he hadn’t, came out, and is now living as an openly gay man.
Dozens of participants experienced no lessening of same-sex attraction and no increase in opposite-sex attraction, but were classified as “success” stories by Jones and Yarhouse simply because they maintained celibacy — something many conservative gay people already do.
The study purposely declined to interview any ex-gay survivors: people who claim to have been injured by ex-gay programs and who have formed support groups such as Beyond Ex-Gay. Despite — or because of — this omission, the authors of this study make the unfounded claim that there is little or no evidence of harm resulting from unproven, unsupervised, unlicensed, and amateur ex-gay counseling tactics.
In short, the study design was so flawed that no mainstream, peer-reviewed, mental-health journal would publish it. And the study’s supposed success stories were gay celibate individuals who adopted false labels to direct attention away from frequently undiminished same-sex attraction.
While it acknowledged their sincere observations about clients’ conservative religious values, this week’s APA report criticized Jones & Yarhouse on page 90:
A published study that appeared in the grey literature in 2007 (Jones & Yarhouse, 2007) has been described by SOCE advocates and its authors as having successfully addressed many of the methodological problems that affect other recent studies, specifically the lack of prospective research. The study is a convenience sample of self-referred populations from religious self-help groups. The authors claim to have found a positive effect for some study respondents in different goals such as decreasing same-sex sexual attractions, increasing other-sex attractions, and maintaining celibacy. However, upon close examination, the methodological problems described in Chapter 3 (our critique of recent studies) are characteristic of this work, most notably the absence of a control or comparison group and the threats to internal, external, construct, and statistical validity. Best-practice analytical techniques were not performed in the study, and there are significant deficiencies in the analysis of longitudinal data, use of statistical measures, and choice of assessment measures. The authors’ claim of finding change in sexual orientation is unpersuasive due to their study’ methodological problems.
According to the Los Angeles Times, Yarhouse, of Pat Robertson’s Regent University, praised the APA report for urging a “creative approach to gay clients’ religious beliefs but ‚Äî like [Exodus president Alan] Chambers ‚Äî disagreed with its skepticism about changing sexual orientation.” The Times continued:
Yarhouse and a colleague, Professor Stanton Jones of Wheaton College, will be releasing findings at the APA meeting Friday from their six-year study of people who went through Exodus programs. More than half of 61 subjects either converted to heterosexuality or “disidentified” with homosexuality while embracing chastity, their study said.
To Jones and Yarhouse, their findings prove change is possible for some people, and on average the attempt to change will not be harmful.
Given that the APA has already criticized their research methods, it will be interesting to see whether re-release of flawed data — with some updates and changes — successfully shifts media coverage of the APA report.
Debbie Thurman, of Jerry Falwell’s Thomas Road Baptist Church, has founded an ex-gay web site: theFormers.com.
What, one might wonder, qualifies Thurman to mislead people into joining ex-gay political groups?
Almost nothing, apparently — she has no professional training in counseling or mental health. Her autobiographical sketch cites a college degree in English and a stint as public affairs officer in the Marine Corps. Despite her lack of competence, Thurman has spent years profiting from shell “ministries” that inflict her ignorance upon Christians who suffer from clinical depression.
Thurman’s site is well-designed, but it offers little if any original content. TheFormers.com seems to be merely another in a family of religious-right linkfests for Exodus International, Focus on the Family, NARTH, and PFOX — a pricey method of inflating the Google PageRank of these organizations. (Read More)
Focus on the Family denies the existence of former ex-gays ‚Äî a growing movement of hundreds of people who have discovered through personal experience that ex-gay activists’ claims are not only false, but toxic to families and communities.
Former ex-gays gathered this weekend in Memphis, Tenn., at the same time as Focus’ ex-gay roadshow, Love Won Out, which appeals to antigay pastors and parents of gay persons with sales pitches for ex-gay propaganda and political appeals to deny equality to gay couples.
According to Peterson Toscano, a survivor of Exodus International’s flagship live-in program Love In Action: “They [Focus on the Family] basically tell parents of lesbian and gay kids that it’s bad to be gay, and they give testimonies about how awful people’s lives were while they were gay. They say they can change and save you.”
In promoting its roadshow, Focus on the Family on Feb. 20 described former ex-gays (who were to come from as far away as California and Connecticut) as “local activists” who advocate “a revisionist view of the Bible.” Focus concealed the central fact that the “activists” included former ex-gays.
Love In Action has similarly shielded its participants from survivors and allies who have held vigils nearby. Jacob Wilson, now 22, was an ex-gay participant in LIA in 2005. According to the Memphis Commercial-Appeal:
After Wilson left LIA, he found out what the protesters had wanted him to know.
“These people weren’t doing it to be activists, they were doing it to show that we weren’t alone, that we were loved … It crushes me that that message was cut from us.”
(Weekly Column)
Regent University’s Dr. Mark Yarhouse spoke this week at the 
We are fast approaching the point where it will only be news if an outspoken Christian conservative politician isn’t cheating on his or her spouse. The extramarital humping from the self-righteous Bible-thumping is becoming clich?© with the scandals happening almost by the day.
Specifically, Jones and Yarhouse’s work suffered from the following flaws:
What, one might wonder, qualifies Thurman to mislead people into joining ex-gay political groups?
