Australian former ex-gays explain on national television how U.S. evangelicals and their Australian affiliates sought to damage them, their spirituality, and their families.

Guest post by Anthony Venn-Brown

Celebrate together in Sydney’s Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras

People who are same-sex-orientated often feel societal and family pressures to reject or deny their true feelings.  This pressure to conform and live as heterosexuals is much more intense for those who come from faith backgrounds, as the belief system says that acceptance or rejection of their sexuality has eternal consequences.

Struggling to change can be private and internal, through one on one personal counselling or support groups. Some of us have gone to the extremes of exorcisms and ‘ex-gay’ programs. Others married, believing this will solve their ‘problem’. The journey to find resolution and self–acceptance for gay men and lesbians from Christian backgrounds can be difficult and even traumatic.

This year, Freedom 2 b[e] (a network of LGBT people from Pentecostal, Charismatic and Evangelical backgrounds) celebrates the journey survivors have travelled to rid ourselves of damaging and outdated beliefs. Beliefs that said our homosexuality was a sin, sickness or the result of a dysfunctional family upbringing. We are no longer victims of our own or others ignorance.

We invite all those who have been through any form of ‘ex-gay’ therapy or counselling to join Freedom 2 b[e]  this year in Sydney’s world famous Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras parade. Family members and friends are welcome to join us. (Read More)

Earlier in the week, we reported on the harm done by “fondle therapy” and a renegade Exodus ministry in Michigan (at least until this week) that practiced the bizarre technique.

Today,  TWO’s Michael Airhart wrote about another strain of “ex-gay” ideology, “death therapy” that is being prompted by British anti-gay activist Stehpen Green. The theory is that if you kill homosexuals, there will be no more homosexuality.  Although macabre, it actually works if your not squeamish about mass murder, squashing freedom and state sponsored persecution.

The latest form of ex-gay ideology to emerge is “hooker therapy.”

The Advocate reports today that an Australian father who is accused of forcing his teenage son to have sex with a prostitute — out of fear that he was gay — may face rape charges.

As the rest of the family celebrated Christmas 2007, the father allegedly took his son to a motel in North Rockhampton, where he paid the ho to have sex with his son, according to The Morning Bulletin, a newspaper in Rockhampton. He left the room, demanding that the boy show him a used condom as proof he finished with the prostitute.

A magistrate decided on Tuesday that there was enough evidence to bring the father to trial.

“First [he] didn’t want to say anything to me,” the boy’s mother testified. “Then he told me his father took him to a motel room and there was a prostitute there. He wouldn’t talk, he just started crying.”

Detective sergeant Christine Knapp said police first became aware of the situation when the father tried to report his son to authorities six months later, in May 2008, saying the boy was abusing his younger brother. The father said he “tried to sort it out himself by taking his son to a prostitute” to no avail.

Of course, the official “ex-gay” groups will deny any connection with this incident – and technically they would be correct. However, the discredited idea that one can change from gay-to-straight,  if they just try hard enough, keeps mutating into perverse progeny. We saw this insanity with the Anti-Homosexuality Bill in Uganda and now we see it with “ho therapy”.

Attempts to convert gay people rarely have a happy ending – unless one counts those on the payroll of so-called “ex-gay” organizations. However, it is difficult to deny that the noxious notion of “ex-gay” has led to distress, dysfunction and disaster in manifold forms.

Hooker therapy appears is the latest incarnation of the insanity that has blossomed under the rubric of “ex-gay”.

Four nations have taken preliminary action against the brewing human-rights disaster in Uganda.

As previously reported, passage is expected in January of a law requiring execution of Ugandan HIV-positive homosexuals and long prison sentences for pastors and family members who refuse to turn in someone they know to be gay. The law would also ban all speech that discusses homosexuality in a neutral or tolerant fashion, thus inhibiting health care and sound science, and it would effectively prohibit human-rights advocacy and legal defense of LGBT persons.

The penalty for homosexual orientation in Uganda is life imprisonment.

In Britain, according to PinkNews.co.uk, a spokeswoman from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office said:

We are concerned by the introduction of a private member’s bill on anti-homosexuality in Uganda.

Adoption of the bill could do serious damage to efforts to tackle HIV and its criminalisation of organisations that support homosexuality could, in theory, encompass most donor agencies and international NGOs.

The UK, alongside our EU partners, has raised our concerns about the draft bill and LGBT rights more broadly with the government of Uganda, including with the prime minister and several other ministers, the Ugandan Human Rights Commission, and senior officials from the Ugandan Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

We will continue to track the passage of the bill and to lobby against its introduction.

France’s foreign ministry released a statement:

France expresses deep concern regarding the bill currently before the Ugandan parliament.

France reiterates its commitment to the decriminalisation of homosexuality and the fight against discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

In the United States, four members of Congress wrote to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warning that the legislation had severe implications for the freedom and safety of gay people and for freedom of speech and public health in Uganda.

However, In Australia, the national senate declined to condemn the death-penalty and family-imprisonment legislation. According to the Sydney Star Observer, Joe Ludwig of the Labor Party told senators it was inappropriate for the Senate to hear such a resolution.

The Government’s view is that complex matters of international relations should not be considered in the Senate by means of formal motions. It is counterproductive for motions of this kind to single out one country,” he said, before restating the Government’s opposition to laws criminalising GLBT people.

As recently as last month … the Australian ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva noted the importance of eliminating discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity.

The Star Observer notes that the death-penalty legislation “is supported by the Ugandan Muslim Supreme Council, as well as the Orthodox, Pentecostal, Seventh Day Adventist and Anglican churches in Uganda.”

Now would be an appropriate time for the Episcopal Church USA to appeal to the Anglican Communion for an emphatic condemnation of antigay violence, execution, and censorship in Uganda.

The Exodus Global Alliance hosted a conference of antigay religious groups in Melbourne, Australia, on Saturday. The conference accused all sexually honest, same-sex-attracted persons of being sexually “broken.” Exodus declared that homosexuality is “unwanted,” and it contended that sexually honest, openly gay persons are required to lead what Exodus calls “the homosexual lifestyle.”

According to PinkPaper.com, the conference planned to promote “reparative therapy [to] communicate the message of liberation from homosexuality through the power of Jesus Christ.”

The church hosting the conference dismisses its same-sex-attracted parishioners as “sexually confused.” Organizer Shirley Basket told the Melbourne Herald Sun that her ex-gay path was “the right path” for everyone. And, that in order to choose Jesus, gay people must combat their sexual orientation.

Equality advocates countered the conference, declaring that it is immoral to offer false promises of sexual conversion and to promote prejudice toward LGBT family and church members.

“You can’t choose to become straight just because your religious leaders tell you that homosexuality is a sin,” Melbourne equality advocate Tim Wright told the Sydney Star-Observer. “Churches need to be teaching their gay and lesbian members to be proud of who they are, not ashamed. This conference will only cause more pain and anguish for the participants, not help them…Our message to participants is: if your church rejects you because of your sexuality, you should reject your church. Closets are for clothes, not people.”

In Australia, several religious communities including the Uniting Church welcome LGBT people of faith unconditionally.

In the United States, Exodus International spokesman Randy Thomas falsely claimed that the Australia conference is “there to speak with and minister to those seeking their advice and opinion on how to live with same sex attractions in congruence with their faith.” Not true: Exodus coaches conference attendees not only to deny their attractions, but also to reject Christian faith perspectives that accept the attractions or permit expression of those attractions.

Thomas sidesteps Exodus’ affirmation of Australia’s law against marriage for gay couples.

Earlier last week, Australian former ex-gay Anthony Venn-Brown discussed the pressure that Exodus and similar organizations place upon ex-gays to enter doomed heterosexual marriages. Here’s video of Venn-Brown’s reflections:

Australia’s national breakfast show, Channel 7’s Sunrise

Sydney Morning Herald’s Sexperts

One of the Pacific Rim’s leading evangelical voices regarding abuse and “sexual brokenness” is profiled in a new article by former ex-gay Anthony Venn-Brown. (Copies available here and here.)

Venn-Brown, now a gay Christian leader in Australia, has written an analysis that is concise, insightful, fair, and well-balanced.

Sy Rogers rose to prominence in the United States as executive director and later board member of Exodus International through the early 1990s. He appeared in a documentary of that period, “One Nation Under God,” in which — at odds with the statements and experiences of the movie’s featured gay and former ex-gay individuals — Rogers repeated Exodus’ mantra that homosexuality is caused by inadequate parenting and abuse which result in gender confusion. Rogers’ assertions were, in short, projections of his own transgender confusion on to mainstream homosexuals who experience no such confusion.

By 1996, Christianity Today cited Rogers as a leading up-and-coming young evangelical.

After Exodus, Rogers departed with his wife for Asia and rose to prominence as an evangelical speaker on abuse and sexual brokenness to audiences in Singapore and New Zealand. His speeches and self-help programs remain popular to this day. But his central themes remain unnecessarily — almost purposely — ambiguous and prone to deception, ripe for abuse by his ex-gay former colleagues. (Read More)

In the Sydney Morning Herald, Katrina Fox has penned a first-hand account of her visit to an ex-gay conference sponsored by Living Waters, an ex-gay network. The founder of Living Waters in Australia, Ian Lind, is quoted condemning sexually honest, same-sex-attracted persons to hell and severing such persons from contact with any house of worship.

Or at least not a church that he approves of: (Read More)

Benjamin Gresham, a former ex-gay and college student, observes:

A major ex-gay program, Living Waters, is seeking to expand across Sydney and even the rest of Australia. Led by Christian minister and ex-gay himself, Ron Brookman. Living Waters is located in Ramsgate in Southern Sydney but also runs groups in St Marys, and North West and South West Sydney through various churches and ministries. Living Waters is holding an ex-gay confernce in Sydney in February and starting up a new branch on the Northern Beaches in April 2009. Along with this, Ron brookman aims to release his autobiography in the near future as well as 2 other books which will promote the ex-gay message.

The expansion of the ex-gay programs across Sydney is a major concern as the psychological damage and pain caused by these programs is considerable. Hundreds of young gay men and women who have gone through these programs have committed suicide after not being able to change their sexual orientation. I attempted suicide twice after 3 years of ex-gay programs and I am lucky to be alive today. I have a friend who was not so lucky and after struggling with his sexuality and being told he had to change…he committed suicide back in 2007.

Read more at Gresham’s blog.

GayNZ.com voiced concern on Dec. 1 that Exodus Global Alliance is spreading involuntary and fundamentalist ex-gay programs down under, in the form of Member of Parliament Jonathan Young. His anti-Semitic Christian “Teen Challenge” has been linked to two U.S. ex-gay activists — David Kyle Foster and Janelle Hallman. Australia recovers from the allegation by several women that the global Mercy Ministries involuntarily detained women and denied them access to professional medical and mental-health care.

What if LGBT adolescent substance abusers entered Teen Challenge’s programmes? What if they are exposed to this unhealthy and unscientific message about the allegedly “essential” pathology of their sexual orientation? It is quite probable that they will experience sexual identity conflict, which could seriously impede their recovery from substance abuse problems, and/or face summary expulsion from fundamentalist oriented Teen Challenge programmes if they refused to “degay” themselves, without referral to mainstream counselors or psychotherapeutic professionals.

According to one professional study, the latter behaviour is rife in fundamentalist ‘exgay’ programmes, and not restricted to those alone. Over the last year, I’ve become aware of the toxic environment of “Mercy Ministries Australia,” a fundamentalist organisation that stated to young women that it could assist existing problems from eating disorders, past child sexual abuse, self-harm, substance abuse and sexual identity conflict. They were told that they would receive ‘professional’ help, but did not have such access. Moreover, if young female residents complained about the programme, or were labeled ‘non-compliant,’ they were summarily expelled from the programme.

Survivors of Mercy Ministries have reportedly assembled the following checklist for people to consult before submitting themselves or loved ones to Exodus-affiliated ex-gay programs:

1. Do you abide by a Code of Conduct that outlines client rights? Can I have a copy?
2. Do you have professional indemnity and public liability insurance?
3. Are you a financial member of an accredited professional body?
4. Do you receive regular professional supervision and guidance?
5. Are your qualifications from an accredited program?
6. Have you completed your training as a counsellor?

The former leader of an Australian “ex-gay” ministry has been named one of the continent’s most influential gay people. Brisbane Times reported Dec. 17:

During the 1980s, Paul Martin was at the helm of an ‘ex-gay ministry movement’ – one that tried to turn homosexual people into heterosexual people – in Melbourne.

Providing ‘treatment and religious counselling’ to hundreds of men and women, the group still operates in cities across the country.

However, Mr Martin, 45, eventually “saw the light” and confronted his personal demons.

“At the time I truly believed I was on a journey to being repaired, I was convinced my sexuality could be changed,” he said.

Two decades on, the counselling psychologist helps confused and troubled gays and lesbians come to terms with their own sexuality.

The organization that Martin led is said to still be in existence, misinforming participants that they are psychiatrically disordered and violating the will of God if they practice sexual honesty.

Mr Martin was this week named as the sole Queenslander in samesame.com.au’s annual Gaylies list – for the 25 Most Influential Gay and Lesbian Australians. …

While he disagrees with their methods and beliefs, Mr Martin does not believe the organisers of such groups are deliberately hateful people.

“The people involved with these groups don’t actually mean harm – they are lovely individuals, I’m sure. However, they are genuinely ignorant and driven by personal belief that is not in tune with reality.”

Of the dozens of so-called reformed gays Mr Martin worked with 20 years ago, only a few are still heterosexual and the majority wound up leading “messy lives”, he said.

“Some of those people got married but it inevitably ended in divorce and the sad part is most situations involved children.”

Martin, now a counseling psychologist, helps confused and troubled gays and lesbians come to terms with their own sexuality.