In 1988, I was fresh out of college and working as a full-time volunteer for Catholic Charities in Nashville, Tennessee.

I was also a quietly celibate gay man who was living with fellow Christian volunteers.

By day, I helped illegal aliens apply for legal residency through Catholic Charities while my housemates worked with prisoners and the homeless.

When we weren’t working, my unpaid housemates and I spent evenings at home in low-income East Nashville, sitting in front of our portable black-and-white television watching “Facts of Life” and a new show called “Star Trek: The Next Generation.” We shared meals of low-budget jambalaya, chatted on weekends with acquaintances (on their dime, if possible) at the Vanderbilt University Fuddrucker’s, and explored various churches and neighborhoods around Nashville. As my one-year volunteer placement wound down in mid-1988, I sought religious sponsors who might help me work for Nashville CARES or for similar AIDS treatment and support organizations in other cities.

This was my gay lifestyle.

Across town, Exodus executive vice president Randy Thomas was, by his own new account, living a very different lifestyle: bar-hopping, using drugs, seemingly oblivious (then and now) to liberal Christian outreach to society’s outcasts.

In a heartbreaking moment of vulnerability, Randy remembers the day when he learned his former partner had died from AIDS: (Read More)

On March 1, 2008, 35 Australian Christian ministers apologized for years of antigay defamation and discrimination, which they called “un-Christian.” More ministers would have apologized, but several ministers were threatened into silence by antigay superiors.

Anthony Venn-Brown of Freedom 2 b[e] has just released video of these apologies to gay and gender-variant persons.

Addendum, April 13: Venn-Brown announced via e-mail this evening that the “100 Revs” apology has won an award for Most Outstanding Political Comment from the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras.

Prof. Warren Throckmorton, a prominent pro-exgay pundit, has proposed an antigay Golden Rule campaign to compete with local antiviolence advocates’ Day of Silence in various U.S. schools, scheduled for April 25. The ex-gay network Exodus subsequently provided marketing support for the campaign this week through its Exodus Youth “Voice” newsletter.

In the National Day of Silence, students pledge to remain silent for a day at school. Some may carry a card briefly calling upon classmates to actively oppose antigay bullying and thus end the silence.

Antigay industry leaders including the American Family Association have rallied antigay parents to keep their students home from school, in defense of gay-specific intolerance and in opposition to antiviolence programs which explicitly recognize gay and gender-variant victims of violence.

Throckmorton proposes what he considers a fine line that navigates between antiviolence advocates and paranoid parents. Specifically, he advises conservative Christian students to pass out cards in school that quote the Bible:

I pledge to treat others the way I want to be treated.

Will you join me in this pledge?

“Do to others as you would have them do to you.” (Luke 6:31)

But a serious analysis of Throckmorton’s campaign finds little substance: It trivializes the Golden Rule while doing nothing to stop bullying: (Read More)

For The Bible Told Me So is a documentary of five Christian families, from traditional backgrounds, that struggle with the knowledge that a family member is gay.

A screening at Stetson University in Florida drew positive reviews from both sides of a panel consisting of ex-gay activists as well as gay-affirmative viewers, according to the Daytona Beach News-Journal.

From the ex-gay side:

“I loved that the core of it was families’ stories,” said Mike Ensley, a counselor with Exodus Ministries, which helps youth wanting to overcome homosexuality.

From the gay-affirming side:

Matt McKeown, associate pastor of United Brethren in Christ Church in Holly Hill, said he was embarrassed to see so many preachers spewing hatred toward homosexuals.

“I kept slinking lower in my chair,” McKeown said.

His complaint, which was shared by a few panel members, was that the only conservatives seen in the film were “bigoted idiots.”

On her blog, ex-gay advocate Karen Keen encourages conservative Christians to watch the film and “hopefully dispel certain harmful stereotypes about gay and lesbians.” But she cautions:

Yet, despite resonating with the family stories, I also felt strangely alienated by the film. Ultimately, despite what one would expect, it did not represent me—a Christian with same-gender attraction. The only reference to me, and those like me, was during a cartoon segment that portrayed ex-gay ministry participants as repressed and depressed. Admittedly, I laughed during the cartoon. It was funny. But, it was also mocking. It mocked me and my story. That struck me as hypocritical given the claims of the filmmakers who say they want to help change myths and stereotypes about gay people. Ironically, For the Bible Tells Me So reinforces stereotypes of same-gender attracted Christians who decide not to affirm or act on their homosexual desires.

Filmmaker Daniel Karslake said he invited conservative Christian commentators James Dobson, Gary Bauer, and Dick Cheney to participate in the documentary, but they declined.

After claiming last week that the ex-gay network had stepped back from public policy, Exodus admitted otherwise this week — but without admitting the apparent deception.

President Alan Chambers acknowledged to Ex-Gay Watch that his organization will continue as an active member of the Arlington Group, a political alliance of most major religious-right organizations that coordinates members’ policy choices and priorities.

Chambers claimed last week, “There isn’t anyone on staff that has policy in their job description and we don’t plan to spend money there.” On its 2006 filing of an IRS 990 form (PDF via Guidestar), Exodus reported a $5,000 donation to the Arlington Group; Exodus donations for 2007 are yet to be disclosed.

Chambers announced last week that Exodus’ withdrawal from public policy began in “August, 2007. 2008, however, marked a complete refocus on ministry.”

But as TWO has noted since then, Exodus board member Phil Burress (pictured), youth activist Mike Ensley, and speaker Ken Hutcherson continue to actively campaign for antigay and partisan political causes.

Just two days ago, Exodus executive vice president Randy Thomas boasted of his ongoing, expenses-paid trips to Washington, D.C., to provide political “friends” with ex-gay rhetoric and support.

And on Friday, board member Burress sued to hold taxpayer-subsidized church services in an Ohio public library. Burress’ self-led Citizens for Community Values (another Arlington Group member) opposes anti-bullying, tolerance, and sex-education programs in schools, and it is largely responsible for a 1993 Cincinnati vote to overturn local antidiscrimination law. A 2004 vote reversed the earlier vote.

In reaction to Exodus’ commitment to the Arlington Group, former ex-gay Peterson Toscano finds Exodus violating Biblical values under Chambers’ leadership.

Karen Keen comments on the generation gap between conservative Christian adults and their teenage children.

Specifically, she observes, 80 percent of teens in Christian youth groups have gay friends and acquaintances — which is a big surprise to parents. Keen, who speaks to youth groups and church conferences and favors ex-gay resources, says she struggles for access to conservative churches, whose leaders believe she’s irrelevant because they mistakenly assume there are no gay people, nor friends of gay persons, within their churches.

Conservative Christian youth want practical answers to difficult questions, Keen says, but many churches — preoccupied, perhaps, with politics — have yet to offer them.

Focus on the Family, host of the Love Won Out ex-gay roadshow and national billboard campaigns, has been known to celebrate politicians who cherry-pick Old Testament verses to justify partisan political policies.

But when Barack Obama cited the Sermon on the Mount in an Ohio speech on Sunday, Focus on the Family’s partisan political unit objected — and was careful to misquote Obama.

(Read More)