The LOGO cable television program Be Real will feature ex-gay survivors and their family members, including Christine Bakke, Scott Tucker, John Holm, and the father of former ex-gay Peterson Toscano.
Peterson Toscano spent the better part of 17 years in the “ex gay” movement struggling to change his sexuality. Now, after 5 years of performing his one person show, aimed at inspiring other ex-gay survivors to come out and tell their stories, he is ready to pass the torch and move on. Stephen, a 45-year-old former Mormon, decides to attend an all men’s workshop in central Utah to learn how to confront his past and heal painful family memories.
Ex-gay survivor and performance artist Peterson Toscano writes about the upcoming final performance of his one-man show, “Doin’ Time in the Homo No Mo Halfway House.”
The play, based on his experiences in Exodus’ ex-gay live-in program “Love In Action,” will be performed Friday, April 25, at the Tusten Theatre in Narrowsburg, N.Y.
Please join us at 11 a.m. Saturday, April 12, in Mountain View, Calif., for a prayer vigil in front of the church that is hosting Focus on the Family’s ex-gay Love Won Out road show.
Also on Saturday, the Billy DeFrank GLBT Community Center will host a panel discussion on the ex-gay industry at 1 p.m.
The panel will feature Aejaie Sellers, DeFrank Center’s CEO/Executive Director; Bill Roth, Catholic Democrats of California; Gloria Nieto, Santa Clara County LGBT Democrats; the Rev. Michael Ellard, Metropolitan Community Church of San Jose; ex-gay survivors; and Wayne Besen, executive director of Truth Wins Out.
Love Won Out is a quarterly ex-gay symposium sponsored by Focus on the Family. John Paulk, an ex-gay leader who was on the cover of Newsweek and appeared on Oprah, 60 Minutes and Good Morning America, originally ran the program. Love Won Out suffered a major setback after Paulk was photographed in a Washington, D.C., gay bar by Besen.
TruthWinsOut.org is a non-profit organization that counters right wing propaganda, exposes the “ex-gay” myth and educates America about gay life.
At its “Freedom Conference” this weekend in Fresno, California, Exodus XScape sold freedom (from sexuality) to the under-25 set as a solution for homosexuality.
According to The Fresno Bee, a dozen protesters held a vigil outside, organized by a local church. The vigilers included a former ex-gay who said that, contrary to claims by Exodus president Alan Chambers, ex-gays generally do not go on to have healthy heterosexual relationships. (Read More)
Former ex-gay Christine Bakke recalls some un-Christian and unprofessional advice from ex-gay “therapists”:
I knew one woman whose therapist gave her assignments to flirt with men.
An ex-gay guy who went on several dates to try to learn how to be with a woman (without disclosing that he identified as ex-gay), on the recommendation of his therapist.
A woman who was counseled by the leader of the ex-gay group that women should wear makeup (”need to put some paint on the side of the barn”).
A man who changed his last name because his ex-gay therapy led him to believe that his parents were to blame for him being gay.
A woman who insinuated that she had been abused because she felt like her story didn’t “fit” the ex-gay model without some kind of a root cause.
A young man who said that after he got out of the ex-gay movement and was finished with reparative therapy, that’s when the real repairing began. He had to repair the relationships with his family after buying into the belief that they were distant from him and made him gay.
Ex-gay “therapy” is founded not upon Christian values or the Bible, but upon long-discredited conjecture of a 19th-century secular psychoanalyst, Sigmund Freud.
Neither good intentions nor vague godtalk can excuse the destruction that is caused to individuals and families when ex-gay activists and “counselors” use fear, blame, and hopelessness to promote so-called “freedom” — freedom from sexuality, freedom from accountability, freedom from honesty within the family unit.
NEW YORK – TruthWinsOut.org (TWO) unveiled four new Internet videos today featuring prominent molecular biologist Dean Hamer, notable mental health expert and author Dr. Jack Drescher, ex-gay survivor Brent Almond and Nick Cavnar, who after decades left an ex-gay cult. This is the final week that the organization has released new educational videos addressing the “ex-gay” myth leading up to the March 3 launch of TWO’s updated website.
In today’s first video, molecular biologist Dr. Dean Hamer discusses biology, genetics and homosexuality. He also debunks the misinformation put forth by “ex-gay” organizations, such as Exodus and Focus on the Family.
In TWO’s second video, Dr. Jack Drescher, America’s foremost expert and scholar on GLBT mental health, answers questions on the efficacy of ‘ex-gay’ therapy. Drescher is a renowned scholar on issues of sexual orientation and a celebrated author.
Our third person featured is Brent Almond, who suffered through the ‘ex-gay’ ministries. In this video, he opens up to TruthWinsOut.org about his harrowing experience.
Finally, TWO interviews Nick Cavnar, a man who suppressed his sexuality, married and joined a Michigan cult that promised to cure him. This exclusive video details his long road to self-acceptance.
TruthWinsOut.org is a non-profit organization that counters right wing propaganda, exposes the “ex-gay” myth and educates America about gay life.
Former ex-gays who gathered in Memphis, Tenn., on Feb. 23 have, with lightning speed, unleashed a series of new videos that could fill a small cineplex. Numerous survivors of Exodus ex-gay programs document the shame, deception, cynicism, hopelessness and family trauma that were sold to them and their families by Exodus International and Focus on the Family in the guise of “hope” and “family values.”
Former Love In Action participants Brandon Tidwell and Jacob Wilson and ex-gay survivor John Holm discuss the misunderstanding, rejection, denial, and sexual and religious shame that was vented upon them and their peers. Former ex-gay Christine Bakke tours the Ex-Gay Survivor Art Show. Ex-gay movement critic Jim Burroway attended the ex-gay roadshow Love Won Out last year and now reports on the heartbreak and blame that Focus dumped upon parents and relatives who comprise much of the roadshow’s audience. And ex-gay survivor Peterson Toscano remembers the abuse suffered by his parents at the hands of a “Family and Friends Weekend” organized by Exodus’ flagship live-in program, Love In Action.
Focus on the Family denies the existence of former ex-gays — 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.”
‘Ex-gay’ survivor Jaylen Braiden discusses his time in Desert Stream and Portland Fellowship ministries as a teenager. While in Desert Stream, Jaylen was taken advantage of by an Exodus team leader, who later got in trouble for sexually abusing other minors. Exodus has yet to come clean and publicly discuss the Desert Stream scandal.
Syndication
Recent Comments
William: Thank you, Michael, for another incisive critique of the ex-gay ministries. I just love your analyses. Without mincing your words,...
Buffy: We've been awaiting this decision for some time now. My fiancee and I got engaged a few months ago...
DaveTheWave: Get ready! It's only a matter of time before some right-wing religious wacko's head explodes with indignation!! If only ALL...
William: Well, Michael, you make these ex-gay ministries and their allies sound thoroughly pernicious - and you're absolutely right: they are....
Larry Seiferth Jr.: I agree with Scott. Their slitherings to-and-fro serve to remind the nation why hate crime laws and ENDA are...
Ex-gay survivor and performance artist Peterson Toscano 
I knew one woman whose therapist gave her assignments to flirt with men.
