“Ex-Gay” minister John Westcott resigned from his ministry position at Exchange following a divorce from his wife of 17 years, Dena. They were a high-profile “ex-gay” couple that were spokespeople for Exodus International. The divorce left a broken home for their three sons, Joseph (15), Jason (12) and Jacob (7).

“My divorce just happened this year and I am still walking through the process of that,” Westcott told me in an e-mail. “My divorce has nothing to do with my or my ex-wife past it is the unfortunate reality of the brokenness that affects all of humanity.”

True, but most of humanity does not parade around using “God’s Word” as club to mug people over the head with. Jesus said nothing about homosexuality, but was very clear that he was no fan of divorce. Given this reality of their new “sinful” lifestyles and the harm of divorce on families, how do John and Dena justify preaching to gay people?

Marriage means forever, John and Dena. It does not mean doing what feels good or what is convenient when the marriage gets tough. If you are going to be preachy fundamentalist scolds and tell other people how to live, the least you can do is show some Family Values and keep your vows. Either you are Bible-believing literalists or you are hypocrites. You can’t have it both ways.

Westcott is not the first “ex-gay” to abandon the Bible and get divorced when it felt good. PFOX president Greg Quinlan also ignored the Lord’s admonitions against divorce and took the easy way out. Yet, despite his sinful lifestyle, he continues his anti-gay teachings.

Wescott is best known for making a fool of himself in comedian Bill Maher’s documentary Religulous. Prior to his “ex-gay” conversion, Westcott worked at the gay bar Parliament House in Orlando.

The website for the upcoming documentary Religulous describes Bill Maher as “known for his astute analytical skills, irreverent wit and commitment to never pulling a punch.”

While I’m eager for documentary filmmakers to expose the self-contradictory fictions and power-grabs that corrupt religious institutions, I’m afraid I see little insight or humor in the following short excerpt.

(Click here for the AfterElton.com video.)

The “ex-gay” man is John Westcott, a Florida man who walked away from a seven-year committed gay relationship to become an antigay activist.

Nowadays, Westcott proclaims he is freed from the “gay lifestyle” and says “I don’t believe that anyone is gay.” In the curiously named New Man Magazine in 2006, Westcott asserted long-rejected myths about homosexuality as if they were fact:

“There are many root causes [for homosexuality],” Westcott says. “But some of the common denominators are: A breakdown in a same-sex parent relationship, not relating to other male peers, an early exposure to sexuality and sexual abuse.”

Earlier this year, Westcott violated Canadian TV ethical standards with an ad that supported antigay discrimination as a means of suppressing the visibility of gay people and increasing the visibility of self-closeted ex-gays.

Maher has been prone to cherry-pick various religions’ lunatics, as if one group’s fringe could automatically discredit the entire group. Has Maher resisted that temptation with Religulous? We’ll find out in 10 days: The movie enters broad release on October 8.

An antigay outfit called Life Productions aired a Canadian TV ex-gay ad featuring a man with no name, no history, no evidence of a sexual orientation, and no explanation of how he “changed.”

In the ad, the mystery man claims that his (somewhat dubious) existence is proof that people can “change,” but he offers viewers no guidance on how or where to change. Instead, he implies that the recognition of gay persons’ equality under the law somehow threatens the public’s ability to learn about no-name people like him.

Since no guidance is offered in the ad, nor on Life Productions’ web site, the ad appears to be a ploy by Life Productions to collect personal information from troubled individuals without guarantees of privacy nor promises that the information won’t be shared with antigay political organizations. Worse, presumably troubled individuals are told by the web site’s contact form that “due to high volumes of mail we regret we cannot answer everyone.”

After an initial airing on CTV, Canada’s largest private broadcaster, a Facebook campaign last week persuaded the network to revisit the ad. Its issue advocacy and implicit approval of discrimination were found to violate the network’s ethical standards, and CTV withdrew the ad.

Critics of the ex-gay political movement sometimes observe that successful ex-gays rarely seem to exist as real people with real names — except when they are paid political hacks of the religious right. Critics also observe that the movement commits more resources to politics than to helping people with specific paths to “change.”

This ad unwittingly fuels critics’ arguments.

Hat tip: XGW