On May 29, 2005, 16-year-old Tennessee youth Zach Stark announced on his MySpace blog that he had come out to his parents, and that they had reacted with shock and grief.

Shortly thereafter — apparently after consulting with their church and Exodus International — Stark’s parents told him that there was something “psychologically wrong” with him, and that they had raised him wrong. As a result, they said, Zach would be involuntarily detained at Exodus International’s flagship residential ex-gay youth program, Love In Action/Refuge, for a minimum of two weeks of shame-based ex-gay therapy.

Six years later, Stark, his friends, and other LIA and Refuge program participants are now speaking out about their experiences in Morgan Jon Fox’s newly released documentary, This Is What Love In Action Looks Like.

Along with news of his impending detention, Stark in 2005 posted the Refuge program’s hypocritical, draconian, and stereotype-plagued rulebook for program participants.

Friends of Zach read his blog and were alarmed by the shame and fear to which he would be subjected. Utilizing then-nascent social media, they mobilized a viral campaign of parents, youths, doctors, and counselors who affirmed dignity, unconditional love, and faith in the youths who were being detained and shamed by Exodus International.

Stark’s detention was subsequently extended from two weeks to eight, and during that time Exodus’ alleged mistreatment of youths drew national attention through the New York Times, CNN, and Montel Williams’ daytime talk show. The state of Tennessee soon sought to intervene on behalf of the abused youths, only to be pushed back by politicians and by Exodus’ assertions that parents have a religious right to “minister” to youths in this fashion.

At the end of Stark’s initial ordeal, I wrote that it was time to give Stark privacy to recover, regroup, and choose how to move on.

In the years since, Stark has built an apparently healthy life as a young adult and college student, grateful that his friends and allies were so “awesome” in affirming and supporting him and other detained youths.

In fact, the title of the documentary is not so much an ironic reflection upon LIA’s name and abusive environment, as it is a reflection of the love which mobilized hundreds of people in 2005 to rally for the detained youths, remind them that they are loved, and reassure them that Exodus’ shame and fear were undeserved.

Besides Stark, the documentary catches up with Lance Carroll, who was age 17 when he was detained in LIA at the same time as Stark, and Brandon Tidwell, who in his early twenties had voluntarily attended LIA but later joined Stark’s friends in the 2005 protests.

The un-narrated documentary allows Stark, Carroll, and Tidwell to recount their experiences entirely in their own words. Their recollections stand in sharp contrast against the rosy public assurances of Exodus president Alan Chambers to a skeptical and increasingly annoyed Montel Williams. The documentary also tracks the evolution of former LIA executive director John J. Smid from hard-core ex-gay activist in 2005, into an apologetic man who, while still advocating ex-gay as well as gay-affirming counseling, today acknowledges love  and faith in LGBT communities.

Veteran ex-gay survivor Peterson Toscano provides context for documentary viewers who might be unfamiliar with ex-gay beliefs, tactics, and self-contradictions. Meanwhile, Stark’s Tennessee friends and allies — writer Chris Davis, Queer Action Coalition co-founders Morgan Jon Fox and Janessa Williams, community organizer Janelle Treibitz, blogger E.J. Friedman, and friends Eileen Townsend and Jake Casey  – all offer a rich tapestry of memories and lessons learned from their campaign to support Stark.

While the motivations of Stark’s personal friends to stand by him may be self-evident, Davis explains how — as a parent — he was drawn to the campaign by his revulsion at the sight of parents and amateur preachers practicing “shame therapy” against children. Mental-health experts chime in with recollections of past harm committed by therapists in the 1960s before the mental-health community understood orientation and sexual identity, and these experts note that today’s ex-gay movement reflects an ongoing refusal to learn from decades’ worth of new facts. True to form, and despite all facts to the contrary, LIA spokesman Gerard Wellman tells us (in archival media clips) that homosexuality is about shameful sex acts, not romantic emotion, orientation, or biology — and that Christianity is all about managing “sinful” desires, and not so much about charity, grace, justice, or unconditional love.

Exodus’ method of managing clients’ desires should raise alarm, even among conservatives:

Carroll and Tidwell share vivid memories of Exodus’ “moral inventory,” a process by which LIA clients are forced to share with an audience the graphic details of their worst sexual experience. Instead of forgiveness or grace, the audience responds by reinforcing the youths’ humiliation.  Carroll came away from LIA feeling “not safe”; instead, LIA was “very controlling and intrusive.” Carroll’s parents learned from Exodus to carry on the shame at home — resulting eventually in physical outbursts by his mother, and his departure.

Today, Carroll and Treibitz emphasize that they would have no strong objection to a conservative adult freely choosing to attend an ex-gay program — but they draw the line when parents seek to subject youths to a program of involuntary abuse in which shame and fear are presented as the only choice.

Changed by his exposure to the respectful and affirming tone of the protests, director Smid left LIA in 2008. Smid says he came to realize that his religious calling — outreach to the LGBT community — was not congruent with LIA and its churches’ implicit determination to ostracize and shame gay people.

LIA is still in operation today, although the Refuge youth program closed in 2007; LIA’s remnants have moved to smaller facilities. Exodus, meanwhile, appears to have learned nothing. The organization still blames parents for their children’s sexual orientation, even as it tricks the same parents into surrendering their kids to parent-bashing amateur counselors. The documentary notes that Exodus is actually expanding its efforts over the next couple years to shame and detain youths as young as 12 through its church network and renamed “student ministry.” Exodus officials declined to speak with the documentary producers.

Carroll credits the love-based protest for helping him survive his ordeal, and Davis voices confidence that, while Exodus continues to abuse, other Christians are moving past shame as a method of evangelism and social change.

Screenings of This Is What Love In Action Looks Like are scheduled in the eastern and southern United States:

• August 27 at SHOUT, the Birmingham LGBT Film Fest
• September 10 at the Austin Gay & Lesbian Film Festival
• September 20 at ReRun Theatre, in New York City
• September 29-October 6 at OUT ON FILM, the Atlanta LGBT Film Festival
• November 4 at Indie Memphis Film Festival
• November 3-12 at REELING, the Chicago LGBT Film Festival

Related links:

This Is What Love In Action Looks Like on Facebook

This Is What Love In Action Looks Like blog

The filmmaker’s website

Disclosure: Truth Wins Out volunteer writer/cartoonist Bruce Garrett is, independent of TWO, an associate producer for this film. Lance Carroll assists Truth Wins Out in educating the public about the survivors of ex-gay “therapy.”

Last week, I commented on how the “ex-gay” group Exodus International had a sluggish year where, at times, it seemed as they had dropped off the radar. It turns out that Exodus had gone into hibernation since the summer to ask God for direction. According to a new letter written to Exodus supporters from Executive Director Alan Chambers:

As is the case every year about this time, my team and I are gearing up for a new year!  We have been in meetings regularly since August praying and talking about how and where God is leading Exodus International in 2011 and beyond. Some years we roll out big new endeavors and introduce big ideas that God has given us.  This year, however, God isn’t calling us to do anything new.

God’s call to do nothing sat well with me, considering Exodus was already losing relevance. Unfortunately, I continued reading and was was alarmed that Exodus’ top goal in 2011 is to recruit school children as young as eleven years old (Middle School age). The organization plans to lure these children by investing in high-tech gadgets and new media. According to the online letter:

…the greatest area of need in our culture is outreach to young people.  We will be changing the name of Exodus Youth to Exodus Student Ministries in order to encompass middle school thru [sic] college age students.

We have listened to youth pastors, parents and especially students and we want to amplify our message in a way that they will best receive it: via web communication, YouTube, podcasts and short to the point booklets. We are also in the process of creating an App for iPhone users.

Given the organization’s appalling record with youth, this organization has no business in schools or around anyone under the age of 21. Their message is hateful, intolerant, scientifically bankrupt and may lead to teens harming themselves — including the potential for depression, drug abuse and even suicide.

Disconcertingly, many of Exodus’ “counselors” have virtually no professional training and the organization does not employ rigorous standards when they pair up vulnerable youth with adults. The results of Exodus’ lack of professionalism has, at times, been devastating.

The so-called “ex-gay” organization has forced youth, against their will, into its programs. The most notable example is Zach Stark, a 16-year-old Tennessee boy, who in 2005 was forced into Exodus’ “Refuge” boot camp, run by member ministry Love In Action. Zach Stark made international news when he posted his predicament on MySpace:

Somewhat recently, as many of you know, I told my parents I was gay… Well today, my mother, father, and I had a very long “talk” in my room where they let me know I am to apply for a fundamentalist christian program for gays. They tell me that there is something psychologically wrong with me, and they “raised me wrong.” I’m a big screw up to them, who isn’t on the path God wants me to be on. So I’m sitting here in tears, joing the rest of those kids who complain about their parents on blogs – and I can’t help it.

The uproar over the incident prompted Exodus into closing down the notorious Refuge program. Similarly, on October 6, 2010, Exodus shuttered its noxious Day of Truth program which mocked the Day of Silence, an annual event where students take a vow of silence in support of LGBT friends who are bullied.

Exodus took this extraordinary step following a high profile string of suicides, tacitly admitting that its program exacerbated homophobia and bullying in schools.

“Even though we have reached a fair number of students”, said Chambers, “We believe that due to the timing of the event, Day of Truth was always perceived in an adversarial manner, and became more about policy than people.

One of the more disturbing aspects of Exodus is the tendency to place youth in programs alongside sexual reprobates. On the March 15, 2007 the Montel Williams Show featured former Exodus client Lance Carroll who spoke out about his harrowing experience with Exodus:

“I went to one of your organizations,” said Carroll, who was speaking directly to Exodus’ Alan Chambers. “I was in a group with a convicted sexual offender.” (See video 1:10 mark)

Lance Carroll is not alone. Exodus clearly has an ongoing predator problem that it must seriously address before it makes brainwashing youth its foremost priority in 2011.

Patrick McAlvey was also an Exodus client at the age of 19. He visited Exodus’ Lansing affiliate Corduroy Stone where he was counseled by Mike Jones. During counseling, McAlvey was asked about the size of his member and made to engage in erotic cuddling. He spoke out about the experience in a Truth Wins Out video:

‘Ex-gay’ survivor Jaylen Braiden was taken advantage of by an Exodus team leader at Desert Stream Ministries [DSM]. This counselor later got in trouble for sexually abusing other minors. Exodus’ Alan Chambers has yet to come clean and publicly discuss the Desert Stream Ministries scandal.

However, on March 8, 2010 Desert Stream founder Comiskey wrote a blog post entitled “Falling Mercies” where he says DSM had been, “cast out of our home church”, Vineyard Anaheim, as a result of “a darker strain of sin in our own ranks.” He goes onto reveal that this sin was, “a longstanding staff person from Desert Stream had sexually abused at least one teenager who had sought help from us.”

Aside from the very real prospect of youth being placed with unsavory characters who appear to be unmonitored and unfiltered, the message of Exodus is destructive. The organization tells youth that they are sexually broken, sinful, counterfeit, satanic or perverse.

Spiritual warfare is a common part of Exodus’ rhetoric.

In a 2005 Exodus Newsletter Chambers said:

“One of the many evils this world has to offer is the sin of homosexuality. Satan, the enemy, is using people to further his agenda to destroy the Kingdom of God and as many souls as he can.”

At the “Family Impact Summit,” a right wing conference in Brandon, Florida held on Sept. 21, 2007, Chambers told the crowd of social conservatives:

“We have to stand up against an evil agenda. It is an evil agenda and it will take anyone captive that is willing, or that is standing idly by.”

To lure youths, Exodus resorts to outright lying about LGBT life. For example, Chambers says that that gay life is only for the young:

Chambers also misleads by falsely claiming that gay life will disappoint.

Given the recent uptick in gay suicides and understanding that hate leads to bullying in schools, it is grossly irresponsible for Exodus, given its reprehensible record — to target youth. Before parents hand their children over to this organization or get them an i-phone application, they should know the whole truth about this notorious organization.