It was announced that both “ex-gay” organizations Love Won Out and Exodus will merge, which begs the question, is one better than two?
Love Won Out is the brain child of right wing evangelical “leader” James Dobson. Dobson has a long history of over thirty years of anti-gay rhetoric, which started in 1977 with the inception of Focus on the Family. He then formed the organization Family Research Council 1981 which attempts to imposed its right wing evangelical Christian views in government, politics,and law making.
Exodus is also a right wing evangelical organization that was founded in 1976. Since its formation Exodus has been marred with controversy. Exodus was founded by five alleged “ex-gay” men, two of which (Gary Busse and Michael Cooper) later left the organization, reneged their prior claims, and announced their love for each other. In more recent years another controversy emerged when John Paulk, a self proclaimed “ex-gay” and Exodus chairman, was caught by Wayne Besen in a Washington DC gay bar in 2000. This came after years of Paulk attesting to be “cured” from his former “gay life”. This proved to be a huge embarrassment to Exodus, contradicting years of claims preaching just the opposite. Paulk was removed and relieved of his duties with the organization.
Interestingly enough Paulk is also connected with James Dobson, as they co-founded the organization Love Won Out in 1998, a subsidiary of Focus on the Family, to specifically address and promote an “ex-gay” agenda.
Exodus and Love Won Out work to the detriment of the GLBT community as they promote conversion and reparative therapy, claiming its effectiveness to change ones orientation. These claims are asserted without any empirical evidence or peer reviewed studies and at the condemnation of 13 medical and mental health organizations, including the American Medical Association (AMA) and the American Psychological Association (APA). These 13 organizations vehemently oppose reparative and conversion therapy and its damaging ways so much they actually formed the “Just the Facts coalition” which clearly states their disapproval of such actions and tactics.
www.apa.org/pi/lgbc/publications/justthefacts.pdf
This merger just reinforces the need to remain steadfast in our efforts to expose the “ex-gay” movement for what it really is, present facts and promote love and acceptance rather then shame and self loathing.
Evidence Suggests People Can’t ‘Pray Away The Gay’
By Wayne Besen
As long as prejudice and discrimination exist, some gay men and lesbians will feel pressure to try to change their sexual orientation. Unfortunately, there are organizations, such as Focus on the Family, that exploit such vulnerable people and their fears of rejection by family, church and society. On Saturday, Focus on the Family will roll into Birmingham with its much-hyped road show, “Love Won Out,” which offers false hope and broken promises.
It is important that one realize that such efforts are rejected by every mainstream medical and mental health organization in America, such as the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics. The America Psychiatric Association says that attempts to change sexual orientation can cause, “Anxiety, depression and self-destructive behavior.”
In August, the American Psychological Association released a landmark report that said, “There is insufficient evidence” for therapists to claim conversion therapy works. The APA report also cautioned so-called “ex-gay” counselors not to mislead clients by telling them that their sexual orientation can be changed.
Without science on their side, Focus on the Family has taken to distorting research. In the past two years, eight scientists have accused this group of manipulating their studies. The testimonies of these experts can be viewed at www.Respectmyresearch.org.
The empirical evidence also suggests that people can’t “pray away the gay.” For example, I photographed the “ex-gay” founder of Love Won Out, John Paulk, in a Washington, DC gay bar in 2001. Two of the founders of Exodus International, Michael Bussee and Gary Cooper, divorced their wives after they fell in love. The American Family Association’s poster boy for sexual conversion, Michael Johnston, had to step down in 2003 after he admitted affairs with men he had met on the Internet. Christian singer Ray Boltz came out of the closet in 2008 after thirty years of marriage and trying to “change”.
Love Won Out does not create heterosexuals, but their misguided “ex-gay” programs do lead to broken families. Focus on the Family loves to show people wedding photos. But, it would be more honest if they showed the divorce papers, which are a common outcome of such sexual engineering efforts.
More disturbing are conversion techniques. These include exorcisms and encouraging masculinity in male clients by suggesting they drink Gatorade and call friends “dude”. Lesbians attend makeup and lipstick seminars, which highlight the superficial and cosmetic “changes” such programs offer. Sadly, these groups even take clients as young as three years old!
A recent study by Caitlin Ryan shows that gay teens who experienced “negative feedback” by family members after they “come out” were more than eight times as likely to have attempted suicide, nearly six times as vulnerable to severe depression and more than three times at risk of drug use. Clearly, unconditional love is important for gay teens and the message of Love Won Out epitomizes the negative feedback that can produce such harmful results.
Finally, Love Won Out’s spokesperson Melissa Fryrear was disingenuous when she told the Birmingham News this week that, “Science hasn’t proved people are born gay. It’s absolutely an open question. Part of the message is to read the studies that have been done. They’ll see there’s no evidence proving homosexuality is genetic. It’s a multi-causal struggle, and there are a number of factors that may make one vulnerable.”
It is unscientific and backwards to say that people are “vulnerable”, as if homosexuality can be caught like a cold. Most gay people – just like heterosexuals – instinctively know their sexual orientation is natural and that there was no “choice” in the matter. Conveniently, Fryrear misstates the facts and fails to point out that numerous studies have shown that sexual orientation likely has a genetic or biological basis.
However, there are no modern studies that show sexual abuse or poor parenting cause homosexuality, as Love Won Out falsely claims. While confusing parents by creating a fake cause and effect for homosexuality is good public relations, it simply is not true and dishonest for Fryrear to push such outdated and disproven theories.
Gay, lesbian, bisexual and trangender Americans come from every type of family imaginable. We grow up in liberal homes and conservative homes, non-religious and orthodox Christian families. How people are raised or if they believe in God has absolutely nothing to do with the outcome of their sexual orientation. This is just common sense supported by the hard and indisputable facts.
Love will truly win out when gay and lesbian people can live out of the closet with the unconditional acceptance, love and support they deserve.
By the time victims of so-called “ex-gay” or conversion therapy reach me at TruthWinsOut.org, their self-esteem has been trampled and their self-worth is non-existent. These individuals were often betrayed by therapists who were supposed to be helping, but turned out to be the root cause of their enormous pain and suffering.
Sadly, such therapists have aligned themselves with religious organizations that send the detrimental message that if a gay client refuses to undergo sexual conversion or commit to a lifetime of celibacy he or she will be socially ostracized or will burn in Hell. From my experience, I have yet to see how such coercive and cruel treatment is conducive to good mental health.
Having studied the “ex-gay” movement for a decade and authored a book on the topic, “Anything But Straight: Unmasking the Scandals and Lies Behind the ‘Ex-Gay’ Myth,” I have found that conversion therapy is ineffective, harmful and anachronistic. These therapies don’t make clients heterosexual, nor do they help reconcile faith and sexuality. All that is accomplished, unfortunately, is enticing vulnerable clients to pay dearly for the identical shame and repression they previously received for free.
Regrettably, a well-financed cottage industry has arisen to deny reality and distort the lives of gay and lesbian people. This is evidenced by a group of politically motivated right wing counselors who filed a formal complaint in February with the American Counseling Association falsely claming that the ACA had violated its own polices and had stigmatized the beliefs of Christian counselors. It’s real goal, however, was to bully the ACA into allowing some practitioners to harm clients, while shielding this damage in the cloak of religious liberty.
In another example, last summer, right wing therapists wrote a letter to protest the American Psychological Association. They were expressing their outrage over an APA task force that will review current scientific research and stances on conversion therapy in a brazen attempt to intimidate the reviewers.
On behalf of the survivors of such therapy, I implore all mental health associations to withstand such political interference and resist the attempt to mainstream fringe therapies that harm gay and lesbian Americans.
There are three primary reasons why such therapy models should be definitively rejected. First, they confuse stereotypes with science. Secondly, they lack peer review studies and evidence that such therapies work – while there is a growing body of evidence that they hurt large numbers of people. Third, they rely on bizarre techniques that are a blight on the field of mental health. (Read More)
With a gift of $35 to Truth Wins Out, you can receive an autographed copy of "Anything But Straight: Unmasking the Scandals and Lies Behind the Ex-Gay Myth."
