Unlicensed “doctor” Daniel Serrano served 15 months in prison after he promised a youth-restoring treatment that would be superior to Botox to Hollywood celebrities such as Priscilla Presley — and injected them instead with low-grade industrial silicone.

It’s illegal to practice medicine without a license. Yet it is perfectly legal in the United States for unlicensed and uneducated “therapists” and self-appointed “counselors” to engage in the ex-gay industry’s own version of bait and switch: Promise false cures for sexual attraction, then inflict confirmed and long-lasting harm against counselees and their families — sometimes, even, against the will of youths who are involuntarily “treated.”

In 2005, the Exodus-affiliated, ex-gay, live-in treatment facility Love In Action drew national attention when it became known that the program was admitting teen-agers against their will.

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The following is an excerpt from the March 2008 electronic newsletter of Exodus Youth:

In the news

UK Foster Parents Must Support Homosexuality A Christian couple in the UK was told they were “unsuitable” to be foster parents because they refused to teach children that homosexuality is morally acceptable.

Many CA Students May be Leaving Public Schools A number of Christian organizations are urging parents to remove their children from public schools due to the passage of SB 777, a bill that will greatly increase the amount of pro-homosexual propaganda incorporated into the school system.

Homosexuality: A Polarizing Term A group called Catalyst recently visited a Love Won Out conference. They were able to interview many of the main speakers, including Alan Chambers, and have posted those interviews on their website.

These articles and many more are available on the Exodus Media Blog.

Of these three “news” items, the second is excerpted from a partisan political publication, and none of the items relates in a constructive way to the struggles or needs of gay or “ex-gay” youths and their families.

Why is Exodus officially parroting partisan political propaganda six months after, it says, it decided to refrain from such activity?

Exodus International president Alan Chambers said last week that the ex-gay network had halted its aggressive antigay political advocacy as of August 2007.

Exodus youth activist Mike Ensley, however, vows to continue using his position in the ex-gay network as a soapbox to silence gay students, withhold accurate information from heterosexual peers of those students, and deny the existence of intersexed persons.

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Two gay U.S. teenagers have been brutally killed since Feb. 12, apparently because of their sexual orientation or gender variance.

Exodus Youth — a Florida-based ex-gay project that claims to uphold the welfare of sexually struggling youths — has responded to the killings, thus far, with official silence. But in the meantime, an Exodus Youth staffer and Exodus executive have, on a personal blog, given their nod to legislation that would prevent public schools from acknowledging that gay youths even exist. And in Maryland, the ex-gay political group Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays responded to the killings with silence while continuing to support a battle against local transgender-tolerance legislation.

Simmie Williams Jr., 17, of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., was shot and killed early on Feb. 22 in a location that is said to be a popular hang-out for transgender persons; the killers are being sought, their motives as-yet unknown. Williams was openly gay and was dressed in feminine clothing at the time of the shooting.

Previously, Lawrence King, 15, of Oxnard, Calif., was shot in the head in a classroom by an alleged bully Feb. 12 after reported altercations over King’s sexual orientation and gender-variant clothing. He was declared brain-dead two days later and his organs were harvested for donation. In the wake of that killing, pro-tolerance and anti-violence vigils were held locally and nationally.

Police are treating both incidents as possible hate crimes.

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