Exod Is Gone, But the 'Ex-Gay' Msage Stubbornly Persists | HuffPost Voic

Contents:

• FORMER 'EX-GAY' LEARS DENOUNCE 'CONVERSN THERAPY' IN A NEW DOCUMENTARY
• WHAT IS EXOD INTERNATNAL, THE EX-GAY CHRISTIAN GROUP AT THE CENTER OF NETFLIX'S PRAY AWAY?
• PRAY AWAY GO DEEP INTO THE 'EX-GAY' MOVEMENT THAT BEGAN THE '70S
• WHAT COM AFTER THE EX-GAY MOVEMENT? THE SAME THG THAT CAME BEFORE.
• THE DOWNFALL OF THE EX-GAY MOVEMENT
• EXOD CLOS, MARKG OFFICIAL END OF THE EX-GAY MOVEMENT
• MY SO-CALLED EX-GAY LIFE
• WARNG: EXOD IS FISHED BUT THE EX-GAY MOVEMENT HAS JT BEGUN
• NETFLIX’S “PRAY AWAY” CONONTS THE LI OF THE EX-GAY MOVEMENT
• AFTER EXOD: EVANGELILS REACT AS EX-GAY MISTRY STARTS OVER
• THE MAN BEHD THE HISTORIC IMPLOSN OF THE EX-GAY MOVEMENT
• EXOD IS GONE, BUT THE 'EX-GAY' MSAGE STUBBORNLY PERSISTS

FORMER 'EX-GAY' LEARS DENOUNCE 'CONVERSN THERAPY' IN A NEW DOCUMENTARY

Interview highlights clu extend web-only answers and have been eded for length and clary: Interview Highlights Thomas on how he joed the "ex-gay" movement and Exod Internatnal I was out of the closet the '80s.

Over the urse of nearly 40 years, a group lled Exod Internatnal had a chokehold on the "ex-gay" movement—a relig ph suggtg that wh work and therapy, people the LGBTQ+ muny uld "undo" their queerns.

As members ntued to leave the mistry, nounce nversn therapy, and rume their liv as gay, lbian, bisexual, and trans people, the anizatn always reced more people willg to be fac for the group. ‘Pray Away’ is a Netflix origal documentary film that lv ep to the “ex-gay” movement, simply known as nversn therapy, wh the help of s former lears and survivors, along wh a glimpse to how and why sadly still prevails today. The new Netflix documentary Pray Away exam the Exod "ex-gay" movement that was found the '70s by five men the evangelil church who sought to pray the gay word got out about the group that was seekg to ex the "homosexual liftyle, " the men received more than 25, 000 letters om folks hopg to do the same, and spurred the formatn of Exod Internatnal, the largt and most ntroversial nversn therapy anizatn the world, acrdg to the film's synopsis for the film om executive producers Ryan Murphy and Jason Blum reads:"But lears stggled wh a secret: their own 'same-sex attractns' never went away.

WHAT IS EXOD INTERNATNAL, THE EX-GAY CHRISTIAN GROUP AT THE CENTER OF NETFLIX'S PRAY AWAY?

Focg on the dramatic journeys of former nversn therapy lears, current members, and a survivor, Pray Away chronicl the 'ex gay' movement's rise to power, persistent fluence, and the profound harm . As Stott wrote Issu Facg Christians Today back 1982, “In every discsn about homosexualy we mt be rigoro differentiatg between this ‘beg’ and ‘dog, ’ that is, between a person’s inty and activy, sexual preference and sexual practice, nstutn and nduct.

PRAY AWAY GO DEEP INTO THE 'EX-GAY' MOVEMENT THAT BEGAN THE '70S

In the Uned Stat, as the 1969 Stonewall rts New York announced the birth of the gay rights movement, orthodox Prottants were already askg what posive visn Scripture giv for people who are gay.

In a statement, the lears clared, “We repent of the cripplg ‘homophobia’ … which has loured the attus toward homosexual people of all too many of , and ll our fellow Christians to siar repentance. Schaeffer foraw signifint cultural chang when, 1978, an Orthodox Prbyterian Church ngregatn San Francis found self sued for releasg a gay employee who had vlated the church’s of nduct. Church historian Richard Lovelace’s 1978 book Homosexualy and the Church garnered hearty endorsements om evangelil lumari Ken Kantzer (a former CT edor), Elisabeth Ellt, Chuck Colson, Harold Ockenga, and Carl F.

WHAT COM AFTER THE EX-GAY MOVEMENT? THE SAME THG THAT CAME BEFORE.

First, would require profsg Christians who are gay to have the urage both to avow [acknowledge] their orientatn openly and to obey the Bible’s clear junctn to turn away om the active homosexual life-style. The church’s sponsorship of openly avowed but repentant homosexuals learship posns would be a profound wns to the world ncerng the power of the Gospel to ee the church om homophobia and the homosexual om guilt and bondage. Yet this was the Christian visn of Lovelace and Henry, Ockenga and Ellt, Kantzer and Colson, Lewis and Graham, Schaeffer and Stott, and a young gay evangelil Anglin who felt too aaid to e his own name, even though he was still a virg.

THE DOWNFALL OF THE EX-GAY MOVEMENT

As I watch evangelil church and nomatns fumble their way through discsns of sexual orientatn and inty, often enforcg the language and tegori of a failed ex-gay movement, we’re missg the real battle: The surroundg culture has nvced the world that Christians hate gay people.

They are already send-gusg their fah bee they hear all around them that Christians hate gay people, and they n’t pot to anyone their ngregatn who is gay, is fahful, and is loved and accepted as such. Ex-gay lears traveled to church and appeared on televisn news programs cg a lany of exampl of happily married “former homosexuals” to monstrate that sexual orientatn is a choice and that change is Chambers would unrgo a radil change of heart. ”The movement tradnalists believed would be their savg grace the fight agast LGBT rights was quickly beg their Achill’ chosen to lead Exod 2001 was like beg the ex-gay Pope followg the Catholic sex-abe sndals.

“For those who nnot rencile their fah and sexualy, they n be affirmed their choice of celibacy and vote their liv to more life givg than ‘riddg themselv of the mon homosexualy, ’” Chambers says.

EXOD CLOS, MARKG OFFICIAL END OF THE EX-GAY MOVEMENT

It might seem like the “ex-gay” movement end Thursday, wh the closg of Exod Internatnal, the evangelil anizatn that once practiced “reparative therapy” for gay Christians, and wh the apology of s print, Alan Chambers, for the hurt he has ed.

But the announcement is only the pstone of the rapid disappearance of the “ex-gay movement, ” a nstellatn of evangelil mistri (and a few Jewish and Mormon offshoots) that embraced psdoscientific therapi to change the sexual orientatn of gay believers. Largely unnoticed by the mastream media, Chambers had for several years been distancg Exod om the discreded ias behd reparative therapy and the anizatns’ prev claims to have helped “thoands” of people overe their homosexualy.

Durg his 11 years at Exod, Chambers gradually morated his claims about the possibily of changg sexual orientatn, qutng the anizatn’s talk of “change” and rejectg the term “ex-gay. A year ago Chambers explicly nounced reparative therapy and said he had never met anyone who changed their sexual orientatn, sparkg a furor among more nservative ex-gay Chambers’s gradual makeover of Exod seems largely driven by the nstant luge of bad news on every possible ont.

MY SO-CALLED EX-GAY LIFE

Warren Throckmorton, an evangelil psychologist who studi sexual inty, eventually nclud that there was no evince reparative therapy worked and beme a strong cric of the ex-gay movement’s claims. The well-known psychiatrist Robert Spzer publicly renounced and apologized for his ntroversial 2001 study that had been greeted as a holy grail for those lookg for evince therapy uld change sexual then there were the “ex-ex-gays.

” Both former ex-gay lears and participants were a nstant PR nightmare for the ex-gay movement as they me out, some s for the send time, and announced what Chambers would eventually acknowledge: that no one they knew of had ever bee straight. ” In 2011 John Smid, the director of a California ex-gay group then known as Love Actn, apologized on his blog after participatg a documentary that forced him to nont the hurt he had before Exod explicly began s rebrandg, the ex-gay movement had been cimated si and out. Last year, Orthodox Jewish rabbis me out agast the therapy jt a few months after California beme the first state to ban for teens unr perhaps the biggt factor is the shiftg experience of nservative Christians themselv, who n no longer sulate themselv om the realy of the gay people they know and who have begun to accept that sexual orientatn isn’t a choice.

Joseph Nilosi, a clil psychologist California who was then print of the Natnal Associatn for Rearch and Therapy of Homosexualy (NARTH), the untry's largt anizatn for practners of ex-gay therapy.

WARNG: EXOD IS FISHED BUT THE EX-GAY MOVEMENT HAS JT BEGUN

My mother might not have so easily found rmatn about ex-gay therapy had the Christian right not planted this stake the culture ad appeared 23 years after the Amerin Psychiatric Associatn (APA) classified homosexualy as a mental illns. A small group of therapists ntued to practice talk therapy that enuraged patients to see homosexualy as a velopmental disorr, but they remaed on the ge until the Christian right took up their e. Foc on the Fay lled s new ex-gay mistry Love Won Out and talked about healg and rg for ex-gay movement turned the rhetoric of gay rights agast self: Shouldn't ex-gays be able to pursue therapy and live the liv they want whout facg discrimatn?

Together wh the late Charl Soris, a psychiatrist who led the opposn to classifyg homosexualy as a mental illns, Nilosi formed NARTH 1992 as a "scientific anizatn that offers hope to those who stggle wh unwanted homosexualy. Nilosi remas NARTH's most visible are no reliable statistics for how many patients have received ex-gay treatment or how many therapists practice , but the late 1990s and early 2000s, ex-gay therapy enjoyed a legimacy hadn't sce the APA removed homosexualy om s diagnostic manual.

NETFLIX’S “PRAY AWAY” CONONTS THE LI OF THE EX-GAY MOVEMENT

Whether or not the Christian right's alliance wh the ex-gay movement had nstuted a D-Day the culture wars, had succsfully challenged the prevailg ia that the bt choice for gay people was to accept themselv. I read one of Nilosi's books, Reparative Therapy of Male Homosexualy, that he tri to posn himself as a supportive father figure, typifyg the sort of relatnship that he believ his patients never had wh their own father.

AFTER EXOD: EVANGELILS REACT AS EX-GAY MISTRY STARTS OVER

What translated to the larger culture was: The father of the 1973 revolutn the classifitn and treatment of homosexualy, who uld not be seen as jt another biased ex-gay csar wh an agenda, had validated ex-gay therapy. Richard Cohen, the founr of PFOX (Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays)-tend as the ex-gay unterpart to PFLAG (Parents, Fai, and Friends of Lbians and Gays)-was expelled om the Amerin Counselg Associatn for ethics vlatns. Among them were Alan Downg, the lead therapist of JONAH (Jews Offerg New Alternativ to Homosexualy), who ma his patients strip and touch themselv ont of a mirror; NARTH member Christopher At, who was nvicted of "unlawfully, tentnally and knowgly [g] peratn of" a client; and Exod-affiliated Mike Jon, who asked a patient to take off his shirt and do ph-ups for movement also suffered several high-profile fectns.

But the sprg of my sophomore year, the disparate parts of myself I had managed to hold together-the part of me that thought beg gay was wrong, the part that slept wh men anyway, the part of myself I let the world see, and the part that suffered silence-me undone.

THE MAN BEHD THE HISTORIC IMPLOSN OF THE EX-GAY MOVEMENT

While took years of unselg to disabe myself of the ias I had learned while unrgog therapy wh Nilosi, was the first time I enuntered profsnals who were affirmg of my sexualy, and the first time I allowed myself to thk was all right to be gay. He looked like he do his Facebook pictur: solid and short, wh a shaved head and large brown had iated penncy-and-neglect proceedgs agast his parents at age 16 to pe ex-gay therapy.

— For 37 years, Exod Internatnal was the leadg bean of the “ex gay” movement, which mataed that gay men and lbians uld change their sexual orientatn through prayer and psychotherapy. Still, as Exod has backed away om efforts to cure homosexualy, other nservative Christian groups have moved to fill the void, and have ntued to assert that homosexualy is not nate but an immoral last year, when Mr.

Aaron Bzer, a platiff the lawsu challengg California’s ban on gay nversn therapy, said that Exod’s closg would do nothg to dimish his fah that such treatment n work, as he said had for him.

EXOD IS GONE, BUT THE 'EX-GAY' MSAGE STUBBORNLY PERSISTS

Even if you don’t tst Alan’s motiv, you have to adm that his nfsn and apology are a giant step forward unrmg the credibily of those who ntue to hold out the false promis ma by the ex-gay movement. Que to the ntrary, Alan’s apology provoked ex-gay loyalists to hunker down, ri out the storm, re-anize and re-emerge wh an even more ant mment to their beliefs that that homosexuals n and mt be cured.

” Alan and the other soft-re changers don’t scribe homosexual acts as s (that’s the hard-re way) but they do clg to the old notn that God’s will for sexual relatnships is limed to one man wh one woman. ” Then they uld also say, “But if you ci to stggle agast your homosexual orientatn orr to stay a lovg relatnship wh a heterosexual spoe, we will support you that cisn as well. Bee of the succs of gay rights activism, gay and lbian people were more visible, homosexualy was no longer nsired a mental illns, and nservative Christians were mobilizg agast what they saw as a threat to the fay.