'We're not hidg': Gay and lbian Rsians say a cultural shift is unrway

Contents:

• WHAT IS EXOD INTERNATNAL, THE EX-GAY CHRISTIAN GROUP AT THE CENTER OF NETFLIX'S PRAY AWAY?
• FORMER 'EX-GAY' LEARS DENOUNCE 'CONVERSN THERAPY' IN A NEW DOCUMENTARY
• THE DOWNFALL OF THE EX-GAY MOVEMENT
• 'EX-GAY' GROUP EXOD INTERNATNAL SHUTS DOWN
• EX-GAY GROUP EXOD INTERNATNAL SHUTS DOWN, PRINT APOLOGIZ
• EXOD CLOS, MARKG OFFICIAL END OF THE EX-GAY MOVEMENT
• EXOD INTERNATNAL, 'EX-GAY' GROUP, RELEAS IRONILLY HILAR BLOOPER REEL (VIDEO)
• MY SO-CALLED EX-GAY LIFE
• EX-GAY GROUP EXOD INTERNATNAL SHUTS DOWN, PRINT APOLOGIZ
• WARNG: EXOD IS FISHED BUT THE EX-GAY MOVEMENT HAS JT BEGUN
• RANDY THOMAS, FORMER VP OF EX-GAY GROUP EXOD INTERNATNAL, APOLOGIZ TO LGBT COMMUNY
• EXOD INTERNATNAL: 'GAY CURE' GROUP LEAR SHUTTG DOWN MISTRY AFTER CHANGE OF HEART
• MOSW GAY MAP
• 'WE'RE NOT HIDG': GAY AND LBIAN RSIANS SAY A CULTURAL SHIFT IS UNRWAY
• PRAY AWAY GO DEEP INTO THE 'EX-GAY' MOVEMENT THAT BEGAN THE '70S
• THE MAN BEHD THE HISTORIC IMPLOSN OF THE EX-GAY MOVEMENT

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

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. In a statement, he spoke out agast reparative therapy, suggtg that while the practice of homosexualy was still a s his ey, reparative therapy did not remedy homosexualy people.

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. It's bee very lennial-driven bee there are younger people who've grown up homophobic and transphobic environments who are ready and willg to take the place of people like Randy.

— 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. Chambers — who gave up same-sex relatnships to marry a woman — announced that he no longer believed homosexualy uld be cured, Exod’s fund-raisg has dwdled, officials nced.

THE DOWNFALL OF THE EX-GAY MOVEMENT

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.

'EX-GAY' GROUP EXOD INTERNATNAL SHUTS DOWN

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. ”As a former Exod participant who once lived a “gay liftyle” but was able to achieve a succsful straight marriage, Chambers was the perfect ndidate to lead the anizatn.

”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. Image ptn, Chambers admted keepg quiet about his own same-sex attractnA proment US Christian group that purported to rid gay people of same-sex attractn through prayer has said is shuttg old Exod Internatnal ma the announcement alongsi an apology om Print Alan Chambers to people "hurt" by s acknowledged "the shame and guilt you felt when your attractns didn't change" move as California seeks to ban "nversn therapy" of gay state passed a law September banng the therapy for mors, wh Governor Jerry Brown sayg had "no basis science or medice".

'Lookg for change'In a statement entled I Am Sorry and directed at gay, lbian, bisexual and transgenr people, Mr Chambers, who is married to a woman, acknowledged "trma that I have ed" and said he had kept quiet about his own same-sex sayg he uld "not apologize for my eply held biblil beliefs about the boundari I see scripture surroundg sex", Mr Chambers said he was "sorry we promoted sexual orientatn change efforts and reparative theori about sexual orientatn that stigmatized patients".

EX-GAY GROUP EXOD INTERNATNAL SHUTS DOWN, PRINT APOLOGIZ

(RNS) Exod Internatnal, a group that bills self as “the olst and largt Christian mistry alg wh fah and homosexualy, ” announced late Wednday (June 19) that ’s shuttg s doors. The announcement me jt after Exod print Alan Chambers released a statement apologizg to the gay muny for many actns, cludg the anizatn’s promotn of efforts to change a person’s sexual orientatn. Exod functned as a support group for men and women who were stgglg wh their sexual orientatn, and early on embraced the ia that gays and lbians uld bee straight through prayer and unselg.

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

A recent Gallup Poll showed that 59 percent of Amerins now view gay or lbian relatns as “morally acceptable, ” a 19-pot swg sce 2001 and the biggt change seen on any social issue, cludg divorce, extramaral affairs and other issu. Chambers had already disavowed reparative therapy at the annual Gay Christian Network nference January 2012, and his apology “is the acknowledgement many of have been wag to hear for a long, long time, ” said GCN executive director Jt Lee.

“Headl about Exod closg down will e celebratns across the gay muny, ” said Mel Whe, who ghostwrote Jerry Falwell’s tobgraphy years before he me out as gay and lnched the gay rights group Soulforce. 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.

EXOD INTERNATNAL, 'EX-GAY' GROUP, RELEAS IRONILLY HILAR BLOOPER REEL (VIDEO)

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. 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.

MY SO-CALLED EX-GAY LIFE

” 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.

The announcement me jt after Exod print Alan Chambers released a statement apologizg to the gay muny for many actns, cludg the anizatn’s promotn of efforts to change a person’s sexual orientatn. A recent Gallup Poll showed that 59 percent of Amerins now view gay or lbian relatns as “morally acceptable, ” a 19-pot swg sce 2001 and the biggt change seen on any social issue, cludg divorce, extramaral affairs and other issu. 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.

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?

EX-GAY GROUP EXOD INTERNATNAL SHUTS DOWN, PRINT APOLOGIZ

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.

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

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.

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.

RANDY THOMAS, FORMER VP OF EX-GAY GROUP EXOD INTERNATNAL, APOLOGIZ TO LGBT COMMUNY

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. " In 2007, Exod -founr Michael Bsee apologized for his role startg the as a rponse to the rurgence of ex-gay therapy, mastream profsnal anizatns also took a harr stance.

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. 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. Exod Internatnal, a group that bills self as “the olst and largt Christian mistry alg wh fah and homosexualy, ” announced late Wednday that ’s shuttg s ’s board unanimoly agreed to close the mistry and beg a separate one, though tails about the new mistry were unavailable at the time of the anizatn’s prs announcement me jt after Exod print Alan Chambers released a statement apologizg to the gay muny for many actns, cludg the anizatn’s promotn of efforts to change a person’s sexual orientatn.

EXOD INTERNATNAL: 'GAY CURE' GROUP LEAR SHUTTG DOWN MISTRY AFTER CHANGE OF HEART

A recent Gallup Poll showed that 59 percent of Amerins now view gay or lbian relatns as “morally acceptable, ” a 19-pot swg sce 2001 and the biggt change seen on any social issue, cludg divorce, extramaral affairs, and other issu. 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. Soft re “changers” will teach that sexually active lbian or gay persons should enter to “tradnal” oppose sex marriag or to a relatnship wh an oppose sex fellow “stggler. ” 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.

In June, ntroversial "ex-gay" Christian therapy group Exod Internatnal announced would be closg, and s print, Alan Chambers, posted an apology to anyone the lbian, gay, bisexual and transgenr muny who had been hurt as a rult of the group's methods.

MOSW GAY MAP

Anthony Venn-Brown, an ex-gay opponent who is now part of an anizatn that seeks to build bridg and foster unrstandg between Christian and LGBT muni, weled the gture, acrdg to Gay Star News. June 20, 2013 — -- A Christian mistry that claimed people uld change their sexualy through fah, prayer and therapy is shuttg down s operatns, and the group's print issued an apology for g the gay muny "pa and hurt" through s past Internatnal's board of directors said the cisn to close the doors of the 37-year-old mistry me "after a year of dialogue and prayer about the anizatn's place a changg culture, " acrdg to a statement posted on the group's webse late Wednday.

'WE'RE NOT HIDG': GAY AND LBIAN RSIANS SAY A CULTURAL SHIFT IS UNRWAY

RELATED: Exod Internatnal Head Alan Chambers Compar Homosexualy to ObyOnce parg homosexualy to oby a 2011 terview wh ABC News, the group's print, Alan Chambers, issued an extensive apology this week to the LGBTQ muny reflectg his change of heart.

He apologised for not standg up to Christian homophob, and for failg “to share publicly that the gay and lbian people I know were every b as pable of beg amazg parents as the straight people that I know”. At the very least, the apology to the gay muny and closure of Exod is an admissn that the movement was supportg homophobia and relig aggrsn to GLBT (gay, lbian, bisexual, transgenr) people. 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.

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

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 . Sce then, a skeleton crew of three people has rattled around the largely empty workspace overseeg the dismantlg of an associatn that once clud more than 150 Christian mistri 17 untri, all voted to the ia that homosexual feelgs need not lead to eternal damnatn.

" Chambers disput the notn that he ever promoted Exod as the "gay cure" mistry, though there is plenty of evince to the ntrary, not the least of which is the book he wrote 2009 lled Leavg Homosexualy: A Practil Gui for Men and Women Lookg for a Way Out. In 2009, an Exod board member — not Chambers — traveled to Uganda and spoke at a nference on the evils of homosexualy that helped build the hysteria there that led to the untry's famo 2009 "Kill the Gays" bill, which prcribed a potential ath penalty for "aggravated homosexualy" or life imprisonment for "the offence of homosexualy.

) It took Chambers nearly a year to publicly disavow his anizatn's yet this June, Chambers not only closed Exod sudn and dramatic fashn, but acknowledged the effectivens of gay-to-straight reparative therapy and offered a remarkable mea culpa that apologized for his anizatn's many missteps.

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

The LGBT muny hailed Exod' mise as a victory the culture wars but were disappoted Chambers hadn't gone further his support of gay rights or his renouncement of the relig unrpngs of the ex-gay theology.

" After nfidg a unselor at a Christian youth retreat about his homosexual urg when he was 19, he was turned on to a lol mistry Wter Park lled Eltheros that was affiliated wh the time, Exod had been around for over 20 years; was started by a group of men the 1970s who were stgglg wh the same tensn between their sexual attractns and their vout belief that homosexualy was a biblil of their programs closely mirrored Alholics Anonymo' 12-step program, wh open groups where people uld talk about their stggl, and "acuntabily partners" who worked much like AA sponsors to be on ll to help a member al wh daily temptatns.