"Ex-Gays": The Big Threat to the LGBT Movement

Contents:

• WHAT ABOUT EX-EX-GAYS?
• MILO YIANNOPOULOS SAYS HE IS ‘EX-GAY,’ WANTS TO REHABILATE ‘NVERSN THERAPY’
• FOUNR OF ‘EX-GAY’ FREEDOM MARCH JEFEY MCCALL ADMS TO SLEEPG WH MEN
• WHAT COM AFTER THE EX-GAY MOVEMENT? THE SAME THG THAT CAME BEFORE.
• FORMER 'EX-GAY' LEARS DENOUNCE 'CONVERSN THERAPY' IN A NEW DOCUMENTARY
• ‘EX-GAY’ MEN FIGHT BACK AGAST VIEW THAT HOMOSEXUALY CAN’T BE CHANGED
• MY SO-CALLED EX-GAY LIFE
• WHY ARE HOMOSEXUAL ACTIVISTS SO AAID OF “EX-GAYS”?
• EX-GAYS SCEND UPON D.C. TO LOBBY AGAST LGBTQ RIGHTS
• THE EX-GAY CHRISTIANY MOVEMENT IS MAKG A QUIET EBACK. THE EFFECTS ON LGBTQ YOUTH ULD BE VASTATG.
• EX-GAY IS HERE TO STAY

WHAT ABOUT EX-EX-GAYS?

In one episo of the Will & Grace reboot, Grace remarks at the oddy of observg Will ok breakfast for his ex-partner, Vce, who has jt shared the news of his engagement: "It always amaz me how gay guys stay iends wh all of their ex. Send, the term "ex-gay" has lots of different meangs (some lears like the term, while others don't), rangg om, "I ed to be volved same-sex relatnships, and I am no longer am, " to, "My romantic and sexual sir have changed om homosexual to heterosexual, " along wh everythg between. I know others who, through unselg or a ep spirual enunter wh the Lord, lerally went om homosexual to heterosexual (this is more mon than you might realize), and they have lived like this for s now.

MILO YIANNOPOULOS SAYS HE IS ‘EX-GAY,’ WANTS TO REHABILATE ‘NVERSN THERAPY’

The bottom le is that homosexual practice, unr all circumstanc, is sful, and nothg n possibly change that fact, but is equally te that there is liberty and new life J, and those willg to take up the cross and follow Him will never need to look back. Sce I expect gay bloggers and ex-ex-gays to rpond to this article crilly, if you are one of the many who, by God's grace, have e out of homosexualy, please take a moment to rpond here as well.

“As for the CHANGED movement, I gus bee they’re Californian they don’t see how funny their webse is, or maybe they’re dirty non-doms who thk God lov you more the gayer you act, but I was slightly makg fun of them wh that ptn, ” he said. ” And I was happy to do : Those stori gave me a natnal platform to advote for what is lled “gay reparative therapy”—basilly, nvcg gay people that they were sexually “broken” and uld be provid wh a way to change.

FOUNR OF ‘EX-GAY’ FREEDOM MARCH JEFEY MCCALL ADMS TO SLEEPG WH MEN

The kd of ignorance revealed by those Perry’s Texas Republin Party who recently serted a plank their party platform clarg homosexualy to be a “chosen behavr” and regnizg the “legimacy and efficy” of gay reparative therapy. Luckily, ’s te that across our natn, life is dramatilly and rapidly improvg for gay people, and ’s enuragg that same-sex marriage has found favor urts across the land, and is g to be viewed as legimate by a majory of Amerins, acrdg to polls.

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

As long as this wispread misunrstandg the straight world about homosexualy persists, that is a choice or a “liftyle, ” as Perry put , not only will we never be fully accepted by society, some of will rema unable to accept ourselv. The pastor found a book a lol Christian bookstore that scribed a special mistry for gay people California lled Exod, which was based on the ia that homosexualy uld be changed through strong termatn and a relatnship wh J Christ. On Tuday and Thursday nights, we had long discsns about var aspects of homosexualy—cludg the Exod view of how veloped om a breakdown fay relatnships such as that between a boy and his father.

I also beme a close associate of Joseph Nilosi, a therapist and leadg proponent of “reparative therapy”—the belief that homosexualy rults om the flty and arrted velopment of one’s “genr inty.

In those early days after my nversn, the temptatns to be among my gay iends and once aga be part of the gay muny were so strong that I would kneel down my bathroom and beg God to help me not be gay. Ten years later, I found out that feelg of beg different, that csh on Stephen third gra and the nighttime fantasi I hoped no one would ever know about, were part of my life bee I was “stgglg wh homosexualy. My heart breaks every time I see one of my gay, lbian, bisexual or transgenr brothers or sisters wastg months and years of their liv tryg to nvce themselv and others that they are acceptable bee they have reached some form of simulated heterosexualy.

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

If, every day, I fd that jt one of my gay, lbian, bisexual or transgenr brothers or sisters has rid themselv of the idolatry of acceptance and found personal peace, then I have done more than I ever thought possible. Dpe his obv hypocrisy, McCall sisted that he was still “ex-gay”, and went on: “I am jt a peasant who tried to help save peopl eternal liv and pot them to J all while gog through my own procs.

‘EX-GAY’ MEN FIGHT BACK AGAST VIEW THAT HOMOSEXUALY CAN’T BE CHANGED

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.

MY SO-CALLED EX-GAY LIFE

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. 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.

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.

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.

WHY ARE HOMOSEXUAL ACTIVISTS SO AAID OF “EX-GAYS”?

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.

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.

He spent 17 years a doomed marriage while battlg his urg all day, he said, and dreamg about them all recent years, as he probed his childhood unselg and at men’s weekend retreats wh nam like People Can Change and Journey Into Manhood, “my homosexual feelgs have nearly vanished, ” Mr.

EX-GAYS SCEND UPON D.C. TO LOBBY AGAST LGBTQ RIGHTS

Smh is one of thoands of men across the untry, often known as “ex-gay, ” who believe they have changed their most basic sexual sir through some batn of therapy and prayer — somethg most scientists say has never been proved possible and is likely an men are often closeted, fearg ridicule om gay advot who acce them of self-ceptn and, at the same time, fearg rejectn by their church muni as tated oddi. ”But many ex-gays have ntued to seek help om such therapists and men’s retreats, sayg their own experience is proof enough that the treatment n Bzer, 35, was so angered by the California ban, which will take effect on Jan. He was tormented as a Christian teenager by his homosexual attractns, but now, after men’s retreats and an onle urse of reparative therapy, he says he feels glimmers of attractn for women and is thkg about datg.

Bzer, who plans to seek a doctorate psychology and bee a therapist ex-gays guard their secret but quietly meet support groups around the untry, sharg ias on how to avoid temptatns or, perhaps, broach their past wh a female date.

The theori, which have also been adopted by nservative relig opponents of gay marriage, hold that male homosexualy emerg om fay dynamics — often a distant father and an overbearg mother — or om early sexual abe. Spzer, publicly repudiated as valid his own 2001 study suggtg that some people uld change their sexual orientatn; the study had been wily ced by fenrs of the this summer, the ex-gay world was nvulsed when Alan Chambers, the print of Exod Internatnal, the largt Christian mistry for people fightg same-sex attractn, said he did not believe anyone uld be rid of homosexual Nilosi, a psychologist and clil director of the Thomas Aquas Psychologil Clic Enco, Calif., which he scrib as the largt reparative therapy clic the world, disagreed.

THE EX-GAY CHRISTIANY MOVEMENT IS MAKG A QUIET EBACK. THE EFFECTS ON LGBTQ YOUTH ULD BE VASTATG.

Crics like Wayne Ben, the executive director of Tth Ws Out, which fights antigay bias, liken such therapy to fah healg, wh apparent effects that later fa also pot out that the failur of such therapy are seldom reported. Swaim is unemployed and liv wh his parents Orange County, Calif., where his father is a pastor of the Evangelil Friends Church of the tried the gay life, but “ jt don’t settle wh me, ” he said, and ultimately cid “there’s got to be a way to heal this afflictn. 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? 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.

EX-GAY IS HERE TO STAY

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. 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.