Rev. Dr. Mel Whe: Clergyman, Author, Activist Warng: Exod is fished but the ex-gay movement has jt begun - Rev. Dr. Mel Whe: Clergyman, Author, Activist

Contents:

• FORMER 'EX-GAY' LEARS DENOUNCE 'CONVERSN THERAPY' IN A NEW DOCUMENTARY
• THE DOWNFALL OF THE EX-GAY MOVEMENT
• WHAT COM AFTER THE EX-GAY MOVEMENT? THE SAME THG THAT CAME BEFORE.
• WHAT IS EXOD INTERNATNAL, THE EX-GAY CHRISTIAN GROUP AT THE CENTER OF NETFLIX'S PRAY AWAY?
• EXOD CLOS, MARKG OFFICIAL END OF THE EX-GAY MOVEMENT
• MY SO-CALLED EX-GAY LIFE
• PRAY AWAY GO DEEP INTO THE 'EX-GAY' MOVEMENT THAT BEGAN THE '70S
• GROUP APOLOGIZ TO GAY MUNY, SHUTS DOWN ‘CURE’ MISTRY
• EXOD INTERNATNAL: 'GAY CURE' GROUP LEAR SHUTTG DOWN MISTRY AFTER CHANGE OF HEART
• THE MAN BEHD THE HISTORIC IMPLOSN OF THE EX-GAY MOVEMENT
• WARNG: EXOD IS FISHED BUT THE EX-GAY MOVEMENT HAS JT BEGUN
• FORMER 'EX-GAY' LEARS DENOUNCE 'CONVERSN THERAPY' IN A NEW DOCUMENTARY
• EX-GAY MOVEMENT

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. 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.

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. 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.

THE DOWNFALL OF THE EX-GAY MOVEMENT

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.

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

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.

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

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. 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. 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.

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.

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

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.

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. ” 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.

MY SO-CALLED EX-GAY LIFE

” 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.

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?

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

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. 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.

GROUP APOLOGIZ TO GAY MUNY, SHUTS DOWN ‘CURE’ MISTRY

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.

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

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. 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.

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 . The announcement ls than a day after Exod issued a wi-rangg apology to the gay muny for “years of undue judgment by the anizatn and the Christian Church as a whole, ” a statement om the group says. 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.

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.

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

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 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.

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

" 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. And as a charismatic speaker wh a personal ttimony of his own transformatn om unhappy gay man to happily married heterosexual, he was a walkg advertisement for the group's then-motto: "Change Is Possible. As early as 2008, var speech and terviews, Chambers flirted wh the notn that homosexualy might not be a mortal s that would endanger a Christian's salvatn, which ed nsirable gmblg among Exod' rank-and-file membership.

The two bombshells ed Exod Internatnal to splter, wh many of the member mistri peelg off to form the Rtored Hope April, he taped an appearance on Our Ameri wh Lisa Lg on the Oprah Wey Network, which he sat a church basement a circle of foldg chairs wh some Exod "survivors" — most of whom had sce accepted their own homosexualy and felt emotnally damaged by their experienc wh the mistry. "Really, what you see is Alan Chambers projectg his own issu onto everyone else, " says Christopher Doyle, an ex-gay psychotherapist who is print of Voice of the Voicels, an anizatn that argu for ex-gay rights.

That said, 's worth mentng that he also do not believe that the extremely low turnout at his anizatn's Ex-Gay Pri Rally on Capol Hill on July 30 — 10 people showed up — was a sign of the movement's cle, but rather a product of the fear of retaliatn om the forc of what he lls "homofascism.

EX-GAY MOVEMENT

" He don't thk the recent shifts society at large — notably, the Supreme Court's rejectn of the Defense of Marriage Act and "don't ask, don't tell, " and the growg acceptance of same-sex marriage — are ditive of a siar shift attus wh the ex-gay some sense, Doyle is right. " John Plk, a former chairman of Exod' board of directors and founr of Love Won Out, an ex-gay nference affiliated wh Jam Dobson's Foc on the Fay, has e out of the closet, left his wife, and jt this year nounced reparative therapy and issued an apology.

"He may be gog through the same thg that a lot of former lears go through jt before they abandon the whole thg, and [ci] maybe 's OK to be gay and maybe gay relatnships n be blsed by God, " he says.

"Wayne Ben, a former staffer at the Human Rights Campaign whose current anizatn, Tth Ws Out, has long been a chronicler and harsh cric of the ex-gay movement, lls Chambers' recent mov bold, if plete, but sentially agre wh Bsee that 's jt a matter of time before the other shoe drops Chambers' personal life.