Former 'Ex-Gay' Lears Denounce 'Conversn Therapy' In A New Documentary : NPR

Contents:

• FORMER 'EX-GAY' LEARS DENOUNCE 'CONVERSN THERAPY' IN A NEW DOCUMENTARY
• CELEBRI WHO HAVE LEFT A GAY LIFTYLE
• MY SO-CALLED EX-GAY LIFE
• WHAT COM AFTER THE EX-GAY MOVEMENT? THE SAME THG THAT CAME BEFORE.
• FORMER 'EX-GAY' LEARS DENOUNCE 'CONVERSN THERAPY' IN A NEW DOCUMENTARY
• THE EX-GAY CHRISTIANY MOVEMENT IS MAKG A QUIET EBACK. THE EFFECTS ON LGBTQ YOUTH ULD BE VASTATG.
• EX-GAYS SCEND UPON D.C. TO LOBBY AGAST LGBTQ RIGHTS
• THE DOWNFALL OF THE EX-GAY MOVEMENT
• WHAT ABOUT EX-EX-GAYS?
• WHY ARE HOMOSEXUAL ACTIVISTS SO AAID OF “EX-GAYS”?

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.

As of January 2015, Jsie J had sold over 20 ln sgl and 3 ln albums statement when she was gay:She said a recent terview:If I meet someone and I like them, I don’t re if they’re a boy or a Chloe Govan had a stronger opn about Jsie’s lbianism:Jsie might have been wh boys the past — but she is 100 per cent gay. Bob Dixon is nng for ernor and claims that childhood abe and teenage nfn ed him to engage gay relatnships or a few 's mpaign issued a statement toutg his fah God and support for tradnal marriage, while nmng any opponents who try to e his past agast him.

CELEBRI WHO HAVE LEFT A GAY LIFTYLE

[7]Her statement about not beg a gay liftyle any more:Anrson now intifi as heterosexual and an terview wh the Eveng Standard December 2014, she stated:I am an actively heterosexual woman who celebrat however people want to exprs their sexualy. I am very happy for Sheryl…”Statement about not beg gay any more:From an terview when Swoop was asked if she was “born gay”:Swoop: “No and that's probably nfg to some, bee I know a lot of people believe that you are. Phil Show, The Coral Ridge Hour, The Abundant Life, Cope, His Place, Home Life, and has been the host of Covenant Award wng “Masterg Life” on the Foc on the Fay Rad he said about havg been gay:“Bee of my fear of mature women, I chose to see them as sexls ‘Snow Whe’ figur.

I have been changed many and varied ways over the past 32 years after seekg the Lord at the age of 29 to liver me om a bondage to homosexualy, pornography and other sexually addictive behavrs. After 10 years of active volvement the ‘anythg but gay’ homosexual liftyle, J Christ revealed Himself to me and has set me ee om what statistics show to be a ath-style la upon the foundatns of profound brokenns… inty has been pletely transformed and I see myself as the heterosexual male that God had always created me to be.

Statement about not beg gay anymore:From a blog by Dennis Jernigan…“This statement will probably produce a lot of ntroversy, but this is how I thk of myself: I do not nsir myself a reverg/former/ex gay. Statement when she was gay:“I survived the tears, the isolatn and the feelg that somethg was terribly wrong wh me for lovg another woman… g to terms wh my life as a lbian has been easier for me than has been for many. ”[17]When she left the gay liftyle: Seekg to ntradict the ia that people are born gay, she said, “What’s got to stop is the riggg of history to make the ‘eher/or’ look permanent and universal.

MY SO-CALLED EX-GAY LIFE

I unrstand why this argument may sound erotic to outsirs for whom the public assertn of a herent, unchangg lbian or gay inty has proved an dispensable tactic the battle agast homophobic persecutn. 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.

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

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. 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.

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

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. 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. 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.

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

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. 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.

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

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.

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. We believed that there was somethg sperately wrong, that there was somethg pathologil about , that was not your normal state, wasn't what God tend, that somethg mt have happened to make you gay.

THE DOWNFALL OF THE EX-GAY MOVEMENT

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 two s, McKrae Game was a top-tier figure among ex-gay Christians and a leadg advote for nversn therapy, a unselg practice wh the goal of helpg LGBTQ people supprs their homosexualy and bee “straight.

” But Game, 51, now disavows the movement and acknowledg he has been gay all told the Post and Courier that nversn therapy proved to be trimental, a “lie” and “false advertisg. The most proment ex-gay anizatns have shnk or shuttered; lears have fected; and many church now fear that beg associated wh such wily discreded techniqu will st them as unwelg or bigoted.

WHAT ABOUT EX-EX-GAYS?

Addnally, the Inter is rife wh stori of LGBTQ people who have reported sufferg psychologil harm as a rult of participatg the programs and proment Christians are quietly tryg to rurrect ex-gay Christiany, and the new rnatn is hipper and perhaps more evolved.

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

Yet beneath the smetic tweaks ss the same msage that has damaged many liv over many s: If you’re a Christian wh same-sex attractns, change is both possible and first wave of Amerin ex-gay Christiany the 1970s alced around mistri and anizatns specifilly voted to the e. But the current wave is far more centralized, beg led by pennt thors and personali who are embedd the nservative Christian world rather than segregated to an issue-specific views differ ever so slightly om the next while orbg tightly to siar them, such as the possibily of “former homosexuals” havg a healthy heterosexual marriage, differentiatg between one’s behavr and inty, and a ubiquo, if obligatory, nod to church’ historil failur to love people who intify as of the movement’s most articulate lears is Rosaria Champagne Butterfield, a former women’s studi profsor at Syrace Universy who says she “adopted a lbian inty” her 20s as a rult of beg fluenced by femist philosophy. ”When I spoke wh her, I asked if she nsirs herself “ex-gay, ” and she said she do not e that label to scribe herself but then proceed to scribe how she was once, but is no longer, a lbian.

But then Butterfield add that she disurag the age of the term “gay Christian” and even oppos “Si B” Christians who accept their LGBTQ inty but are mted to celibacy for relig reasons.

For Butterfield, homosexualy is not an inty that scrib who a person is but, rather, a sful actn that a person do — but n stop preach her gospel of change through her popular books, speech at Christian nferenc and church, and is the unmistakable msage of the life she now liv.