The "Ex-Gay" Myth
This page contains a growing list of resources exposing the conservative religious agenda to deny gay and lesbian identity through the use of the myth that sexual orientation is "chosen" and "changeable". If you know of a site that should be listed here,
and refers them to Exodus: Pastor Mike Macintosh of Horizon Christian Fellowship in San Diego knows a good scam when he spots one. Imagine trapping someone during a moment of vulnerability and then serving a dose of carefully disguised verbal abuse designed to increase the vulnerability. Once that's been accomplished you refer the individual to an unethical salesman selling some kind of 'snake oil'. That's exactly what Pastor Mike Macintosh is doing to troubled gay youth looking for someone they can trust. Macintosh operates the dishonest National Youth Crisis Hotline, 1-800-HIT-HOME.
Ex-Gay Ministries: A Dangerous Cult: It's not those claiming to be "ex-gays" we should be angry at-- it's those who spiritually abuse them. "Ex-gays" need to be treated with "kid-glove care"-- with compassion and tenderness and understanding and Love. It's those who are treating gays who are struggling with self-acceptance who need to be stopped.
Calculated Compassion: "The growing prominence of the ex-gay movement is the result of a strategic shift within the Christian Right: the new packaging of an old message. The claim that gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people can be "cured" has more to do with the Right's political objectives and its bitter opposition to equal rights than with genuine caring. This report examines how the Christian Right has adopted the ex-gay movement in response to increasing pressure to soften its homophobic rhetoric."
--- Political Research Associates
Healing Homosexuality Through Reparative Therapy (a.k.a. Conversion Therapy: "The mental health community is divided into two isolated solitudes over reparative therapy (RT). Many hundreds of conservative Christian therapists and ministries promote it as effective and safe. Almost all of the hundreds of thousands of remaining mental health professionals feel that RT is incapable of changing a person's sexual orientation, is contraindicated, and is potentially damaging to the client."
--- Ontario Consultants On Religious Tolerance
The Real Changes Taking Place: "Make no mistake about it -- changes undoubtably do occur in the "ex-gay" movement. But in my extensive study of "ex-gay" phenomena over more than a decade convinces me that the changes are turnover in testimonies, personnel, promises, definitions, expectations and claims, not changes in sexual orientation and behavior. As even "ex-gay" movement promoter Sharon Kuhnhas admitted in Campus Crusade's Worldwide Challenge magazine, "most["ex-gay"] ministries to Christian homosexuals soon die out."
--- Dr. Ralph Blair, Evangelicals Concerned, Open Hands, Vol. 2, No, 2, Fall 1986
The Ex-Gay Fraud: "No Bible basis exists for the so called "Ex-Gay" movement that has sprung up in the past 15 years in many denominations and independent religious groups. No scientific basis exists for the 'reparative therapy' to "cure" homosexuals or "deliver" people from their homosexuality. Claims of such cures and deliverance do not hold up under close examination."
--- Dr. Rembert S. Truluck, Author of Steps to Recovery From Bible Abuse
Sleeping in a Garage Doesn't Make You An Automobile: First-hand stories from the so-called "ex-gay" movement. "The term gay Christian is an oxymoron'" --- John Paulk, leading member of ex-gay organisation Exodus."Sleeping in a garage doesn't make you an automobile former '"ex-gay" Stan. -- 'Steve signed on for "the ex-gay equivalent of the Betty Ford clinic." "It as the first time that I identified myself as being gay. The program was, in some ways, good. Even though the premise was misguided, we were able to open up. A couple of the guys are still trying to be straight. One guy, who's now married, feels so hopeless and desperate.''
--- Ward Harkavy, Houston Press
"None of the people we've counseled have converted no matter how much effort and prayer they've put into it. There is much more benefit to the more honest view." : The leader of a reparative therapy ministry in the United Kingdom has come to the conclusion that the process doesn't work. "We are definitely wanting to be separated from the 'ex-gay' label and be more focused on supporting Christians who are gay," says Jeremy Marks, director of Courage, United Kingdom. Marks' personal experiences as a gay man, as well as a minister who has participated in conversion therapy for more than 14 years, led him gradually to the realization that the process simply does not work. "None of the people we've counseled have converted no matter how much effort and prayer they've put into it. There is much more benefit to the more honest
view," he said.
--- Barbara Dozetos, gay.com
'Ex-Gay' Watch: Monitoring the political activities of the so-called 'ex-gay' movement
