Alert reader Scott Hutcheson brought a story of the gay-teen-suicide of Jeffrey Price to my attention. Excerpts:
His battle, involving his sexuality and his depression led to two suicide attempts, five stays at psychiatric wards and a constant feeling he let his father down. Just when Jeff seemed to find some comfort within, his life was ended in May 2004 by what police call an accidental self-inflicted gunshot wound to the face. [paragraph] Although the existence of a “gay gene” is a battle still fought between the religious, the political, the scientific and the homosexual, many researchers and gay people believe they are born gay. Jeff’s mother believes so too. She said her son was gay, even if he tried to date girls. She feels his failure to convert to heterosexuality only compounded his depression.
For all of the spiritual guidance that the church brought to Jeff, his inability to convert to a heterosexual lifestyle was to him just another form of failure, his family said.
“Please understand why I chose to die,” he wrote. “I have suffered way too much. I would have suffered the rest of my life, so I had no choice at all … No matter what, no one could have helped. I was still gay and no one could change it.”
Not that another testimony of a gay-teen suicide would make any difference to Melissa Fryrear at Focus…
Soulforce’s recent protest at Focus spotlighted testimony of Mary Lou and Bob Wallner, parents of a lesbian daughter who killed herself after enduring years of arrogant demands for “change” in “mind and attitude” from Mary Lou, based on beliefs derived in part from Focus on the Family.
Fryrear’s belittling response to Mary Lou and Bob Wallner:
Melissa Fryrear, Focus on the Family gender issues analyst, said White’s suicide allegation is untrue. A former lesbian, Fryrear has ministered to ex-gays for more than a decade. While she agreed some homosexuals are suicidal, she strongly disputed the reason given for it.
“From my vantage point,” she said, “the people that I found were suicidal are those who thought they were trapped in homosexuality, who thought they had to live homosexually. And so they actually had been filled with hope when we shared with them that, ‘No, you can come out of this.'”
Fryrear essentially turns around and blames gays for promoting suicide by somehow denying people hope for “change.” This response totally ignores any claims made by the Wallners which is insulting, demeaning and downright ugly. I doubt another tragic loss, this time Jeffrey Price, will have any effect on her darkened heart.
Anecdotes of a gay suicide. Anecdotes of an ex-gay conversion success.
anecdotes, anecdotes, anecdotes.
testimonies, testimonies, testimonies.
I’m sick of it. gimme a long term study on these things that determine once and for all the harm and helpfullness of all things ex-gay
Anonymous (who also goes by the names Phallicus Maximus and Yu),
I highly recommend Sexual Conversion Therapy: Ethical, Clinical, and Research Perspectives, a compilation of studies of precisely that topic.
I would gladly reprint the entire book here, if I were allowed to.
As limited in time frame as it is, these studies of the effects of reparative therapies seem to be the most thorough performed thus far.
There is an extensive review of this book at Bridges Across, linked at this site. BA also has a large archive of discussions on this subject involving people on all sides of the controversy.
Religious Tolerance, linked from this site, has a meta-analysis on the subject of reparative therapy. They work from known numbers to arrive at their conclusion.
Regan said: “Why are the religious cultures so hellbound to say it’s about god’s wishes, but self promote to judge about homosexuality, BEFORE the kingdom of heaven does?”
I think it’s because they believe: (1) the Bible is the literal, inerrant word of God; and (2) the Bible condemns homosexuality.
Good luck trying to get them to change their minds on point #1!
But for point #2, I think you can make some significant headway. For example, most evangelicals still believe that the story of Sodom and Gomorrah is about homosexuality, when in fact God had decided to destroy the cities in the prior chapter of the Bible! So the events of Genesis 19 — regardless of whether they spoke of homosexuality or merely inhospitality — couldn’t have been the reason for both cities’ destruction.
Is there a chance you could make a distinction between those groups that preach “conversion or hell” and those of us who engage in pastoral work in this area, who have seen sexuality change in their own and others’ lives, but are more interested in people’s spiritual welfare then their Kinsey rating? We don’t (Dale) “expound on guilt and fear and shame”, rather we help people who are uncomfortable with their sexuality explore it’s causation and, if they want to, help them bring healing into their emotional and sexual issues.
These days the majority of people we see in Living Waters and CrossCurrent courses (and the like) are heterosexual and have a variety of issues. It’s the fact that I work with many different types of people on different sexual and emotional issues (including homosexual issues), which all, to a lesser or greater extent, see healing convinces me that healing prayer of memories is a valid and practical tool. In the past few months I have seen substantial changes in people struggling with transexuality, homosexuality, serial heterosexual sex and low body image, all of which have identified events in their childhood that affected them, and have received healing prayer into those situation.
If we were just talking about “gays” and “ex-gays” then you might have a case, but “reparative therapy” is used in a myriad of different situations and, bottom line, it works!
For some, Peter, it might. However, when the Ex-gay movement jumps into the political realm and attempts to punish happy, well adjusted gays, it no longer deserves the live and let live protections.
If Randy Thomas, Alan Chambers and the like would focus their ministries on simply helping people who for whatever reason don’t feel they should be gay, then there wouldn’t be a problem.
Instead, they busy themselves at Senate hearings, giving broad brush testimonies as proof that the 98% of the gay community that IS happy doesn’t deserve any protection from the government.
You should start taking issue with that movement before you start complaining on this site.
Uhhm Peter, I think your comment should be directed to Daniel, not me.
Peter,
I believe that your statements “we don’t,” “we help” and “it works” are both overgeneralizations. And I believe you erroneously left the plural “s” off of “causation.”
Some exgay ministers obviously do feed on — and fuel — fear, guilt, discrimination and various forms of harassment. Fryrear does. Alan Chambers and Randy Thomas do. We document that regularly at XGW.
There are ministries like yours that claim not to fuel fear or guilt, but they make little or no public effort to hold the offenders publicly accountable. In fact, non-offenders (a silent majority) regularly pay or donate a portion of their own funds to the offenders, in the form of funds provided to Exodus, Focus on the Family, and other religious-right organizations.
I would like to believe your ministry is a constructive one, Peter. I would consider it constructive if it has recently done several (not all) of the following:
spoken up in favor of gay persons’ equal rights to employment, job benefits, housing, banking, medical care, healthy relationships, and government services,supported the inclusion of sexual orientation (including gays and exgays) in existing nondiscrimination legislation,decried specific politicians’ or exgay ministers’ efforts to label gay people pedophiles or threats to the family,lent support to school antibullying programs,acknowledged that sexual orientation — for most people — is not caused by bad parenting or gender confusion,emphasized that reparative therapies are largely unsuccessful in achieving permanent change in the sexual attractions of self-identified gay/exgay patients,urged other exgay organizations to state in measurable terms exactly what they do and don’t mean by “change,” rather than misleading the public with vague references to “sexuality change.”
I have no doubt that prayers and therapies addressing memory, gender identification, self-image, and relationships have a positive influence on many clients. Unfortunately, reparative therapists have either silently allowed or actively encouraged Exodus, Focus on the Family and their political allies grossly distort the definition, goal, and result of therapy — even to lie about the causes and prevention of suicide. I am not aware of any reparative therapists who have protsted their colleagues’ political exploitation and harassment of gay/exgay individuals.
If you know of courageous ministries or therapists who speak out against the religious right, I would love to know about them.
Mike, while I am completely in your camp, I do not agree about the last three items on your list. I think Peter can be involved in a very compassionate ministry without those last three. I do not like that exgay ministries are more political than spiritual, and until they get away from politics, I cannot trust them or their motives. However, they rely on the idea that people are damaged by their past/parents, and exgay ministries must have that as a basis. I also think there is an underlying assumption in therapy that it is behavioral change and not psychological (so the last two are relevant). If exgay ministries are really concerned with the spiritual lives of people, I do think it is important that they do not attempt to damage further those whom they consider damaged to begin with.
Ken Spreitzer at May 20, 2005 03:03 PM
For example, most evangelicals still believe that the story of Sodom and Gomorrah is about homosexuality…
It is probable that most conservative evangelicals do. I don’t know about purported moderate or liberal evangelicals.
One of the things that I find odd about moderate and liberal evangelicals (and there are more than a few–Jim Wallis of Sojourner is one of them) is that they seem to be unwilling to take on the conservative evangelicals regarding equal rights for gay people. Why that is has been a mystery to me. Perhaps they, at base, agree with the conservatives, but are unwilling to say so up front.
A couple of months ago, I heard Wallis (sp?) on WBUR (a Boston public radio station) talk about equal marriage rights for same-sex couples. While he did not reject equal marriage rights from the beginning, he suggested convening a panel to investigate the issue. You know, at some point, this gets to be a bit silly. What is there to be investigated? And this fellow–Jim Wallis–is purported to be a liberal evangelical. He sounded more like Ross Perot with his suggestion of appointing an expert panel. These people should grow up and take a stand. We can debate the stand that they take, but until they take a stand, there’s nothing that can be debated.
It seems when we look at the exgay ministries we see a two tiered set up. There are the local ministries, the small one on one groups, that appear not to be at all political. Then there are the national organizations, and the more heavily publicized local groups, which appear to be a firm part of the extreme right wing.
It seems that the apolitical groups pay no real attention to the politics. Which makes sense; they just aren’t interested and don’t know much about it. Perhaps there are ministry leaders who have spoken out against the right wing takeover in private forums.
I always though Anne Heche was a nut. And now apparantly she’s ex-gay. Or at least her mother is going to be part of the Seattle “Love Won Out” conference.
https://press.arrivenet.com/pol/article.php/646635.html