The widely assumed intent of Focus on the Family’s exgay road show, titled “Love Won Out,” is to inspire compassionate conservatism and sexual purity in families and churches that struggle with the issue of sexual orientation.

But Joseph Nicolosi’s speech to these families in suburban Maryland a week before Father’s Day was not inspiring.

Steve Boese attended, and recalls the good and the bad — in particular, how Nicolosi used the exgay soapbox not so much to inspire chastity and family unity, but to advertise his own persistent sins of word and deed as though they were virtues.

If you were a struggling religious family, would you want to hear a psychologist offering sound advice about mental and sexual health, depression and addiction treatment, abstinence, and suicide prevention — or would you prefer to suffer for 45 minutes through an Ann Coulter wannabe venting his personal gripes against mental health professionals, assertive wives, politically incorrect words such as “gay,” tolerant parents, and men who allegedly are not as masculine as Nicolosi presumes himself to be?

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