Exodus President Alan Chambers told California’s Proposition 8 supporters last month to vote against marriage equality because it would have made it harder for him to be ex-gay.
Despite earlier this year vowing that Exodus would stay away from politics, Chambers complained that marriage equality would have made it more difficult for him to “come to the Lord,” and that young people “don’t need this obstacle in their way.”
He went on:
I’m so grateful that back in 1990 and 1991 that wasn’t something that stood in my way in coming to Christ in the way that he had me come to him. If that had been an option for me, I certainly would have chosen it …
The logic of this argument is astonishing. Essentially, Chambers admits that giving other people the choice to marry weakens his own ability to choose not to marry, and he advocates taking away freedoms – by changing the constitution, no less – in order to make his own choices easier to make. Just how weak are ex-gays if having freedom to choose placed before them makes life too difficult? Just how weak is their god if taking away people’s choices is the only way people will come to him?
This is not only an incredibly selfish principle to work from, but also unworkable. The existence of butchers makes it harder for people to be vegetarians. Bars are a hindrance to teetotallers. And how many Jews stumble because of the easy availability of ham? Is this any sort of a principle by which to change the law and deny others their rights?
Having already demeaned gays and lesbians by using his own life choices to legitimize denying other people theirs, Chambers only became more patronizing in his next comments. Quizzed by the moderator how Christians can shower gays with an “avalanche of love,” Chambers said that Christians need to have both truth and grace, and declared that gays “remember the Church as that awful, hateful place that only spoke the truth.” It is true that many gays and lesbians know Christians only as hateful, but hands up how many of us remember our former churches as places that “only spoke the truth”? Sorry, Alan. Most of us found lies, slander and myths about gays and lesbians, not truth.
Chambers’s remarks were broadcast to a large number of churches via a live simulcast on September 25. New women’s ministry leader Yvette Schneider also spoke in support of Prop 8 just a few days later, again demonstrating that the new “non-political” Exodus is still very much political.
Actually, I thought Chambers (or maybe it was Randy Thomas) admitted at one point that greater cultural acceptance for gays actually made it easier to deal with one’s homosexuality in the context of the church.
I, at least, have found that to be the case amongst my Christian friends.
OK…stop! Hold the phone. “Young people like me.” What mirror is Alan Chambers using? Where can I get one?
You know, every day I read more and more about the exgays and their “god,” it just amazes me how fickle they are. No wonder they chose to be exgay over accepting who they really are.
And why is it always about “protecting the youth?”
Here in Long Beach there are more liquor stores than there are people, and it is very common for kids to go to a liquor store to buy candy, or milk and bread ‘cuz mom gave them a few bucks for them to run an errand for her.
There are porn shops, sex on TV, violent video games, myspace sites and text messaging to entice kids to acts of violence … I can find the stats if you want, but just google it and you’ll find that most American kids are more violent compared with kids from other industrialized nations.
Google it and you’ll find our children have the highest obesity rate.
Do these people tell G-d at the time he is giving them a brain, “No thanks.”?
I almost think you need a labatomy in order to become an exgay. At least you’ll need one in order to stay in it.
Alan has made this statement before. I’m pretty it was in an NPR interview, but it might have been on a TV talk show. It seemed ridiculously immature and selfish then, and it seems even more so today. Does he imagine that everyone has forgotten his oath to stay out of politics??
Whenever I dealt directly with Alan Chambers, Throckmorton….Chad Thompson…a few of you witnessed their treatment of me.
Which was either dismissive, or at the very least, not very articulate in the way I’d expect a PROFESSIONAL to express some expertise.
You know, SHOW SOME BALLS!
Instead, they seemed to complain more about how strongly I expressed my own conscious.
And also, perhaps in the process revealed more than they could really defend.
Which is a lack of character. They couldn’t cut it as gay people, and whine when they aren’t convincing enough as whatever ELSE they define themselves.
Hey, I went through some tough times with prejudice and incredible insensitivity. Sometimes danger.
Mostly because I tend to be one or one of few blacks in an environment where they are rare.
Or the same with regard to being a woman.
And I find myself essentially in the same position as a heterosexual woman among a vivid world of gay folks.
I’m not into joining mobs, like ex gays are. And I love learning about folks.
Even taking an honest journey in learning about ex gays, I got a lot of stonewalling and perhaps my natural tendency towards analysis was too much for the phony fronts these folks tend to have.
If they just said they were weak people in dire need of some life organization and self exploration, I’d have more respect.
But too often they project that weak character onto gay folks, and use is a political fodder for the fear or control prone.
THEY capitulated and they try to sell it as piety or strength of discipline.
Girl please!
Were that true, they wouldnt join the mob in denying their former minority equal rights already long denied.
That’s like light blacks, passing for white, supporting Jim Crow.
I’ve asked what they’d think of a black person who did that. And of course, they didn’t have the cojones to even ATTEMPT to answer.
Professional ex gays don’t understand that sticky issue of trust. They don’t have it. Wondering or whining about why….are they THAT stupid too?
Gee…. Alan looks older to me.
But why shouldn’t he be allowed to take a political viewpoint? Exodus is a political viewpoint anyway. Of what need is there for a national/worldwide umbrella ministry focused on praying away the gay anyway? I’m less worried about whether Alan Chambers keeps a vow to stay politically silent as I am about what sort of response we should have for his rhetoric.
For instance, I do not think your analysis of Chambers’ logic is quite correct. It seems to me that he is saying that he would have been married to a guy instead of a woman or would not have “come to Christ” if in 1990/91 he had that option.
Frankly, on the surface his statement is a positive one for marriage for gays and lesbians. Chambers is admitting that marriage for gays and lesbians in that time would have induced in him a moral judgment in his life towards monogamy with another man. That’s quite a comment! Instead of “coming to Christ in the way that he had me come to him,” perhaps Alan would have come to Christ as many have here.
Heck, I might still be Christian if marriage for gays and lesbians existed back then. But that’s a mighty weak might.
Ok…. the dang thing has half-downloaded for me now (dialup is awful on a bad phone line). “One of tens of thousands?” Blech…
“Avalanche of love from Bible-believing Christians?” “Outbreak of revival … within the midst of the homosexual movement?” [This guy cannot even bring himself to say gay – he won’t acknowledge the realities.] Those li’l ole ladies on the side row don’t seem to really care much about Chambers; they don’t fall for Chambers’ speech about the failure of the Christian church. How can you fail a person who made a bad choice? It is about CHOICE, is it not? Bad parenting, you say? No!
As an exChristian I would like to say to Alan Chambers that I am not a angry or bitter gay man – nor do I think the gay rights movement is angry or bitter about Christianity. I have come to realize that you didn’t beat me over the head with any real truth, no “truth of scripture,” as it came to me that your club was more of a frail falsehood of the human mind. “Awful, hateful place that only spoke the truth” – what a laugh. Awful, hateful places do not hold truths and you cannot turn that around with the falsity of your Christian love for gay peoples.
Eh….
The truth? According to them? In the same book they profess “truth” from, also said a lot about not judging people. But who are they to judge what little cherry picked sentences in convenience to their agenda as the absolute truth? Would their truth include the earth being flat with a revolving sun and having slaves till the end of days? This is trully ridiculous.
One thing that immediately strikes me here is the skipping around – whether due to intellectual sloppiness or to deliberate dishonesty – in the use of terms. Chambers is asked:
Notice that the questioner refers initially to an attraction, and then jumps to the suggestion that people can walk free of an action. An attraction and an action are not the same thing. Anyone, whatever their sexual orientation, may attempt to “walk free” of sexual actions, and they may succeed, but that certainly doesn’t mean that they are “free” of their sexual attractions.
Chambers then replies:
We’re back down to tens of thousands now, although Chambers’s words “if not more” seem to indicate that he reserves the right to blow the numbers up again if he feels like it.
More importantly, freedom from what exactly? Chambers speaks of finding freedom from homosexuality. To what is he now referring, attraction or action? If he’s using the word “homosexuality” correctly, then he has jumped from the questioner’s “that particular action” back to same-sex attraction and now gives the impression that he is speaking about freedom from same-sex attraction. Is that what he really means? If so, then he’s contradicting what he has said elsewhere. He has made it plain that he continues to struggle with same-sex attraction, that he chooses daily to “deny what comes naturally” to him, and he has told other would-be ex-gays that they can expect to do likewise, probably till the day they die.
If Chambers wishes to lead this life of perpetual conflict with his natural sexual orientation, then that is up to him, but he has no right to impose it on others. For him to seek political measures to keep life difficult for those who are unwilling to lead their lives in this way, and who do not believe that God demands it of them, is indeed profoundly selfish.
I think that is a ridiculous statement. To think that same sex unions would get in the way of someone pursueing Jesus for healing… For a leader of a national ministry, that is a weak comment. Jesus is there for all of us. I am gay, and he is still here for me. The truth of the matter is, He did no heal my sexual orientation. So, I think some of the comments are right. Focus on the sexual perdators, alcohol, obesity problem, divorce. things that actually damage people’s lives.
I bet if Alan did marry a boyfriend back when he wasn’t ex-gay, he still would have joined Exodus.
Ok can anyone honestly look at Alan Chambers and say that he’s not a gay man? It’s embarrassing to watch.
Ok, so we are spending $50 million dollars (both pro and anti Prop 8), and potentially taking away the right of an entire class of people to be treated equally when it comes to marriage just so that Alan Chambers might not have been tempted to say “I do” to another man.
Is it really possible to be more self-absorbed???
So Alan is back to his old tricks. Disappointing but not surprising. Exodus serves as an arm of Evangelical anti-gay groups like Focus on the Family. Alan spouts the party line. But if folks like Alan cared more about people than propaganda and pastoral care than politics, they would welcome marriage equality for lesbians and gays. Instead they stand in a place of fear, terror even, which is not the best emotional state for thinking clearly.
From most of the straight married folks I know, once they got married, they settled down and found an increased quality of life. Many also confess that once settled, they didn’t nearly have as much sex as before they married. I mean if Exodus is so opposed to man on man and woman on woman action…
Really we have so many pressing issues in the world and we are in the midst of a HUGE financial crisis and the best way people can think of to spend their money and their time is in denying adults the legal right to marry is insane.
Its hard for me to even come to this site as of late.
It seems like such a non-issue to allow a person to be all they can be. But there are so many who flinch when the see a gesture of committed love within members of the GLBT community.
I find it INSANE that members of the “exgay” movement are actively trying to make a decision for a lifestyle they rejected!
The choice shouldnt be for the people of California even… there is no choice to make. As a follower of Christ i say shame on Christians for rejecting commitment. That seems to be a far cry from the lessons Christ taught.
Can you say “My livelihood is in danger?”
Walk away from attraction?!
Well, damn….then where is the FUN in that?
That’s the BEST part, is the attraction and then seeing if there are other cool things that are compatible with being HAPPY together.
I’ve said before, attraction isn’t rocket science….except perhaps when sometimes we DO see a friend with someone and we can’t fathom why.
But we still let people walk that journey and learn from mistakes because they ARE ADULTS.
And it takes many tries sometimes before we get to ‘the one’.
It’s not a political issue, it’s not something that can be settled or forced through amendments and other social pressure.
Mistakes have to be made even….to get to the good stuff. Where we realize our full potential with someone.
It IS a truly adult, growth oriented and deeply PERSONAL thing.
And ex gays or heterosexuals forever lecturing that they know better what gay people should do with their attractions, is laughable.
And sometimes has been tragic.
Ex gays, in my observations tend to still be arrested adults who can’t decide for themselves, ANYTHING.
They need CONSTANT coaching, validation and attention for a process that usually shouldn’t require THIS much, unless you have pathological issues ELSEWHERE also.
Blaming homosexuality isn’t the brightest way to go about rationalizing losing so much in the romance and relationship department.
When heterosexuals can’t cut it in that arena either, then what?
Attraction….that’s easy. That’s the FUN, snow day type of exhiliration.
Are you kdding me, Alan Chambers?
I knew how it felt when I first saw Yo-Yo Ma and wondered what my chances would be with him.
Or The Rock.
If I were a lesbian, I could confess to a girl crush on Reese Witherspoon.
Ex gays insufferably assume they are oh so smart and above such trifling ways as ‘attraction to their same sex.’
But I can testify, that such arrogant assumptions that it’s THEY who should be in charge of directing another persons actions and attractions reminds me all over again, how deeply stained their logic and focus is.
Actions teach us about ourselves, and teaches others about us enough to give us sound and really caring support.
Ex gays are NOT the people their community thinks they are, so therefore the support would be inappropriate to specific enough needs.
And if ex gays want a pat on the back that it’s a sign of serious commitment to cover oneself in the heterosexual attraction pen…..it’s really another kind of failure simply transferred.
And that failure is to understand the authentic self and present it to the world.
Alan Chambers at least knows that judgement on that will be harsher and less supportive for gay men.
But he wasn’t deep enough in character to deal with it and come out winning judgement on himself.
What man has EVER offered to marry Alan Chambers???
Oh. No answer. A name? No… never told.
(wow–what a catch: an unattractively self-hating, lying, very-anti-gay Exodus Jesus Freak at the age of 17/18… yeah, marry me!)
Alan — you are a fake. A fake who makes an income by lying.
The saddest thing is… some day soon enough… his children will discover they can google his name in the public library.
God help them, at that time.
Hi
My name is Samson. I decide to write becase I was watching the vide which Mr Chambers appear in and got my attention because I never had met a “ex-gay-man” before. I just want to say that if he says that he is not gayman anymore by the power of Jesus Christ, he still looks like a very gay man. He talks and has gestures as real “sissy” man. With all respect that Mr. Chambers deserve I personally think he is still a gay man. I believe in Jesus Christ with all my heart and my soul, I do believe he died for me and God resurrected him at 3 day and I can give my own life for it. I dont believe Jesus teaching us to take away rights of people(about prop 8).
But the reason some gay persons seek such treatment to be straight in the first place, is not because they actually want to change who they are. Some (no thousand as Mr. Chamber says) gay persons seek such extreme treatment only when the self-loathing that goes along with being gay in our gay unfriendly culture has gotten to an unberearable level. Shameful selfloathing is not intrinsic to being a discrimination of GLBT persons. Prejudiced treatment from birth to death leaves gay persons with damaged self steem. The message they get is ” Im not normal. Im sick bad and wrong for being who I am” even worse ” I am a error” as christians teach.
I am not a gay person. I dont to be one to know gay people never change who they really are. They are trying to change is all the hardship that come with being gay not being gay itself.
What gay person need most is therapy that affirms they are loved by God, so they can create a fulfilllin life for themselves as gay persons. God never play diced with people, never.
Mr Chambers really believes that his homosexuality kept him from God? He must worship a very different god than mine. My God doesn’t discriminate based on who people love; he simply commands that we love others as we love him. I feel sad for Mr Chambers that he was loved all along and misled by bigots to believe that his God hates.
You know, I consider myself a fairly generous woman, but I’m not giving up the best thing that ever happened to me so that Alan can maintain his house of cards. This is seriously the screwiest anti-SSM argument I have heard yet. I have heard a few that I thought couldn’t be topped for sheer screwiness, but Alan delivered.
True story: A couple years ago, I got into a surfing accident and had a concussion. I surfed right into a sailboat that was too close to shore. I didn’t break a bone because I held my board up–that broke instead. I went to the nearest hospital. The doctor was disputing my wife’s right to stay with me. (The legal aspect of our marriage had been invalidated, and we didn’t think we’d need our medical powers of attorney on that trip. Boy, do we know different now.)
Apparently at one point I passed out for a couple minutes, scared everyone, woke up babbling nonsense, and scared everyone worse. I remember crying and causing a scene when my wife took a step away. Thank all the Gods that a gay-friendly nurse advocated for us both.
I tell that story to tell this story. I related all this to an opponent in a debate about SSM. Her response was: “Why don’t you just give up surfing?” It was the “just” that killed me. She totally missed the point. It could have been a bus or cab hitting me or something–the point was that my wife and I had to fight way too hard at a very low and vulnerable time. But to her, a straight woman who didn’t like the water, it was all so damned easy. “Just” give up surfing. “Just” go with a man since I’m bi. “Just” literally straighten up. Not her who had to make those sacrifices.
Alan is trying to convince people like her that he could “just” go straight, at others’ expense. Ultimately he hurts himself, but he’s going to hurt a whole lot of other people, too. And his argument is as cruel, ignorant, and selfish as asking a woman-loving woman to “just” quit surfing rather than challenge medical homophobia and fight for equal marriage rights.
Happy Samhain/Halloween/weekend to all y’all!
I hadn’t watched the video before I posted my comments. But now that I have, he’s really a pathetic creature of no virtue whatsoever.
He makes me VERY ANGRY!
Tell you why.
Who the HELL does he think he is?!
Who the hell do those people in the audience think he is?!
I’m watching a person, presented before an audience that believes itself custodians of people they don’t care to really KNOW.
They sit there, oh so confident that THEY know who they are, who they are dealing with and that they know best for a whole group of people…who I doubt were in the room with them.
And all the while I’m thinking…these people are building a political movement on something not there.
I got that creeping feeling about the Orwellian future where people are not being told or are hearing anything but what they WANT to hear, but what is’nt really there.
The hypnosis is complete. THEY aren’t there either. Not in the fully engage conscious way, but in a way that they are not at all challenged.
when that minister mentioned ‘what burdens his heart’, he couldn’t have cared less about the consciousness of gay people, but in what way he could maintain dominance of the information that is put forth about gay people.
There is NOTHING NEW there that’s being told to him. There is nothing revelatory that he, nor Alan Chambers hadn’t already heard or what’s been planned for gay people all along.
They just don’t want to look like the ugly, lying, control driven, totalitarian pricks they are WHILE DOING IT.
In other words, Alan, he’s saying is: what do we do to entice people without them really knowing what we have planned for them?
It was creepy. Alan looks like someone with so little personality and consciousness, yet he’s placed himself in the position of speaking for ‘tens of thousands’ of people.
Yeah, he’s JUST the right hole to be talking out of. Heteros in that audience just LOVE some mild mannered, don’t make me think for myself or challenge your authority type gay person to speak for ALL gay people.
Alan’s crack at ‘the bitter gay community’, made me want to kick him.
Of COURSE that same tame face is just saying that unlike OTHER gay people, HE has himself under control and can be JUST like the heteros in the room.
Alan IS weak. He’s weak, cheap and because of who he’s willing to sell out….the worst kind of coward and suck up.
I don’t think I could ever be civil to an ex gay again, who IS so politically active against gay people.
LIke I always say, and ask them. What would THEY think of a light black, passing for white, that supported any Jim Crow like laws against black people?
It has nothing to do with walking in Christ, but everything to do with maintaining distrust and fear and exploiting it in the worst way and growing strong on it.
I’ve just watched this video again. Apart from the dishonest verbal juggling, to which I’ve already called attention, do you know what makes me really want to puke? It’s that sanctimonious talk about “a massive avalanche of love” towards “those struggling with homosexuality”. As soon as people start talking like that, you know what they really mean. It reminds me once again of this dialogue in Strindberg’s play, The Father, between Margret, the “born-again” nurse, and Adolf, the Captain:
Well put and sadly, sadly true in my experience with the ex-gay, anti-gay movements.
Wow…after listening to Alan…and now listening to everyone’s comments, I am really glad that I do not distinguish myself with any of you…whew!
You are all the same as Alan…judgmental…and you come across polar opposites of Alan. You say he is weak…whining…and you all come across as angry…hateful. When you become the extreme from another person, you end up becoming quite similar.
One day…I hope that this stops…this banter…this arguing, this hateful speech…on both sides.
Okay…I don’t get it either…I have plenty of gay friends who love and accept me…and vice versa. I love them, even though I once identified myself as a gay man, and no longer do, and am very happy and not suppressing anything. When I was gay…and in a partnership (long term) and living common law, I had the same rights as a married couple (where I lived). We didn’t want to get “married” because it proved nothing…it didn’t make us better or “holier, and since we had all the rights and freedoms of a married couple…we didn’t do it. We also looked at the statistics of heterosexual marriages and thought…”we want that?” We realized there is a deeper issue other than marriage…in regards to every relationship.
I don’t believe if I did get married it would have made it harder for me to walk away either. It happened…end of story…or beginning of one…depends on how you look at it.
Again, I cringe most times when I hear both sides…going off about each other…because it is scary how similar you all sound!
So your argument is against marriage in general? Aside from a general tone of arrogant piety and a desire that everyone play nice, this is the only cogent point I could find in your comment.
Just for the record, while I don’t know about where you live, the common law issue does not work in the United Sates for same-sex couples. Couples together for 50 years have no more legal rights or privileges than those who just met.
It is scary. But upon closer inspection, you’ll find a significant difference.
Only one of us has room for the other.
I think “walking away” from your sexual orientation is like “walking away” from your shadow. You can put it behind you so that you can’t see it anymore, and when you run really really fast you can pretend that you’re outrunning it. But in the end your shadow is always there whether you see it or not. As long as there’s a sun in the sky, your shadow will be a part of you. And really, your shadow doesn’t hurt you at all, it’s just there. So why would anyone want to “walk away” from it, anyway?
Wow…. just had to come back and say how much I like Emily K‘s previous thoughts. Afterall, walking away from your shadow always puts you on such a narrow path and there is so much to see and experience in the world around us. Though there is that analogy of walking into the light…. but that will only get you overly-tanned/sunburned on one side, make your eyes tear up, all sorts of nasty…..
To kenneth: Or in words other than that of Emproph‘s, we’re fighting for our lives and our families to be included in the American experiment. Chambers is fighting to exclude us from his decidedly unAmerican experiment.
(I transcribed that video if anyone needs to reference it for quotes.)
—
Personally, Alan, I’m livid. Angry and bitter doesn’t begin to cover it.
—
And in spades:
If Prop. 8 fails, Alan Chambers will have no other option but to fall in love with a man and enjoy it.
Clearly, we should all give up the best thing that ever happened to us to prevent this from happening.
I forget about that Chambers’ quote. Sure he respects that human right, in a pig’s eye! You can put lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig. Chambers tries to sugar-coat his exclusionary talk, but it is still that exclusionary, harmful, and perhaps thus hateful.
I think that the anti-marriage movement will actually hurt gays from being converted to their form of Christianity. Why even talk to these guys if you feel they are trying to hurt you and the ones you love.
There Alan goes again – trying to invoke “diversity” and “tolerance” as a justification for his advocacy of oppression.
This is exactly what many of the white supremacists are doing these days – they’re not calling themselves “supremacists” anymore; instead saying they are “racialists” and that they just want to “preserve their white heritage.” They don’t “hate” anyone, they say.
Ex-gays are using the same strategy (whether they know it or not) – they’re just trying to “preserve what’s traditional” – they’re not “against” gays.
God I love being “tolerated,” Alan. Thank you, Alan Chambers, for tolerating me.
Tolerance is for bugs, not for human beings, and closets are for clothes, Alan.
It all boils down to the question, “What must I do to be saved?”
I’ve always admired the fundamentalist protestant approach to salvation in that it always sounds like an info-mercial. It sounds too good to be true and often is. Every church I have visited outside the realm of Orthodoxy has a simple message, “Believe Jesus Christ is your personal Lord and Savior, accept him into your heart, and you will be saved.”
Like a commercial for a new drug, you get to see all the wonderful things this will do for you, then at the very end, as fast as lighting, they give you the side effects. And all of a sudden they start to add conditions to salvation AFTER you’ve signed the contract.
I don’t mean to insult anyone whose faith is liken to this, but as an Orthodox Christian I have to go with how the Orthodox Churches handle this one (and to the Jewish community as well). If you want to become an Orthodox Christian or a Jew, you have to take classes and LEARN everything important about the faith. You are encouraged to ask questions and when a certain period has passed, you make a decision as to whether or not you accept that faith.
In the fundamentalist protestant world, the one which Alan Chambers lives in, you have to “order now” … you can’t wait to learn anything. You have to be saved NOW! because if you don’t, you could be walking home and get hit by a bus, die, and go to hell for eternity.
Once you become a part of that religion, THEN they start to tell you the “thou shalts” and the “thou shalt nots” and the belief is, since statment A is true (You have to be saved by believing in Christ) then the statements that follow it must be true also, and if you doubt them, you doubt the Bible aka you doubt God aka you really don’t believe in Christ aka you’re going to hell.
So Alan Chambers has to say what he says in order for his seat in heaven to be presevered (or so he belives). Even if it goes against the teachings of Christ himself, he is to adhere to his religious body’s interpretation of scripture at all cost. And if there are any contradictions between the religious body’s interpretation of scripture and the actual words and deeds of Christ, they simply state that those who claim there is such a thing are “of the world” and are not “of G-d.”
So as stupid as Chambers may sound, in his mind it’s as if he’s quoting Shakespeare. And if his conscience is telling him the contrary, he will simply write it off as the devil trying to tempt him into straying from his faith. Until he, and others like him, truely read, contemplate, examine, search, seek, and meditate on the Gospels, and then implement them into his life, he will just be one of many ex-gay puppets being used to spread the false doctrine that God only loves gays when we act heterosexual and do heterosexual things.
Alan S,
I think you have an excellent point. I was raised in the RCC and while I don’t go to church now, I consider myself certainly a spiritual person, if no longer officially Catholic. When I attended church as a child and young adult, catechism (I didn’t go to a Catholic school) was very important. The thing I loved about the Catholic Church was that fact that serious study of the scriptures, not finding backup in the bible for what you already believe, was important.
I am a scholar by heart, and I have a lot of trouble understanding when you are expected to believe something, just because the bible says so. I didn’t accept “Because I said so” from my mother and I still don’t today. I’m not saying that I must have scientific evidence for every verse, I believe that there is a G-d who loves us and sent his son down to remind us that, but the bible is a book that was written and translated many years ago by people.
That being said, I put any comment, lecture, and speech through a filter of common sense. I can’t find any common sense reason why allowing me to marry the man I love and have been with for the last 11 1/2 years keeps him from being an ex-gay. Sometimes the “logic” of these people makes me dizzy. Your comment about how he has to frame his logic through the filter of his religion makes me sort of see why he might come to this point, but anyone who uses such twisted logic to get to this conclusion really seems desperate to me. Again, I have never been in his position, as many who post here have, so maybe I need to be a little more understanding of where he is in his life right now.
Alan S. is right about conversion to Judaism. I was just thinking about this today! I think I’ve met more people who are “in the process of converting to Judaism” that have already converted. They are attending synagogue, they are studying with a rabbi or somebody knowledgable, and taking it step-by-step. You can’t just take a dunk in the Mikveh and “bang” you’re converted. And since our faith says you don’t need to be Jewish to be “saved” (although i’m sure “saved” to us Jews means something quite different than the Christians who say it), conversion is not something pushed by us. In fact, it’s the opposite – we discourage it, so that only those who really are truly inspired by the faith take it on.
Hi there, nice to hear some sensible voices in the combox. What a screwy cultic business this exgay movement is!
Militant Homosexual Activist: Alan, I’m praying for two things. The Lord began to really burden my heart with this about ten days ago, very intense, and it came very strongly. Number one, is that there be an avalanche of love from the godless homosexual community to those struggling with homophobia – a massive avalanche of love. Secondly, there be an outbreak of revival, inexplicably, within the midst of the homophobic community. Now talk to us about the first one. Coach us, how do we do that?