Subtitle: A Biblical and Compassionate Response to Same-Sex Attraction (part2, part3)
“Wouldn’t it be great if this book could be a one-stop resource?” So we selected the main topics associated with homosexuality —theological, clinical, social, political, and familial—then solicited contributions from a variety of authors with specific expertise. The result is a comprehensive guide providing biblically based insights into the many issues the subject raises. [p16-emph in original]
There is much ground to cover here. The book is nearly 500 pages long and most of the information contained is an organized conglomeration of things we’ve been hearing for years and rebutted ad-nauseum. However, there are many studies, statistics and sources I am unfamiliar with that are in need of investigation by the “militant homosexual activist” slueuths among us.
In regard to that, and to their credit, they’ve not only put the footnotes at the end of each chapter, but also (in addition to website urls) list the page numbers of the books they cite from.
Joe Dallas and Nancy Heche are listed as the general editors. Though most of the book is written by Joe Dallas and Nancy Heche, contributing authors are listed as: Alan Chambers, Paul Copan, Melisa Fryrear, Mike Haley, Bill Maier and Randy Thomas.
All of whom, with the exception of Paul Copan (to my knowledge), are or were speakers at Love Won Out conferences:
Love Won Out: Christian experts will address everything from why some people struggle with homosexuality to practical ways the church can respond with the truth and grace of Christ. Whether you are a parent or friend of a gay loved one, a pastor or therapist looking for help to assist those struggling with unwanted same-sex attractions…
Given the number of contributing authors, this book is riddled with contradictions. Some small, some galaxical.
IMNSHO, the willingness of the authors to participate in the construction of this manifesto makes them party to everything that is said by everyone else. I say this because there is some serious ugliness contained within these pages. (Note: If any of them publicly denounce their involvement with this book I will eat my sock.)
[This following section is mostly a description of what Exodus International stands for, and is meant to put the contents of this book in perspective. Those of you who’ve been following the war on LGBTs will be familiar with most of it.]
Love Won Out used to be run by Focus on the Family but is now in the hands of Exodus International:
Policy Statement: Exodus International is a Christian organization dedicated to equipping and uniting agencies and individuals to effectively communicate the message of liberation from homosexuality, as well as how to effectively convey support and understanding to individuals facing the reality of a homosexual loved one. [emph mine]
“Liberation” being the key word in play:
Liberation: Definition: freedom
Synonyms: abolition, deliverance, democracy, emancipation, freeing, liberty, release, salvation, setting free, sovereignty, unchaining, unshackling
A closer look at Exodus reveals that their definition of “liberation” does NOT mean liberation from same-gender attractions. When pressed, they admit as much.
Despite their insistence that their message is meant for those with “unwanted same-sex attractions,” they continue to bandy about similar implications like beads thrown from floats at a New Orleans Mardi-gras parade. And in doing so, they tip their anti-gay-agenda hand.
Same-sex attractions become “temptations.” Homosexual-being becomes “tendencies,” an “identity” and a “lifestyle.” Change becomes a “change of mind” about one’s same-sex orientation, as opposed to a change in orientation, etc.
This jumble of word-play is a carefully crafted script meant to convince a secular society and pro-gay persons of faith, that the human-sexuality of LGBT persons is no more than a chosen identity.
Now convinced that we are too confused to recognize our “God-given heterosexuality” and our love for our partners as “counterfeit,” the voting public can now look upon our efforts to gain equal protection under the law as misguided at best.
In their (the anti-gay industry*) quest to validate their “deeply held religious beliefs,” they regularly use mistruths, distortions, omissions and bald-faced lies to prop up their criminally unsound arguments. It’s as though none of them have ever learned how to operate a search engine.
[* “family” and “traditional marriage” groups like Focus on the Family, the American Family Association, the National Organization for Marriage, the Family Research Council, et al]Those who rely on these anti-gay “family” organizations to do their leg-work for them are another matter.
Some of them are indeed hateful bigots. Addicted to pride, they’re always looking for ways to increase their sense of superiority. And some of them are just too busy working and providing for their families to vet the information these “family” groups feed them. After all, these groups are run by “Christians,” so they must be trustworthy.
Like the politically motivated ex-gay movement, they too are pawns of the anti-gay industry.
—
In the introduction [p9], they acknowledge that concerns about “sexual morality” are in addition to concerns about “terrorism, poverty, violence” etc., and not in place of them.
Also, the words moral/morality, used to characterize “homosexual behavior” are sprinkled throughout like powdered sugar on a race-track sized doughnut (diabetics beware). And as usual, absolutely no explanation is given as to how consensual relationships/sex are in conflict with the Golden Rule–Jesus’ only* command.
[* Technically He gave two commandments; To love God first and to love your neighbor. But if you love God then you love Love, and by natural extension you would love your neighbor.] —I don’t recall an instance of the Bible being described as inerrant. Instead, the word “authoritative” is used.
Argument From Authority: the claim that the speaker [authors of the Bible] is an expert, and so should be trusted.
To utilize it in a sentence:
Joe Dallas: We regard both the Old and New Testaments as authoritative, much like Paul the apostle did when he affirmed:
All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness (2 Timothy 3:16) [p11]
It’s also circular logic: How do I know that the Bible is authoritative? Because the Bible tells me that it’s authoritative.
I’m not passing judgment on the accuracy of the Bible, but I find it reprehensible to carry out a world-wide crusade—based SOLELY on belief—to convince others that an entire group of people are morally inferior.
Which brings me to another point in regard to those who claim that their beliefs are Biblically-based. I’ve been sparing with anti-gay activists since ’04 and I’ve almost never heard the words “eternal hell” uttered. One would think it would be a priority to warn we “godless sodomites” of such a grave threat.
—
Expectedly, the “clobber passages” are overused to the point of cliché. But I consider the use of this one to be especially egregious:
If a man lies with a man…They must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.
So, not only must gay men be murdered, but being murdered will be our own fault.
Classy.
—
Joe Dallas: If we weren’t created, and therefore answered to no creator, we might judge the rightness or wrongness of our behavior by its rightness or wrongness in our own eyes. [p12]
One of their favorite memes, the notion that one needs to be told (namely by the Bible) the difference between right and wrong.
So blind to our “sin” are we that we refuse to see that our calling in life is to despise our own nature so much that we feel compelled to live celibate loveless lives in order to please a god who obviously didn’t see this coming before it created us…
—
Nancy Heche, the other general editor.:
My interest in homosexuality can be traced to my 25-year marriage to a man who, unbeknownst to me, was living a secret second life as a homosexual. It was his AIDS diagnosis (and eventual death) that finally brought our the truth. Years later, I would be dealing with this issue again from a more public perspective as my daughter, actress Anne Heche, embarked on a well publicized lesbian affair [with Ellen Degeneres]. I have recounted these experiences more fully in my book The Truth Comes Out. [p13]
—
It was apparent that some of the authors, some of the time, took great pains to live up to the “love” part of “speaking truth in love.” I admire the effort, but when it came down to it, it was still just candy coated toilet contents.
In the intro, Dallas says:
Wouldn’t it be great if we could equip Christians to discuss this subject intelligently and with confidence? [bold in original]
…We hope the Christian activist … will be empowered to field the tough question and argument that’ll be thrown his way. [p17]
Not to be left out, he says this about us:
Openly gay and lesbian readers seeking to know our position will scan these pages as well, and while they’ll dispute much of what’s written here, we hope they’ll at least find it to be reasonable, clear, and respectul. [p11 bold mine]
Too many things wrong with those statements to address right now. I hope to go over more of the specifics in future installments. Until then, I’ll leave you with this (An essay well worth reading in full):
Tom Cantine: Herein lies the most obvious moral danger of religious faith. In taking themselves to be guided by divinely ordained commandments, theists may be tempted to relax the rigor with which they scrutinize their actions, and are thus capable of the most unspeakable atrocities. That is, secure in the faith that God wills a certain course of action, they may be prepared to disregard any suggestion (even from their own consciences) that this may not in fact be the morally correct thing to do. … Unfortunately, it is also often a tenet of faith that to question God is itself an immoral act, and so it can become especially difficult to correct a moral error once it has been made on these grounds. This is because the difference between questioning a command of God and questioning one’s own understanding of that command is a subtle one, not at all easily recognized, and harder yet when any doubt is seen as weakness of faith and therefore sinful in itself.
…This pride is uniquely difficult to identify, for it is well cloaked in the garb of pious humility. What makes it so elusive is that it appears as a faith in God, when in reality it is a misplaced faith in one’s own judgment. It may well be that God is just and perfect and incapable of error, but we most certainly are none of these things, and to act with the firm belief that one is in perfect harmony with God’s perfectly just wishes is to lose sight of that truth. Indeed, the person who acts in this way is guilty of the greatest pride, for she puts her moral judgment on a level with God’s. She claims to know with absolute certainty that which can be known only to God. The faith here, then, is not in God at all, but in the individual’s own reliability in knowing God, and if we understand idolatry as the sin of ascribing divine significance to a human artifact, the pride involved is idolatrous when the individual believes her knowledge to be perfect in this regard.
More to come.
Fascinating. After being one in the deeper trenches with all the blathering and feeling the personal attacks head on, I recently came up with a golden rule for myself that has saved me considerable duress. It reads; One who deifies blind faith at the expense of God-given reason has beyond measure, taken a fool for a friend.
It makes things easier to process, though living in California with our bumpiest of equality roads, well, I still have my days.
I often wonder how people who grew up from birth with public discrimination ie blacks, differ from us who are older and gay and had it hit us later in life, kind of like a blind sided hit with a 4×4. I had not experienced active open or even privatized discrimination until gay marriage. Either way I’m sure a discrimination experience could never be trivialized.
As I am not a ‘reader’, I appreciate the way you broke things down in this article. It made it easy to digest.
Hello, iDavid!
The last paragraph is why I find so much analogy to my experience as a black woman with what gay people struggle with. There might be subtler forms of bigotry that are no less devastating. But the insensitivity my most people to that experience is what is remarkable. When you try to explain it to those who never experienced it, I’m annoyed at how quickly your experience is dismissed, rather than you given the respect that your experience is valid and worth learning about if only to learn about how damaging such things are.
I read an article recently that I sent to David Roberts regarding how people’s behavior changes when they are wearing counterfeit designer wear as opposed to the behavior of those wearing the real thing.
And I was struck by how much their results could describe and ex gay.
What they found is that those who wore the knockoffs, engaged in more distrustful behavior and lying.
It’s part of that kind of attitude of people who want to be a part of the social elite who will inflate their own accomplishments, their material wealth or wear the clothes and try to drive the car to appear more successful than they really are.
In short: ex gays are trying to keep up with the hetero Jones’s.
And in their minds they are taught that their goals are for a higher calling and nobler reason, their path to doing so is at the expense of something much more important.
But they are taught and told that being hetero is so imperially important, the other things can and rightly be abandoned.
But as we know, there is little integrity in passing for something you are not as long as there ARE serious consequences to those who share your background. Ex gays know the consequences, and have suffered those consequences before the attempt to change.
But one will do anything if someone invokes God as a reasonable means to attain what you want.
And the ex gay is told it’s what THEY want and of course, all the straight people forcing this don’t have to care about what’s lost in the process. THEY lose nothing. They aren’t affected one way or the other.
As I’ve said before, ex gays lose their individuality after a fashion. They are no longer themselves, so much as what the ex gay industry has molded them into. They are factory born and say the same things, do the same things and eventually aren’t too discernible from each other in thought and sometimes appearance.
The comfort zone is complete. But it’s a tiny place. So tiny, there is little room for that person’s individuality, let alone people who are different from themselves.
I suppose because of the extent and power of the Christian culture it feels like there is a wealth of difference and so on.
But not in the ex gay world. They are on a tight leash. They have handlers and people who don’t want them to reveal the fraud that such an industry really is.
It is tiresome beyond belief that so many Christians have an unrelenting and indefatigable agenda. It’s like the bombardment won’t allow you to be yourself, think for yourself or have a life other than what the church tells you to have.
And when they complain about being silenced, or restricted in anyway as an affront to their freedom, it IS laughable and so incredibly inconsiderate and selfish.
That’s what I mean by why don’t some of them shut the fuck up once in a while and let someone breathe their own air?
That’s what I mean by them not having the grace to leave it for five minutes for someone else to have a chance to NOT be under so much onslaught.
And their focus is so laser intense on ONLY gay people at this time. I don’t see any of them taking bullhorns to Wall St. and protesting the sin of usury. Even though it HAS put our nation in serious economic straits.
I don’t see the family orgs putting focus on the economic downturn that’s destroyed so many families AND created a social situation that makes it harder for people to marry and have kids.
And I don’t see them publicly, and loudly doing their utmost to prevent domestic violence and making people aware of just how widespread it is.
If they did for domestic violence, what they’ve been doing to prevent gay couples from marrying, I wonder what our society would look like.
So yes, as a black woman, a minority in America: I find this attack on an already maligned minority essentially appalling. Just like the Jews of the world, there is an insult in the constant assumption that Jews or gay people are undeserving of existence. The assumption that there is morality in tyranny of any kind is more than misguided.
It’s evil.
And if Hitler had been successful in his plan to rid the world of Jews, then how would anyone know who they have been and who they really are?
And with hetero agendas to do the same with gay people, how will anyone really know or understand gay people if they are not here to speak for themselves?
The ex gay industry is an evil enterprise on it’s face because it exploits fear and ignorance and employs profound separation.
Just like all the other hierarchies that have done so against others. Using also, religious motives as noble to their cause.
I don’t want to live in a world with everyone walking and talking alike, especially knowing how they got that way. I don’t want to live in a world where gay people become even more rare than they already are.
Or a world with all Christians, all the time. And any Christian that thinks that I’m slamming them by saying that. Are only feeding the arrogant fiction that others are not meant to be.
well i’m american and atheist with citizensip equal to theirs. and since we live in a *secular* country, i win.
https://www.nobeliefs.com/pagan.htm
Thanks so much for working on this, Patrick. This is great to have on the site.
demonyc-that is a great link. Thanks for the post.
Hey Regan, Hello to you too.
I guess when you have a God that kicks his two first human creations out of their home like a two bit landlord availing no second chances, wipes out entire cities of men women and children for a few not being polite to strangers, then sends his only “son” to pay for the sins of the past by killing him like a gang leading street thug, one has to wonder why we even doubt the antics of the Christian right to carry HIS torch on the masses at every turn. It’s tradition donchyaknow.
On top of Jesus paying for the sins against Abraham’s “father” we have been paying ever since with 10% of our income. Since when does a tyrannical jackal produce a perfectly peaceful “son”? And all of it is at best, a total fantasy with fraud so endemic, the most moderate Christian still believes it, or, religion would be toast.
I like pulling things out by the roots, and I believe here is the root of discrimination that you and I suffer from. And ex-gays (fraud at it’s finest) are no less a pawn. Dallas and Hecke are right in “God’s” forefront with this current book, doing his deceptive bidding quite well for others who are also entrapped in God fraud. Why futz around with the “details”?
The “truth” is when you boil it down, the Judeo Christian God is a tyrannical sex and money monger wielding the biggest sword of all, perfectly orchestrated guilt perpetrated by attack and fraud. But of course, NEVER FORGET! He LOVES you.
iDavid, I think when you look at the scriptures as literature, you understand the stuff that doesn’t make sense a little better. After all, a “perfect” character is a BORING character!
I’ve gotten reacquainted through Facebook, a young man I first met online in Matthew’s Place. An online meeting place created by Judy Shepard.
He lived in a small town in Pennsylvania and was struggling with coming out to his very religious family.
He especially touched me and I printed out his comments and all the emails we had between each other. He was between 15 and 18 when all this happened. I found the hard copies of our exchange and let him know.
He’s a healthy, happy man in a relationship with another man and he’s enjoying a very fruitful job that allows him travel up and down the east coast. And his family situation is much better than in those times he was a teen. With his pastor even going so far as to come to the boy’s house with a goon squad to intimidate him about his orientation.
I want to say something about being a straight mentor to gay youth. And how hard it is to do it so far away from someone who needs the support.
I have been duly scrutinized and my background carefully examined. I’m not a mother, I have no close relatives except a first cousin who is gay.
So my motives and experience, understandably, required building serious trust. Especially with vulnerable youngsters.
In my hometown, many who were homeless and where I volunteered, were living in places like Covenant House or foster care.
There is no religious ideology, no belief….that deserves to trump the commitment, love and protection of one’s own parents and family.
None.
I can’t accept a parent who will let a preacher give them permission to abandon their child to the unknown.
Flesh and blood deserves the acceptance. Especially with something like this because the kids I’ve known have been GOOD kids. Eager and interesting and most of all, affectionate.
If I can imagine being a parent, I wouldn’t give up that kind of affection and the acceptance that children have for their parents, for anything in the world.
My friend reminded me of what life was like for him, and the difference being SOMEONE accepting him and understanding him, however far away.
Exodus would have put that boy through years and years of more of what he’d already known. The idea of that happening makes me angry and protective.
Very. Protective.
All the kid needed was someone listening and believing HIM.
Amazing how little I had to give, considering what I got back.
I wish the people pushing the ex gay conversion would consider that for just two minutes.
They think what they are doing is WORK. Something that takes a lot from them. And requires dollars to do it.
I know it’s bullshit.
I know what kind of outreach really works and what really matters.
But it’s not the gay person who is consulted on this, right?
Several of my young friends had close calls already. Things that gave ME sleepless nights and hours and hours of staying on the phone with them trying to undo the damage done by the very religious people who claim THEY are the last testament on what works and what’s good for someone like my friend.
I don’t want ex gays or Exodus or any of these people to think that some of us allies are simply nice to gay people and that’s the end of it.
Oh. No.
I am quite poised to have someone’s head on my wall.
Believe THAT.
Emily,
Funny, as Jesus was supposed to be “perfect” but still earned the title of the most popular man on earth. I’ll give you, he sure didn’t get that way by being boring. No drama = no ticket sales. Divine irony.
Now if we would have just gotten the truth of the story, that Jesus was going to turn the Jewish Zeus-God on it’s metaphorical head for the authentic non polarized God (at least Buddha got it right), instead of the lame, “yeh I’m God, now shoot me” propaganda the Sanhedrins shoved up Pilot, at least the story would have had a bit more bite.
But things worked out in the end for ticket sales as people are still smoking it like crack since birth. Look at Alan Chambers . . . could anyone be more overdue for rehab? Mind you I have no angst w Jews, some are my best friends.
Could you show me an example of what you are saying regarding lit and things making sense? How does that look in your mind?
I can’t speak for Christian scriptures; most of it seems to be an attempt at historian writing when the flaws are right there disproving that.
In the Hebrew scriptures, and in the Torah in particular, there’s a pun every other line. (In HEBREW.) For example,
In Genesis, Jacob – whose name is Yaakov in Hebrew – is so named because it comes from the word for “heel,” and he was grasping at his twin brother Esau’s heel when they were born. But later on, Jacob deceives Isaac and Esau, and usurps Esau’s eldest son birthright. At that point, Esau shouts the pun, “Yaakov Yakoveni!” which means, “Jacob, you usurped me!” (and at that point it’s revealed Yaakov’s name could actually be translated as being take from the hebrew word for “Usurp.”) It makes me think “DUN DUN DUNNNNN!” when that happens, because it’s an unfortunate twist in the story. It’s kind of soap opera-like.
There’s Hebrew puns like that all over the text. They sort of drive the story.
Ah ok.
The humor in the hell of it. Very good. That does bring up a chuckle. Thx.
Regan, I certainly see your point. It’s pretty hard to imagine, but every ex-gay has been at that terribly misunderstood point when they were younger, where your younger gay people have been and you fortunately intervened with sanity. After a certain point and age i think the older ex-gays (gays with unwanted gay wiring) go hypnotic and can not be changed away from their fixated self hatred without serious intervening circumstances. Be that as it may, I think your energy is well spent on helping those that will listen. There is no mountain you can’t move when your focus is laser clear.
Keep it up girl.
Excellent commentary! Thanks for your thoughts.@Regan DuCasse