Justin Lee, the director of the Gay Christian Network, has published an official statement concerning the unscheduled appearance of Exodus President Alan Chambers’s at the GCN conference in Orlando, FL, last week. Read this initial post and the ensuing comments thread, as well as this follow-up thread, for the backstory. Justin has given Ex-Gay Watch permission to reproduce his apology here in full:
Official Statement from Justin Lee
By now, many of you have heard about a public meeting I had last weekend with Alan Chambers, the president of the world’s largest ex-gay ministry.
The meeting generated a lot of controversy for a lot of different reasons. That controversy, in turn, spawned a lot of rumors.
Among the rumors I’ve heard:
- That I invited Alan Chambers to be a surprise speaker at the GCN conference.
- That GCN has softened our stance against ex-gay ministries in the name of “bridge building” or “reconciliation.”
- That the GCN conference team and I planned an ex-gay event with no regard for the safety of ex-gay survivors.
None of these are true.
There are, however, reasonable and fair concerns being expressed about what happened, and I believe it’s important for me to acknowledge and apologize for the mistakes I made throughout this process. But it’s also important for you to know that I would never do some of the things I’ve been accused of.
So before I explain the mistakes I made, I want to put the rumors to rest by explaining exactly what happened and why. Then I want to talk about where I screwed up, and what I’m going to do to make it right.
First, why this happened.
If you know me, you know that I have incredibly strong feelings about the damage that ex-gay groups like Exodus have been doing in people’s lives. I meet people all the time whose lives have been positively destroyed by ex-gay groups. When I see damage being done in people’s lives like that, I simply cannot sit still. As the executive director of GCN, I feel a responsibility to do anything I possibly can to stop that damage from being done.
But, I asked myself, what could I possibly do? Exodus doesn’t listen to me. I could write an open letter or make a public statement, but I don’t think these are very effective at changing minds. I have spoken out publicly against ex-gay therapy and I’ve addressed their problems in keynotes and conference musicals, but it’s been basically preaching to the choir. People on the ex-gay side dismiss those things as proof that gay Christians are just ridiculing them, not really interested in genuine engagement.
So last year, I decided to do something bold: I quietly and respectfully attended the 2011 Exodus conference. It was an eye-opening and painful journey for me. I saw some things that have changed in Exodus since I was involved ten years ago, and I saw many other things that haven’t. I had to hold my tongue as I watched young people being dragged to the conference by their parents and heard other people plan heterosexual marriage on the assumption that someday they would be straight—something I don’t believe will happen. It was incredibly hard to be there, but I was grateful for the opportunity.
That experience, along with hearing even more stories of lives destroyed because of ex-gay groups in the months since, further convinced me that I needed to do something as a Christian.
I began working on the idea of having a private, closed-door conversation with people connected to the ex-gay movement while I was in Orlando. This wasn’t going to be public, and it was, of course, not going to be connected with the conference in any way.
Then something unexpected happened.
Alan Chambers called me to ask, since I had come to the Exodus conference and found it meaningful, whether I would allow him to come to the GCN conference just to listen and learn.
I honestly hadn’t considered this question in advance, though I obviously should have. The question itself put me in a difficult place, as you might imagine. Either way I answered, it could have had seriously negative implications for our organization and our movement. I was frank with Alan about my concerns, and told him that while I did want him to be able to meet and hear the concerns of any fully-reconciled GCNers who would be interested in such a meeting, I also was very aware that some of our members had been seriously traumatized by ex-gay groups and could well be re-traumatized by encountering him at a GCN conference. I wasn’t willing to compromise their safety, so whatever happened, it was important to me that people who didn’t want to encounter Alan would be able to avoid that contact for the sake of their own mental health.
Alan understood, and we tabled that discussion for a while. (He ultimately decided not to put us in that position, which I really appreciated.) In the meantime, he and I discussed an alternate possibility: What if we held a special, separate, closed-door event only for GCNers who were interested in sharing their thoughts and concerns about Exodus directly with Alan?
I thought about what this could mean.
Orlando is Exodus’ headquarters. Last year, when we were in Colorado, a lot of people felt that we should have tried to get a closed-door conversation with leaders at Focus on the Family, but I never felt that they were at all interested in talking to us. Now we were going to be in Exodus’ backyard, and here was an invitation from the head of Exodus to respectfully share our grievances and concerns with him. I believed it was an important invitation to take him up on.
My vision for this event was that Alan and I would find an unused room (my suite at the hotel? one of the unused workshop rooms? a room at Exodus HQ?) during an unscheduled part of the weekend (like a meal break) to allow a small number of GCNers to participate in the conversation.
Most people at the conference, I imagined, would have little interest in meeting with Alan personally, though they might want to hear later about how the meeting went. But I was sure that there were at least a few who would want the opportunity to share their concerns and painful stories directly with him, and others who would be interested in hearing what he and I might say to each other. Only those people—the handful of people who wanted to participate or listen in on such a conversation—would be in the room, and the event would not be part of the conference schedule.
At the time, it seemed like the perfect solution. Ex-gay survivors wouldn’t have to see, hear, or encounter Alan, but those of us who were eager for such a conversation could privately engage with him and work to keep people from being hurt in the future. I also immediately added an ex-gay survivors’ meeting to the list of planned workshops for this year, because I wanted to make doubly sure that our ex-gay survivors had the support they’d need while we were in Exodus territory. (More on this in a minute.)
Who should know about it?
Even before the event was confirmed, I realized we had a major question to resolve. Should we let people know this meeting was taking place?
Originally, I thought that the conversation should be completely private. We wouldn’t talk about it publicly, and only invited people would be allowed to sit in on it. I quickly realized that wasn’t a good solution, though. For something this controversial, transparency is important. I wanted any GCNers in the area to be able to sit in on it if they chose to, not just the ones I personally knew. Keeping the meeting open would increase transparency and accountability for everyone involved, and it would ensure that if I failed to raise a point that needed to be raised, someone else would be there to raise it.
But then there was the opposite problem. If we announced it publicly in advance, we’d have a media frenzy on our hands. I wasn’t just worried about mainstream media coverage with camera crews, but also bloggers, freelance reporters, ex-gay leaders, political activists, and extremists on all sides who would want to be there, many of whom would have a motive to register for the conference and not be honest with our volunteer team about their intentions. Not only would that destroy any chance of a productive conversation; it would also seriously endanger the privacy and safety of our attendees. The further in advance we announced it, the greater a risk we’d run of this conversation (which wasn’t even supposed to be part of the conference!) overshadowing the conference and destroying the safety of the space. My #1 concern was protecting the safety of our attendees, so obviously, I couldn’t let that happen.
I wrestled with these options for a long time. Keep it private and lose transparency? Or make it public and lose safety? Neither option was acceptable, so I settled on what (at the time) seemed like the best solution: We wouldn’t make an advance public announcement, but we would notify people at the conference about it, so that if any of them wanted to attend, they’d be able to.
Also, just to ensure no ex-gay survivors got blindsided, we’d send out an advance email warning attendees of the potential attendance of ex-gay leadership and offering specific solutions for anyone who was concerned about it.
And that’s what we ultimately did. We didn’t use Alan’s name because I was still worried about the possibility of a media frenzy, but I also wanted to ensure that no one would be taken by surprise—by the conversation or by any ex-gay leader who might decide to show up.
In the email, we emphasized our concern for the safety of our attendees, and we encouraged them to reply to the message if they had any reservations at all, because we wanted to work with them to ensure that no one would be blindsided or traumatized.
What we didn’t say in the email was what the plan was for anyone who did contact us with questions or concerns: First, we would give them all the details about Alan’s possible (still unconfirmed) presence and all that had been discussed so far. Second, we would invite them to share their thoughts and concerns, and we would work with them to figure out what it would take for them to be completely safe at the conference. And finally, if they felt they would feel unsafe regardless of any precautions we took and no longer wished to attend, we would refund their registration and I was personally prepared to pay for anyone’s plane ticket or other expenses that couldn’t be refunded.
That was how we were going to respond if we got one or two responses. If more than a few people had concerns, however, we would simply take that as a sign and cancel the conversation altogether rather than risk endangering the space and GCN’s reputation. Out of the hundreds of people who received the message, however, no one called with any concerns, so we proceeded with caution.
The irony here, of course, is that by avoiding an advance public announcement, I was trying to protect the safety of the attendees, but I ended up creating the perception that we were being secretive, thereby making people feel less safe at GCN. That was a huge miscalculation on my part, and it’s something I need to apologize for. I’ll talk more about that below.
And I also made another big mistake. I assumed that as long as we were watching out for the safety of ex-gay survivors at the conference itself, we would be okay. What I didn’t take into account was how the news of the event would affect people who weren’t at the conference. I’ll talk more about that below as well.
Why the event changed
None of that would have been so bad if we’d stuck to the original plan: for Alan and me to have a closed-door conversation along with a handful of other GCNers. But as I privately discussed the idea with people I trust, I kept hearing the same thing over and over: “Oh my gosh. I want to be in the room for this!”
That’s when I began to realize there were going to be a lot of people at the conference who felt that way. As one person put it to me, “Justin, you are sitting down with Alan Chambers. The head of Exodus. This is HISTORIC. People are going to want to be there.”
I realized that whether people at the conference knew this conversation was happening in advance or only heard about it later, we’d have a lot of upset people if we only allowed a handful to attend it in person. So here’s where I made the decision that probably caused more hurt than anything else.
I decided to open the conversation to anyone at the conference who wanted to hear it.
By itself, that didn’t seem like a bad decision. But this is where all the problems came in. If we allowed anyone to attend who wanted to, that meant we’d need a bigger room, and logistically that meant we’d have to hold it in the hotel ballroom. And if people were going to be able to see, that meant Alan and I would have to be on the stage.
And that simple change of venue changed everything. If Alan and I had met as originally envisioned in a hotel suite with a small audience, I think the response to it would have been very different. But moving it to the ballroom, while it allowed more people to be there, also made it feel much more like part of the main conference, which was what we had initially been trying to avoid. Yes, we said it was an optional conversation, and yes, we scheduled it during an extended meal break, but the very nature of the event made it high-profile, and a high-profile event happening in the main ballroom during conference weekend doesn’t really feel “optional,” no matter what it says on the schedule.
Worse, having it in the ballroom gave the impression to people back home that we were inviting Alan to be one of our main speakers during a conference general session, which only added to the confusion and upset.
In hindsight, we could have eliminated a lot of the hurt and confusion by simply holding the meeting in another venue. I wanted conference attendees to be able to listen in, and I wanted to have the conversation in a space where our members could feel safe, but the unintended symbolism of having the conversation in the ballroom was ultimately just too great. For that, I am truly sorry.
What happened as a result
The response at the conference was actually really amazing, and based on what I experienced while I was there, I was initially sure we had done the right thing. The conversation took place with Wendy Gritter, Jeremy Marks, John Smid, Alan, and me. Wendy, Jeremy, and John all shared their stories of why they no longer supported the ex-gay approach. I asked a number of challenging questions, including repeatedly addressing the damage the ex-gay movement is doing and offering specific ways Exodus could agree to stop the most egregious problems. Alan didn’t say the things we all would have loved for him to say, but he also didn’t try to plug Exodus, and he did candidly admit to major issues within the ex-gay movement, including an admission that “99.9%” of people he’s met in the ex-gay movement have continuing same-sex attraction. Wendy, John, and Jeremy backed me up in pressing some of the most important points regarding Exodus’ misleading use of language, the harmful (false) promise of orientation change, and the need for more ethical standards regarding youth, particularly those being brought to ex-gay ministries against their will. The 2 1/2 hour audio from the event is fully available online (part 1 / part 2). A video of highlights should hopefully be available this weekend.
Prior to the event, we held an ex-gay survivors’ support group. I had originally intended for the support group to take place at the same time as the conversation as an alternate event, but the leaders decided to begin it earlier so that survivors had the option of doing both if they wished. We strongly encouraged people both Friday morning and Friday evening to avoid the conversation with Alan unless they were certain it would be healthy for them, and as a result, some people did choose to sit that out. I was surprised, though, by how many people decided to attend, and by the overwhelming spirit of generosity and love in that room. The event received a standing ovation, and many people chose to speak to Alan afterwards, sharing their stories and concerns with him directly.
The following day, we held two separate debrief sessions for people to share their thoughts and feelings about the prior day’s event. A number of people also shared their thoughts publicly during sharing time or privately with me or a member of our conference team. Overwhelmingly, people told us they were glad we had done it. I had multiple ex-gay survivors seek me out to tell me that being able to directly address Alan in a safe, supportive environment had been incredibly healing for them. One said it was the most healing experience he had had since leaving ex-gay ministry years ago.
Our conference team heard very little criticism of the event from conference attendees. Several people wished it had been better publicized in advance, and one young woman shared that she felt we had been too hard on Alan. Until today, neither I nor anyone I’d talked to had heard any stories about people at the conference who were traumatized by the conversation. Today, however, while working on this statement, I read an anonymous account online of someone who said he/she was at the conference and was traumatized by the announcement and left without saying anything. I’m absolutely mortified to hear that, and it breaks my heart. That was the last thing we would ever want to do. I honestly believed we had avoided that, and I wish I knew how to apologize enough to that anonymous individual. Even one hurt person is too many.
The majority of the pain, though, was back at home. I had wrongly assumed that the only people we had to worry about were the ex-gay survivors at the conference. I had completely failed to take into account the way that this news would affect people who weren’t there.
Ex-gay survivors (and others) on GCN who heard about this event online didn’t have the benefit of an advance-warning email. They didn’t get to hear my explanation of the event on Friday morning. They didn’t have a support group to attend or a debrief session after. Some of them were even under the impression that Alan had been invited as a speaker or that the point of the event was to gloss over our differences and call that “reconciliation.”
Even with all the facts, this would not have been a nice surprise for some people in our online community. Without them, it was much, much worse.
And guys, that’s where I screwed up. Big time.
It honestly hadn’t occurred to me that this conversation would be traumatizing for people who didn’t attend it, and yet it obviously was. As I’ve been reading through your many comments since getting home last night, I’m realizing that. I knew there would be some controversy and criticism, but I never, ever, ever thought we’d ignite trauma for our online community. There aren’t enough apologies in the world to express my level of regret over that.
So, to be clear, here’s where I screwed up.
I’m a firm believer that when you do something that causes hurt, even if it was entirely unintentional, you need to take ownership of your mistakes, apologize sincerely and profusely, and work hard to make things right.
In this message I’ve explained the intent of the event and why I believe a conversation like this was important. But now let me candidly acknowledge four key places where I got it wrong.
1. I didn’t acknowledge or prepare for the way this news would affect people who weren’t there. As I’ve already said, I was very concerned throughout this process about how it would affect our ex-gay survivors at the conference, but I completely failed to recognize its impact on the rest of our community. Some of you were deeply hurt by how this played out, and for that and my role in that, I am profoundly sorry.
2. I didn’t handle communication about this event well at all. At the time, it seemed unavoidable that we couldn’t announce the details of the event in advance for all the reasons described above. In hindsight, though, the #1 criticism I’ve received is that people needed more time to get all the information and prepare for this before it happened, and that’s made it clear to me that we should have found another way to address the publicity concerns without allowing it to catch people off guard. Not only do I greatly apologize for this misstep on my part; I also promise you right now that we will never again hold a surprise event at this or any other conference or retreat if there is even a hint of a possibility that it might prove upsetting or controversial to anyone in our community. Safety is our priority, and people can’t feel safe if they’re worried about being blindsided.
3. I should have found a different venue or other clear way to separate this event from the conference. Even leading up to the event, I knew it was a mistake for it to be too closely identified with the conference. (We even had debates in the office about whether it should be listed on the schedule at all or how big the font should be if it was.) At the end of the day, however, the problem wasn’t with the schedule; it was that having an event in the ballroom during conference weekend made it part of the conference, even if that wasn’t our intent. As I shared above, this was a last-minute decision that was a change from the early plans for this event, and I should know better than to make quick decisions about controversial issues like this. We tried to have a non-conference event in a conference space during conference weekend, and that only led to major problems and feelings of having GCN’s safe space violated. Again, I greatly apologize for my error in judgment here, and I promise you that we will never do something like that again.
4. I also made a huge clerical error that almost caused an even bigger problem. From the beginning of the discussion about this event, I insisted on having an ex-gay survivor safe space at the conference as an important alternative for ex-gay survivors to ensure they got the support they needed and didn’t feel any pressure to be at an event that wouldn’t be healthy for them. I put it on a list of workshops and activities for follow-up, and then I manually copied that list to a member of our staff who was contacting workshop leaders. It wasn’t until much later that I realized that I made a mistake with huge ramifications: in copying the list from my notes to the computer, I had inadvertently left off the ex-gay survivor safe space. As a result, we had to scramble about at the last minute to find someone who could lead it. Thankfully, someone stepped forward as if by divine inspiration, but the scrambling about gave the distinct impression that we hadn’t thought about it and/or didn’t care. Of all the mistakes I made, this is the one I’m angriest at myself for. All the others represent things I learned through this process, but this one is something I just plain screwed up. Thankfully, we fixed it in time, but it still damaged our reputation, and I have only myself to blame, both for the initial mistake and for failing to catch it. All I can say here is that I’m sorry.
Moving forward
At the end of the day, while some of the criticisms of me or of GCN were based on rumors and misinformation, some of them were clearly valid. I made mistakes, and those mistakes affected people, sometimes in major ways.
As GCN’s executive director, I have ultimate responsibility for these things, and I made all the final decisions in this situation. The mistakes I’ve described are my own. If you’re angry about this, please be angry at me, not any of the other wonderful people who make up this organization.
I am truly sorry for any pain my decisions may have caused. I would like to meet with each and every person who feels in any way wronged or hurt by how we went about this, either individually or as a group, and work with them to right those wrongs and move forward together. While I cannot go back in time to undo any wrong decisions I made, I can and will do my very best to find appropriate solutions to rebuild relationships and trust over time.
To be clear, I do not believe that meeting with Alan was a mistake, and I do believe that good things will continue to come out of that. The mistakes were in the issues I outlined above such as communication and preparation, and these are mistakes we will not repeat in the future.
Moving forward, we will never again have any potentially divisive surprises at the conference or any other GCN-sponsored event. We will establish new guidelines regarding internal and external communication around controversial issues to ensure nothing like this is ever dropped on our community without warning again. And I am making a personal commitment to sit down and listen to the stories of any of GCN’s ex-gay survivors who would like to share their stories with me, so that I can work with them on ways we as an organization can be more sensitive to their needs and more (appropriately) active in making a difference to stop others from experiencing the same trauma.
In Christ,
Justin Lee
Executive Director
The Gay Christian Network
What a self-serving load of codswallop.
(The first clue that such “apologies” are instead damage control is when you see the blame being directed at “communication”. Yeah, that old canard about bad communication.)
The double-speak also shows Lee still has a problem with communication.
That wasn’t a “meeting with Alan”: it was a platform for him to promote Exodus. It didn’t give “the impression” that you invited “Alan to be one of our main speakers” : he was one of your main speakers.
Dude, at the end of the day you invited Alan Chambers onto your stage. You put a spot-light on him, and you gave him a microphone. And you willingly did all this without Alan Chambers having to make any concessions, let alone apologise for the damage that Exodus has done and continues to still do.
Instead, Alan Chambers got the attention he constantly seeks for Exodus; using your conference. He got to promote Exodus by his mere presence. That’s what he cares about — advertising to potential new recruits — and Exodus simply does not give two hoots about the people who are ground to a pulp by their organisation and crawl out the exit door. All the efforts of Exodus are directed at sucking people into their sham, and their concern drops as soon as you sign the enrollment form.
There’s nothing ‘symbolic’ about enabling Alan Chambers in such a way. It’s fact.
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filed under “I started out wanting a private meeting with Alan Chambers, and somehow accidentally found him highjacking my conference”.
@Grantdale, you are welcome to your opinion about GCN and this event, as misinformed as it is, and you’re apparently free to share it here. My hope is that others will pay more attention to the facts and not create even more pain for those ex-gay survivors who find GCN a place of healing and growing safety, however imperfect.
Justin,
As both an Ex-Gay survivor and a GCN 2012 attendee – I thank you for hosting this historic discussion and was blessed by both the grace and mutual respect seen among Alan and the panelists. I wasn’t sure if I really wanted to attend this event when I heard it was happening. Alan and I haven’t seen each other in person for over 6 years when I left the Exodus/Love Won Out ministries. I suppose I had never really dreamed of facing him again, but because of this moment I had the opportunity to see him with a room full of my gay brothers and sisters in Christ to stand next to me.
My time in the ex-gay circle was very damaging, but nothing that will distract me from the lessons learned and the strength gained. That’s what this session was for me as well – tough but needed; difficult but revealing; surreal yet the most tangible moment of healing I think I’ve had from that part of my journey.
Thank you for your vision in this, your wisdom in this and your heart to understand those who found difficulty in it all. Your letter here is very clear. We appreciate your willingness to be transparent and real. Keep doing what you’re doing and leave the rest to God!
@Steve. I’m sorry, but I did not find GCN to be a source of healing. In fact, it was the deathblow to my faith.
PC – would you be able to explain further about your experience with GCN and how you feel it has hurt your faith?
GCN definitely helped push my wife even farther away from Christianity…so I totally get how it could have been the deathblow to PC’s faith.
Kori, I don’t “feel” it has hurt my faith.
@Justin
Thanks for your humble words. I too think some good can come out of the conference now and in the future.
You made one statement that I see stands out as possibly the healing mechanism for this entire sexual cultural war debacle.
That statement is:
“Even one hurt person is too many.”
My suggestion: Run with that. Emanate it. Make it your goal. Put that phrase as your biggest boldest font heading on your web sight. It’s the brilliant catch phrase that says it all.
Good going. No words were better spoken.
I think that there’s more to the story than this. If nothing else, all you have to do is read the comments on the other two posts about this to see that Justin has left out some stuff (for example, how in October he told an ex-gay survivor that bringing someone like John Smid to the conference would be inappropriate…yet come January it’s fine to put him AND Alan Chambers on a panel discussion at conference?) It’s also been my personal experience that Justin cares more about publicity than actually dealing with questions/concerns that individual members have. I base this off of a situation that arose a few years ago…when I went through the proper channels to contact Justin, I got now response….when I vaguely mentioned something about it on a Facebook status (I didn’t even mention GCN by name), suddenly my inbox was blowing up from Justin and someone who works in the GCN office.
I worry that this is just damage control…I guess that only time will really tell.
@Steve
We really do not appreciate such an cultish response.
What exactly are we “misinformed” about? Name it. Exactly.
(Did GCN provide Alan Chambers a stage? Yes, or no?)
You are doing Exodus-speak, and I wonder if you have actually disengaged from them. Your response is something Alan Chambers could have said about the evening, and that should be ringing alarm bells. At least Justin Lee had the sense to belatedly recognise, somewhat, that giving Exodus any platform does hold the in-build potential to cause harm to “outsiders”. Well, durh.
We can disagree about whether or not you should have hosted him, but please don’t pretend to yourself about why Alan chose to be there. He didn’t do it for you.
If you are waiting for Alan to apologise, if you think his opinion still matters… you are not over the damage caused by Exodus.
I hate to break this to you but the voice of Alan Chambers is poison. You don’t need his approval. You don’t need his opinion. You don’t ever need to hear him speak again. You also don’t need to support Exodus forget about it’s sordid past and you don’t need to help them re-brand themselves.
Or, do you?
Just asking.
(ps David R: we’re done on the matter. This is only going to end up in an ugly bun fight with every halfway embarrassed but nonetheless self-protective GCN person. We asked for a response, but it was rhetorical. We’ll refrain. I promise.)
@grantdale
You’re doing fine, no worries.
@justin
I accept your apology.
I thoroughly enjoyed the 2012 GCN Conference. This was my very first conference and I can’t thank you and your team enough.
All the keynotes, workshops and breakouts were absolutely fantastic!
I was totally amazed when you announced that Alan Chambers would be present; I must admit I was initially concerned about his intentions but those concerned vanished after witnessing how you and the panel members handled the discussion and questioning. This was truly an historic event and I was blessed by the outcome.
Many thanks and blessings to you and your team for the ongoing dedication and hard work in managing GCN and it’s conferences.
@grantdale
Rereading your first post, I withdraw my challenge that your opinion about how this event unfolded is misinformed. Though you insist, contrary to the facts, that Alan was one of GCN’s “main speakers” and that he “hijacked” the entire conference, I’ll grant you may be speaking hyperbolically, or perhaps you refer to the effect of this event on the GCN community (for good and for ill). Perhaps your opinion is not misinformed but only framed for rhetorical impact. Your second post, full of false assumptions about me, drips with similarly exaggerated language. That’s your prerogative, though you might ask yourself who it’s helping.
The depth of pain, emotional frailty, and bitterness caused by Exodus and the ex-gay paradigm has been poignantly expressed this week, and that’s been a learning experience for those of us who don’t share that background. So I repeat my hope, that XGW and others not create even more pain for those ex-gay survivors who find GCN and other gay-affirming ministries a place of healing and growing safety, however imperfect.
@grantdale
GrantDale, there is untruth in your statement:
“That wasn’t a “meeting with Alan”: it was a platform for him to promote Exodus.”
I was there in the conference ballroom during the panel discussion with Lee, Chambers, Smid, Gritter and Marks. Chambers at no point promoted Exodus. You may confirm this in the posted audio recordings.
Does anyone know if Justin has addressed anywhere how in October he told an ex-gay survivor that it would be inappropriate to have someone like John Smid at the conference, yet in January he thought it was okay to have Smid AND Chambers on a PANEL at the conference? I’m just seeing some MAJOR inconsistency here.
@Rhea , your summary of Justin’s earlier comment is inaccurate. He addressed this in a post to the main thread on Tuesday (Jan.17, 3:14pm).
Justin addressed it on January 17th which is indeed after Rhea first made mention of it here.
If this is too long, sorry.
The email response to Peterson as quoted by Justin:
GCN Justin said:
At the time I wrote that email, I had absolutely no idea John was going to come to Orlando or that we were even going to have a panel discussion. You asked me whether I had plans to invite John as a conference speaker with words of wisdom for the LGBT community, and I still stand by what I said then, which was that John’s message needs to be a message to the straight Christian community, not the LGBT community (Christian or not). I think his story is interesting and I’ve had several conversations with him privately, but the people we invite as keynote speakers to the GCN conference are typically people who have demonstrated that they have something important to share that will help our community grow spiritually (beyond just accepting their sexuality, which most at our conference already have). It may be that at some point in the future, John is in that place. For now, though, his journey is one that could be very powerful for straight conservative Christians and the ex-gay community to hear, but not one that I think would make him an appropriate speaker at a GCN conference.
As far as the panel goes, I was always thinking of it as a private, non-conference event, and one of the big mistakes I made was setting it up in a way that it didn’t come across like that. The panel itself was thrown together at the last minute because as I was realizing that this was potentially becoming a more public thing than I had initially imagined, I realized how important it would be to have additional voices opposing ex-gay therapy to challenge Alan, lest it appear that Alan and I were simply representing two alternate, equally valid perspectives. I decided to ask Wendy and Jeremy to join me, and then someone on our staff mentioned to me that John Smid had registered and was coming, which I didn’t know. Since he was already going to be there, I decided at the last minute to add his voice to the chorus of voices opposing Exodus’ policies, which seemed to me a much more appropriate use for his story than as a GCN conference keynote speaker. Whether that was a good or bad decision, it certainly wasn’t made with any intent to be duplicitous or dishonest in any way.
@Swami
Thanks Swami…I hadn’t seen that 🙂
Justin’s response just gives me the impression that he really doesn’t know what he’s doing…and he’s putting this conference together by the seat of his pants. On top of that, it STILL, IMHO, comes across as if he changed his mind…and in October thought it was inappropriate for Smid to be there, yet in January thought it was fine to have Smid AND Chambers on a panel at conference. At the very least, he seems to put little thought into what he’s doing.
Very dangerous that, not knowing what you are doing when claiming to try and help, reconcile and heal others.
Wonderful people on GCN. But I too found it nigh impossible to hold to any faith in God in such an environment, where it seems to have as its raison d’etre, seeking justification for the very right to exist – in a book, same one others use as a weapon to try and suggest our existence, temporal or ‘eternal’ is irrelevant. Just so long as all can sing praise Jesus hallelujah in sync.
Quite the paradox, to try and have those destroyed by god, raised back to a reconciled, healed life by the very same being who created them – to damn them to hell in this world and the next anyway. But that’s what it’s meant to be about we as far as I was told. Maybe a little of the same poison can heal.
Check with a reliable physician first though. I hope the man who was so traumatised in Florida is OK and anyone else who was hurt like this.
If anyone else is genuinely helped to healing, that is good too. Just take care.
As a matter of concern, does anyone know the man who spoke about his experience in Florida. I read it a while back and could relate to something like that immediately. If anyone knows of him, no names or anything needed. Is he OK ? Tell him some understand, and all that he was made/given to feel ‘less of a christian’ for having been so traumatised and not able ‘to forgive’, and whatever else that was suggested, is truly diabolical. I just hope they do ‘think’ next time and put the needs of persons like these as a priority. If you read here at all. I am sorry you had to experience that. But it will never, ever make of you ‘less of a Christian’. IF, and however you relate to God – may you find some peace and healing in your life. In your time – not the timeline of the likes of GCN.
@Steve
I hope they find healing too. I truly do – all people. But it needs to be said it can create even more pain for some as well or that is being dishonest and ultimately harmful at a deeper level overall. I now see the christian religion as a true poison to the human spirit, and why there are people want rid of these things altogether. I am considering joining them or Islam. That’s how ‘safe’ I found GCN. I have never been in a gay affirming church. I will never be in one either. The straight ones I’ve been in are safer. Certainly where I live. I can see what you mean about being imperfect. These places are all the same. I don’t know what the answers are. But after the head wrecking crap in that place I won’t be going there looking any more ‘heal’ing.
Maybe its just me, being a religiously oriented atheist and all, and never having had the slightest doubt that being gay is a blessing in my life. But I have a hard time understanding most of this controversy. Maybe someone can explain it to me in a few paragraphs? I’ve read it all, and I don’t get it, which is why I stayed out of it before.
Alan chambers said that 99.9% of the tens or hundreds of thousands of people he claimed Exodus had “helped” to “change” had not done so, including himself. John Smid said that even 1 in 1000 was 1 too many in a thousand. Basically, he said that being ex-gay was a myth, and that no amount of prayer was ever going to change someone…
presumably because god apparently doesn’t give a rats as on the subject, or more likely, because there is simply nothing that can or needs to be changed.
So Mr./Ms. Formerly Exgay, you found out out you were being lied to for monetary and/or political and/or personal-issues gain. How much complicity did you have in that lie? Are you angry at yourself for that? Are you among the Jones and Yarhouse 13% that experienced, complicated, ambiguous, difficult change, but are still shouting Hallelujah woo-hoo? While are you angry at AC for doing what he’s paid to do, doing what YOU paid him to do?
This is just me, but I would think that you would welcome that information, take responsibility, and live the best life you can as a Christian gay person.
Taking responsibility means forgiving alan chambers and moving on with your own life. It might even mean trying to heal the damage you did to yourself, and making sure that others do not fall victim to it. You can still forgive AC, and still stand up for yourself and others while doing so.
If you want healing, I would suggest starting with healing yourself, which begins with forgiving yourself for buying a cartload of horseshit and calling it a birthday pony.
Truly, I don’t mean to be snarky or uncompassionate here. I understand there is pain. I’m sorry if my obtuseness causes more pain. But this flogging of GCN isn’t doing a thing to allay it, as far as I can tell.
It seems to me that in this case especially, living well is the best revenge.
@Ben in Oakland
I have to admit, that does sound uncharacteristically cold and insensitive, Ben. It even smacks of blaming the victim for their pain. Perhaps an ex-gay survivor would care to respond.
Ben, here’s my take on things. First of all, I can appreciate you writing your thoughts on this – as I know there are some who share your point of view and find all of this hard to understand. I’m hoping I can help a bit from the perspective of not only an ex-gay survivor, but someone who has spent a lot of time with other ex-gay survivors from all kinds of different backgrounds.
For one thing, there’s not one type of ex-gay survivor. There are ex-gay survivors who were forced to attend a program, as youth or as young adults. These folks are in the minority. Many people were not forced to attend, but made what seemed to be a “choice-less” choice. For instance, people in ministry who were told that they would be publicly outed and driven out of the ministry if they didn’t submit to reorientation therapy or attend an ex-gay ministry…yes, technically, no one is putting a gun to their head, but when you consider the consequences of losing a career, all your friends, respect in the community, and a spouse and child (in the space of a day), you can see where many people feel like they didn’t really have a choice in the matter.
Then there are other people like me, who as a single adult in my mid-late 20s, bought into the “change is possible” and “if you love someone you’ll tell them the truth” campaign (it was 1998) with newspaper ads, magazine covers with John and Anne Paulk, etc. If you look at my story, you could say – “why did you do this to yourself? No one was forcing you!” But I think you’d have to look further back into my upbringing to see all of what was going on. Like many ex-gay survivors, I grew up in a very fundamentalist, evangelical family and I got the message pounded into me that being gay was so horribly wrong that there was a lot of debate about whether to even invite one in to your home or share a meal. Gay people were seen as lepers of the worst kind – after all, they chose their disease. So even after I went to college (my family was so conservative that I felt I had to ask my pastor for “permission” to go to a secular college), came out, and established my own life as a gay person, I still felt wrong, confused, and isolated. When I came out, my parents told me that we would never be close, because we weren’t going to spend eternity together. Sobering thought. I didn’t date – I think I was still so scared of “the big sin” that I couldn’t quite overcome that fear of lightening striking me (literally). So when I saw the ads and met a few ex-gays, I started doing “research” online and wound up on the NARTH website – which I thought was an independent, scientific site. I read the probable causes they proposed for me being gay, and I could relate to a few. This gave me huge hope – if I can address these problems, I can be “cured” – yay! I so longed to be normal and to have acceptance from my family. And, I thought that I couldn’t be a Christian, or be acceptable to God, without changing. Because I grew up hearing so many negative things about gay people, I also don’t know that I ever believed I could be gay and happy.
I explain all this to simply say – we don’t make these decisions in a vacuum. It is a life of messages from day one that you can’t be part of your faith community, there are laws that mean you can’t have the same rights as straight people, you can’t be happy, God can’t fully love you, you’ll be hated and persecuted, you won’t have kids, and you won’t ever be close to your family – and it takes a toll.
I agree that taking responsibility for our actions is important, and it’s something that for many people is vital to their recovery. In essence, if we realize that we put ourselves in this mess, then we see that we have the power to get ourselves out of it. But still…again…I didn’t make this choice in a vacuum. I had a lot of pressure from all sides, and I didn’t have the ego-strength and will to see what you saw about yourself (which is so great – would that all gay people could see clearly through the crap in our society and love themselves).
The other point I’d like to address is this: for the most part, the people who run individual ministries genuinely think they are doing the right thing. For everstraight leaders, they often feel a great deal of empathy or compassion for people who are “struggling” and they want to help. Some are parents of (unrepentant) gay kids – and I think in helping others they are maybe giving something to others that they feel they can’t give to their own child. It’s complicated. Other leaders are ex-gays who have a lot wrapped up in their “success” – they can’t acknowledge to themselves that they haven’t changed as much as they had hoped they would (or perhaps even at one time believed they did). Many now have families and kids. They care about other people in similar situations – many have had bad experiences in the gay community, and have dealt with life-controlling issues (abuse, addictions) and they want to pass on those positives to other people. Also, if they start to unravel their ex-gay experiences, it might bring everything crashing down around them – especially the beliefs to which they cling so tightly. So it’s much more complex than merely that these leaders are driven by money/politics/personal gain (and actually, most of these small ministries operate on a very small budget, are self-funded, and offer their services for free).
For many ex-gay survivors, we were told that change was possible (and most of us, if not almost all, thought orientation), that this was the only way we could truly be “whole” or “holy” (even now, Exodus et. al. says things like “It’s not about heterosexuality, it’s about holiness”), and that putting ourselves through an ex-gay program was the only way to really save ourselves. So yes, we may have walked ourselves through the door, but we were promised one thing and given another. And we trusted people that we should maybe not have trusted, but for most fundamentalist and/or evangelical Christians, we are taught to trust those in authority, and quite frankly, distrust thinking for ourselves.
So we signed up for a cruise to a tropical island (with everyone telling us that this was the only way to get where we wanted to go), and ended up on the Titanic (or maybe for some, just Gilligan’s island and all its craziness). We can take responsibility for getting on the ship, and for staying on the ship – but for many, we were on a ship in the middle of nowhere and couldn’t quite make out how to get off the ship and still stay alive. We saw the ship heading for an iceberg and may have expressed our distrust, but people were running around showing us colorful brochures about the island still to come. Others had dark tans and promised we would soon be in the sun getting our own beautiful tan in paradise (we didn’t realize they were using spray tan). Others were saying, ” if you leave this ship you will drown. There’s no other way to get to that tropical island but to stay on board with us.”
So bottom line – I agree – it’s helpful to take personal responsibility and it’s something we encourage people to do if it applies. But there’s a lot more nuance to this than might be obvious at first.
Many ex-gay survivors have in fact moved on with their lives. But people are in different stages of this process. If you have a group of men of varying ages, who were abused by priests, you will get people at all stages of dealing with this. Some will just have started dealing with it. Others will have had a lot of years between the present and their abuse. Others may have only had a year or two. Others may have suppressed their memories and then something triggered a PTSD-like response. You can’t haul them all into one room and say – “OK – you have to forgive now and move on” or “well, you shouldn’t have ever walked through those church doors – it’s your fault.” Some would be able to forgive and move on – for others, it would be like slapping a bandage on an infected wound before it has been lanced and cleaned. This is what we are dealing with – the very real reality that people’s ex-gay experiences varied (some drastically), that different people were in different emotional states – some better equipped to deal with harmful messages than others, and that depending on people’s life experiences, they can have very different responses to these types of things. One size does not fit all.
Anyway, I’ve gone on far too long and I hope you’ve read this far. Thanks for your thought-provoking questions, and I hope I’ve helped in some way.
Christine, thanks for your thoughtful comment. It certainly struck a chord with me, and encapsulates many of the things I (and others around me) faced back in those ex-gay ministry days.
Thankfully, with the internet, most people can now get a more balanced overview of the whole subject. Back in the ’80s and ’90s that wasn’t readily available, and most were swayed by the more limited views of the Christian bubble they inhabited.
David: Thank you for your first comment. I’m glad you understood my question, and didn’t assume it was an attack. You know that generally speaking, except for holier-than-thou, smarter-than-thou, superior-er-than-thou buttheads, that’s just not my style. It wasn’t blaming the victims, but my concern that it might be interpreted so was one of the many reasons I stayed out of the conversation. I wasn’t blaming the victim. you might say my basic question was, “Why is the victim still blaming the victim?”
Christine: thank you for taking the time to write what you did. NOW I get it. I never lived in that world. Though raised religious, I’m an atheist– strictly speaking, an it-doesn’t-matter-ist. I thank my foster parents (big time Christians) for giving me a better view of myself and my bio-parents and messed-up family than my brothers got. Because of this, I found myself completely confused by people’s reactions to AC and GCN.
Perhaps I can tell where I was coming from on this, because there are a lot of similarities to what you have described. My older brother died 10 years ago of carbon monoxide poisoning, alone in a car in the mexican desert. Whether murder, suicide, or both was never clear. He ran away from his life in 1994, hopeless and helpless. I found out then that he was gay. I had had a few suspicions, but since I was out as out could be, and living with the love of my life, whom my brother liked, it never occurred to me that he might actually be gay. The reason he never told me, and kept his distance from me? He was afraid that if he got close to me, it would push him over the edge, as he put it. Just one more on the list of things that he had failed at in his life, one more thing that said “You’re a total loser, loser.”
He also totally blamed our parents, especially our mother, for the mess of his life, not that it was actually all that bad, as far as I could tell. “She has invaded every nook and cranny of my being.” Also something he didn’t tell me until it was way too late. His self-esteem issues– what you’re describing to a T– were enormous. Transactional analysis described the situation exactly: “I’m WAY not OK, and I will do whatever I have to so as to confirm that take on my life.” Exactly what you have described.
I often described it this way: you could give Dave ten choices, nine of which would lead him to heaven, all decorated with roses and unicorns and welcome signs, one of which would lead him to hell, keep out signs and barbed wire everywhere. You could predict with depressing accuracy which one he would pick. The gay issue for Dave was exactly this. Had he told me, I could have helped him. I would have moved heaven and earth to help him, and I would still have my brother. But he chose the path to hell instead, and I never knew.
After he ran away, what little communication I had with him was always about how SHE had ruined his life. I wanted to scream at him, “All right, dave, she ruined your life. You’re 48 years old now. What the hell are you going to do about it NOW? Is this going to be your theme song for the rest of your life?” I had long before forgiven my parents their trespasses against me, and getting rid of that burden was one of the best things that I ever did for myself. David didn’t. Transactional analysis indicated that there was a certain perverse joy in not setting that burden down.
As a side note, forgiving them also meant forgetting them, and I had very little to nothing to do with them from my early 30’s to 2001, when mother died. I hadn’t seen her in 14 years, and hadn’t talked to her in 5 when she died. I asked her if she had anything she wanted to say to me about ANYTHING. She said, “no. Nothing to say.” She was terribly right, and she was terribly wrong. There was everything to say, but she couldn’t say it because it would just underline the obvious. At the end of her life, when she should have been surrounded by her children and grandchildren, there was no one but my sister and the staff at her nursing home. No friends to speak of at 85 years old. Almost no family, despite a multitude of cousins. No nothing.
So this is the background for what I wrote.
I go back to what I wrote above, now that it has a context. Just my opinion, and I’m not saying it’s easy. For ex-ex-gays, as with my brother, healing must start with forgiveness. Forgive yourselves for what you did to yourself. The greatest tragedy, as well as the greatest comedy in life, is our ability to say, “Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time.”
Forgive AC, because he is as much a victim of it as you were, albeit he’s figured out a way to make money out of it and deal with is own issues, somewhat. AC only has the power over you that you give him, much as my mother vis-a-vis my brothers and myself. I remember once in my early thirties talking with mother, listening to her try to press the usual buttons to get me to react, becoming increasingly frustrated as she jabbed at those buttons and NOTHING happened. Of course she knew what buttons to press– she had installed the control panel. She didn’t know that I had finally managed to disconnect it myself.
AC isn’t the issue, not any more. The whole anti-ex-gay industry isn’t the issue, either. Not any more. Nor are the anti-gay churches that have made anti-homosexuality into the litmus test for the whole of the Christian message. It been acidic, but it’s merely base.
You wrote this: “I agree that taking responsibility for our actions is important, and it’s something that for many people is vital to their recovery. In essence, if we realize that we put ourselves in this mess, then we see that we have the power to get ourselves out of it.”
It seems to me that the issue is exactly what it was for my brother. “Can you forgive yourself? What are you going to do NOW?”
Again, thank you for explaining it to me.
Thank you Christine and Ben for the detailed comments. Ben, the context does help and is necessary to understand your original comments properly. There is so much pain out there. I’m very sorry for what happened with your brother.
I think the key is to understand that people are at different emotional, psychological places in their lives. One size does not fit all, something ex-gay proponents would do well to learn as well. That’s one reason we have tried to keep XGW somewhat neutral compared to other activist sites, to accommodate the various stages of the ex-gay equation at which people find themselves when they read and comment here. No doubt we fail miserably at times — it can be a volatile issue.
This is also why I was so concerned about the effect the appearance of Alan Chambers and John Smid at the recent GCN conference would have on their membership. The reaction is telling — some were at a point where they could handle it and even felt it helped them. Others were still at a fragile place and the appearance felt like an invasion of their safe space, a re-traumatization. Add those in the middle somewhere who might respond in various ways and you can understand the mess that played out last month.
Some thought I was being unduly harsh towards Justin, but in reality I simply saw this as another opportunity for Alan to cause pain in the already wounded. I think it important to prevent that wherever posssible
Thank you, David. It wasn’t the context in which I wrote my first comment, but weith Chrstine’s remarks, it certainly became the context that I could relate to.
Regarding this: ” in reality I simply saw this as another opportunity for Alan to cause pain in the already wounded.”
I don’t know Alan Chambers at all, but I recognize a type, however prettily it may be dressed up in it’s Sunday-go-to-meetin’ clothes. And I do know something about drama queens and stirrers-up-of-shit, which is why I wouldn’t want to know him. Transactionsal analysis teaches a great deal about games like “Let’s you and him fight”, and “I’m unhappy and so can you.”
My suspicion is that your concern is pretty well founded.
@grantdale
I love your style. All this kiss n’ make up crap, while I kindly lobotomise you with a knitting needle. Like a Buddy Cole skit where the guy does just that and gets done for it. Least Buddy saw the irony. The one who said ‘one is too many’. You said it brother/sister. Scareeee stuff. Look after yourselves.
My experience of those ‘type’s. Hope not offended people. Not meant to. I’m old enough to laugh at ‘stereotypes’ – especially good ones.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FgIb4D0KPM
My last comment here people.
I do like the style of some of you. You really seem to know where you are at and where not to go. They have warning labels on cigarette packs. “THIS…… CAN/DOES SERIOUSLY DAMAGE YOUR HEALTH. LEAD TO DEATH.” Is that extreme ? I don’t for one second believe so.
One person here I saw spoke of his experience. I hope he is OK.
If GCN helps you, or seems to help, in your healing – well and good. Depends where all are on their journeys. Don’t be surprised though if one day such places seem to stick that knife right back in your back, heart, mind and soul. God/Church is the great head basher through whatever organisations religious. Going to another, albeit one graced with seemingly soft pink religious velvet can punch just as hard, and cause as much and more damage. IF you allow that.
I would just issue a warning to survivors about such places. The person who said ‘one is too many’ is so very right and true. If it helps, and heals you, that is marvellous. People should be well warned though and given choices.
Isn’t a lot about abuse about disempowerment ? I am no expert. But why hand that to someone else wearing a different color hat. Empower your selves. I wish you all – all the very best and healing in all ways.
Take care. Over and out.