In its June 13, 2002, press release, the ex-gay network Exodus International reflected on recent meetings of the Southern Baptist Convention:
Prayer & Action for the Catholic Bishops in Dallas and for the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) in St. Louis is needed now as both groups are receiving persecution from the homosexual community.
You wouldn’t know it from the press release, but the SBC was being pressured by devout Catholics and Protestants, as well as Jews and other people of faith. Several were heterosexual, others were celibate, and one in particular had been “married” to his gay partner for almost 30 years.
A pro-homosexual group actually disrupted a meeting with 50 people being arrested: 12 going into the meeting hall hurling insults and slander with 38 more outside.
According to media reports, the faith-based protest group Soulforce had sought a civil discussion with Southern Baptist leaders. In return the SBC told the Soulforce group that its members were going to hell — no need to talk.
The indoor protesters were dressed in their Sunday best. When they walked up toward the stage and shouted, “Stop killing us!” and “Meet with us!”, they were arrested and escorted where the SBC leadership believes tolerant religious folks belong — outside Christian territory. Outside, 38 other religious protesters peacefully blocked one entrance and were jailed.
In its press release, Exodus repeatedly asks readers to pray for antigay Christians and for Exodus itself. It does not seek prayers for homosexual people nor for tolerant Christians, Jews, Muslims or anyone else. Exodus concludes:
Encourage Catholic and Baptist Leadership: Send emails; write letters or take whatever action would bless these leaders. The first motivation is to bless and encourage them as they face and deal with these tenuous issues. Pray for them to have boldness while offering hope for those with unwanted homosexuality. Challenge these beloved leaders to remain bold and provide finances and resources for their denomination to provide a safe place of hope and healing for the homosexual struggler that attend their churches. Offer to pray for the Catholic Church and the SBC and help them in any way needed.
Unfortunately for Exodus, Catholic officials — Bishop Wilton Gregory, Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua, Joaquin Navarro-Valls and others — have sought the eviction of ex-gay (celibate same-sex-attracted) men from the priesthood, saying men with such attractions are unfit for the priesthood because they have sacrificed a life of sin (homosexual sex) instead of a life of virtue (heterosexual marriage). The Vatican plans to screen U.S. seminaries, where by most accounts 30 percent of students pursuing vows of chastity are same-sex-attracted.
What Exodus thought it was praying for becomes unclear. Was it praying for the church to prosecute pedophiles, or to evict exgays as well as gays from the priesthood?
In any event, since the Dallas meeting, these same antigay church officials have resumed defending pedophile priests in their dioceses, saying they owe the peds a debt of gratitude for their years of unpaid service and devotion. Here’s a published history of the bishops’ close involvement with pedophiles.
Meanwhile, the Catholic witchhunt against gays and exgays reinforces an uncomfortable silence about sexual issues that has always dogged Catholic seminaries. The enforced silence about sexuality has even made life very uncomfortable for heterosexual seminarians.
It seems to me that a true pro-exgay agenda would
- challenge bishops who associate both gays and exgays with pedophilia,
- pray for people beyond one’s own conservative faith circle, and
- stop church efforts to silence and terminate same-sex-attracted priests who obey their vows.
Instead, Exodus was betrayed June 13 by its own little bit of narcissism — its refusal to engage people, faiths and facts beyond its own milieu.
The board of Exodus is dominated by Southern Baptists and the Assemblies of God. Lacking Catholic or mainstream Protestant representation, Exodus is at risk for misstatements and pejorative assumptions about other denominations and faiths.
In an age where accountability matters, Exodus still needs an accountant.
Comments submitted to Ex-Gay Watch’s former Salon blog comment system
What a joke!
Exodus International is trying to help people
overcome the sinful practice of homosexuality.
The Bible lists many sins and, cry in your Zima as you might, homosexuality is one of them.
Your critique of them is about as substantive
(and honest) as saying their outfits are not color-matched.
You just hate them because they represent hope for people who do not wish to practice a sin you seem to worship.
But instead of being straight about it, you ascribe all kind of hidden agendas, secret motives and shady backroom manueverings to what is in reality a very forthright cause.
Ultimately your cheap shot attacks at them say much more about you than it does about their noble efforts.
The Doctor
Ps Save me the horror stories of exodus int’l folks who fell into relapse and had to be fished out of gay bars. That gay demon that harasses homosexuals is a tough one to eliminate once and for all. Especially when it’s aided and abetted by friends like you. Perhaps you should re-title your Blockhead blog “Support for continued demonic possession amongst homosexuals.”
It would be the FIRST step in a long road you need to take to make your agenda truly transparent.
—The Doctor • 7/25/02; 8:15:51 AM
I love the way these Lying Gay Activists like Mike Airhead (sorry…couldn’t resist, you need to blame your parents for that one! lol!) are trying to tell born again Christians how to do their job.
I’m Jewish and don’t have a dog in this fight, except to say I’ve learned to resent
the POLITICAL side of the gay movement for the way they slash and burn ANYONE, even gays who disagree with them.
See Andrew Sullivan for details! lol!
Anyway, dontcha just love how this gay guy accuses Exodus of narcissism.
That’s like Bill Clinton lecturing us on honesty and integrity!
The facts as I see them are as follows:
Exodus International holds the controversial, some say dubious, position that homosexuality can be ‘cured.’
Mike Airhead doesn’t like it because if it were true, and as far as I’m concerned the jury is still out (although Ann Heche ought to be hired as an Exodus spokesperson stat! lol!) then Lying gay activists like Airhead would be forced to confront the fact that they could change if they want to.
Now personally, I can figure out why airhead is so defensive about this.
If there were another organization, say Leviticus International, that claimed that heterosexuality could be “cure” I could care less. Don’t want the cure…don’t need it.
If someone else wants it, let them go for it.
So why all the definsiveness Airhead?
Even if we stipulate that all of the perjoratives you lay at the feet of Exodus is true…all of them….what difference does it make to you if some people say they used to like Judy Garland and now find her repulsive?
That is…unless you have a political agenda.
BTW, there is actually an organization for converting hetero boys into homos. I don’t konw it’s name but it’s mission statement calls for being anally raped or sexually molested in any way by a man prior to age 11.
Ask some of the honest homosexuals you know. I’ll bet you find a lot of charter members…
—Ethan • 7/25/02; 8:35:33 AM
Thanks for your site.
My gay dad was married to my mom for 30 years. He came out to my sister and I about 4 years ago. Our family has been able to recover from years of being in the closet.
I don’t know about ex-gays, but my dad certainly tried for a long, long time to be hetero but he couldn’t be. He had 30 years of marriage to lose, the fear of losing his entire family as well as everything else in his life. Eventually, it wasn’t a choice for him, he just realized he was in a vice and the vice was never going to stop closing. He was who he was. The vice was the situation he was in and the environment he lived in that wouldn’t accept him.
He tried to do what he thought was the right thing for a long, long time, but it wasn’t the right thing. For him or our family. I’m glad he came out.
He’s a member of Soulforce. We have a funny picture of him with his arm around a very uncomfortable Falwell.
—Michael • 7/31/02; 10:45:10 AM
Well Michael,
Your dad slept with a woman for 30 years (and you are part of the proof! lol!)
What kind of homo is that?
You couldn’t get me or any other hetero to sleep with a guy for 30 nanoseconds, so how could it be that a guy who was married for 30 years and presumably had sex dozens if not hundereds of times is “really” homosexual?
Sorry, it does not make sense.
Now, I can understand that he might have had feelings for guys just like me or other married me might have feelings for women who are not their wives. What guy doesn’t…especially if we watches BayWatch! lol!
But that doesn’t mean we’re “closeted adulterers” it just means we’re human and we DO HAVE choices.
We simply choose to die to those inappropriate desires and feed the proper ones.
It might be hard…but look at the consequences of your dad’s decision.
Better he had gone to his grave, faithful to your mum and never acting out on his misplaced desires, than doing what he did to your family.
Just one man’s opinion. I wish you well.
—Ethan • 8/1/02; 10:17:42 AM
Hear the fistgate tape in MP3 FORMAT and get to know the true agenda of the homosexual community in my opinion. [URL]
What is fistgate? Do a search on the internet using the key word “fistgate”. Explicit homosexual teaching CAUGHT ON TAPE to school children….and many homosexuals do not want people to hear it. Feel free to pass this on to all you know who you feel should know about it. Post it on your website if you have one or link to it. JUST SPREAD THE WARNING AROUND ABOUT THE POTENTIAL CRAP BEING TAUGHT IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS.
—webboss • 9/8/02; 9:25:18 AM
“I am the one that wrote the press release that Mr. Airhart is criticizing. I don’t agree with the assertions he made here (nor the comments here by webboss, Ethan and Doctor). That said, I have known Mr. Airhart for five years and even though we disagree and have deeply held convictions, I respect him. I would encourage the belittling comments to cease.
Also, Michael, thank you for sharing about your families experience. We would disagree about a lot of things but I think it took some courage to post what you did given the other comments made before and in response to yours.”
—Randy Thomas • 12/23/02; 6:39:11 PM
Ethan, The Doctor, and webboss offer no factual reply to the facts I presented. They simply resort to blind character attacks. And webboss apparently distributes recordings that were taped in violation of the law.
I support people like Randy and like Michael’s dad, who commit themselves to healthier living and spirituality, whether that commitment takes them to a heterosexual identification or not.
God frowns upon efforts by anyone, gay or ex-gay, to insult, exploit or politicize deeply personal, sexual and spiritual matters that are best addressed between ourselves and our families or God.
—Mike A. • 1/25/03; 10:47:39 PM
I wrote a book on my experiences as a seminarian back in thelate fifties and into the sixties. The same problems existed then as now. The repression and secrecy hid much of it. If you want to get an ideal of how the hierarchy of the church was trained, check out my site. What I experienced was pretty typical. I take the church to task, offer some psychdynamic explanations for abuses, and take myself to task as well — I was propelled out of that place by the cultural upheaval of that decade. It’s a funny read and hits on so many issues affecting the church today.
—Jim Murphy • 7/12/03; 6:57:06 AM
It’s amazing to me as to read about so many opinions on other people’s lives. Why do we judge other people as if we were God ourselves? I keep hearing Bible quotations. The Bible is a book written not only in ancient times but also rewritten over and over. Why do Christians choose to translate it in a way that seems to give them a power over other people’s lives. Look at your own lives. Why do you believe a book that was written eons ago to be the truth about homosexuality. There are people committing suicide TODAY because they have been told that who they are is bad. Why would anyone shut their eyes and ears to the inocent cries and pleas of the people today, but take the word of a book wriiten by someone they never met -THOUSANDS of YEARS AGO. This makes absolutely no sense. You see the anguish that the characters on Brokeback Mountain went through, yet people sit back in their comfortable homes telling them how wrong their love is. And the funniest part is how people debate about whether it’s achoice or not- Anne Heche, blah, blah, blah. WHO THE HELL CARES! I guess the pain you see people go through and the lives lost are not enough. This makes no intelligent sense. The time you spend debating is the time you could be working on yourself or just enjoying life. If we spent all of the energy that we put into judging others into ourselves, we would be a happier people. How many straight people have faults, divorces, child abuse issues, alcoholism, financial problems, or just not having love in their lives. And better yet, how many people use their energy to criticize others to escape the things they need to look at within? That doesn’t sound like a very good life to me. It is so simple to accept others for who they are but it seems so difficult for many as it interfers with their own ego.
Brokeback Mountain is about two people who love each other. Period. Many people are so hard wired by external forces- community, religion, peer pressure, media, etc.- that they refuse to see this. Love is love is love is love. But many people want to defend their belifs- not necessarily religious- because it makes them feel right. Instead of finding their own truth, they use someone else’s. You can call that many things, I call it fear. Fear of looking at ourselves, fear of finding their own truth. That’s why many people who are now sticking up for who they truely are, gay or not are now stepping up and not backing down. Why in heaven’s name would anyone stop living their life and giving all of the gifts they have to bring to this world (and EVERYONE does have them including you!). Should it be out of someone else’s fear? In Brokeback Mountain Ennis and Jack gave in to what they were taught, and we know how their lives became. However, millions upon millions of people (gay and otherwise) are speaking up and saying “I am no longer living my life through other people’s judgements and fears. I believe in myself and that is between me and my unconditionally loving God”.
It’s not the gays themselves whom Christians are suppose to disdain, it’s the ‘gay lifestyle.’ You cannot tell me that gays who have not dealt with themselves spiritually (i.e. looked introspectively at their inner being through prayer, asking God for guidance) cannot see that a lot of their troubles are due to the same spiritual illness we all have? It’s outlined in the fall of Adam and Eve in genesis; we want to be (and arrogantly think we can be) the god who dictates the means and ways our own existence.
Gays suffer many aberrant personality traits that are simply a manifestation of an inner poverty. Like an alcoholic they get lost in the grandiosity of self indulgence. Lets face it, gays DO DISPLAY disproportionately more petty and maladaptive personality traits per capita when compared to the general populace. The problem is gays and their militant wings won’t acknowledge this openly.
The classic symptom of alcoholism is denial; and so it is with many spiritual illnesses including gay narcissism and petty self indulgence.
Hey, all I’m doing is calling gays to the real world, but unfortunately what one respondent, Ethan, said was true to most pro-gay militants:
“…except to say I’ve learned to resent the POLITICAL side of the gay movement for the way they slash and burn ANYONE, even gays who disagree with them.”
Posted by: Wallie_x at July 30, 2006 12:54 PM
You do realize this is a 4 year old thread, correct? At any rate, you haven’t provided a single fact or substantiated argument to which anyone can respond. We require of everyone who posts here that statements made as fact be linked to an authoritative source so they can be verified by all. Otherwise, we just end up batting baseless opinions back and forth with no chance of landing at the truth. And since you obviously can’t speak for “all” Christians any more than you can speak about “all” gays, I see little here on which to comment.