Exodus spokesman Randy Thomas earns a one-thumb-up approval rating for accurately describing — albeit momentarily — the Michigan university class, “How to Be Gay.”
Unfortunately, Mr. Thomas demonstrates some persistent ignorance about gay opinions regarding the origins of same-sex attraction. And he concludes by contradicting his earlier, accurate understanding of the course.
The core difference is Exodus believes that sexual orientation is determined by environment. Gay ideology assumes, without any scientific backing, that the environment is a manifestation of an innate orientation. Many people who identify as having moved beyond homosexuality realized that what under girded their previous pro-gay convictions was an actual system of beliefs and expectations the gay community places on it’s own. There is tremendous pressure to uphold gay orthodoxy and especially to not resist it’s precepts.
There is, of course, no single “gay ideology” or “gay orthodoxy” regarding the origins of sexual attraction, or anything else. Nor do those who identify as post-gay or ex-gay reflect any single belief about the reasons they previously identified as gay or same-sex-attracted. Mr. Thomas is employing a strawman argument about correctness, applying it overbroadly among gays, and then countering the argument with a rival form of correctness.
However Mr. Thomas might be obtaining his misunderstandings of gay people and their beliefs, he concludes by garbling the message of the Michigan class.
Yet as the existence of this Michigan class proves, homosexuality can be learned. Therefore the Exodus assertion that homosexuality can be re-directed and even prevented if a person asserts their inalienable right to self-determination is given further credibility.
The class seeks to “prove” nothing and at no point does it appear to discuss whether “homosexuality can be learned.” Rather, the class considers that there are a variety of identities that may be learned through different processes of initiation in wildly different gay-male cultural niches.
Mr. Thomas tries very hard to believe that gay perspectives are diametrically opposed to his.
I believe Mr. Thomas would benefit from an awareness that perspectives on the origins of both sexual attraction and various gay “identities” are diverse and worthy of open discourse, without oversimplification or distortion.
Um, from what I’ve read of the course, it’s primarily a literature course. I didn’t learn much about being either a prince or a pauper from a literature course.
Thomas needs to take a sedative. Of course, being an Exodus spokesman, he’s got a good gig going. Otherwise, he might be flipping hamburgers at Mickey D’s.
I don’t want my kids subjected to that sort of thing in school.
Mike, do you remember what Randy did prior to going on the Exodus payroll? I can’t recall.
(By “that sort of thing,” I mean a visit from an exgay minister or spokesperson.)
Other than possibly getting money out of the homo-haters, has Thomas’s bloviating actually done anything in regards this course?
From reading his testimony somewhere, I seem to recall Thomas was a street whore or something like that.
Off-topic a bit: I just learned that Randy’s blog is no more.
I hope Randy’s state of mind is okay. Disappeared? Just like that?
He is, of course, wrong. This is an introduction to gay male culture and community, not male-to-male sex. People who “fall” at Exodus conferences, for example, know tha the latter can happen without the former.
No, Jayelle, I think (and hope) Randy is fine. His farewell message explains that God told him, in a sense, that it was time for him to move on to new stuff. I certainly can respect that.