In the wake of the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruling on gay marriage, Exodus could have informed its membership of the diversity of thoughtful, faithful and impassioned Christian opinions on the subject.
Instead, Exodus on Nov. 21 replayed the propaganda of five antigay political organizations: the Alliance Defense Fund, Family Research Council, Focus on the Family, the Liberty Counsel, and the Massachusetts Family Institute.
Exodus helpfully reminded readers of the ex-gay leadership’s own political activism against Massachusetts gay couples:
Alan Chambers’ testimony
Randy Thomas’ testimony
Dawn Videto’s testimony
Exodus and its political allies are on public record in favor of discrimination against gays in employment, housing, law enforcement, public services, and participation in church. In re-airing the organizations’ propaganda, and in omitting mainstream religious viewpoints, Exodus made it appear to some observers that it agrees with its allies’ broad allegations about the gay “lifestyle,” which they define as immorality, promiscuity, sexual compulsion, hopelessness, disease, and hatred of God and family.
In its Nov. 21 message, Exodus reminded readers that there are gay people affected by these organizations’ policies. But it did not treat those gays as individuals with opinions, moral values, or rights that might be worthy of respect.
Ex-gays are people, too, of course, and they may be negatively impacted by Exodus’ support for discrimination against individuals perceived to be gay. XGW finds no concrete evidence that Exodus’ political campaign against gay couples does anything to help ex-gays cope with their own sexual, emotional, and religious struggles — or their sometimes-troubled ex-gay marriages.
The comments from Thomas and Chambers are infuriating. Chambers is an untruthful hypocrite. While I interviewed him for my book, Anything But Straight, Chambers deplored political groups such as Coral Ridge and opposed efforts to restrict gay rights. Yet, the moment he achieves power in Exodus, he aligns himself with political groups to a greater degree than we have ever seen. These political statements make me want to redouble my efforts to put them out of business.
I remember the days of the nonpolitical Alan Chambers. Ah, good times… How things change — for the worse.
In these debates, I constantly bring up the idea that it doesn’t matter if we choose our sexual identity, because all Americans get to freely choose our life partners. I do it precisely to undercut the effect of speeches like this. Once again, the idea that some people *have* changed doesn’t upset me one bit. The idea that all of us *have* to change, or that the government should create laws that make change preferable to open gayness or bi-ness, upsets me crazy.