I have responded on Exodus executive director Alan Chambers’ blog to his public complaint against the Boston Globe.
In case he deletes my response, here is a copy.
[To Alan Chambers:]Your readers should read the Boston Globe article for themselves.
Your readers will see that the teen-agers in the story do not even consider marrying before graduation. None is considering dropping out of school. Their parents are supportive. They are dreaming of marriage just as heterosexual teens do.
Your readers will also notice that you have not documented your claim that gay relationships last two months. Your claim lacks credibility among readers, since it contradicts what many Americans see every day: gay couples whose relationships have lasted for years or decades.
Your readers may also wonder a bit about your claim that tens of thousands of people are ex-gay. Even with the assistance of Exodus and therapists from NARTH, pro-exgay researcher Dr. Robert Spitzer was only able to find a few hundred people who qualified as long-term, successful ex-gays. According to Spitzer, many of those successful ex-gays still experienced significant or exclusive same-sex attraction, meaning their orientation (attractions) had not fully changed — only their behavior had changed.
Readers are entitled to respect, Alan. They would feel more respected — and feel more inclined to view you as a brother in Christ — if you had said something constructive about America, about Christianity, and about conscientious gay people.
What people currently see, unfortunately, is that you view young, idealistic, monogamous gay people in Boston with fear and rejection, and that your reaction is based on half-truths and undocumented allegations.
Alan, insofar as you continue to play the victim card — and base it on flimsy evidence — your public witness comes across to others as one of self-doubt, fear and self-pity instead of love for the people you’re supposed to be winning to Christ. You’re capable of doing better than that.
Regards.
Should my comment to Chambers be deleted, the erasure will be noted here.
Well I certainly hope the letter stays. After all, if they allow all the outrageous posts from “DL” and others (on the other piece) to stay, I think the least they can do is leave your well-reasoned, non-inflammatory one!
Your response to Alan Chambers was directly on point, particularly on the allegation that “tens of thousands” of people are ex-gay. Every tme I have asked for supporting documentation from Robert Knight at Concerned Women for America, self-advertised “ex-gay” Stephen Bennett, Peter LaBarera, and Warren Throckmorton, they never can produce it.
I suspect that anyone who has ever signed an attendance log at an Exodus event, a Focus on the Family “Love Won Out” event that advertise that homosexuality is “prevetable” and treatable,” or a Narth conference gets automatically counted as an “ex-gay.” There appears to be no other way that alleged “tens of thousands” ex-gays could be accounted for.
I never cease to be amazed how these so-called Christians seem to think they are exempt from the Commandment against lying and bearing false witness. Especially when groups like Concerned Women for America and Focus on the Family rant about the Ten Commandments – they would be more honest if they talked about the Nine Commndments since they ignore the prohibition against lying virtually daily. They also go on about “judicial tyranny” – the same disingenuous claim that was made when the federal courts struck down the segregation laws, the laws against interracial marriage and other rulings supporting equality of all citizens under the law.