When Focus on the Family announced that “Love Won Out” — its one-sided program promoting ex-gay ministries and antigay therapies — would come to Nashville, the Vanderbilt Divinity School responded with a program featuring credentialed experts in psychiatry, psychotherapy, and faith.
The Vanderbilt program, which included gay-tolerant Christians and at least one former ex-gay, put ex-gay activist Mike Haley on the defensive.
Haley is the chairman of Exodus and the manager of Focus’ antigay activism. XGW has quoted him many times.
From coverage in the Vanderbilt student newspaper:
“I would like to apologize on behalf of the church for not being educated on this issue,” said self-proclaimed ex-gay Mike Haley, manager of the gender issues department for Focus on the Family. “It is not a hateful message, we are not saying you don’t have a right to be gay, but some people don’t want to be gay.”
“We are not saying you don’t have a right to be gay.” Haley is speaking a half-truth: he fails to mention that if someone chooses to be gay, then (Haley has argued in the past) they should be denied countless other basic rights.
Haley, who was raised in the church, said his church taught that there was one place for homosexuals, and that was Hell. He stopped going to church and found acceptance in the gay community for 12 years, until he met a man who challenged his beliefs. He is now married with two children.
Haley said a person can be gay and a Christian, because salvation doesn’t have anything to do with sexual orientation.
“It’s not a person’s sexuality that sends them to Hell,” he said. “We believe homosexuality is not what God intended, but that’s not going to keep them from Jesus Christ.”
What Haley does not say is that he has a well-established public record of anger and contempt toward gay Christians, toward homosexuals as a class, and toward what he oddly defines as “liberals.” The body of his public statements suggests that he believes one can be gay and Christian only if the individual is celibate, conservative and opposed to the outward expression of “homosexuality.”
The article closes out its coverage of Haley with one more contradiction:
Haley admitted that reparative therapy has not worked for everyone and that he is still tempted by homosexuality.
“I will never be as though I never was,” he said. “But I had an unmet emotional need that was sexualized, now my needs are met appropriately.”
If he is still sexually attracted to the same gender, then his sexual orientation is — by definition — bisexual. Yet he claims in his public statements to be heterosexual.
Postscript: Exodus spokesman Randy Thomas has posted photos of “Love Won Out” in Nashville.
The doubletalk of Mike Haley, Randy Thomas and the rest of the amoral leadership of Exodus (a group that pretends to be ministerial but is, in fact, acting like little soldiers in the war against those who disagree with them) shows that they have no logical line of thought. They want to love us but at the same time they are doing everything they can to interfere in and destroy our lives using the Congress and state legislatures.
Their logic has no foundation. They want it both ways. They want to pretend that they accept us as we are, but then their actions seek to punish us in the civil arena.
The doublespeak is thick indeed:
>> If he is still sexually attracted to the same gender, then his sexual orientation is — by definition — bisexual.
Fair enough, just don’t twist it around the next time a married man molests a little boy and your team insists he’s “heterosexual”. He would be bisexual at best, and a closeted homosexual at worst. Certainly NOT hetero.
And Steve honey, we do accept you for who you are. It’s YOU who do not accept US for who we are. Marriage has belonged to heterosexuals for 5000 years. Why can’t you accept that?
>>Fair enough, just don’t twist it around the next time a married man molests a little boy and your team insists he’s “heterosexual”. He would be bisexual at best, and a closeted homosexual at worst. Certainly NOT hetero.
>Fair enough, just don’t twist it around the next time a married man molests a little boy and your team insists he’s “heterosexual”. He would be bisexual at best, and a closeted homosexual at worst. Certainly NOT hetero.
This is dumb. If he’s married with children, of course he’s heterosexual. And I submit that, if you ask him whether he is, he would tell you so.
This fellow “Marty” from “vigilancematters.com” shows that any idiot can set up a web site. And obviously more than a few of them have.
There you go again, double-speaking. Too blinded by your own agenda to even see it.
Not that i’m suprised in the least…
Because, of course, only straight people are biologically capable of entering into heterosexual marriages and reproducing.
A man’s body may be capable of producing sperm and a man may be capable of fathering children, but biology does not determine orientation. If he is still attracted to men then only his sexual behavior has changed. His sexual orientation on the other hand would have remained the same. Biological capabilities such as producing sperm or ovulation are very much independent of sexual orientation.
>>Fair enough, just don’t twist it around the next time a married man molests a little boy and your team insists he’s “heterosexual”. He would be bisexual at best, and a closeted homosexual at worst. Certainly NOT hetero.
>> In 5,000 years I would suspect that many a homosexual has married someone of the opposite gender
Oops, you just shot down the whole “Equality” argument by proving that Gays are equally entitled to marry as Hets.
I’m sure you didn’t mean to let that one slip out….
Marty,
You’re correct, gay people have exactly the same right in this country as straight people to enter loveless, meaningless, sham marriages of convenience that are doomed to failure. What we don’t have the right to do is enter legal marriages that are actually based on mutual love, support and affection, and stand a chance of succeeding.
But thank God we can still find those relationships, and when they are very good relationships we can stand up in front of our family, friends and God himself and declare our love and fidelity. We may not be able to get legal recognition (which we highly deserve), but no attempts by any anti-gay bigot legislator or legislature can stop us from being married in the eyes of God.
Before you pass judgement against someone (regarding Mike Haley and the credibility of his marriage) I would think that you all (pro-gay folks) would understand how foolish that can make someone look. Don’t you yourselves hate it when people make assumptions against you, so why do you do just that against Mike! I encourage you to hear him speak, talk with him, then you will see that he is clearly a man who is passionate towards his family in every appropriate way, and also greatly desires for the message to be heard that gay men and lesbian women do not have to remain that way. They can take steps towards leaving the power that homosexuality had on them behind, just like he and many others have successfully done!
Now on the marriage comments: marriage is NOT the idea of any man or woman. It was established by God, He is the One who instituted it, not republicans or whomever else you want to point your finger at. “Don’t kill the messanger,” okay.
Hiding behind God isn’t a very good way to win a legal fight. We’re talking about civil marriage.
Mike Haley is entitled to his beliefs but for every one of his “thousands who have left homosexuality” there are 10 more who’ve happily remained gay.
Why is it so difficult for you people (the anti-gay folks) to realize that there are many happy well adjusted gays and lesbians who don’t want to live by the rules that you believe that your version of “God” set forth?
I hardly think that Exodus and the like with a 30% success rate (at best) is in any position to tell the rest of us how to live.
As someone who was married 9.5 years and fathered four wonderful kids, I can assure you that gay men can and do marry, but that doesn’t make them heterosexual… it just means we’re intelligent and can learn whatever skills are necessary in order to ‘pass’.
David said, “… marriage is NOT the idea of any man or woman. It was established by God, He is the One who instituted it, not republicans or whomever else you want to point your finger at. ‘Don’t kill the messanger,’ okay.”
Wrong. Marriage is an institution created by society, and each society defines it differently, and even different religious and social organizations define and celebrate intimate unions on their own terms. Marriage is a civil institution and (as is already done all over the country even now) can be initiated without any clergy, without any god, without permission from any church or religion.
Please, even Haley admits to having “temptations”. He can either admit he is gay or live a lie. If he wishes to live that lie then so be it but don’t try to go around claiming, along with the rest of the “praise the lord” bunch that you’ve changed. You are born and will remain gay until your death. You can either dodge the issue via ‘rehabilitation” or you act like a grown up and accept the cards that you have be delt.