According to CNSNews.com, exgays across the spectrum are “enraged” at John Kerry’s debate remark that people could be born gay. Kerry said:
“I think if you were to talk to Dick Cheney’s daughter, who is a lesbian, she would tell you that she’s being who she was, she’s being who she was born as,” Kerry said. “I think if you talk to anybody, it’s not choice. I’ve met people who struggled with this for years, people who were in a marriage because they were living a sort of convention, and they struggled with it.”
Alan Chambers and Randy Thomas of Exodus; Jeralee Smith of the NEA Ex-Gay Caucus; Prof. Warren Throckmorton, exgay science pundit at Grove City College; and Chad Thompson of Inqueery all weigh in against Kerry, even though George W. Bush waffled in his own answer. Throckmorton and Thompson use the opportunity to promote their new video, “I Do Exist.” Alan Chambers said he intends for Bush to accept Chambers’ politically partisan exgay ideology, and he wrote an open appeal to the President on behalf of Exodus. Chambers confuses the issue, though by talking about actions rather than attraction or orientation:
“We all have a choice to do what is best, and with regard to acting on my homosexual feelings and inclinations, I did not choose God’s best for me or for society when I chose to act upon them,” Chambers wrote. “However, I did finally choose to live beyond those feelings and today I am not a homosexual nor am I tempted to be one.”
As to growing scientific evidence of some biological roots to homosexuality, and despite Throckmorton’s own acknowledgement of biological ties, Thomas flatly rejects the science:
“There is absolutely zero scientific evidence that would suggest people are born gay,” Thomas said. “It’s a simplistic answer that will pander to people that he is winking at when he says he is not for gay marriage. But in reality, he promotes rhetoric that is straight out of a gay activist brochure.”
Smith, of the NEA Ex-gay Caucus, leaps to the conclusion:
“Senator Kerry, in his answer, basically invalidated me as a person. … I have experienced significant change in my sexual orientation and my feelings.”
“Change” — in other words, Smith’s choice to repress feelings and assume a mindset of asexuality or imposed heterosexuality — is beside the point. The question was whether people are born with a predisposition toward one sexual orientation or another. Despite Smith’s claim that she appreciated moderator Bob Schieffer’s question, she does appear to feel threatened by it.
Exodus official Randy Thomas invites comments at his discussion board.
Anyone who knows anything knows that being homosexual is not a choice. Even George W. Bush knows that. He waffled and said “I don’t know” because he is between a rock and a hard political dilemma. Saying ‘yes it’s a choice’ would reveal him as an undeniable idiot to virtually all thinking people. To say ‘no, it’s not a choice – it’s who you are’ would anger the powerful conservative religious organizations he depends on for support. So he didn’t say anything, and he remains a liar and a coward.
We knew the instant Kerry said ‘it’s not a choice’ that the ex-gay leaders and relig. conservatives would go nuts. No suprise there at all.
Ugh.
Wow and I thought only a troupe of drunk drag queens could possibly get this hysterical about something.
Let’s look at things from the NARTH viewpoint: (I’m a former patient of Nicolosi for those readers just joining us)
Narth believes homosexuality is a developmental disorder and should remain listed in the DSM. Does anyone ever chose to suffer from a mental disorder? I don’t think so.
So I don’t want to hear any whining from you people about Kerry saying “it’s not a choice.”
Some disorders may be genetic, some may be developmental. Samn applies to homosexuality, we can’t prove it either genetic or developmental.
Obfuscation seems to be the key in nearly all of the responses I saw from the ex-gay side.
“Senator Kerry, in his answer, basically invalidated me as a person. … I have experienced significant change in my sexual orientation and my feelings.”
-The question was never whether or not people could change, it was whether people choose to be gay. Maybe Mr. Smith should answer the question- did he choose to be gay? Does he choose the same sex attractions that he has?
Bush’s comment of “I don’t know” in response the change question angered me beyond belief. Anyone who believes gays choose their attractions is being guided by their prejudices. All it takes is a simple question to one or dozens of gay people to see that people do not choose to be gay. I was sorely disappointed in Bush’s answer.
For the ex-gays- Kerry’s answer, that people don’t choose to be gay, should fall right into line with their ideology. If people simply chose to be attracted to the same sex, surely their conversion therapies would have a lot more success and would be lots less dramatic. Their attempts to paint Kerry as the bad guy really are disgusting. Again, I thought it was a sin to lie, huh.
These responses from the “exgays” are funny because they show how little they have thought their position through. If homosexuality is a choice, then apparently at some point in their lives they chose to be gay (or think they chose). If they are so against homosexuality, and think its wrong, why did they choose to be gay? And furthermore, why do their programs have such a low success rate. If its as simple as a choice, then becoming exgay is akin to changing your mind – not a terribly difficult thing to do. Their position is self-contradictory and their bitching about Kerry’s statment shows that they don’t even get that.
>According to CNSNews.com, exgays across the spectrum are “enraged” at John Kerry’s debate remark that people could be born gay
All three of them? Wow. I’m impressed.
Nah their reaction is not surprising. If it is a choice then people can pat themselves on the back for making the “moral” choice heterosexuality. If it is not a choice then arguments about morality are greatly weakened. It turns into right handed or left handed…which is more moral?
Also, I’d like to point out the thousands, perhaps millions of gay people out there who are offended every day at the idea of “exgays”. Their very existance implies that we somehow can or should change our sexual orientation.
Hey Shane, I wouldn’t go that far. I don’t think their existence is an insult to gays. Lots of people change or find things have changed about themselves no pseudo-psychological stereotypical patriarchal religious mombo jumbo needed.
What is insulting are the so-called Christian organizations that show them off. Especially when those organizations work against gay rights and claim anyone should/could/can become “ex-gay” if only they tried hard enough or had enough faith or spread all sorts of lies and hatred about being gay in the name of GOD. It is when these organizations are so blinded by hatred that they can not see the value of gay rights to themselves as well as someone else that I oppose them.
While I do question the idea of “Exgay”. I.e. if you are no longer gay are you asexual, heterosexual, bisexual or what? Why the need for the new label? If the treatment worked and you no longer find the same sex attractive why aren’t you straight? I don’t consider their presence insulting. Their actions some times but not their presence.
I’ve just been looking over the Yestergay site on the sidebar – I believe in change in the sense in which that guy describes it – that some people drift in sexual orientation in their lives, and some don’t. Though I see more evidence for a genetic component than he seems to.
The kind of change pitch that suggests anyone can change who has enough faith, I don’t believe. And I don’t, as a Christian, believe anyone’s obliged to seek that sort of change.
Lynn Gazis-Sax:
I’ve looked at that site as well. What I’ve always thought is that what causes sexual orientation varies among individuals. For some it may be more psychological than others, especially bisexuals, but there’s always that biological aspect as a foundation.
Also to note, many of these ‘yestergays’ still refer themselves a bisexual, that they still have an attraction to the same-sex, but now prefer the opposite-sex. I’m not too fond of these guys, because many of them perceive their change as a step of maturity, although those types are usually the ones promiscuous like certain young animals in the wild.
Xeno: “Also to note, many of these ‘yestergays’ still refer themselves a bisexual, that they still have an attraction to the same-sex, but now prefer the opposite-sex.”
Well, yeah, that’s the kind of change I believe in the possibility of, the kind where you maybe move a bit on a continuum, but probably don’t switch from being gay to being altogether straight. I, myself, have moved a bit back and forth on the Kinsey scale, as my circumstances change, but I’m still different degrees of bisexual. And I don’t see it as me changing my orientation because I’m more mature, more like what’s natural to me varies a bit with my situation.
I do agree with you that what causes orientation probably varies among individuals.