In a Dec. 3 news release riddled with boldface print worthy of an amateur fundamentalist Bible tract, Exodus criticizes honest depictions of "gay life" and ridicules unconditional love.
Exodus denies that "monogamous partnerships exist"; makes the baseless assertion that media depictions of happiness, loneliness, success and failure constitute a "Utopia"; and backs that with another baseless assertion, that diverse depictions of gay people from different sources are really just a united and nefarious "PR campaign" funded and orchestrated by conveniently unnamed entities.
Exodus then blames honesty, not Exodus’ own efforts to ostracize gay people, for the "young people [who] break ties with family and friends."
Exodus flees responsibility for the consequences its own actions. Exodus and other exgay organizations oppose anti-bullying programs that would permit bullied gay youth and their parents to keep friends and families intact. Exodus then generalizes that suffering, baselessly representing loneliness and misery as the norm for all gay youth.
Exodus summarizes all gay relationships with a dismissive reference to "the reality that two emotionally broken partners do not equal one emotionally whole relationship." In other words, Exodus asserts that gay people are inherently mentally ill and inherently incapable of solid relationships.
Exodus avoids the obvious ramifications: Since most exgay people are still gay (that is, primarily same-sex-attracted), they would be mentally ill, also, and incapable of marriage. Instead of following its accusations to a logical conclusion, Exodus pretends that closeting oneself and suppressing one’s sexual and romantic attractions miraculously cures one’s mental illness.
Exodus projects onto gay people the negative experiences of exgay and antigay individuals who harass themselves, their families, their churches: "burned relational bridges with God, parents, siblings, wives and children."
The projection of exgays’ own suffering does not stop there. "Bitterness, loneliness,
isolation and fear" are described as the universal experience of gay people. Exodus’ only effort at substantiation is a bizarre distortion of this article which finds that aging gay people experience the same problems as the elderly population in general.
Having insulted elderly gay people, Exodus offers itself as the solution to the problems of the elderly — problems irrationally blamed on homosexuality. In real life, in the book of Job, even in the life of Jesus of Nazareth, people struggle through trial, injustice, and unhappiness. Exodus does not invite people to live real life, but to join a cult that is divorced itself from reality and opted to live in a hypnotic trance. In this cult, a privileged elite is very nearly described as having died and gone to heaven already: "free from that misery and living in hope. … All of them have the security that they are loved, forgiven, accepted and protected by God. For them misery, fear and despair are things of the past."
The authors of the Exodus news release have egos swollen by pride: "Parents to five children, the Brown’s [sic] are a beacon of hope in central Texas."
Baseless assertions, distortion of polling, cult spirituality, and relentless stereotyping: These are traits that have long hobbled Exodus communications.
I agree, this news release is hardly news.
They submit the following statistics and then conclude that change to heterosexuality is the solution. I would have assumed the problem lies in our heterosexist health care system… but maybe that’s just me!! And they don’t qualify the “more than” group–is it self-identified straight people? Single aging people? Married? These variables will make a large statistic impact on interpretation.
Shoddy science and shoddy logic.
In a recent article [Aging Gays Face Problems, Isolation, Loneliness, Fear by Elise Kleeman, ] The following survey results were reported.
– 45 percent of respondents live alone.
– Those living alone reported poorer overall health and a higher rate of physical limitations.
– They were not as happy, more likely to find the things they did boring, and sensed more age discrimination.
– Loss of independence was the primary concern of LGBT seniors as they age.
– 14 percent said they did not know where they would turn for future personal assistance needs.
– 21 percent said they would use agencies or paid professionals. The percentages were even higher when considering just those seniors living alone.
– 22 percent did not feel comfortable being ‘out’ to their healthcare provider.
– When asked about senior residence facilities, acceptance by other residents and hostility of service providers were the biggest concerns.
– 60 percent of respondents were interested in LGBT senior housing options.
Found the article Exodus cites. The survey is from 113 seniors in a single county, which are supposedly about 8% of the total LGBT population. The author’s original intent was to demonstrate need for–guess what–societal and governmental change in response to these needs…. not to argue that these seniors should attempt reparative therapy.
https://www.santacruzsentinel.com/archive/2004/November/19/local/stories/04local.htm
Last comment, I promise. But I just found on the Exodus blog an article implying that lesbianism is influenced by biological factors. Whether or not this is the case (the science could be bad here, too), why doesn’t this merit a press release from them??
https://exodus.blogs.com/synopsis/2004/12/slimming_pills_.html
Let’s not forget Nicolosi says older gays are almost impossible to “cure.” Sorry I don’t have a source for you, but I think he mentions it in his book on Repairative Therapy.
ck:
There were reports this week in the media about some research that demonstrated women who took thyroid medications or certain diet pills during their pregnancy were far more likely to have lesbian daughters than other women, which would imply prenatal development of sexuality. The implication, as I understand it, is that these pills are somehow jump-starting the natural process of turning a girl baby gay. Women who did not take the pills still had some lesbian daughters, so the pills themselves clearly are not the “cause” of the lesbianism.
And, keeping with Mike’s guidelines on posting links, here is an article from the London Times:
https://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,8122-1391534,00.html
Here’s the original study from the Diversity Center.
Linking is not only far more informative, but sexy as hell! 😉
Don’t forget their blockquote of purple text. Usually exgay groups are VERY careful about the “gender appropriateness” of colors like when those busloads of people went to P-town they made sure onlyl the women wore pink t-shirts. Photo