According to Salon, Alan Chamber spoke to the Conservative Political Action Conference:
A 1:30 p.m. session on “Marriage in the States,” which was supposed to include Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback, featured instead a self-described former homosexual named Alan Chambers. He said sodomy was like fast food: “It will kill you.” He was an expert because he had lived through the torment of gay lust, enduring “a never ending cycle of cravings and nourishment … an endless treadmill of faceless encounters, broken hearts and unmet dreams.” His research on the gay lifestyle had also taught him that gay people do not really want gay marriage (it was the liberal media) and that “lifelong homosexual relationships are not possible.” Then he declared, in the struggling voice of a recovering alcoholic, “Today I stand before you as a heterosexual man … who now lives an unparalleled life of happiness and satisfaction.” He said there were hundreds of thousands like him.
A still-gay member of the audience, who said he belonged to the Log Cabin Republicans, rose in protest. “How can you speak for all homosexuals?” he asked. “As a gay person I would like to know how I am anti-family.” Chambers let one of the other panelists take the question.
Since I know that Alan and friends monitor this site, I pose this question:
Alan, how can you speak before a group and say these things? You have communicated with several people who are in lifelong homosexual relationships. How can you claim they are not possible?
Alan, have you no regard whatsoever for honesty?
Anyone who has ever been to the GLAD site and read the pages the let you “meet the couples” you will find background on the couples sueing for marriage rights in vaious states.
You will see most of these couples have been together for years and years and years.
I think Alan is justing doing what Alan does best, spreading hate and spiritual violence.
Jim and I are celebrating our 21st anniversary this year. How long is lifelong, in Alan Chambers’ world? And where are all these hundreds of thousands of exgays? Whenever you read “testimonies” it’s always the same tired handful. You’d think “hundreds of thousands” could produce more names than the same 5 or 10 that continually turn up in the media, most of whom are exgay for a living.
Alan Chambers makes a big living at being ex-gay. The ex-gay movement is a big money maker.
Bingo, Ben.
I wonder what his wife would say about his happy, fulfilled marriage? What would his web browser history say? Honestly, is he really present in body, soul and spirit when they’re being physically intimate, or is he acting in denial like I did for 12 years?
Of course, I could give him the benefit of the doubt, but I don’t feel I owe it to him when he’s spreading lies about me and my brothers and sisters in Christ.
Is Alan speaking for my 13 1/2 year relationship that is much stronger than almost every heterosexual couple who I know that has a divorce? I was shocked to find out that a friend divorced her husband recently because the husband had gotten her pregnant but did not like sleeping with her while pregnant. So he went to another woman during the pregnancy. Now, his wife is a single mother. My relationship is not stronger than this?
A lesbian author and publisher died a few weeks ago. She and her partner were together for 57 years. (Background info.) Is this unusual? It is most certainly an unusually long gay or lesbian relationship. Are heterosexual relationships of this length significantly more common? I rather doubt it, though it’s certainly possible. Has there been any legitimate research to see?
The only time I can remember my grandmother ever acknowledging her older brother, Harry, was gay was when he died in 1989. His partner, Steve, of 30 – 40 years (I’m not sure when they met, although I believe it was during the Korean War) was by his side throughout his final illness, sleeping on a chair by Harry’s bedside every night. When Harry finally died, the hospital treated Steve like a stranger, and my grandmother was pissed! Even a conservative, religious, then-74-year-old woman could see, appreciate and respect the relationship – no, the marriage, between these two men. I only knew them at the end of Harry’s life, but can tell you that even then, after decades together, Harry’s face would light up when Steve entered the room – their love was palpable.
So these statements simply enrage me – not so because Mr. Chambers was being dishonest, but because was disrespectful to the sacrifices, compromises and work that goes into every multiple-decade relationship, whether gay or straight. To denigrate the value of these relationships is to denigrate the humanity of the people in them.
It’s simple CPT:Your grandmother, regardless, knew her brother. She knew what he would have wished. And she stood by him.She was not selfish.
Frontiers magazine just had an article on 40+ year old gay relationships.
They are many and far from acecdotal.
Just like DL Foster never asked me how or why I’ve come to feel the way I do about gay people.
I doubt Chambers actually sought out longtime gay couples or the data being compliled about them.
This is clearly an example of ignoring evidence and not caring to see it.
Let alone encouraging the very social structures that would create MORE longtime gay couples.
These couples did it through years and years of social uncertainty.
Bravely taking on their responsibility for each other without relying on social acceptance to do so.
Now THIS is courage.
THIS is love!
This is what it means to do something for someone in the face of risk.
Chambers has no respect for it, because he couldn’t stay the course in his own life, or was willing to tough out real world issues that he faced when it mattered.
That’s why I consider ex gays a capitulator to hostile forces. Joined in the easy road taken.
And no matter how much jumping up and down and cruising for a pat on the back ex gays are looking for…they are not the courageous soldiers for good and love they want to be respected and honored for.
BTW, my husband’s gay brother and his partner have been together 28 years!
I do find it very interesting that almost every single exgay testimony comes from someone being paid to give exgay testimony.
Pretty cowardly of the man to make those comments and then refuse to defend them to a man who objected. Alan, you sir are a coward.
I, for one, am sorry that this is Alan’s experience:
“a never ending cycle of cravings and nourishment … an endless treadmill of faceless encounters, broken hearts and unmet dreams”
If that’s what he experienced while identifying as gay, I can see why he’d want to turn his back on it.
It’s still disingenious of him to argue that this is everyone’s experience who is gay.
My knee-jerk response is to be angry. My considered response is sorrow.
Colleen, I agree, although my sorrow is still mixed with anger and disingenuous seems a mild way to put it. He has to know that he is out-and-out lying. I can’t imagine that he doesn’t. He has been a part of Bridges Across for years and must know at least of Steve Schalchlin’s and Jim’s relationship, not to mention others. If this account of his words is indeed true, he needs to be called on this.
I really do strive to be reconcilatory and to not post knee-jerk reactions, but when he continues to say these kinds of things while fronting an organization that purports to love homosexuals…I find it hard to know what to do with my anger and hurt. If this is their idea of “challeng[ing] those who respond to homosexuals with ignorance and fear” as they claim on their website then I think it is entirely fair to feel anger and challenge Alan on his ignorance (?) and untruths.
CPT,
Thanks for the story about your great-uncle and your grandmother. It touched me.
“It is most certainly an unusually long gay or lesbian relationship. Are heterosexual relationships of this length significantly more common?”
Because, unlike some members of ex-gay ministries, we value honesty here more than we value hype, I want to discuss this briefly.
As far as I know, there are no studies that compare the of length of relationships of straight couples vs. gay couples. However, I would be very surprised if gay couples did not fall far shorter in average.
Consider:
1. Only one state allows full recognition of gay couples and gives the full burden of society to love, honor, and cherish each other. Several allow some recognition of couples but do not tell the couples that this union is essential to a cohesive and functional society and “we” expect you to live up to these vows.
Most offer no encouragement to stay together and 14 states have now voted to change their constitution to publicly deride those who have committed their lives to each other.
2. Only one christian denomination has endorsed gay marriage and many forbid the local congregations to allow any recognition at all – should they so desire.
3. Until just a few years ago, same-sex activity was illegal in 12 states. Living together was in defiance of state law. Most decades long relationship were at some point breaking the law.
4. Until recent decades, even in liberal urban settings the places of social gathering were few. Meeting between gay people was dangerous and so it was difficult to find many to choose from. The social settings that did exist were generally bars and not conducive to finding a mate.
5. Until recently, the support venues were focused first on issues of legality, then issues of emotional care (overcoming societal prejudices) and then AIDS came along. It is only recently that there has been a chance to establish and grow places that were neither bars nor catastophy recovery.
So it is not surprising that – on average – straight relationships have been more stable than gay relationships. What is surprising is that gay people have been able to establish relationships at all.
It is truly a testament to the power of love and the growing maturity of our community that there are so many couples that have endured all of the difficulties placed in their path and have clung to each other for decades.
Yes, Christine, I think that some anger is justified. For myself, I am focusing on sorrow because it is more constructive than eating myself up inside with confused anger and the questions of “How can they?”
My guess, and this is just a guess, is that Mr. Chambers truly believes that he will see the demise of the most rock-solid gay/lesbian relationship, and that is how he makes those statements.
Chambers may be guilty of “claiming by faith”. This is a distorted view of God as a personal assistant.
It’s bad enough when you impact your own life “by faith”. If you say “even though my salary isn’t adequate, I’m going to buy a new car because I have faith that God will provide”, then you are insisting that God meet your whims about how you want to live.
But to say “even though I see decades long same-sex relationships, I’m going to claim by faith that they don’t exist”, is demanding that God meet your whims about how you want other people to live.
It goes way beyond arrogant.
ck said:
My knee-jerk response is to be angry. My considered response is sorrow.
Sorrow for his experience, anger over what he is doing to others. There is a difference.
David
Timothy,Other factors I’d add to the mix (comparative length of relationships)remaining married, on paper, “for the children”. The marriage may have effectively died after 5 or 10 years, but it’s not until 20+ years that a divorce is finally sought (after the last bird leaves the nest). This is less common today, but was very common a few decades ago — and it’s the marriages made in previous years that (of course!) give today’s averages. At what point do we count them as no longer married?paralleling the above, and less common today, was the financial dependency of women. But these marriages likewise make up today’s average.similarly, the prohibition on divorce among some faiths. Couples remain married to avoid the fallout, but effectively are no longer living “as man and wife”. Do we count them as married?the fact that gay couples have on average less dependant children in their households. see above, plus the fact separation is easier when it’s only two adults going their different ways.the fact that heterosexuals who get married — notable cases aside — are already a self-selected group that have committed to permanence. Whether they achieve that is another matter, but having stood up in front of all and sundry most will make an effort to work through a rough patch. Cohabs, and boy/girlsfriends, have (again on average) not made similar levels of commitment.Of course, I hardly need point out that it is virtually impossible to know which gay couples are similarly situated — who are the “married”, who are the “cohabitating”, who are “boy/girlfriends” etc. The status, which is a rough and ready measure of prior commitment, is unknown for gay couples.I haven’t seen one solid study that compares het vs hom partnering and takes all the factors into account; including the ability for a couple to be socially open about their relationship (something comparatively recent for gay couples).One wonders what the average length of relationship is (and will be) for childless, unmarried het couples between 25 and 45 years of age.
>a never ending cycle of cravings and nourishment …
Um, that’s LIFE. If that were my main concern, I’d be turning to Buddhism, probably, not these assclowns.
David, good point. Thank you. I agree that his propogation of lies is harmful and that we are justified in being angry. My own personal approach is to focus on compassion towards his experience. Those two elements probably need to be held in tension, in a dialectic–going from one to the other and back again.
Timothy, I agree with you largely, but the point is that Alan presents homosexuality as a whole as such. I actually tend to think much of it would also be based on geography and communities. I live 45 minutes out of LA and Palm Springs. If I lived in LA or Palm Springs, I would probably know more people who are promiscous and live the life that Chambers describes. However, that is still a generalization. I think the point is that Chambers misrepresents people who are gay. It would be like saying Latinos are all gang members (I have heard people say stuff like this here). No, some Latinos are gang members. To generalize like that is racist. For Chambers to do the same, it is hurtful to many. And he is saying hurtful things to people who make laws–that is dangerous.
OOPS–when I said here, I did not mean the message boards. I meant here in this area. Sorry.
STEVE!!!!!
Hi Steve!
How is Jim doing?
Thanks so much for my CD, I love it!
Great to see you here!
thanks, guys, good points
Alan Chambers wrote to XGW today to say that he was misquoted by Salon.com.
He says he actually said, “Lifelong, loving committed homosexual relationships are not possible.”
Chambers’ correspondence was flagged confidential, so I will not quote it in its entirety. I have invited Chambers to write back with a public reply.
Daniel Gonzales has asked Salon.com to confirm its report, and requested an audio feed (if available) from CPAC.
In light of Alan’s clarification, let me rephrase my question:
Alan, how can you speak before a group and say these things? You have communicated with several people who are in lifelong LOVING COMMITTED homosexual relationships. How can you claim they are not possible?
Alan, have you no regard whatsoever for honesty?
He says he actually said, “Lifelong, loving committed homosexual relationships are not possible.”
And this makes a difference how? Seriously Alan, it’s hardly worth the clarification. And since when did you become too shy to post at XGW? Could it be that you actually do know how absurd the statement is on it’s face and can’t muster the energy to defend it? I mean if you can bother to send a confidential email, why not just post a comment and explain to all at one time? Then again that would be on the record, wouldn’t it.
I’m sorry for my tone but honestly, you should be ashamed of yourself. If you are going to make statements like that either admit you were wrong or have the courage of your convictions and explain yourself.
David
Hows has this clarification changed anything? He said the same thing in a different phrase. I have been in a committed homo relationship for 7 years. Committed, trusting, monogamous, happy, healthy….somebody ask Alan what his point is other than the fact he is lying to the public not once, but twice. Shame! All I can say is SHAME!
and ask what was the commndment about false witness? something about not lying, not fibbing, not misrepresenting, not playing the deception by omsssion game..I just can’t remember! Can anyone remind me about at one!
So should we assume Alan has no response other than his ‘clarification’ that further states what we’ve already found so offensive? I’d hate to see this just go away, but I realize only Alan can decide if there will be a response to the questions posed to him here.
My wife and I are 30 and 31, respectively; we have been together in some form or fashion for literally our entire adult lives. (We met as high school seniors when I was looking at colleges.) At one point, when Alan and I communicated fairly often via an e-mail list and webforum, our relationship was not monogamous–we had started our own lives in different cities, and this was our way of coping while still loving each other. But Alan probably knows that we are monogamous and married now–I said so on that very same webforum and left the city Alan and I once shared for her. I also think it’s pretty cool that we were able to cope with cultural differences and distance, among other issues.
Joe, here’s a post I made some time back about bearing false witness to someone named Meredith:
Meredith,
I don’t know if you are a person of faith. And I know that others will address our concerns with the inconsistency and dishonesty of the statement in relation to civil or social context. I am, however, going to address the issue in terms of Christianity, my personal faith.
We, as people, tend to be forgiving of those who get a few facts or dates wrong. We tend to say that they aren’t really lying.
And that may be fair.
However, there is a time when inaccuracy is not allowed, and that time is when bearing witness. Then you are not allowed to err. At all.
God so cared about this distinction that he included an additional “truth” commandment in the Big Ten. Not only shalt thou not lie, but also thou shalt not bear false witness. This commandment raises the bar. Inaccuracy, hyperbole, exaggeration, white fibs, spin, none of this is acceptable when bearing witness (testimony). When you add to this the burden assumed when you speak “as a Christian” or say that “God says…” then you are not only bearing false witness but dragging God into it as well.
That, Meredith, is why the issue of having the right dates matters. If you aren’t certain of your facts, you are forbidden by God to make testimony of them.
Lately we’ve seen many religious people comfortable about going before a legislative body or the news and claim some “fact” or “statistic”. And they claim to speak for God or God’s people. Yet even a casual glace at their source shows that what they claim is not true.
I don’t believe that many of them are lying; although the words they are saying are lies I doubt that they know it. They simply don’t care whether it’s true. They are bearing witness and making no effort to determine if it is false.
And that is the callous, self-righteous, complacent attitude that was the primary target of Christ’s ministry.
Timothy, I’ve used your words time and time again since then.Told you to copywrite them…