After recent changes made to Wikipedia’s entry on Exodus International by Exodus staffers, the page has been flagged as “disputed” with the message seen above. The recent change history of Exodus’ Wikipedia entry is here.
Hat tip: Justin Watt of Justinsomnia
And, how surprising, all of the slipperyness can be traced back to Winter Park Florida.Not to worry — we can all edit Wikipedia, you know. This isn’t meant to be an ad for Exodus, and boy is there an awful lot missing. Clues abound… “Alan Chambers, the president of Exodus, has decided…”Nope, at best that would be “announced [link] that”. No first person allowed in an encyclopaedia Alan…
It is apparent from the Wiki talk page that Exodus president Alan Chambers added numerous unsubstantiated and self-promotional claims to Wikipedia while deleting most objective analysis of the organization.
Of the inaccuracies penned by Exodus that have been preserved on the Wiki talk page, perhaps the most ridiculous Exodus claim is this one:
“Exodus is the largest Christian referral and information ministry dealing with homosexual issues in our world today.”
Exodus is a small organization consisting of fewer than 200 local member advocates. Many of these local groups have little or no membership. Furthermore, Exodus is not a conventional Christian ministry; it is a national antigay political lobbying office funded by a ragtag network of undersupported local exgay advocates.
Exodus net assets at the end of 2004 were just $281,000, and annual revenues were $925,000.
Compare Exodus finances to those of the United Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches.
According to the UFMCC’s 2005 annual report, in 2004 UFMCC had net assets of more than $659,000 and income of more than $2,900,000.
UFMCC is a legitimate Christian ministry, unlike Exodus, and UFMCC is more than twice the size of Exodus. (While UFMCC is perceived in some cities as a religious singles club, in other cities such as Washington, UFMCC is faith-centered, conservative and evangelical.)
Actually, I think the most ridiculous is the fact there’s no entry under “Controversy” for “Does It Work?” :)Without having gone through all the recent changes, those changes and who made them are really quite illuminating. The words “pathological liars” come to mind, but that would be too harsh — I’m not a medical doctor and I haven’t assessed them… Nevertheless, the changes to the neutrality flag alone point to some disturbing “Don’t Even Question Us” attitudes.Yeah, I know. That’s hardly news.For those not inclined to do the wading, we’ll sum for you: Edits by Alan Chambers commencing just after midnight, 18 April. Many more in the afternoon. Mike Ensley joins in. Prompting the following flag:
That lasted all of 6 hours before that certain someone at 71.55.2.89 (Winter Park, Florida ie try guessing Alan M Chambers at home) got all funny about being flagged.They thought this would be more appropriate:
The reasoning? “I edited the warning because of the pettiness of the disclaimer”.Yep. For a straight man that Alan M Chambers sure is snippy… Following Wikipedia guidelines, it reverted back a mere 15 minutes later; and correctly so. Reasoning to be found under “POV check”.And one wonders, not, what therefore caused this comment about the edit:”What an unethical person Chambers is to edit the piece in this way”Oh, they don’t even know the least of it!
I love Wikipedia, and I’ve contributed to many articles, primarily ones about different musicians I like and have followed for years, from Simple Minds to Kansas to The Blue Nile. But even with topics as lightweight as those, I recognize my own biases and have made an attempt to be even-handed, even if it means including negative criticisms about particular albums I might like personally.
Alan Chambers is beyond brazen. This is an on-the-record, caught-with-your-hand-in-the-cookie-jar, textbook example of how the ex-gay movement takes its very public failures and attempts to either redefine them or sweep them under the rug so that no one else will discover them.
Over the last couple of years, from reading this blog and all the related articles to which it has linked, I am more convinced than ever that ex-gay leaders know full well they are trafficking in bald-faced lies. This is just another example. I find this very, very disturbing.
Even without Chambers’ changes, the Wiki pages for Exodus and the exgay movement are tame: While there are references to scattered scandals, there is little statistical or clinical analysis of the movement — primarily because, unlike responsible religious charitable ministries such as Catholic Charities, Exodus member organizations refuse to track their caseloads.
I hope that in the coming years, independent researchers and survivors of the exgay programs will begin to organize caseload audits and exit interviews.
The window of opportunity, in which the public waits patiently for Exodus to behave responsibly, has expired.
I noticed there was a similar tug-of-war last year on Richard Cohen’s entry on Wikipedia.
In fact, Wikipedia’s strength is fast becoming its weakness. USA Today carried a couple of articles a few months ago describing, people whose personal biographies were edited with slanderous charges, and their difficulties in getting them corrected.