Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., is a logical choice of venue for the exgay Love Won Out roadshow: the church and its authoritarian leader, D. James Kennedy, support the enforcement of sodomy laws that would imprison the nation’s homosexuals.
Naturally, given the choice between the imprisonment of same-sex-attracted men and women who (with few exceptions) can’t change, and the pretense of ill-defined “change” offered by roadshows such as Love Won Out, rational individuals might choose so-called “change.”
That is the hope of LWO hosts Focus on the Family and Exodus International, both of which:
- support sodomy laws;
- support antigay discrimination;
- deny the reality of healthy gay relationships even as they seek to make such relationships illegal;
- suppress all sexuality outside of marriage through the abstinence-only movement
In an article published May 6, a Miami Herald headline promised to compare Love Won Out with a rival meeting titled Love Welcomes All.
Unfortunately, the ensuing news story neglected to inform readers of the explicit political positions of Focus and Exodus, and the story gave minimal attention to Love Welcomes All. Instead of comparing and fact-checking the exgay and ex-exgay claims, the Herald offers a lengthy reprint of antigay fundamentalist propaganda.
Tthe Herald parroted unnamed “[p]eople who support Love Won Out [who] said no one will be pressured at the conference” but failed to balance Focus’ ridiculous claim with the fact that Focus does indeed use sodomy laws, civil-union bans, and discrimination in housing, employment and government services to force homosexuals to undergo poorly defined “change.”
In a passing reference, the Herald notes that “most people who attend are parents with adult-age children who are homosexual” — but the reference is so brief that readers could easily overlook that, in fact, few exgays run the roadshow and almost no exgays are to be found among the relatives of those who attend the program.
The Herald parrots a quote by Focus on the Family antigay activist Melissa Fryrear: “You can’t make people want to overcome their sexuality. It must be an individual decision,” again ignoring the simple fact that Focus does seek to force change upon homosexuals. The Herald again parrots Fryrear: “Thousands of people have made that decision, though” — the Herald fails to ask Fryrear for any documentation of her numbers.
The Herald parrots the antigay organization’s definition of homosexuality as “a destructive way of life” without offering any counterpoint.
The rival meeting, Love Welcomes All, is given just four brief paragraphs at the end of the story. While LWA showcased local ministers and professional researchers, just one local minister is given barely two sentences to unravel an article’s worth of parroted antigay propaganda.
And they neglected to ask after this:
And what, exactly, is this “heterosexual behaviour” she’s engaged in??? Melissa says she’s “attracted” to men, and one day “wants” to be married. Whatever that all means.News flash: Melissa, there’s more to heterosexual behaviour than deciding not to have lesbian sex… or spending your days wallowing in wishful thinking.And to compound the deception, as is obvious from who actually attends these things:
No Melissa — your baseless message is for anti-gay straight people.
Actually fact checking Love Won Out, and paying equal attention to the Love Welcomes All conference, would have been more work.
Here is the letter I sent the Herald reporter:
In the May 6 story Rivalry: gay ‘Love’ messages, you quote Melissa Fryrear of the touring organization known as “Love Won Out” as saying:
”You can’t make people want to overcome their sexuality. It must be an individual decision,” said speaker Melissa Fryrear. “Thousands of people have made that decision, though.”
In various interviews over the last couple of years, Love Won Out, Focus on the Family and Exodus officials have mentioned “thousands,” “tens of thousands,” even “hundreds of thousands” as the numbers involved who have miraculously changed their sexuality by coming into their evangelical fold. And yet I have never seen a reporter ask the rather obvious question: “So who are they? Where are they?”
If there are such numbers, it would seem to me that these groups would have speakers all over the country. Instead it is always the same rather short list, an indication that this sounds more like an evangelical con game than some real movement. Surely those who have braved the “change” into becoming godly heterosexuals would be proudly displaying their newfound faith. Instead, the only ex-gays we seem to see are those employed by these organizations – and it makes me wonder if these are ex-gays-for-pay.
One would also think that these organizations would be having a huge annual mega-church conference filled with photo-ops for the “thousands” who have shed their “homosexual” misery to become productive heterosexuals. We don’t see that either. But we do see these conferences filled with distraught family members who are apparently reinforced in their own self-righteousness in order to cope with the ostracization in the church and their families over having a gay relative.
I have absolutely no idea why any such Love Won Out conference is worthy of coverage. But if your paper must provide space for such an event, it would seem to me that someone would be responsible enough to ask some pertinent questions.
I remember reading something about Rev. Moon of the Unification Church once – in which he stated that blacks could solve the racial problem by moving to the Arctic for a couple of generations and lightening their skin. I suppose if they had a conference here, attended by many KKK members, white supremacist groups and featuring a couple of light-skinned black speakers (and of course using a church), this would be considered a “rival” idea in an ongoing “debate.”
And, naturally, no reporter would venture to ask for some evidence.
suppress all sexuality outside of HETEROSEXUAL marriage through the abstinence-only movement
Melissa also says that she enjoys being a princess, so you’ve got to take it with a grain of salt. How much integrity can one who still plays dress-up publicly have? Her rhetoric and persona seem to be fighting a public battle. It’s really quite sad.