Focus on the Family’s ex-gay roadshow, Love Won Out, has presented Dr. Nancy Heche (doctorate in pastoral counseling) as an authority on sexual orientation issues. Heche claims to represent “truth and love” in her approach.
Heche’s claim to authority is based on her husband’s closeted life and the very public relationship that her estranged daughter (actress Anne Heche) had with Ellen DeGeneres. She purports that this has given her a “compassionate and unique focus”. Although she presents herself as though she offers help to families, she is also available to campaign against laws that would protect people from discrimination in employment, housing, education, public accommodations and credit.
It appears that Nancy has a new book coming out in which she clarifies exactly what kind of “love” and “compassion” she brings to the discussion. A rather unreliable source (the National Enquirer via ContactMusic.com) reveals the way in which Nancy views gay people.
Anne’s newfound lesbian love affair is like a betrayal of an unspoken vow: WE will never have anything to do with homosexuals.
If this report is accurate, it demonstrates that Nancy, like others in the ex-gay movement, though claiming to love gay people actually hold gay people in contept. The “love and compassion” they bring is as false as their claims of success.
I heard Heche speak when I attended Love Won Out here in DC.
She tells about slipping away from her faith and into excessive living and promiscuity after her husband died, and then finding redemption in God. Anne’s relationship with Ellen is described breathlessly as tragic and heartbreaking, and the breakup as an answer to prayer.
Curiously, though, in this environment where the primary reason and method for going from gay to ex-gay is God, she never describes Anne finding God (Anne’s public statements clarify that she still supports queer folk, and has not adopted her mother’s beliefs). Nancy also seemed to carefully skirt describing her current relationship with Anne, leaving open the possibility that it remains tenuous or contentious.
I thought that disconnect was revealing. All day long the speakers flailed away at the concept that the gay “problem” was spiritual, not sexual, and that the ex-gay solution was God, not mere abstinence. But halfway through all of the tightly-scripted, well-rehearsed talks comes Dr. Heche, tearfully praising God that her daughter quit having gay sex, nevermind that Anne is still probably bound for hell as a non-Christian and likely remains significantly estranged from her mother.
Good point, Steve
If, as we are told over and over, the objective is not heterosexuality but a life dedicated to Jesus, then Nancy’s prayers failed miserably.
Somehow I think Nancy cares more about “WE will never have anything to do with homosexuals” than she does about Anne’s spiritual walk.
What Timothy said.
I feel so, so sorry for Anne. All she did was fall in, out, and back in love. Her mother’s exploitation of her is shameless.
Who’s going to take one for the team and review the book?
I think that Nancy’s statement was taken way out of the context of the book. She is telling about a part of her history in that part of the book, and at that time, she did feel betrayed by the homosexual community. She didn’t want anything to do with homosexuals. I mean, for PEt’s sake, people her husband was in the closet, died of AIDS. It was horrible heart break all around for everybody. She felt it was betrayal when Anne came out as a lesbian. Maybe she is happy that Anne is not with another woman now. What mom wouldn’t be? I mean most moms don’t say “Wow, I hope my daughter grows up to be a lesbian and marries a woman.” Good Grief! Can you blame her for being happy?
I’d be happy, too. Plus, there was the tragic death of her son in s a car accident. Give the woman a break!!!
I think her thinking has changed as far as not wanting anything to do with homosexuals. That quote is WAAAAAY out of context.
One that accepted their daughter for who she is, not who she’s with?
Have you ever noticed that when someone says something particularly offensive it’s always “out of context”.
Here’s a suggestion: don’t say offensive or hateful things. That way you don’t have to worry about context.
Things like “Maybe she is happy that Anne is not with another woman now. What mom wouldn’t be? I mean most moms don’t say “Wow, I hope my daughter grows up to be a lesbian and marries a woman.” Good Grief! Can you blame her for being happy? I’d be happy, too.” (just for example)
See now, things like that show amazing ignorance and a sense of superiority. As well as being downright hateful. But if you never say it, you don’t have to worry that you’ll be taken out of context.
Or things like justifying “She didn’t want anything to do with homosexuals” by mentioning “the tragic death of her son” – as though having a dead child somehow explains bigotry. See now, if you never think that it’s OK to not want anything to do with gay people then you never have to worry about context. Even if your kid is tragically killed, you still won’t somehow magically find yourself full of hatred and malice.
So it’s all best to just not be a hateful spiteful bigot in the first place.
And as for Ms. Heche’s change in attitude, perhaps when she doesn’t travel to states to lobby against non-discrimination laws I’ll start to see a change. Until then, well let’s just say she’s still in context.
Nancy claims to have been called by God to be a link between Christians and homosexuals. She pictures a sad little groups of homosexuals on one side of the Grand Canyon and the everyone else (very large group) on the other side yelling taunts. She sees herself as bravely stepping out into the chasm between the two groups. She does not even acknowledge the millions of Christians who would rather socialize and attend church with openly gay couples than with those on her side of the canyon.
I don’t agree that we must cut her a break. Yes she lost a husband to AIDS and she lost a son in a car crash. So maybe we don’t want to judge her too harshly. That does not mean that we allow her to get away with claiming as she does in this book that “scientists” have determined homosexuality is caused by parental neglect and abuse. (Are these the same “scientists” who have determined that Noah brought baby dinosaurs on his ark, because the bigger dinosaurs would not fit?) Why is it that she wants to believe that there is absolutely no biological component to homosexuality? Because she wants to believe that homosexuality is a sin. God does not hardwire sin into his creation, so homosexuality must be caused by persons who sinned.
Also, it is clear to me in this book that she has not been properly trained in psychotherapy. She actually tells a woman to wait for her gay husband to come home, because she knew someone else whose husband returned after a long wait. She is called Dr. Heche on the 700 Club Web site. Her doctorate is in pastoral counseling.
Well, many on the Christian right like to hear what she has to say and pay her good money to say it. How nice to be called by God to make money.