This past weekend in El Paso, three young men kidnapped a gay teen, tied him up, and beat him all night.

the attackers told the man “they were going to scare him straight.”

Some might consider it extreme to blame this young man’s torment on the ex-gay movement. And it is true that I cannot prove that any of his attackers were familiar with any of the literature disseminated by Exodus or other anti-gay organizations. But it’s clear that they share some beliefs in common:

* Gay people can become straight
* Gay people don’t deserve to be treated the same as their heterosexual counterparts
* Gay people are not entitled to defining their own lives
* Gay people are the enemy
* Extreme measures are justified against the enemy

The attitudes of these thugs and the anti-gay political organizations that pass as support groups for SSA stugglers is the same: if gay people do not become straight, they are responsible for the consequences

And this beating is not an isolated incident. Coinciding as it did with the baseball bat beatings of six gay men leaving San Diego gay pride, it barely got attention. And it is with regularity that cruelty like this is being reported. It has gotten so that we hardly notice a beating unless the victim dies.

I truly believe that these attacks are the direct result of anti-gay language. And currently, the most virulent anti-gay language is given cover by the ex-gay ministries. Nearly every vile accusation and evil demonization hurled at gay people includes some reference to “love” and “former homosexuals”.

All of those ex-gays who lead the charge in this culture war against gay people claim that they “oppose violence”. But do they?

If your words lead to violence, beating, and death, don’t you have an obligation to do something about it? Once you say that gay people are not equal to straight people and once you’ve been used to give a veneer of “caring” to those who say that gay people are having sex with infants and animals, is saying “I oppose violence” enough?

When you falsely characterize someone as the enemy of society, you are morally responsibly when society beats them half to death. The political ex-gay ministries need to take an objective look to see if they have blood on their hands.

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