From page 215 of Exodus’ new book “God’s Grace and the Homosexual Next Door:”
[From the chapter “25 Questions and Answers About Gay Ministry”]
17. Can a homosexual who has become a Christian work around children in the Sunday school or elsewhere?
First of all, becoming a Christian is not the issue. Practicing homosexuals, whether they are Christians or not, should not teach Sunday school to any age. However, the case may be different if someone has accepted Christ and surrendered his (or her) sexuality to God.
Now why a gay person who isn’t a Christian would possibly want to teach Sunday school is beyond me. Alan continues:
The majority of homosexuals are not pedophiles, and someone who has left homosexuality does not pose any specific risk to children as a result of his former homosexual practices.
Anyone, no matter his or her background, should be carefully screened before being entrusted with precious children. As with any childcare worker, criminal background checks should be done to ensure that the worker has no criminal history and especially no history of violence or abuse against children.
No word from Alan on letting practicing adulterers (someone who divorced their spouse and remarried) teach Sunday school.
Alan said:
Anyone, no matter his or her background, should be carefully screened before being entrusted with precious children. As with any childcare worker, criminal background checks should be done to ensure that the worker has no criminal history and especially no history of violence or abuse against children.
Wow! I can’t believe I actually agree with you on this Alan. However, would a church be able to afford to put out the type of cash it costs to run a background check? Perhaps even a drug test?
I live and work in the Las Vegas casino industry and before we can even get a job in a casino a background check and drug test is an essential part of the hiring process. And from what I hear these tests cost a pretty penny. I would be curious to hear if churches are willing to shell out the money for these checks.
Daniel said:
No word from Alan on letting practicing adulterers (someone who divorced their spouse and remarried) teach Sunday school.
I totally agree with you Daniel. It seems Christ’s condemnation on divorce and remarriage is tossed aside by most churches (conservative churches as well)all the while condemnation of gays and lesbians for wanting marriage takes front and center stage in the Defense of Marriage debate.
Seems like divorce is no longer the pariah it once was in Christian circles.
When Alan Chambers states that practicing homosexuals should not teach Sunday school to any age group, he is demonstrating not just his bigotry toward gay people, but also a profound lack of respect toward the fundamental American value of freedom of religion.
Where does he get off trying to dictate to every Christian denomination in the US who should and should not teach in Sunday school classes.
I know a closeted lesbian pastor in a conservative denomination who ‘fired’ a volunteer Sunday School teacher because he was a gay man. More recently I learned of a choir member at a tiny nearby church being kicked out of the choir for being gay. So this stuff definitely happens. Too bad there is support for it in a book with the innocuous title “God’s Grace and the Homosexual Next Door.”
This all seems strange to me since I am able to serve as an openly gay pastor in the United Church of Christ. On the other hand, I’m prohibited from teaching the ‘God and Me’ program to the Cub Scouts troup our church has sponsored for 80 years.
Come on Daniel. Alan C writes “Practicing homosexuals, whether they are Christians or not, should not teach Sunday school to any age” and your response is “Gays Should Not Teach Sunday School”. and you then write as though he had blacklisted everybody who has same-sex attraction. You know that what Alan C wrote, even if you disagree with it, is NOT what your headline said.
Did I read this correctly? Is Allan actually saying that a “practicing homosexual” can be a Christian? “Practicing homosexuals, whether they are Christians or not…
j.
I hate to agree with Peter, but the headline was not accurate.
It happens occasionally Mark (agreeing with the likes of me)… and it often works both ways!!!
I should have clarified that this rule needs to apply to all who are unrepentant in their respective sin(s).
you then write as though he had blacklisted everybody who has same-sex attraction.
So are you back to the definition that everyone with same-sex attraction is gay? With the morphing language surrounding Alan and Exodus, I’m not sure we can get too upset with Daniel here. If I understand Alan’s current terminology, the headline is perfectly accurate.
If we get past the headline, what is your opinion concerning what Alan said in his book? Do you think he would also exclude homosexuals who are currently celibate, but do not consider same-sex relationships immoral? Remember, Alan also believes that celibate gays are just as sinful as those in same-sex relationships. We could ask Alan himself if he would stop by long enough to finish a thought.
David, Alan keeps it short because otherwise he knows he can’t keep his lies and BS straight.
Essentially, I think you are correct Randi. Alan is entrenched in a sect of Christianity which sees itself not only as the only true understanding of God, but basically the only true Christianity. This is not a position of compromise – far from it. So when he needs to appear to be understanding and reasonable with those who don’t track completely with that belief, he has to do it through distortion of meaning and language. After a while, this does come back to haunt you.
This is confusing to a simple man. Based on the excerpt above requring “accepting Christ” (Done) and surrendering sexuality to God (Done when I stopped telling God He had made a HUGE mistake.), I would appear to qualify for being a Sunday School teacher except that “surrendering” appears to mean something different to me than it does to Mr. Chambers.
Of course, in my pre-out days, I served many years as a Sunday School teacher. Funny how I could make every lesson about loving God and your neighbor.
David R,
I don’t know Alan C personally so I can’t answer for him. My guess is that he wouldn’t have anybody who agreed that same-sex activity was OK teaching Sunday School.
Of course, in my pre-out days, I served many years as a Sunday School teacher.
Same here. When dealing with 7th and 8th graders, one has little time for homosexual indoctrination. And as someone noted above, Alan adding that it would also be wrong for a gay non-Christian to teach is absurd. I suspect this was simply thrown in to make the statement appear more neutral in some odd way. See my comment above for the reason.
I would have more respect for the man if he would just say what he truly believes.
My guess is that he wouldn’t have anybody who agreed that same-sex activity was OK teaching Sunday School.
Isn’t Daniel’s title pretty accurate then given what we know about Alan’s definition of a gay person? Since he has already posted once, perhaps we can just ask Alan.
I don’t take any more issue with what Alan wrote here than with his general position on what it means to be gay. Alan is opposed to same-sex behavior; this is consistent with that. The question asked about homosexuals who have become Christian. To Alan, there is no such thing as an intrinsically homosexual person–being a Christian, in the true sense, for him, means no longer calling yourself a homosexual. The term “Practicing homosexuals,” which he uses in his answer, is redundant, because for Alan, to be a homosexual is to be practicing. This is the whole spin of ex-gay ministries; ceasing to act on same-sex desires, to them, means one is no longer “gay” or “homosexual”.
So in that sense. . .this strikes me as old news. We already know Alan doesn’t believe people can be gay AND Christian, and that’s more or less what this statement says, at the heart–why all the fuss?
In his comment above, Alan Chambers requires that Sunday school teachers be repentant of all sin.
Yet Chambers is, I’m sorry to say, unrepentant of countless sins, as we have detailed at XGW from time to time: Chambers practices hubris, he bears false witness, and he sometimes behaves like a Pharisee. Yet Chambers has served not only as a Sunday school teacher, but as a leader of his Orlando-area church.
I am afraid that when Chambers talks about sin and morality, he does not mean true Biblical morality, but rather the easy, uncharitable, worldly, inconsistent, and sex-focused “values” of the religious right: It’s easy to call other people sinners, it’s uncharitable to claim the divine grace that belongs to others; it’s worldly to scapegoat and demand political correctness; and it’s inconsistent to judge others more harshly than oneself.
Gay Christians, by definition, accept Christ and turn their sexuality over to God. That is true, also, of many ordinary people who call themselves ex-gay.
But the same cannot be assumed about some ex-gay activists who have aligned with the religious right: Chambers is unrepentant of nonsexual sin, and other ex-gay activists are unrepentant of sexual sin. Instead of promoting personal responsibility for behavior, reparative therapists blame parents, PFOX parents blame demons, sexually abused ex-gays blame abusers, and special-rights advocates blame homosexual activists or women’s liberation for making them sin.
I agree with Chambers that unrepentant sinners should not teach Sunday school. But I disagree with his movement’s redefinition of the sinner.
I don’t have a lot of problem with Alan’s position. I think it is ludicrous but it is also consistent with what his brand of Christianity believes.
Alan (if I may be so bold) believes that “sin” is not just a particular actions, but is a state of being. To understand this you have to understand that one can “sin” by doing something forbidden by God and also “be in sin” – by default – by not being repentant. And anyone not being repentant would clearly not be a true Christian. And should not teach Sunday School.
Where Alan errs in consistency with his theology is in declaring that celibate gay people are sinful.
In Alan’s view, engaging in same-sex sexual activity is sin. But also, not being repentant of such activity, thoughts, desires or longings is sinful. And identifying as “gay” would, to Alan, indicate that one accepts same-sex activity as non-sinful thus showing that one is not repentant.
But of course that’s nonsense and is not supported by any doctrine whatsoever. Obviously a celibate gay person who chooses to be so out of religious conviction is not thinking that same-sex activity is acceptable. Only in bizarro-land (or in anti-gay activist land) would they then be deemed as sinful.
But Exodus goes even further. Anyone not teaching that same-sex activity is sinful and that same-sex relationships are to be banned is ALSO not a true Christian but just “professing” and deluded and self-justifying. This argument places salvation contingent upon “right belief” about others and not on one’s own submission of their own life to God.
It’s not too surprising that Alan would come up with this Scripturally false view. The history of Christianity is one of various persons trying to eject those who don’t agree with them. And seldom was the disagreement over anything of actual substance. Alan’s “identity equals sin” dogma, while divisive, heretical, and intentionally cruel for no purpose other than the advancement of a political agenda, is not all that different than disputes over whether the Pope belongs in Rome or Constantinople or whether indulgences could be purchased in advance for anticipated sin.
Alan, I gotta tell ya, buddy. I’ve been straight all my life. Most people I know are straight.
I was allowed to go the Episcopal church and Bible school so that I wouldn’t be ignorant of the Bible and what’s expected of Christians.
Same for going to temple, when I was a little girl, and learning everything possible about the major religions in the world.
Belonging, is a deeply human, necessary and a part of our need to survive as people.
I see something very exploitive about that very human need in the ex gay movement.
We carry our churches and temples and holy books inside of us. Our altars can be anywhere. Epiphanies are private and exhilirating.
I am disturbed by the need for the Christians you follow to deny gay people the voice that’s new to the choir. There isn’t enough known, and never will be. And you’re interfering with important things that must be learned about and FROM gay people.
At least the movement you support does.
Does it not occur to you that there are straight people who don’t need you? And seek what they need to know from the source? The gay folks themselves?
If you’re ex gay, you’re not qualified. You ABDICATED your identity for what was easier.
I want the gay people who are gay, and strong enough to be true to themselves AND Gods and me, thank you.
The only way I think that the truth of any kind be known, is when we know who and where all the gay folks are and those proud of their acccomplishments and integration in a straight world can be the only arbiters of what life is to be gay.
Every last ex gay I’ve had any experience with, do NOT ring true.
Not as straight people….and it’s shaky on the Christian tip.
I don’t like to give people a hard time on the way they CHOOSE to practice their faith.
Important word: CHOOSING one’s religion.
Alan, I don’t see what I thought I SHOULD in a person who is deeply committed to the Christian path.
That is to say, hardcore anti gay Christians want gay people to serve OTHER PEOPLE WHO ARE CHRISTIAN, not God and not in the way gay people choose to.
And those who are extremely PUBLIC about being a former homosexual, want gay people to serve them too.
I think this extreme in talking about what you used to be is immaterial to what matters in a diverse society.
And grossly IMMODEST.
I say that because being straight or Christian or both…is no measure of moral values or abilities.
Because I’m with a lot of gay folks, sometimes I’m mistaken for being gay.
But that’s no big deal. It’s the company I keep.
It’s NO BIG DEAL being straight. Unless you have something to prove.
And you obviously do, but I don’t think it’s going over the way you think.
You didn’t CHOOSE to be straight. Nobody chooses to be straight.
Nobody chooses their sexuality at all. So you teaching or advertising that anything to do with sexuality (and why don’t you distinguish that from FETISHES?) is chosen is weird.
I don’t know what straight people you’ve been talking to, or dealing with….but.
Seriously, who does it REALLY serve?
I look around at heterosexuality HIGHLY and densely representative among people.
Don’t you ever wonder that God could and was likely bored with ALL straight people and created an alternative to it?
After all…although there are millions of roses…there isn’t ONE kind of rose, now is there?
If you believe the story of creation. God was lonesome. He needed company, entertainment…whatever.
All creation is gifted in ways that are different. Varieties of the same thing.
I wish straight people would get over themselves.
It’s not THAT important to be straight Alan…it is to just deal with people straight.
And the ex gay movement doesn’t seem able to do that.
I want to know gay folks, the way I want to see all the roses.
There is a purpose and a plan for gay folks. I’m pretty sure I know what it is.
But it’s not for ME to say. I’m not gay.
But I wish the ex gay movement would back the hell off and let who this all matters to, do the talking.
Gay folks will take it God and will get from God. It’s THAT part that should be up for choice, NOT one’s sexuality.
Running interference between gay and straight folks AND God, is busybody tattletale stuff.
And we as a society, a nation…and symbiotic to one another don’t require it.
The important thing I take away from this excerpt of the book is Exodus Leadership’s instruction to do careful screening and oversight of youth programs.
So, Exodus is perfectly positioned to set a good example in youth programs, conferences, and in the minimum requirements for any of its member ministries which serve adolescents.
I think what bothers me is the subtle association of gay people with a criminal element.
This is not unusual from anti-gay Christian organizations. Despite the fact that we are not criminals in America, they constantly speak about us using language that implies exactly that.
It’s a “lynching” language that accomplishes the same thing it did to black men and women in an earlier American age…it paints us as people that really belong in jail or…strung up.
It is a murder that does not pull the trigger, or swing the bat; for murder is often a process, and only the last act brings death. Murder is a lifestyle that devalues, diminishes and destroys another. This is the lifestyle many anti-gay leaders practice and teach to their followers; and as we can see, they begin recruiting others into this lifestyle at the earliest age possible. They teach their little children that gay people are inherently dangerous to them and society.
Of course, when gay people feel the final bullets and blades from those who believed the message they’ve been taught since they were babes, these teachers inevitably disclaim the dreadful influence their words have.
Alan said:
I should have clarified that this rule needs to apply to all who are unrepentant in their respective sin(s).
What some may consider sinful, others may declare it is not.
For example, divorce and remarriage (except in cases of adultry) is sinful. Would you allow a divorced and remarried person teach Sunday School Alan? The way I see it if two people divorce they need to remain celibate the rest of their lives since Christ called remarriage adultry. They cannot remarry.
Regan, You said that I abdicated my right or ability to speak on the issue of homosexuality because I chose to leave homosexuality, which invalidates the fact that I absolutely understand what it means to be, feel and identify as gay. I may no longer identify as gay, but that doesn’t mean I don’t completely understand everything someone who is gay feels or thinks.
My identity is solidly different today, my opinion on the issue is solidly different than most, if not all, of you here. But, don’t mistake the fact that I understand homosexuality far better than you who has never personally dealt with it.
I may no longer identify as gay, but that doesn’t mean I don’t completely understand everything someone who is gay feels or thinks.
Wow, I had no idea you were omniscient. I’ll bite then. Please tell me everything I am thinking and feeling.
Of course you do.
Alan,
But, don’t mistake the fact that I understand homosexuality far better than you who has never personally dealt with it.
This is why I hold you to a higher standard than someone who may know little to nothing about homosexuality. You have at least a fleeting knowledge and make gay issues a part of your regular work.
I can sometimes understand outrageous statements made by others about gay people. It’s ignorance. That doesn’t make it OK, just understandable. And such statements, though unkind, may not necessarily be made out of malice.
But, Alan, you regularly say things that I find it inconceivable that you believe. You make statements about gay people and their lives, motivations, intentions, and actions that do not at all reflect reality and it has become obvious that you are aware of that. Repeatedly we at XGW give both example and statistical or other evidence to show that your claims are not in allignment with fact. Yet you continue to make these statements using your own experiences as a basis for your claims.
It becomes increasingly difficult for me to ascribe simple ignorance as your motivation.
From: Exodus President: Lifelong Homosexual Relationships “Not Possible”
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.”
An expert? Hardly. Alan is an expert on himself. Not the gay community. He cannot speak for every gay person out there simply because he says he was once gay and had “endless treadmill of faceless encounters”. His feelings and thoughts are his own. He does not know what I feel or anyone else here for that matter.
It seems he was more sexually active than I was in my past. I can count my sexual encounters on both hands and feet. And this is in the last 20 years! And I haven’t had one in the last two!
So you certainly don’t speak for me. And thanks Alan for your answer to my divorce question.
No Alan, I didn’t say you didn’t understand what it meant to be gay.
What I’m saying is, you cannot speak as a person who exemplifies strength in the face of the adversity of homophobia and religious coercion.
The gay person who maintains their identity and strives for their own truth, is FAR more remarkable than a gay person who went along with the program that the straight world feeds gay people every day.
I have NO clue what it’s like to be gay. I am however a black woman that remembers those who would have my beauty be redefined by white beauty standards.
Or the standards of beauty MEN set for women.
Hence my sisters of color, whether Asian or black go to surgeons to change their eyes, or their noses…or for breast enlargement.
There was never anything wrong with their original features, but social coercion made them hate them anyway.
Made them ‘struggle’ with their authentic selves.
I am telling you that I see the same formula against gay youngsters.
They struggle against an ideal that isn’t fair or right, workable and most of all, ISN”T NECESSARY!
The ex gay movement cannot and does not distinguish moral and immoral behaviors and how they shape’s society’s response.
One doesn’t have to be taught how to feel in response to adultery, or theft or murder or assault, or divorce.
But YOU and the others who commit to ex gay ministry work hard to teach people how to be repulsed by gay people.
If you have to work this hard to teach that being gay is bad, AGAINST the better angels of people who would accept homosexuality with the natural ease we accept heterosexuality, then you have it wrong.
Homosexuality DOES’NT have the results the afformentioned have.
It doesn’t have the results that addictions and overeating has.
So, I never said you didn’t know what it was like to be gay.
I said you don’t know what being gay and STAYING gay is like.
I had two light skinned aunts that crossed over and passed now and then as white, so that they wouldn’t suffer the consequences of Jim Crow or have to ‘struggle’ with their black identity.
Passing is something that would be more desirable than having to live as a hated minority in a society that would deny even the option of marriage. Which NO citizen is denied anymore based on a single characteristic.
So I consider ex gays, passers. I wouldn’t have a beef with it.
Except that the ex gay movement is engaged in denying gay people equal access and protections the Constitution guarantees.
Make no mistake, it’s not for the protection of gay sexuality.
It’s for the protection of the gay citizen who IS gay. Big difference.
But if my light skinned aunts had engaged in anti black activity and supported Jim Crow, after they denied their orignial selves, and left their own to ‘struggle’ all over again and forever, their behavior to do that against black people would be contemptable.
Many passers, like Haggard, do that.
Many ex gays do that.
So, what say you Alan Chambers, to that?
Give ’em H*ll, Regan!
I admire your prescient ability to cut thru the BS.
The viewpoint Alan represents, that of purposefully lying on script, on [talking] point and on cue; furthering and using the language of lynching to disenfranchise and assassinate an entire people he has never met, and spreading a diseased theology of spiritual violence, are beyond disgusting. He represents the view, not of the Christ, but of the Anti.
Regan:
1. We don’t teach people to be repulsed by gay people. That isn’t our message or heart at all. Homosexuality is a sin and sin is repulsive–God isn’t repulsed by people.
2. The issue of how black people and gay people have been treated is where the similarity ends when it comes to race and sexuality.
3. The Constitution doesn’t guarantee the right to smae-sex marriage or extra equality–not for me and not for anyone else.
4. I am sure there are some passers in the ex-gay rhealm. That isn’t what I believe it means to live a life beyond homosexuality. That isn’t how I live my life.
I have long said that lifelong, loving and monogamous relationships are not possible for gay and lesbian identified individuals. I think that there is a lot of evidence that supports the fact that most same sex relationships don’t last or don’t remain exclusive. There are a lot of gay-identified people who have agreed with me on that point—but have offered a different explanation as to why gay relationships don’t last. On that point (that offering marriage equality is the answer) we will always disagree. But, I have to concede on the point that lifelong, loving and monogamous relationships might be possible for some.
Let me be clear, whether or not a homosexual relationship endures a lifetime, is loving and completely monogamous I believe scripture is clear: homosexual behavior and identity is sinful. I believe it is clear biblically that all sexual expression outside of a heterosexual monogamous marriage relationship is sinful.
But, I am told by many of you that there are lifelong, loving AND monogamous homosexual relationships out there. I don’t know what lifelong constitutes, but I’d say 20 years or more. And if I am told that by sincere people then I can’t dispute it nor will I do so any longer. I am sorry for being so dogmatic on this point.
I am sure I won’t get any praise for this revelation, nor am I seeking any. I imagine I will get more criticism on both sides for even broaching the subject. But, that will give us all an opportunity to continue the public debate, which I believe is healthy.
Ken,
What was your question to me regarding divorce?
But, I am told by many of you that there are lifelong, loving AND monogamous homosexual relationships out there. I don’t know what lifelong constitutes, but I’d say 20 years or more. And if I am told that by sincere people then I can’t dispute it nor will I do so any longer. I am sorry for being so dogmatic on this point.
If you can admit there are things you don’t know about gay people and gay couples, then maybe it would be a good idea to stop running around claiming to know everything about gay people?
The Constitution is not the source of rights, Mr. Chambers. And what, pray tell, do you mean by “extra equality”? That sounds positively Orwellian.
You are talking past what I’ve stated Alan.
1. Where race and sexual orientation squares RIGHT up together, IS the treatment and discrimination of the individual because of a SINGLE characteristic. And said characteristic is at the base of that person’s inferiority, inherent lack of value to society at large, and mythological demonization of that person BECAUSE of that characteristic.
And as a result, the public is paranoid, hostile, degrades the humanity and will violate that person BECAUSE of that SINGLE characteristic, and that characteristic is exclusive and ALL other acts the person with that characteristic can do or contribute is compromised because of it also.
2. The Constitution guarantees equal treatment, protection and access under the law.
The Bill of Rights guarantees life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. These are especially supported when there is no compromise or hurt to the same for other citizens.
Our marriage laws require only four things.
That the couple be of age.
That there is mutual consent.
That neither in the couple is already married.
That neither in the couple are related to each other.
No laws restrict a human being from marrying based on a SINGLE characteristic.
Nor a chosen behavior…such as one’s religion.
Or sterile, infertile sex.
Our Constiution guarantees that an individual charged with or who chooses to care for another person, or their own children cannot be restricted from doing so.
These are not standards set for straight people, so they can’t be set for gay people.
4. I don’t care what you do as an individual. But our collective, and what we are responsible for as citizens is what matters. Gays and lesbians have obligations and needs that cannot be restricted to belonging to a religious community to be met.
Gay people know when the laws are used against them unfairly, unequally and cannot support their needs as responsible citizens.
I don’t appreciate speciousness. I don’t appreciate the need for equal treatment being called ‘special’ when referring ONLY to gay people.
And just as blacks and women have known when they are being treated badly at their detriment and not for the good of anything but a supremacist sensibility, that’s how gay people know that it’s strictly about being gay and not being a HUMAN BEING.
It’s the straight world that puts gender and sexual orientation before equal treatment under the law.
Not gay people.
I already told you, it’s not the sexual orientation that gay people are calling to be protected, but their equal status as citizens who HAPPEN to be gay.
And structuring conditional access around sexual orientation is the doing of the heterosexual majority, not because that majority is right.
But ONLY because they are the majority that’s held the power.
But protection from the TYRANNY of a majority is also a guarantee in this country.
And gays and lesbians are a perpetual minority who cannot be otherwise.
So watch and learn Alan, I feel complete empathy for gay people who don’t represent a danger to anyone’s rights or access if they engage in the SAME standards for marriage that there are for straight people.
But it’s the straight people who keep moving the goal post, isn’t it?
It’s the straight people who talk about how out of control things will be if gay people marry.
Gay people are only human beings, not subhumans who are capable of doing MORE damage to anything.
That’s a myth.
The same kind of myth placed on black people too.
There are always similarities in how hate is deployed.
There are always easy ways to render a minority unequal to the majority.
There are HUGE similarities in the way gays and blacks have been treated. Even if being gay isn’t the same as being black.
All roads point to citizens being excluded from the protections guaranteed by their country for a single thing, despite being equal in the law of nature.
That’s what I recognize. It’s been done to me.
I don’t have to be gay to know it when I see it played out this way.
And Alan,
As for saying ‘we’re repulsed by sin, and homosexuality is a sin’.
PUH leese!
So many religiuos communities, ESPECIALLY those engaged in politics: don’t scatter their repulsion of sin, and socio/political restrictions consistently or with regard to changes in our human progress.
It all depends on the easiest targets to say it to.
A two thousand year old OBSERVATION a presumably straight male made to ignorant, illiterate and unincorporated masses, wouldn’t apply here.
How many women were burned at the stake, or in any other way at risk for being independent thinkers? How about the mentally ill or psychologically traumatized were considered ‘possessed by demons’ for their issues?
The Bible isn’t instructive for EVERYTHING to do with things that aren’t readily or easily explainable.
But if you’re going to dismiss the findings on the quality and abilities of gay people’s mental hygiene and compatability with society, then YOU do a grave disservice to everyone.
And hiding behind piety and the mantle of religious discipline and false compassion is WORSE.
What we DO know about gay people is and has been VERY good news.
What you call sin, is actually a legitimate feature of human sexuality.
But you won’t believe it. And I don’t care if you never do.
But if you’re party to keeping gay people FROM fully functioning as citizens. You’d be wrong.
I don’t see those you align yourself crusading to keep those clinically mentally ill, the addicted or those with a criminal record FROM marrying.
I don’t see Exodus, FOTF and the FRC equally commmitted to keeping the POOR from ever marrying or having children, when we all know how much damage poverty does.
I don’t see these groups going to court with their statistics on the duration of relationships being ascribed to Hollywood celebrities to keep THEM from marrying.
This is the one thing, the ONE characteristic that gives busybodies fodder to interfere. And interfere BADLY.
It’s not about sin at all. It’s about GAY people.
Runtelldat….
When your moral compass is’nt quite pointing in the direction you’re too certain of…always go to the Golden Rule to guide you.
Imagine gay people being treated as straight people want to be, and imagine you REALLY wanting to treat gay people that way.
And remember who owns and takes control of all the information that’s out there in describing and ascribing what to whom.
Know the DIFFERENCE.
Really….and there’s your answer to this contentious issue.
So, Regan, do you think that poor people and those who are ‘clinically mentally ill’ should be prohibited from getting married?
Alan,
3. The Constitution doesn’t guarantee the right to smae-sex marriage or extra equality–not for me and not for anyone else.
I quite agree that the Constitution does not guarantee extra equality to you. However, it heterosexuals (and ex-gays) have long assumed privelege and extra equality and as a majority have insisted that the Constitution be ignored.
Now there is concern that when judges read “all people” that they will begin to think this includes gay people and will grant gay persons the same rights to marriage selection as heterosexual persons.
And not wanting to give up special treatment, some anti-gay heterosexuals seek an amendment to the Constitution to hold onto the extra advantage. Of course, seeking rights and trying to deny them to others is both immoral and contrary to the commandments of Christ.
(I wonder if it is possible to be a follower of Christ and still seek to deny your neighbor rights that you demand for yourself).
But, I am told by many of you that there are lifelong, loving AND monogamous homosexual relationships out there. I don’t know what lifelong constitutes, but I’d say 20 years or more. And if I am told that by sincere people then I can’t dispute it nor will I do so any longer. I am sorry for being so dogmatic on this point.
I commend you for making this decision. I think it is admirable when any person can step out of his presumptions and grow in knowledge and understanding. And if you cease making this false claim, I will cease criticizing you for having made it in the past.
When will the section on the Exodus website FAQ’s reflect this new understanding?
Regan, Thankyou. The word seems incredibly small after what you’ve said, but thankyou.
Alan your arrogance in claiming to completely know gay people couldn’t be more misplaced. Obviously Regan has a far better idea of what it means to be LGBT than you ever will. The life of promiscuity you claim doesn’t remotely resemble anything I or the few gays I know have ever gone through. You clearly don’t speak for us. I have the most wonderful loving relationship with my boyfriend, and its a sin for you to blindly oppose it.
Alan said:
Ken,
What was your question to me regarding divorce?
Do you believe that divorce and remarriage (except in cases of adultry) is a sin? And if you do, would you deny those persons that have done so access to children through Sunday school?
No Alan, I do NOT think that. I was using that as an example of the fact, that regardless of what a group struggles with, it’s not the place of Exodus, Christians or anyone else to deny gay people the ability to marry their LIKE for ANY reason.
And your basis on denial of marriage based on what you think are the durations of gay relationships is wrong.
You judge it by a group that CAN’T and never HAS been able to marry.
And you don’t consider the enduring relationships and quality parenting DESPITE the ability to marry.
So you’ve turned the issue around. It’s not that gay people don’t have enduring relationships, it’s that they aren’t ENCOURAGED to, so to level the field and get the data you’d need to have had gay people have the same opportunity as straight people to do so, wouldn’t you?
Segregationists tried the same tactic, Alan. They cited the out of wedlock births and low marriage rates (the only public records available) among blacks to prove that blacks had a disdain and no respect for marriage, so therefore should be denied the option. Indeed, Mississippi and Lousiana tried to pass laws that banned blacks who’d had out of wedlock children or EVER lived together without marriage.
And considering the CURRENT stats on the same birth and marriage trends among blacks, not much has changed.
But blacks come from a HISTORY. Of also being banned and never being able to keep their own children.
White people instituted that.
THAT is a history that gay people share with blacks, so you are in the company of segregationists, Alan, not good, egalitarian Christians.
And history has shown, that integration might have come too late and at too high a price for our society, considering what black people still endure.
So, now it’s the gay folk, JUST like blacks, proving to the world that they are worthy, loving, compassionate and talented people, regardless of what others think of their characteristic.
And also considering that homosexuality transcends every human condition and history, it’s very strange that anyone still calls it a ‘lifestyle’.
That is demeaning and inaccurate.
The gay kids I know deserve better Alan. They deserve better than you’re giving. I respect them, I believe gay kids and I believe in the dreams they have.
Their only hope isn’t being STRAIGHT.
Their only hope isn’t becoming Christian or being religious.
It’s having the ability to be themselves, their original identity without fear and threat and coercion.
It hurts no one, does no harm to society in general and satisfaction with one’s sex life, as long as it hurts no one or compromises any other rights or standards of decency…are not your business.
There are only two kinds of people in the world, Alan.
Decent and indecent.
The decent thing is to be straight with everyone about gay people’s abilities and goals. You will find they are more similar and compatible to what you want than not.
The decent thing gay kids want to do is to be honest about themselves, to themselves and to be loved and cared for.
Same as any other.
Wouldn’t you have liked that when YOU were the gay kid?
Alan, of course I don’t think that. And you know it, it’s an example of the way you and the group you agree with operate.
Inconsistently with our country’s laws. That respect diversity as well as the institution of marriage within that diversity.
I can point out too that your opinion regarding gay relationship durability, was also a tactic employed by segregationists. They used low marriage rates and high out of wedlock births as an example that blacks were incapable of respecting the institution, so therefore couldn’t participate in it if they’d ever had children or lived together without marriage.
Mississippi and Louisiana passed such bans in their legislatures.
You are deriving your judgement of gay relationships on something they aren’t privy to.
It’s best to note how married gay people do, to make such claims.
You’re in the company of segregationists, not egalitarian Christians.
Immoral people, sinful people shun honesty about it, Alan.
The gay folks want to be honest about their orientation, and such honesty or involuntary disclosure shouldn’t carry more than a shrug on the part of society at large.
Being straight isn’t a gay kid’s ONLY hope. Are you kidding me?
Straight kids have the SAME issues most of the time.
And like segregationists, whose main preoccupation was with black sex lives, while black were concerned with job, housing and public access in equal terms.
You and other ex gays are preoccupied with gay sex lives, while gay people are concerned with fair employment and housing and full protection and equality for significant others and their children.
And MOST people, gay or not are born to love sex, so trying to convince gay people they can’t, is ridiculous.
We ALL know already what happens to sexually repressed people, gay or not.
I’m tired of these so called ‘family’ advocate organizations setting gay folks up, then using it against gay folks ultimately.
You might be all caught up in being straight NOW…but when you were a gay kid, wouldn’t you have loved for someone to just UNDERSTAND you and let you be the good kid you were meant to so YOU didn’t have to be preoccupied with being gay?
Just like any other kid?
Well, those are the gay kids I serve Alan. I respect those kids, believe them and I know what their dreams are.
I am in no place to tell them they aren’t worthy, they are sinners and irredeemable unless and until they are gay.
You can’t LIE to children Alan.
Not over this. Not something this important to these kids.
Telling them it’s be straight or expect to be buried is a cruel burden to heap on any child.
You and the segregationists would have gotten along, well Alan.
You’ve learned well from them.
I meant to say, that gay kids shouldn’t be told they are irredeemable unless and until they are straight.
If you’re so straight now Alan, DEAL straight.
Golden Rule, remember.
I sure am dealing straight with YOU.
Might you have a citation for that, Ms. DuCasse? I’d be interested in reading up on it.
Skemono,
The research I found was from Anders Walker.
“Legislating Virtue: HOW SEGREGATIONISTS DISGUISED RACIAL DISCRIMINATION AS MORAL REFORM FOLLOWING Brown vs. the Board of Education.
Part I. Segregationis emphasis on illegitimacy and marriage rates as indicia of immorality in black communities.
Part II. Manipulating Indicia of black immorality: Increase regulation of marriage licenses and birth certificates.
Part III. Shifting the grounds of racial discrimination from color to character.
It’s about 33 pages.
Alan,
Please understand something. I could call on the information put forth by Dr. Samuel A. Cartwright.
He cited that black slaves suffered from a mental illness peculiar to them called ‘drapetemania’.
A disease of the soul that made slaves want to and continue to escape from slavery and into a freedom they were not qualified and incapable of having.
Google it, you’ll find it.
I might also add that Citizen’s Councils, after the dissolution of legal segregation in public school were extremely preoccupied with the notion of sexual congress between young blacks and whites.
If you looked at the language you and all other groups adverse to gay integration uses, you are again in the company of segregationists and Nazis.
This is no exaggeration, but what you say about gay people certainly is.
The language employed is that of doom, destruction, sin and inferior abilities.
Mental diseases can be made up as particular to the hated group. So can inability and incompatibility.
This IS a calculation. And when sound scientific study and evidence isn’t working to incite enough fear….you go after gay YOUTH.
The most vulnerable and least able to fight YOU or their parents against the objective you have.
Every time I bring this up, I get shut out, ignored, whatever.
Or I get asked rhetorically silly questions, like the one you asked me about allowing the poor and mentally ill to marry.
I see where you’re going with this thread Alan, and I’m getting seriously REAL with you.
I don’t play the Scripture card. Scripture gets waved under the noses of gays, and women and other groups people wanted to CONTROL and coerce.
American history is rife with it, when the laws concerning those in these groups were decided among our nation’s lawmakers.
And regardless that what is called ‘sin’ and is universal to EVERYONE, YOU and your ilk are not engaged in legislating what sin is.
I’m sick of people talking about being gay isn’t something you’re born with because there is no ‘gay gene’.
News flash, there is no ‘straight gene’ either.
There are no molecular or genetic distinctions between gay and straight.
And among smart people, that’s called NORMAL.
The ONLY thing that distinguishes gay people from straight people is the sexual attraction and what gender is preferred for sex.
And even in that, in capacity and objectivity, gay people are equal too.
I don’t appreciate more being known about gay people being taken away from other straight people by the likes of you and those you support.
I don’t appreciate you and other ex gays painting all gays with the same brush, and the same experience YOU had.
And doing it without explaining or knowing what mitigating circumstances are involved.
It’s half baked and back handed reporting and information gathering.
And maybe you count on who you’re talking to, to not argue or challenge you about that.
The nuances are easily lost and therefore you’re not confronted with them.
I hope you read through this thread. I hope you realize what I’m here to do. I want you to know that I see what’s going on and I can and will deal with those nuances and less subtle issues at hand here.
I’ve earned MY place among gay folks, without having to be one, or change them. Where’s YOURS?
Greetings all!
I am new here, been lurking and reading most of the posts for several days now. All I can say to Regan is WOW! WOW! WOW! I have read your stuff on several blogs now, and you SO ROCK! I am humbled and honored to be in your presence. Thanks for all you do for us! You ARE the pearl of a great price.
And thanks to all of you others as well. I have learned so much from your excellent reasoning, compassion, empathy, and logic. I am grateful.
I am not ex gay in formal training (the program), but lawd knows I have tried the home brew method long enough. Growing up in Texas, raised in Baptist schools (that oddly opened up the year bussing started in Texas) you all know the rot that we were all exposed to, and still face. Until about age 27 life was hell for me! But even I could never pull off marriage to a woman. I could have parted the Red Sea easier than that. I am 40 years old, and know that God is perfectly ok with me. Sometimes I wonder, oftentimes I question, especially when I am overseas in the er…um…ah….lets just not ask, and i won’t tell. 🙂 Sometimes, I do feel like Daniel in the Lion’s Den though, and for those days, it takes a Regan and this board to refocus the compass and know that i am right where i need to be.
Thanks!
Hi Whit!
Thank you for that kind message. I appreciate it my dear.
I have an old, dear friend I grew up with by the same name.
I do leave long posts, and I’m glad you read this one.
Truthfully, it takes love to know love. I would like to think that the love I get, I am giving back in kind.
Sometimes I’m frustrated, sometimes I’m just MAD!
But more often, I remember who I have been blessed to know among the GLBT folks, and I can’t keep it in!
Thanks buddy, and Murry Krimmus!
I keep telling Regan she neds to get herself a column going somewhere 🙂
I will second and third that Sharon. I would consult her frequently. I am reading the Anders Walker paper that she spoke of, it is quite eye opening. I always knew the RR was all about power and control: who has it and how to keep it, but never realized that the correlation to segregation is point for point. She is right, there is nothing new under the sun. Same arguments, same theory, same shifting of the goal posts.
Merry Christmas to you too Regan and thanks!
Ah! Thank you for the article, Ms. DuCasse.
And yes, Dr. Cartwright is ever a font of… interesting ideas. Coincidentally enough, I posted a quote of his on my LiveJournal today.