On Thursday the 2007 Soulforce Equality Rides will arrive at their first destinations. Yes, you heard me right, there are two buses this year, one headed east, one headed west.
On last year’s Equality Ride participants found themselves unprepared when the dialogues they engaged in turned to the subject of exgays. Ex-gay survivor Peterson Toscano was brought in to help train this year’s riders and discovered at least half of the Equality Riders had ex-gay experiences through church, Christian counseling, on their own and/or through an ex-gay therapist or ministry.
Each rider has a bio but in a quick search the only profile I found that mentions their own exgay experience is Vince Pancucci.
Below is a video of the Equality Ride reception and sendoff service:
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All y’all local to LA want to join me to meet the riders when then get here at the end of the month?
Pepperdine made things miserable for one of my friends who went to school there so depending on what Soulforce has planned there I might come see.
Yeah, I know how they treat their gay students. I met a fine young man at a PFLAG meeting who was trying to form a support system for other gay students.
I can see Jacob Reitan in public office….like the Presidency. I’d vote for him in a heartbeat.
So much more cred somehow than the usual suspects this year.
Don’t know why he strikes me that way…but he does.
I couldn’t be more proud of my husband Vince! He has impacted my life greatly just as I have impacted his!
I love you my husband!
What a very nice comment with which to start the day – thank you for expressing that Vincet.
Pancucci was arrested at University of Mississippi.
https://www.studentprintz.com/news/2007/03/27/News/Rights.Activists.Arrested.At.Mc-2792268.shtml
This was in the town where the local police served to harass SoulForce, putting them under constant surveillance and tailing them and threatening to arrest them if the gathered in a group of four or more (the Constitution doesn’t have much respect in Mississippi).
https://www.365gay.com/Newscon07/03/032607soulforce.htm
Incidentally, Deb Price has an article profiling Pancucci and his husband (who commented here above).
“I was about ready to end my life,” recalls Cervantes, 19. “No matter how many exorcisms I went through, no matter how many times I cried and asked God to change me, I wasn’t changing.”
and
Refusing to abandon their relationship, the couple left school and became domestic partners under California law, gaining nearly all the state-level rights and responsibilities of married heterosexuals.
Outside a chapel, they exchanged vows. Only then, feeling married in the eyes of God, did they become sexually intimate.
https://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070326/OPINION03/703260301