Peterson Toscano opened the Ex-Gay Survivor Conference tonight (June 29) in Irvine, Calif., with a performance of Toscano’s one-man play, “Doin’ Time in the HomoNomo Halfway House.”
The conference was co-organized by BeyondExGay.com, Soulforce, and the LGBT Resource Center at the University of California-Irvine.
Among the audience, Ex-Gay Watch sighted a mix of former and current Exodus group leaders, former ex-gays, and others concerned about the potential harm caused to people by ex-gay politics and ex-gay misunderstandings of gender, sexuality, and faith.
Coverage of the conference will continue this weekend.
Have any attendance numbers been released yet for that first day?
Regular registration begins at 8 a.m. Pacific time today (June 30). I saw about 200 people last night, but that’s not an exact or official count.
I’m going to be there today, with one friend and four actors. I’m looking forward to seeing the folks.
I’m wondering.
Exodus’s article seemed like a boast or some kind of smug dig that BXG can’t attract the number of people an Exodus conference can. In the vein of the claims they make on who they have helped, how far their influence reaches.
This is BXG maiden turn at such a thing. I think Michael Bussee could tell us what the earlier attendance of Exodus was.
And there is a long, long history of religious conversion directed at the LGBT, and not enough yet, that is specific to those who have been directly affected by it.
I read “Prayers for Bobby”, again. It was written by the late Leroy Ahrens who I met years ago.
This should be mandatory reading for religious parents with a gay child.
But of course, Exodus isn’t interested in revealing such an important book on this subject. They wouldn’t make any money.
And BXG’s mission would leach away whoever hadn’t the option of avoiding conversion attempts.
Bobby Griffith could be the BXG poster child. And maybe he should be to bring home the powerful message that interfering with, and not allowing a young person’s self knowlege and acceptance to develop, can have deadly consequences.
And it’s agreed that to oneself one must be true. All the better to love God when one appreciates that.
I think what bothers me the most is that Exodus and everyone involved in it, don’t really seem to care where it counts for the Bobby Griffiths of the world.
Beginning first with casting his act as a failure on HIS part. As a failure that he didn’t engage God enough or work hard enough at walking with God.
And casting a pall on his parents that they didn’t teach him that strongly enough.
Saying that to a very young person…I know already what a horribly cruel thing that is to say.
When is an act of religious outreach NOT love?
When there is ANY price for it. Love pays itself forward, back…and everywhere and doesn’t demand anything UP FRONT, for you to get it and have it and KEEP it…no matter how much you give away.
:0 )
Regan commented: “This is BXG maiden turn at such a thing. I think Michael Bussee could tell us what the earlier attendance of Exodus was.”
There were 62 delegates at the first EXODUS conference. I counted about three times that many at the very first survivor’s conference.