The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has posted an excellent, detailed report on the state of the ex-gay, or “sexual reorientation therapy” movement. It touches on most of the important issues of concern, and should be a catalyst for more debate.
Let’s take the following as a foundation for our view of sexual reorientation therapy:
Reparative or sexual reorientation therapy, the pseudo-scientific foundation of the ex-gay movement, has been discredited by virtually all major American medical, psychiatric, psychological and professional counseling organizations. The American Psychological Association, for instance, declared in 2006: “There is simply no sufficiently scientifically sound evidence that sexual orientation can be changed. Our further concern is that the positions espoused by NARTH [the National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuality] and Focus on the Family create an environment in which prejudice and discrimination can flourish.” [emphasis added]
They correctly recognize that ex-gay ministries paint only a grim, distorted view of anyone who might be gay. This tactic has been used in the past to discredit the lives of others and it was no more accurate then than now — though unfortunately it can be quite effective.
About the only time the word “gay” appears in the ex-gay lexicon is in the phrase “gay lifestyle,” which is largely seen as describing a hedonistic mix of one-night stands and sexually transmitted diseases that culminates in early death or abandonment when youthful beauty fades. The ex-gay movement has little language to describe the real world in which lesbians and gays hold elected office, appear on TV shows and raise families.
As “homosexuality as a disorder” becomes less credible to the average person, ex-gay groups are moving farther into the extreme. Just as with racism, those advocating discrimination, both legal and social, against gays are becoming more shrill. As Jim Burroway has well documented, Watchmen on the Walls is a prime example. The SPLC recognizes this as well and points out their connection with Exodus.
Leaders of Watchmen on the Walls, an international anti-gay group that blames the Nazi Holocaust on homosexuals, tell audiences that “one of the most important things you can do is start an ex-gay movement here.” One of the Watchmen’s members serves on the board of the Exodus International and was a keynote speaker at its recent conference.
One of the most disturbing aspects of Exodus International is their departure from ministry for the political lobby. We see this as mutually exclusive; they can’t say they care about gays and at the same time actively lobby against their rights.
Exodus, which for decades had been an apolitical ministry, has transformed itself into a lobbying apparatus seemingly at odds with its nonprofit status as a ministry. This August, Exodus hired Amanda Banks, a lobbyist with Focus on the Family, to direct lobbying in the Congress and the U.S. Senate. Since her hire, Exodus says it has met with 55 national lawmakers. Banks claims that one unnamed U.S. senator regularly consults with Exodus to learn “how to talk about gay issues without sounding like a bigot.”
As case in point, Exodus VP Randy Thomas uses a torturous view of his own experience to make a case against the inclusion of sexual orientation (real or perceived) to the bias (hate crime) laws — laws which benefit him now as a person of faith.
A new spin-off organization called ExodusRoots sends out daily alerts to readers, telling them how to contact their local congressmen to testify against hate crime laws that would protect gays and lesbians. Incredibly, Exodus Vice President Randy Thomas uses his own experience being assaulted and gay-bashed at a Thanksgiving party in 1988 to argue against legislation that he calls “thought crimes laws.” Thomas says he was rescued from the attack by a “pair of angry lesbians” but nonetheless insists that hate crime laws would make his life “as a former homosexual less valuable now than when we were living as homosexuals.”
They end with Exodus President Alan Chamber’s comments from the Family Impact Summit which he attended as an invited speaker.
We have to stand up against an evil agenda,” Chambers told his fellow hard-liners. “It is an evil agenda and it will take anyone captive that is willing, or that is standing idly by.”
There are also quotes from XGW’s own Pam Ferguson, and former XGW writer Daniel Gonzales. A careful reading of the SPLC article will illustrate the main reasons for Ex-Gay Watch. This is a good read, and we invite you to discuss in this thread your own thoughts on the issues they cover.
Source: splcenter.org
What a terrific report! All of these things have been obvious to most of us for a very long time. It’s good to see it coming from a reputable civil rights source.
A great report — importantly, pointedly focussing on the delightful company that Exodus has chosen to keep over the past decade.
Xormer homosexuals Xandy and Xlan Xncovered, Xurh.
(work that out for yourselves!)
Very well done report indeed. I hope more reports such as these would be done up. There is a dire need for plenty of such reports for people to be more informed regards to the ex-gay movement, especially with Exodus and FOTF continuously misrepresenting LGTs as people who are too ‘diseased’ and too ‘sexually broken’ to be listened to, that ex-gays who are ‘healed’ and ‘changed’ should be looked up as ‘examples’ of standard human beings.
We deserve such a strong voice, and by the quotes from Peterson Toscano, Pam Ferguson, Daniel Gonzalez and even Shawn O’Donnell, it should give a real insight to the movement, while showing just how normal, and not disordered, gays and lesbians are; and in the process, how reactions of claims of change, and the depiction of what gays and lesbians are by these these ex-gay groups, are pure claptrap indeed, along with their political agendas.
I am also pleased to see this report also shows one thing; the only time when core gays and lesbians are trully sexually broken and struggle, is when they join ex-gay ministries.
Great report David,
Thanks for posting it and this thread. One of the things that seems so glaring to me is how many of these ‘ministries’ have found a cash cow. They create the disease and the only cure. They perpetuate a need for their cure, which is always just beyond reach. Nicolosi charged $250 an hour for phone sex
counseling!?!? The Lord provides in mysterious ways.
Warren Throckmorton points out some possible inaccuracies in the SPLC report.
So does former ex-gay Peterson Toscano.
I think that it is an excellent article on the whole. Anytime you read an article written by a journalist about a subject that you know about, they always get some of the details wrong. But on the whole, I think that the author paints a pretty good picture of the ex-gay movement.
I am sure that many ex-gay leaders, reparative and reorientation therapists will jump to point out this or that shortcoming with this article. However, I think that their time would be better spent examining what they are doing, and who is really being served by the ex-gay movement. It doesn’t seem that people who are unhappy with their sexual orientation are getting much out of it.
I don’t see any hanging offences, even in Texas. And I don’t blame any reporter for bewilderment, given the “ex-gay industry” seems intent of causing such confusion in the first place.
What should not be encouraged is any furtherment of the lie that Chambers/Exodus ceased working with Cohen and his clown-car many years ago. He/They did not: they only broke apart last year… after the embarrassing scandal of Cohen’s media appearances.
At the end of the day, promoting that new Chambers/Exodus myth again seems to be Throckmorton’s primary aim with his post.
That aside… hope the following helps…
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Warren emphatically states that Smid does not speak at Love Won Out.
John Smid — himself — is currently saying he’s about to do otherwise https://www.loveinaction.org/default.aspx?pid=109
That’s hardly “several times a year”, but knowing Smid’s long-established propensity for both self-promotion and weasel-words; it wouldn’t surprise me if he did in fact leave a reporter with an inflated impression of his “work” with LWO, nor would it surprise me if over the next year Smid did indeed speak “several times”.
Smid, of course has always been involved with LWO: either via LIA, or as an Exodus Board member. [*]
Throckmorton has cursed the reporter for accurately stating that ex-gay groups are indeed using the J&Y book to promote ideas about homosexuality as “a deviant lifestyle choice”. They are doing that, regardless of whatever J&Y have claimed about their own aims.
Throckmorton’s issue should be with those ex-gay groups, not with the messenger.
Now we get to Wyler… (Throckmorton moves yet again to “All care, and no responsibility” reporter mode.)
Wyler: 2. I don’t know what the “10 week Journey Into Manhood curriculum” is that the article is referring to. It sounds like they are probably confusing us with another organization’s program.
Or possibly simply confusing use of a JIM weekend as part of a “10 week curriculum”. Offering 10-week “curriculum” is not unknown among those who sell ex-gay … jeez, look here’s Wyler himself offering just that sort of thing on his own website that is also heavily larded with promotion of his JIM.[*]
Given the way JIM is co-promoted along with “10 week” and “10 step” etc, it wouldn’t surprise me if “Alex” had indeed thought it was all one and the same. Or that the reporter did. Who’s fault is that confusion?
(“Alex Liberato” is, to the best of our knowledge, a young straight guy involved with Soulforce’s visit to BYU; I have here that he was arrested along with his girlfriend. ???)
Wyler: 3. We don’t do memory recovery work.
False. Wyler is being thoroughly misleading, as most of us will be only too well aware after reading this quote from the JIM brochure: “…we teach you to uncover the non-sexual, core needs underlying the SSA…” [*]
The article correctly said Wyler uses “curriculum centred on recovering early child-parent memories.” ie: memory recovery work, call it what you like.
(for goodness sake Wyler, what do you take us for? ReCovering-ReInterpreting-ReCreating-ReInventing such “early child-parent memories” underlies about 99% of all that Exodus and their member ministries and ex-gay groups in general do. Warren Throckmorton is as well aware of that fact as we are.)
Wyler: 6. Our teaching on “healing touch” is that any such holding must be … [blah, blah, blah]
Wyler mentions the laundry list, none of which are actually directed at himself or JIM in the artcile. Wyler seems more intent on convincing potential clients that they won’t get felt up by sleazy closet-cases than responding to the article.
What is important to note is that Wyler not only admits that “healing touch” occurs, but seems only too well aware of why such “healing” is fraught with danger.
(If nothing else, referencing JIM’s style of hugfest between paragraphs covering the embarrassment of Cohen and the conviction of Austin simply places such “therapy” in it’s rightful place: to be avoided because it crosses both client and therapist boundaries, and possibly will lead to worse.)
Wyler is, of course, a disciple of Cohen; and has long promoted Cohen’s baseless nonsense as a cure for homosexuality.
Does anyone know if tennis is offered as recreation during these JIM weekends?
(stand well clear, and never wear anything that makes you appear to be a pillow…)
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Peterson noted some minor errors: one that appears to be a simple typo. (The article otherwise did correctly identify Love In Action as the organisation, rather than Living Waters).
However, a photo of Peterson incorrectly identified him as someone “involved in the ‘ex-gay’ movement for two years in the early 1990s.” As many will already be well aware, Peterson’s ex-gay involvement extended over 17 years — the 2 year period refers only to his stay at the LIA residential program. The text of the article otherwise accurately mentions the period, but it is a pity that the entire 17 years of efforts wasn’t made more clear.
I am wondering why SPLC didn’t mention anything about the shock therapies administered to gay BYU men.
This is really important. Thank you David for bringing this to the attention of EGW readers.
I wonder how the religious right, Exodus, and the rest of the ex-gay political professionals will survive after the next election when the House, Senate and the Presidency are overwhelmingly led by Democrats? The scales are tipping ever more in that direction on a daily basis. Perhaps then the Corporate media and the nation in general will be ready to move on leaving Alan Chambers and the ex-gay movement in the dustbin of history and when these guys do get a rare spotlight they will be viewed as weird, off the wall and people to be pitied.
Their public profiles will last exactly as long as the political right finds them useful as a cudgel against gay people — and as fodder for picking up votes. That is the sole reason they have attention now. Politics doesn’t have an endgame. If there is a Democratic administration, then the political right will simply start over and look forward to the next election cycle. (After all, the Democrats were supposedly “dead” just a few years ago.)
And the Exodus leaders will continue to fool themselves into thinking that they are being supported for their ministerial goals. Remember, in the Love Won Out dog and pony show, the only attendees are parents and grandparents (i.e. voters). That is the real target of the moneychangers giving life to Exodus now.
If Dobson checks out and stops supporting them, they will disappear into the mists of time along with all the other snake oil salesmen that have come and gone. It’s important to remember that the “exgay movement” numbers in the less than hundreds, while the gay movement numbers in the millions.
Statistically speaking, exgays do not exist. The only thing keeping them on life support is the political money that feeds them as long as they stay useful in politics.
“Warren emphatically states that Smid does not speak at Love Won Out. ”
Smid has not been a scheduled speaker at Love Won Out. He is present at just about every conference I know of though. And while he wasn’t on the agenda in Phoenix, he did join Alan Chambers and Mike Haley for a Q&A workshop (Haley was also unannounced for that Q&A).
I think Mr. Sanchez got a little mixed up on this detail. The talk that Smid gives on masturbation was at the Exodus Freedom conference. He’s given similar talks before at Exodus.
I confirmed today that Mr. Smid is not speaking at the next LWO but is exhibiting.
Thanks for getting the clarification Warren — it appears “Smid’s long-established propensity” has struck again.
His announced “appearance” is not an appearance, but merely similar to that of the John Candy character from Planes, Trains and Automobiles at trade shows.
Plastic curtain rings, anyone?
Steve, that is an excellent response. You’re exactly right especially about the political money that supports Exodus and other ex-gay organizations as long as these organizations stay useful in politics.
I think that after having a president (the worst and most corrupt president in our history) who has practically destroyed the credibility of the Republican party and linked them with corruption, lies and greed it will be a long time before we have a Republican administration again. That is unless they have a paradigm shift in the Republican party which I don’t see happening anytime soon. I see a shift in the rising generations as well toward more liberal thinking as the term “liberal” is being restored to its rightful place as a positive word like the term “grace” and “mercy”.
Also the millions of us who are gay are continuing to move forward and be increasingly out and proud as these ex-gay ministries of shame will be revealed to be just that, shameful. I also see a day when the media will also show these organizations in a similar light as Fred Phelps. They are actually more insidious than Fred Phelps because it’s pretty clear what that guy thinks about gay folks. James Dobson and especially anti-gay politicians do alot to make sure they don’t look offensive while at the same time they are bigoted and anti-gay to their very foundation. I think that what Wayne Besen is doing to expose these guys is awesome. If I were a multi-millionaire I would give a lot of money to Wayne’s organization and to Ex-gay watch in helping both organizations expose the lies and the insidious bigotry that comes out of the ex-gay world. I’d like to see these issues far more out in the open on CNN and all the major networks and I would like to see these news media show zero tolerance for homophobia and bigotry just as they would toward hatred and racism toward African Americans and others. I also would like to see the ex-gay ministries be treated with great shame and embarrassment by mainstream America to the point that they dwindle because few support them anymore. That is the America I see coming very soon.
I think our community (the diverse GLBT community) is getting much better at supporting those who are conflicted about their orientation. A wonderful example was shown on Logo recently in their production of Lost Tribe. I know virtually everyone in the leadership of both Affirmation Gay and Lesbian Mormons and especially the leaders and members of Latter-day Saint Reconciliation. Those organizations have proven to be a great haven of love, peace and acceptance while at the same time reclaiming our right as GLBT people to our faith and to the community we hold so dear. These organizations and a growing number of others within the GLBT Evangelical and mainstream Christian communities, etc. are ministries of Christ. It is this positive and loving light that is so awesome to see as they grow in number and expose the lying and mythology of the ex-gay movement.
Fortunately there is also a slowly growing dissonance between Evergreen (the Mormon version of Exodus) and several of the leaders of the Mormon Church as can be seen by the new brochure the Mormon Church leaders have recently published. That brochure admits that there is no change in orientation possible for the majority of people. Also one of the Mormon Apostles named Jeffrey Holland explained that in many cases gay Latter-day Saint’s “attempts to lead a heterosexual life have resulted in broken hearts and broken homes.” That is a huge step for these men to publicly admit. Very huge. It’s no surprise that the only thing they tend to teach very strongly in these cases is celibacy. Mormon Apostle Jeffrey Holland also used quotes in his recent talk from a gay Roman Catholic priest named Henri Nouen.
We truly are evolving as a community and the greater society is having to deal with the truth of these positive and powerful changes. I think that as Dobson and others lose a lot of their power they will sink into the background and eventually be forgotten as we continue to move forward and as Pryer Walter said in Angels in America “become citizens”. That is exactly what is happening all over and it is awesome to see. Southern Poverty Law Center is right on in bringing the truth into the forefront about these ex-gay ministries and their wake of pain and misery that has damaged many a GLBT life.