Exodus International has a story it would really like you to believe. It wants you to think that Exodus is a simple ministry of encouragement to Christians who have same-sex attractions but don’t want to act on it. Exodus, so the story goes, doesn’t harm gays or stick its nose into anyone else’s business; it’s just about like-minded people helping one another live the lifestyle they freely choose.
This bogus narrative is important now Apple has denied Exodus International its iPhone app. Exodus President Alan Chambers wants the world to believe his claim that the move has trampled on his and other ex-gays’ rights and freedoms.
Peterson Toscano is one voice of thousands sharing a story that contradicts Exodus’s version of events. In his latest post, he expresses his astonishment at reading this claim from Exodus:
“In no way shape or form is our message about trying to cure or do we try to promote that type of methodology or message,” Jeff Buchanan, Exodus International’s Senior Director of Church Equipping & Student Ministries, told The Christian Post.
Asks Peterson:
[Was] I caught in the Matrix all those years? Is Jeff Buchanan saying that thousands of ex-gay survivors were duped into believing something Exodus didn’t actually offer?
In recent years, Exodus has avoided direct promises of gay-to-straight change. But it has certainly capitalized on the vagueness of language such as “freedom,” “liberation” and “healing.” Its mantra continues to be “Change is possible.”
Read Peterson’s story for more insight into what Exodus has stood for throughout its history. For more background information, check out our Exodus International archives, and read Emily K’s recent article What Exodus Believes in 2011.
The simple truth is that Exodus’s publicity slogans, like “Freedom from homosexuality” and “The bottom line is: you don’t have to be gay” are misleading – and deliberately so. Any young gay person hoping that it is possible for them to become heterosexual in the ordinary, usual sense – “like my dad, my brother Tom, or my mate Andy” – will read those slogans as meaning that this is exactly what Exodus are promising, and Exodus know that perfectly well. They also know that the probability of such an outcome lies somewhere in the region between minuscule and zero. And Exodus certainly don’t exonerate themselves by saying, for example, “Oh, we don’t do it. God does.”
“…and don’t blame us if God doesn’t change you. You probably just didn’t want it bad enough, or didn’t pray enough or whatever.”
Indeed, my friends. The message is so contradictory and hypocritical. Alan Chambers stood before an audience and said that “God can do anything.”
This is giving the power over to God, to allow one to enter, God at least should be free to anyone. God is beneficent and loves you as long as you accept God.
Then Exodus takes God’s power away by saying that a gay person’s commitment must not have been strong enough. How can a human being’s soul be stronger than God’s or God at all? This is in fact, putting the power of change in the hands of the gay person, NOT God.
And it’s not change so much as self denial and repression. This is not freedom, this is conditional restraint.
This is why the initiation into these programs requires so much utter isolation, and I haven’t notice a lot of integration among ex gays with a diversity of people. Yet, they claim being rejected by others.
This isolation is necessary so that those conditions by which gay people are repressed, are unequal and unnecessary for hetero people.
Someone might correct me if I’m wrong, but a lot of isolation takes place early in a gay person’s life. There are no examples or mentors to learn from, and Exodus exploits this and extends it…to an infinite degree. There is no END to the work a gay person has to go through, but a guarantee of their character called into question at any hint of straying from the program.
I’ve been watching the ex Mormon website and the common thread there is how excruciating PLANNED their lives were. From so young a Mormon is so controlled and everything so laid out for what they will do with their lives, they didn’t know where their real persona and identity was.
This is true of many religious communities…
Whether it’s Orthodox Jewish, Amish, fundamental Muslims and so on…
But this is in so many ways, keeping people at once childlike and dependent. No expectations of their own, for themselves. Every expectation is in how the faith community will see them.
And they are told ONLY faith communities, and no others, have morals or know anything worth understanding.
Those who are not of their faith, are indeed the enemy and are to be shunned.
Without any understanding even of DIVERSITY within the SAME standards of goodness, ethics, fairness and compassion, this is why such communities that require being cut off, ARE dangerous.
But I digress.
Ex gays, to me, are people so in need of regimentation, in need of someone GIVING them answers rather than those answers being found within themselves, this is a PERSONALITY that’s more vulnerable too. Why can apply to straight people in similar religious communities.
But systemic homophobia paints all gay people with that kind of persona.
Some industries, some faith leaders…are cheap and unnecessary middle men who have aggrandized themselves on misery and fear.
God, doesn’t need them, and neither does anyone else. One can commune and feel one’s spiritual awakening and connection without the noise coming from people like Exodus or any other overwrought ministry.
And most of all, it’s in a sincere and quiet gesture of kindness or support for no OTHER reason than it’s the RIGHT thing, is when you possibly feel the touch of God.
Purity in gesture, expression of no more than the sincerest comfort of another, not expectation of CONVERSION, is the difference.
In other words, Exodus needs to exist for the dirtiest of reasons. Were they purer reasons, gay people wouldn’t be their target at all.
Hello all Authors,
I just wanted to say thanks for your website and all the great work you do in gathering all these stories for us and the world to read and be educated by.
Take care,
Marcus
Can’t agree with you at all about Apple.
The arguments from some of us gay folk on this issue goes this way: this isn’t a free speech issue because Apple is a private company and can do what it wants and meeting the demands of consumers who make their desires known is what free market capitalism is all about.
Yes, it is what capitalism about, at times, but the larger point is missed–what Apple did in removing the ap because of pressure from those who really do wish to blunt other ideas (no matter how silly those ideas) is akin to what private businesses wanted to be able to continue doing decades ago, which is to avoid serving a certain segment of society who wanted to sit at the lunch counter, wanted to be served.
What gay petitioners have done is akin to white folks at that time choosing not to sit at the lunch counter as long as “those other folk” are in here too.
In this case, it’s all legal, just as it was legal to prevent coloreds from going into a private business, and makes some feel powerful but it’s very petty. I don’t see it as a victory worth celebrating. To the larger society, through the press, we look very, very small, as if we are afraid of groups like that.
Sorry, Ted. I have to disagree with you. Exodus is an organization which makes deceptive claims; it has explicitly stated that its policy this year is to target youth, and this was clearly one way of pursuing that policy. I can still remember how vulnerable I was as a young, isolated gay person. We were quite right to make our feelings known to Apple. They didn’t have to pull the app, but they did, presumably after closer scrutiny of Exodus and what it stands for.
Ted, I find your analogy way off and confused. I can’t tell for sure, but I think you may be genuinely concerned that this is a free speech issue. I couldn’t disagree more, but let me ask you something before going further. Knowing Apple and the air-tight grip they have on their content, do you think they should be forced to sell an app from Fred Phelps? Or substitute an app from some shiny new white supremacist group. I’m serious, not looking to trick you.
Ted, i can’t really write today, but a minute or two.
I see your point. By doing this, we are playing into the religious right claims of vicitmization and threats to religious freedom.
On thed other hand, just because you’ve written a book doesn’t mean you can demand that borders carry it. It was a business decision by apple.
But there are a few larger ways to look at it. One of them is that a major world business that influences the culture in myriad ways has said NO to the anti-ex-gay-industry. I heard a bishop or pope or osmeoneone the otherday complain that if gay people are treated equally, the RC’s would be “prosecuted and villified” In my comment on the article, I noted that I was against their prosecusiton, but utterly supported the villification for anti gay views.
I hope this is just the beginning of that, so that someday, homohatred is as repugnant to decent people as racism is now.
Another larger issue; we’re getting talked about. I tihnk that is always for the good.
Third, we have been the object of homohatred form religion ofr 1700 years. We’re fighting back. Like all bullies, they really don’t like it when the victim starts fighting back.
I have more, but i can’t now.
@ted, I have mixed feelings about calls for bans, removals, etc, but I agree with others that your analogy is way off. Exodus International is not a harmless group of like-minded people who merely want the right to exist, but a group that actively campaigns to promote prejudice and discrimination against LGBT people.
If your analogy is to hold water, Exodus are the white racists, and those who campaigned against the app are the coloureds who just want to be able to enjoy their lunch same without being harassed, same as everyone else.
@ted
so wait, in your civil rights analogy, exodus (anti-gay) is the black folk and the pro-gays are the white folk who are discriminating against exodus by not allowing their app?
pretty sure it’s the other way around. if anything, exodus = straight supremacy (ala white supremacy)
William, David, Ben, and others
Maybe I didn’t use the best analogy I could have. I do have others, but getting bogged down in them is, I think, useless.
I do feel that to the public at large, we look like crybabies, afraid of those who are weilding knives, not swords.
There are much better ways of educating people, which we have done a farily good job doing over the last decade, than in looking as if we are threatening to quash other opinions. It really doesn’t matter, in this particular case, if those opinions are misleading.
American hate, absolutely hate the notion of forcing others to shut up. Even the perception of causing that to happen is loathed.
I would much rather an idea fall of its own weight–which it ultimately will when both sides are heard, not blunted. Sometimes you actually give weight to others by continuing to call attention to them and I really think that’s the case here.
I see your points, just don’t agree with them.
@ted
How about my question?
There is a reason I’m asking.
Seems like the pro-gay Apple company has exercised it’s free speech.
Ted, I agree with you about being careful about how the public (not just American, mind you, we’re global now) sees both sides of the issue. However, there is a point at which protecting people is more important. In the case of Exodus, this app would expose more and more gay teenagers to the lies and distortions of the ex-gay industry. Those teenagers are already more susceptible to the kinds of discrimination and bullying that lead to higher incidents of suicide, self-hatred, and other forms of emotional abuse. When we balance PR against the lives of young people, it should be obvious which is more important.
In the simplest way I can put it, this is my position: public library shelves are full of books that contain all kinds of crap, all kinds of “subversive ideas,” (scare quotes because I don’t believe ideas themselves can be subversive), all kinds of inaccurate things, and these are found in fiction, in non-fiction, in the periodicals the library stocks, in everything. Cable tv and radio, the same.
The internet? I don’t want others determining what sites are good for me, which ones aren’t and succeeding in removing those they think are bad or those which offer inaccurate information. I can find that out for myself. If I don’t, too bad for me. Further, I don’t think my sister and brother want anyone other than themselves to determine what sites their daughters and son can visit, what channels are appropriate. Maybe they’ll make mistakes with their kids, but the other option, to let strangers who think they know what’s best for them to take away what they deem dangerous or inaccurate or hurtful has much worse consequences.
We exist in a world where new techs allow a “library” at a fingertip. I don’t want others removing books because they are inaccurate or “bad” for me or for my nieces and nephew or for anyone else.
I don’t want any further advance into a Big Brother world. The best advice for buying into any idea is the same as buying any product-let the buyer beware.
Instead of trying to prevent an idea from being heard, counter it with better ideas. Never remove it from a shelf.
Ted, I understand your position, and I think I see a misunderstanding here.
This isn’t about competing ideas. Exodus isn’t trying to share a different viewpoint that can be navigated around with a superior argument, as though this were a political debate. They’re stolidly holding to falsities and trying to lie about their validity. They are either delusional or malicious.
They are objectively incorrect and refuse to acknowledge it. Given that they also cause harm, I have absolutely no qualms with seeing them silenced (especially given that they’ve been silenced on a private marketplace that doesn’t feel like giving air time to jerks).
@ted
Can I assume you just aren’t going to answer my question?
And that’s where your argument fails. Apple is a PRIVATE company, not a PUBLIC service.
The proper analogy is not a library but a publisher. Publishers do decide who can use their platform. They’re not censoring anything or telling grown-ups what they can and can’t read; anyone’s free to go to any of thousands of websites where Exodus is promoted and hear Exodus’s point of view.
Even if we were to accept the library analogy, libraries remove inappropriate materials all the time. Just recently, the Toronto Public Library (my local library) removed a book on accountancy certification. It was demonstrated that the information in it was not only faulty but that the faulty information might cause a lendee to fail their certification test. The library cared enough about its patrons to pull a book where they knew the false information in it was harmful to those who used it.
Even if we were to accept your analogy, Ted, of the library that contains all kinds of ideas and information, even libraries will pull books that carry information that is demonstrably harmful.
Levi,
Hey, Levi. Yes, but I have to say, the same is true of the words of innumerable authors in untold numbers of books. Falsities, malicious in intent and not malicious in intent, abound within the walls of any library, on countless sites of this net, in advertising. Heck, for that matter, we live with falsities all day in advertising, some of it very much government sanctioned–the traditional food pyramid diet promoted by our health agencies paid for by our tax dollars is virtually a death sentence for most of us, but it helps certain segments of business (which, of course, provide jobs) make money. Grains are not good for most of us, but you’d never know that unless you were in a specialized field or undertook special study on your own.
And by the way, libraries remove material that is not deemed age-appropriate if they feel they cannot devote resources for monitoring access, but the best of the nation’s libraries (and this includes the libraries of both public and private universities) do not willingly keep materials from adults. What causes any “discrimination” is how much money they have with which to purchase materials.
Guys, I never said Apple was public, never said they had a legal obligation–I am simply telling you I would have preferred they hadn’t done it, and I have given you my reasons. They are, to me, substantial reasons.
Yes, publishers discriminate in what they publish. Yes, they do, but there’s desktop publishing, blogs, websites–heck, you can pay publishers to publish anything these days. It doesn’t mean it will sell if there’s no market for it, but you can get it published.
However, in listening to some of you try to find fault with examples, seemingly you are trying to argue against my position by pointing out a lack of exactness in the analogies. Heck, analogies aren’t exact. The larger point remains intact. I don’t feel the strategy will be a good one, in the long run, and I don’t want us seen as blunting opinions, no matter how fallacious they are just as I don’t want a book removed from the shelf no matter what.
Yep, Mom was a school librarian.
Over and out. Just wanted to share my thought processes and like reading those of others.
Ted, never mind analogies. I’d just like to say this. Although I’m now more than happy to be gay and wouldn’t want to be otherwise, I can still remember my years as a gay teenager, when the pressures were such that I would have been extremely vulnerable to the kind of deception practised by organizations like Exodus. If there existed any ex-gay ministries in the UK at that time, they had such a low profile that I wasn’t aware of them – a piece of ignorance for which I am more thankful than I can say. I certainly didn’t need that kind of spiritual abuse piled on top of everything else. But if I had had the misfortune back then to come upon an outfit offering “freedom from homosexuality” and saying, “The bottom line is: you don’t have to be gay” and “Change is possible”, I would have interpreted those statements (assuming that I would have been naïve enough to believe them) au pied de la lettre – that I would no longer be attracted to other guys but to girls instead, just like my mates were. I would certainly have felt that I’d been most cruelly hoodwinked if I had eventually discovered that what they really meant was a perpetual lifestyle à la Alan Chambers, living “a life of denial”, continually having to “deny what comes naturally to me” and having to pray to God every morning on waking to keep me in that state of denial.
You speak of us giving the impression that we are afraid of organizations such as Exodus. Afraid? Well, I for one am afraid, but not for myself: the time when they could do me any harm is long past. I’m afraid of what they can do to the present generation of gay youth, trying to retard their self-acceptance and emotional development with the lie that their natural sexuality is a form of “sexual brokenness” and with false promises of “freedom” and “healing”, and encouraging them to embark on a wild-goose chase instead of getting on with their lives normally. Having had what should have been some of the best years of my life clouded by the relentless barrage of homophobic messages (even though they weren’t knowingly aimed at me or, for the most part, at the countless other young gay people who were hiding in fear), I see no reason why the same thing should be done to today’s gay youth.
O.K., Exodus have the right to advertise their pernicious hocus-pocus, and will no doubt continue to do so, but no-one else, including a private company like Apple, has any obligation to aid and abet them. The petition didn’t just ask Apple to remove the app; it explained why. Apple presumably found the reasons given convincing and decided that it was best that they should not continue to run the app, a decision which they were well within their rights in making.
Exactly! And Exodus still has its website and the books in its book store. And we’re not asking they be censored or shut down at all.
Just a quick reminder that comments without functioning emails do not get posted. Emails are not shown or used for anything other than the rare need for communication with the commenter, but we do require them. Thanks.
Perhaps another example can put this “free speech” issue into better perspective. Exodus has a book store. Say I write a book which does not track with their world view — far less than saying that they are implicitly evil or sinful for their actions, just a short book that expresses a view counter to theirs. Should Exodus be held responsible, even pummeled for not allowing my book in their store?
Exodus not only would not sell my hypothetical book in their store, they have repeatedly refused to even allow the mention of this blog or this author in the comments of theirs. And while the latter did surprise me, the former is perfectly reasonable. No one expects Exodus to sell something that violates their own sensibilities, their own rules. Apple has the same right and they have exercised it. The fact that the app initially got by the automated system is irrelevant.
Man y’all must really feel threatened by Exodus. The descriptions in these comments of what Exodus does and what it is about are the “falsities”. They have no interest in your demographic, people. Such vitriol! If someone wants to find an alternative to homosexuality for themselves, they should have that choice to seek it out and Exodus is one of those avenues with resources they can check out. If they find its not for them, then they can try something else. Not everyone desires to be a slave to their sexual urges. Why are y’all so hostile that somebody might want to choose celibacy as a way of life? Ted, you are right on the money. In raising this huge stink about the Apple app and bullying Apple into removing it, y’all are guilty of the same type of intimidation and all around hatin that you claim the world has been dishing The Gay for decades.
@Gal220,
Wow…well, you sure have it backwards, don’tcha?
Apple was not bullied, but informed and given the truth by gay people. APPLE made the decision, which was theirs to make on the EFFICACY of what Exodus is selling.
They already have policies in place on what they’ll accept and what they won’t. And the LIBEL that Exodus spreads about gay people is not only wrong, but yes…Exodus IS threatening to the vulnerable.
As for this gem or yours: “not everyone desires to be a slave to their sexual urges.”
Right, well…no hetero person is required to hit their knees for Jesus on condition of their civil and human rights.
And under THOSE conditions, there IS no choice.
Exodus foments and EXPLOITS anti gay sentiment. Any group that must prosper from fear and ignorance is of evil intent.
It’s not gay people that created homophobia, and it’s not gay people who are using it for profit.
Gay people obviously cannot profit from it.
So your comment is essentially not very reality based, let alone HONEST.
When Exodus doesn’t engage in anti gay socio/political action that paints gay people as sick, threatening, defective and incapable of having a good life while being gay, then I’d believe their stated purpose.
We’re not hostile towards someone who wants to choose celibacy as a way of life. Not at all.
WHO CARES?!
It’s when groups like Exodus lie to gay people and say this is the ONLY path to being happy and fulfilled.
You can’t convince someone that starvation is a good thing, when others are growing fat and UNCONDITIONALLY on whatever they want, all around you and telling you to like it.
No one gay is telling YOU to starve and like it. But they are saying either be honest and share, or leave them alone to their own feast.
THAT is the only right and FAIR way.
Who is? I’m certainly not. But I do think that they should know in advance that that’s what the goal is. I really don’t see why groups like Exodus can’t just run a thoroughly clear, honest advert along the following lines:
DON’T LIKE BEING GAY?
Remember that just because you’re gay, that doesn’t mean that you have to choose any of the dozens of possible gay lifestyles. There is an alternative. You can forego sex and sexual relationships altogether and live celibate for the rest of your life. It is possible!
Or, if you prefer, you can even spend the rest of your life pretending to be straight and force yourself to live a straight lifestyle, perhaps marrying someone to whom you feel little or no sexual attraction. Some of us are doing it!
If you want to do either of the above, we’ll advise you on how to go about it.
“Why are y’all so hostile that somebody might want to choose celibacy as a way of life?
If that were all there were to it, no problem at all. But then there is no problem with choosing celibacy as a way of life. just don’t have sex. You don’t need exodus for that,
But wait! Catholics believe that celibacy is a charisma, literally, a gift from god. So, if god is not giving the gift, despite being so earnestly prayed to, then what are we to ocnclude?
There is ALWAYS some kind of contradiction in terms when it comes to gay people and who thinks THEY should decide FOR gay people how they should live.
As we all know, not having children or procreating appears to be a fair means of discriminating against gay couples marrying.
The celibate don’t have children, and married couples for whatever reason sometimes don’t have sex.
And one cannot have sex a all, and STILL be heterosexual OR gay.
It’s not just having sex that determines sexual orientation, nor the OTHER matters of interest to one’s life OTHER than sex.
As we ALSO know, having a SEX life doesn’t have to be in evidence to still be discriminated against.
What this means is, that Exodus and gal220 are EXCEPTIONALLY dishonest if they think celibacy means anything in the larger scheme of what gay people are to do with their lives.
I’m hostile to any group or individual that trades in lies and distortions to promote hatred and bigotry. If Exodus wants to avoid my hostility, they should stop the lies, stop the distortions, and stop the promotion of bigotry.