Last weekend saw the latest Love Won Out conference, the ex-gay roadshow which was once sponsored by Focus on the Family (with Exodus as partners) but is now completely run by Exodus International. The latest locale was Sugarland, Texas (outside Houston) — firmly in the Bible Belt and where one might expect more than the usual number of sympathetic participants.
According to he Houston Chronicle, however, that doesn’t seem to have been the case. They report 450 in attendance, for what we believe is the lowest figure yet — certainly in recent years. That’s less than half the numbers reported in it’s heyday of just a few years ago. Remember also that most attendees are repeat visitors, part of a small core who use the conferences to visit socially. Even in such a venue, however, some ministries maintain rather strict requirements. Living Hope Ministries, an Exodus affiliate in Arlington, Texas, (and old stomping ground of former Exodus VP Randy Thomas) requires their attendees to mark out the last names on their name tags lest they be tempted to contact each other by means not sanctioned by the group.
There would seem little doubt that Exodus is in decline. Recent months and years have seen their pleas for funds become more dire, their staff and benefits cut, significant ministry partners disassociate, and now their main recruiting tool attract fewer attendees. Some time ago they began combining the figures for their member groups with their stagnant church affiliates, perhaps to give the impression that they have grown (or at least not shrunk). Their church affiliate network, which then VP Randy Thomas predicted would have 10,000 members by 2010 never got past about 100.
Exodus still has a presence and can do damage to those who mistake them for a safe harbor. And they continue to export their untruths to countries less equipped to provide an informed opposition. Unfortunately, we have already witnessed what kind of fire can start from those sparks.
I didn’t know that about the nametags. It’s like they’re trying to ensure their attendance numbers for the next conference by not allowing people to contact others OUTSIDE the conferences. Sounds like a crooked deal to me. And rather weird.
@Emily K
I don’t know how many of them do that. I’ve only received information on Living Hope, and they don’t seem to want members to even email outside their system. Sounds pretty bizarre to me as well, especially since we are talking about adults.
I was part of LHM (specifically Living Hope Youth) for several years back in the early 2000’s. At the time, the rules about outside contact made perfect sense. We were all a bunch of sexually confused, easily tempted young folks (with high sex drives) trying to figure things out. The rationale was that you only have contact under the watchful eye of the LHY forum moderators. That way no hanky panky occurs. “NO OUTSIDE CONTACT” was the mantra. No emailing, no meeting in person, no facebooking = NO SEX!
In retrospect, I must admit that it kinda “worked” in a sense. Having those boundaries (for some of us who were very poor at creating them, especially when it came to sexual contact) really helped some of us to forge genuine friendships. Surely, many of us didn’t need those boundaries in place for those deep friendships to occur – but it probably did help some other folks. My constant beef, however, was that there was never any trust that people HAD learned proper boundaries. Hookups were quite rare (in fact, I can only think of 1 that actually occurred b/w our group of ACTIVE members in the 3 years that I was part of the ministry), despite the fact that MOST of us found each other off the forums anyway (when you share that much deep stuff with each other, you eventually piece together enough details to find someone on facebook or google even IF you are never allowed to know their last name!)
There was just an inherent lack of trust that people knew how to keep their pricks and tits to themselves…somewhat warranted for a select few, but short-sighted for the larger group. But that was the rationale, anyway…
Thanks everyone, I was wondering about that name tag thing. It still wrinkles my Post Toasties that there are SUCH ridiculously strict rules against gay people even CASUALLY associating. It pretty much exacerbates a possible inclination to be SO lonesome and needful of SOME kind of connection, that one might understandably go a bit overboard in response. Misreading their own emotional and sexual needs, for lack of the correct direction.
Young people of any sexual orientation is going to go through periods of insecurity, awkwardness in learning to gain better social skills and networks. But gay kids, as always, are set aside for some particularly inhumane isolation and lack of compassion for their feelings by the adults around them and who they are forced to trust.
That gay young people are undermined by the stereotype that they have no more personal and natural restraint than monkeys, is more of the libel that gay people aren’t human enough, nor intellectually worthy on the level of any other human enough to be dealt with as their hetero peers are all the time.
I can hardly begin to tell you how much I HATE that, and hate Exodus for promoting that libel wherever they go.
It’s not, imho, a matter of either overly strict boundaries or a lack of trust. I suspect it is REALLY a matter of the comforter calling the duvet fuschia.
Can you say “projection”?