Twenty-four years ago, I launched Ex-Gay Watch, then using blogs.salon.com as host, with two posts that, in retrospect, make an interesting pair. And now, the closure of Salon.com offers a timely opportunity to look back.
The first post, “Narcissism,” criticized Exodus International and its spokesman, Randy Thomas, for portraying conservative Christian institutions as victims of persecution while showing remarkably little concern for people who were being harmed by those institutions.
The second post, “Respect,” praised ex-gay ministry leader Tom Cole for acknowledging the suffering of gay students and supporting efforts to protect them from harassment.
I was hard on Randy and generous toward Tom.
Twenty-four years later, Randy Thomas Scobey is openly gay, has repudiated the ex-gay movement, and is my friend. Tom and his wife Donna remain committed to ministries that promote spiritual transformation from homosexuality, including an association with the controversial International House of Prayer in Kansas City (IHOPKC).
If I had been making predictions in 2002, I might have wanted to reconsider my career as a prophet.
But I wasn’t making predictions. I was evaluating what people said and did at the time. And I still believe that was the right approach.
Two Very Different Journeys
Tom and Donna Cole: From Reconciliation to Pure Heart
- 1986–1988: Tom leaves his life in Detroit’s gay community following a religious conversion. He and Donna, who also describes herself as formerly homosexual, marry in 1988.
- 1994–2003: Tom directs Reconciliation Ministries, an Exodus-affiliated ministry in Michigan.
- 2002: Tom speaks candidly about the bullying he experienced growing up and expresses support for protecting gay students. His willingness to recognize that suffering earns my praise.
- 2007 onward: The Coles develop their Pure Heart ministry, emphasizing emotional healing, childhood wounds, spiritual restoration, and Christian identity.
- 2010s–2020s: Their ministry expands internationally. Tom becomes associated with IHOPKC, a charismatic evangelical movement subsequently engulfed in allegations and investigations of serious leadership misconduct.
- 2023–2026: The Coles continue recounting their journeys away from homosexuality. Their ministry’s public language emphasizes love and healing, while retaining conservative evangelical teachings about sexuality and transformation.
Their current website, Pure Heart Ministries, uses the slogan Removing Everything That Hinders Love. It’s a considerably gentler presentation than much of the ex-gay movement’s public rhetoric in 2002.
But a gentler presentation doesn’t necessarily mean a more inclusive and selfless theology.
Randy Thomas Scobey: From Exodus to Acceptance
- 1990s: Randy becomes involved in evangelical ex-gay ministry after previously living openly as gay.
- 2002: As an Exodus International spokesman, he issues the press release that inspires my first blog post.
- 2000s: He becomes Exodus’s executive vice president and participates in conservative religious and political advocacy opposing LGBTQ rights.
- 2011–2013: Randy increasingly questions Exodus’s teachings and practices. The suicide of a former partner and friend contributes to a profound reassessment.
- 2013: Exodus International closes. Randy publicly apologizes for his role in promoting harmful teachings, political positions, and institutional silence.
- 2015: He publicly identifies as gay, while acknowledging some bisexual attraction, and rejects the premise that gay people need to change their orientation.
- 2020–2021: Randy becomes engaged to his future husband, Dan, and appears in the documentary Pray Away, discussing the consequences of conversion therapy.
- 2024–2026: He publishes WHY: A Memoir and continues advocating LGBTQ dignity, self-acceptance, and freedom from religious stigma.
Randy’s transformation wasn’t simply a matter of coming out. He had lived openly as gay before entering the ex-gay movement.
What changed was his understanding of the movement itself, the consequences of his leadership, and his responsibility to people harmed by its teachings.
That distinction matters.
What I Would Write Differently Today
I don’t regret challenging Exodus. Its leadership engaged in political and religious advocacy that stigmatized LGBTQ people, undermined their relationships, and encouraged families and churches to treat homosexuality as a problem requiring intervention.
Those activities deserved scrutiny.
But I do regret some of my tone.
Looking back, I can see places where sarcasm substituted for explanation, where I was more interested in exposing and punishing hypocrisy than understanding how people came to believe what they believed.
To this day, I appreciate good examples of hypocrisy, and some practically arrive gift-wrapped. But I’ve learned that identifying hypocrisy doesn’t necessarily explain it, much less persuade anyone to abandon it.
Randy and I were both veterans of Bridges Across the Divide, an effort to encourage dialogue between gay people and ex-gay Christians. By 2002, we had both moved on, although in rather different directions.
My purpose in starting this blog wasn’t to build bridges. I wanted LGBTQ people to understand the ex-gay movement, recognize its political and religious influence, and challenge its factually untrue claims. I believed careful documentation and pointed criticism could accomplish more than simply denouncing everyone involved.
I still believe that.
What I understand better today is that people promoting harmful ideas may themselves be struggling under the weight of those ideas.
That doesn’t absolve them of responsibility. Randy, in particular, has never asked for that. Indeed, he has publicly acknowledged harms that many former leaders would prefer to forget.
But it does change how I think about the person behind the press release.
Randy and I are friends today. I value that friendship, not because it erases our history, but because neither of us is confined to the person he was in 2002.
And I recognize that some of my old language may have made it harder to see the person behind the position.
What About Tom?
As for Tom, I don’t regret praising his concern for gay students. I wish more conservative Christian leaders had demonstrated the same concern, particularly in 2002.
What troubles me today isn’t simply that Tom and his wife Donna have remained conservative evangelicals. They were conservative evangelicals in 2002. That wasn’t exactly breaking news.
What impressed me was Tom’s willingness to recognize that gay students deserved compassion and protection regardless of whether they shared his religious beliefs.
I hoped that principle would become more central to his ministry.
Instead, the Coles continued promoting a theology of transformation from homosexuality, and their ministry became associated with IHOPKC, a religious movement whose history raises serious questions for me about sexual abuse, accountability, spiritual authority, and treatment of outsiders.
My concern isn’t that conservative Christians believe homosexuality is sinful. I’ve encountered that belief once or twice.
It’s the combination of confident moral judgments about other people’s lives with what I regard as inadequate accountability for the conduct of religious leaders and institutions themselves.
What particularly troubles me is the apparent absence of a sustained, explicit commitment to opposing the mistreatment of LGBTQ people, including those who reject the Coles’ religious teachings.
Tom recognized the cruelty of antigay bullying in 2002. But where has that concern been in the quarter-century since? Have the Coles consistently challenged violence, defamation, discrimination, and religious hostility toward LGBTQ people, including when those abuses come from within their own evangelical community? No, at least not in writing.
Their ministry today speaks warmly about love, compassion, and healing wounded hearts. But their testimonies also falsely connect all homosexuality with childhood trauma, emotional brokenness, and struggles with gender identity. The Coles’ personal histories deserve respect, but their implied explanations of other people’s lives deserve scrutiny.
A person can experience abuse, family dysfunction, addiction, or emotional suffering without those experiences explaining why that person is gay. And a person can recover from those experiences without changing sexual orientation.
What I find missing from the Coles’ public presentation is an equally prominent, sustained commitment to protecting LGBTQ people who have no desire to change their identities or adopt evangelical Christianity.
Where are the explicit statements opposing stereotyping, bullying, defamation, discrimination, and violence against those people? Where is the assurance that their dignity and safety matter regardless of whether they accept the Coles’ religious conclusions?
Perhaps they have made such statements elsewhere. I would welcome them. But I haven’t found the same clarity in their later ministry that I recognized in Tom’s words in 2002.
Compassion shouldn’t require conversion. Respect shouldn’t depend on theological agreement. And protecting someone from cruelty shouldn’t be contingent on persuading them that their identity or relationships are spiritually unacceptable.
Healing wounded hearts is an admirable aspiration. But religious ministries should also examine whether their teachings and practices contribute to the wounds they propose to heal.
I wasn’t wrong to encourage a religious conservative who spoke up for gay students. I would do it again.
What I understand better now is that recognizing someone’s humanity in a particular moment isn’t necessarily the same as building a ministry around that recognition.
The Limits of Optimism
My younger self sometimes wrote as though the central challenge was getting ex-gay leaders to recognize their inconsistencies. Surely, if they understood the contradictions between their stated compassion and their political activities, some of these leaders would change.
Sometimes they did, but often they became more irrational and harmful in their conduct.
I have also become a bit less interested in winning arguments against individuals and more interested in understanding the institutions, incentives, fears, and loyalties that sustain harmful beliefs.
That doesn’t mean becoming less critical; it means being more precise about what deserves criticism.
I can disagree profoundly with someone’s theology without assuming that every act of kindness is insincere. I can recognize someone’s suffering without excusing the suffering they have caused. And I can acknowledge a person’s capacity for change without treating change as inevitable.
Randy’s story reminds me that people can reconsider deeply held beliefs, acknowledge the harm they’ve caused, and change in ways that once seemed unimaginable.
Tom’s story reminds me that compassion expressed in one moment doesn’t necessarily become a consistent principle. And that optimism is worth preserving, provided we don’t mistake it for evidence that the work is finished.
Perhaps the most important lesson is that I don’t have to choose between holding people accountable and believing they can change.
I didn’t need to be less critical of Exodus in 2002. I did need to be more careful about distinguishing its harmful ideas and institutional conduct from some of the complicated human beings who promoted them.
And I didn’t need to be less encouraging toward Tom. I needed to remember that one admirable statement, however sincere, is not a lifetime warranty.
Those two little blog posts remind me that I was trying, even then, to find a way to combine accountability with fairness.
I didn’t always succeed.
Twenty-four years later, I hope I’m a little better at it.