There is a nice article in the Columbia Missourian about how churches are increasingly divided about how gay people fit in. The article focuses on a group of Methodist women – mothers of gay men – that decided to change their church.
One segment of the article discusses the efforts of the ex-gay movement. Although much of it is the standard general info about Exodus and its 400,000 phone calls, one paragraph caught my attention:
Living Waters, an intense 9-month program designed for those who are “sexually broken,” has steadily increased in enrollment. Donna Thornhill, a licensed professional counselor who works with the program, says Living Waters has a 90 percent success rate — success being measured by a person’s ability to live a normal heterosexual lifestyle.
Is Thornhill actually claiming that they turn 90% of their client into heterosexuals? Really?
Or is Thornhill saying that 90% of their clients could pretend to be heterosexual and live a “lifestyle” of pretending to not be gay and hoping that some day they may have some feelings of attraction to the opposite sex?
If anyone knows anything about Living Waters (which seems affiliated with Pure Heart Ministries in St. Louis) or Donna Thornhill, it would be interesting to see what she’s actually claiming.
I attended a Living Waters program in the Denver area. There were probably only about 50 percent (or less) gay attendees. The rest were straight people dealing with sexual addiction issues. I have no idea where they get their statistics, since they don’t do any tracking of individuals.
The program is the product of Desert Streams ministries started by Andrew Comiskey, who calls himself ex-gay. In this article he talks about the temptation he still faces (read the part under the subhead “Still in Process”).
Living Waters is the creation of Andy Comiskey at Desert Stream.For a fee, Desert Steam
The fees and sales of books and materials (by Comiskey etc) no doubt provide a nice little earner.I cannot find any ref. to a 90% “success rate” — I suspect it was simply pulled out of someone’s nether regions and is as equally valid as “10%”, “one-third”, “72.1%” or any other invented figure.
Aaah, my eyes, my eyes!!!!!Stand back from the screen and click this link…
Yes, like most ex-gay ministries, Living Waters is usually run by laypeople whose training consists of a week at the Leadership Training Seminar, where they basically do the entire 30-week program in one week.
When I did the Living Waters program (in 00-01), it was a 30-week program for $300. It had an application process, including an interview at the beginning, and a large notebook with lessons and prayers in a workbook style format.
Each week we had to do a chapter out of the workbook and read some of Andy Comiskey’s book “Pursuing Sexual Wholeness: How Jesus Heals the Homosexual.” Then we met for worship, teaching (from a layleader), and then split into small groups for “healing prayer” (Andy quotes quite a bit of Leanne Payne in the workbook). They use oil to annoint in the shape of a cross on the forehead during prayer, and water that they sprinkle over you as a “cleansing” ritual.
When the program ended, there was no attempt made to follow-up or monitor anyone. I didn’t even attend the church where the group was held, so haven’t seen most of the leaders or other attendees since then.
I think Ms. Thornhill is perhaps saying that she believes there is a 90% success rate in their particular program (in which case, I am sure there are a lot of ex-ex-gays who just haven’t spoken up yet). I’ve never heard the 90% success rate figure from Desert Streams or Andy Comiskey.
And anyway, they’ve sort of worked in recent years to repackage the whole thing as healing from “sexual brokenness” which can cover a wide range of issues (there were several people in my particular group who were dealing with recovery from sexual abuse, and didn’t even have any real sexual orientation or sexual addiction issues). I suppose this gives them a lot of latitude when claiming success as well…
They are running a Living Waters at my church, and one of my pastors sent me an article about it and at the end they gave these statistics — 11% of men experience complete change and 37% of women experience complete change. That 90% is way off from what I read.
JJ, can you ask your pastor where they got these statistics? Are they statistics from Desert Streams, or just from your church? Do they follow up with people after the program ends? Thanks for the info!
My pastor sent me an article from a newspaper, they weren’t her statistics. I think the newspaper was the Calgary Herald.
Ah, OK. Found the article your pastor sent you.
The statistics come from the Spitzer study. Doesn’t have anything to do with Living Waters and when you look into the Spitzer study, those are the “success” rates for people who were already selected for the study based on the fact that they already considered themselves ex-gay (i.e., the study starts out with “successes” only). Not very great statistics, but typical of how the ex-gay crowd and people who aren’t knowledgable about the actual study are using them…
Heterosexual? Like the “heterosexual” men who regularly solicite mid-day or after-work sex from other men in gay.com chat rooms? Like the “hetersexual” men who frequent public restrooms. Like the “heterosexual” Matt Glavin, married former head of the Southeastern Legal Foundation, who in 2000 was caught fondling a male park ranger in a public park outside of Atlanta? (BTW, that was Glavin’s second arrest on the same charge–the earlier one being in 1996.)
Link on the Glavin case for MikeA: https://www.mediatransparency.org/recipientprofile.php?recipientID=1262 There are many other links available over Google using keywords: Matt Glavin Southeastern Legal Foundation Fondling
The point should be clear, there are more than a few men who in their public lives are hetero, but who in their private lives are not completely.
Depends on what you define as success.
I suspect that most ex-gay ministries would see the complete cessation of homosexual behavior as a success, even if the person continues to have homosexual thoughts and fantasies.
In fact, it isn’t all that hard, with a bit of work, to learn to control one’s behavior. However, in terms of changing one’s thoughts and feelings, that is a totally different story, and one worth investigating
Ryan
Actually, most of them don’t require a complete cessation, just that you “come out of the homosexual lifestyle”. It’s OK to “slip” occasionally, as long as you repent afterward and don’t think of yourself as being gay.
All they really demand is that you change your identity. If you call yourself “ex-gay” then you are, by definition, a success.
It seems almost designed for a political announcement type of result rather than for addressing any of the concerns of the actual participant. Nothing for him actually changes; he had same-sex thoughts and feelings before (which he probably fought) and has same-sex thoughts and feelings after (which he continues to fight).
He just has a different “lifestyle”. His old lifestyle included identifying as gay and the new one doesn’t and that – as far as I’ve been able to identify – is the only difference.
Yeah, and sadly, the point of all this is: The ex-gay crowd has *never* been honest about what they mean by “Change” – until they are, all of their statistics and percentages are essentially meaningless.
The Livinig Waters Program is an excellent program. The ex-gay movement has for the most part described change as a process. I found Andy to be very honest about his previous life as a gay man, his years allowing God to grow his masculinity and its reorientation process, and his marriage.. as for the 90% rate, that number is clearly undefined. However it cannot be discounted many people attracted to the same gender can and do experience change.
Here is an article about Andy and the program:
https://www.kcet.org/lifeandtimes/archives/200405/20040513.php
Playah,
Thank you for the article link and your thoughts.
We here at exgaywatch are supportive of those who wish to live their life in accordance with their own wishes, including those who wish out of religious conviction to live as though they were heterosexual.
What we are intolerant of, however, is lying and deceit.
Although you state that the ex-gay movement has described change as a process, this is not actually the case. The ex-gay movement has been very guilty of redefining “change” to be whatever they want it to be at any given moment. When testifying before legislators or when displaying billboards, “change” means complete transformation of internal orientation; when trying to retain current strugglers, “change” means very slow continuous efforts. This inconsistency leads to confusion, and the confusion is intentional. There is a clearly concerted effort on the part of various leaders of the ex-gay movement to deceive and fool the public.
And efforts to deceive are never godly.
This bait and switch of definitions can be demonstrated in your last sentence:
“However it cannot be discounted many people attracted to the same gender can and do experience change.”
First you talk about “people attracted to the same gender” and then you say “experience change”. Anyone reading this comes away with the obvious belief that you are saying that people change their attraction to the same gender. In other words, people who were once attracted to the same gender are now no longer attracted to the same gender.
This is a very bold claim. And one which is not substantiated by any legitimate scientifically testable research. In fact, all efforts to do science based research have been consistently opposed by the ex-gay movement.
However, in reading earlier in your post, it’s clear that by change you mean some undefined “process”. In other words, you mean anything you want to mean at any time.
That isn’t an indication of intellectual honesty (or even plain old honesty)
Further, the ex-gay movement is also very sloppy in its thinking, convoluting masculinity with sexual orientation. Masculinity and homosexuality are not mutually exclusive. I know both masculine gay men and non-masculine straight men. So while you appreciate Andy’s increasing masculinity, it isn’t relevant as to his orientation.
You are welcome to share your opinions, but I encourage you to let go of the catch phrases and be careful in how you put your opinions. Honesty and forthrightness will be welcomed; deceptive “technically not exactly a lie” statements will be shot down and disregarded immediately.
I also attended a Living Waters program in the Denver area. The *best* fit I could find for a 90% success rate is that maybe 90% of the people who started the class attended enough classes for the program to “feel successful” for the leaders. There was a lot of pressure to get the approval of the guy leading the class so you wouldn’t get a “recommendation” to re-attend.
The saddest thing about my experience was watching the lies the leaders used to manipulate people. There were at least two guys in my program who were struggling with drug addiction, and instead of being in a drug recovery program, they’d been told the drug use was a sign of homosexuality. Another man had recently lost a partner to AIDS and was in the program to make those feelings of loss and grief go away. That’s just entirely irresponsible.
Oh, Anne.
I’m not a cryer but I can feel myself tearing up.
How much change is necessary to be legitimate change? I find ex-gay ministries increasingly honest about the challenges of change. I also find them increasingly having the integrity to help the participant evaluate what is motivating their desire for change. That motivator should then establish for the participant how much change would mean success.
Ken,
Which ex-gay groups do you believe are honest, and which do you believe are dishonest? Please provide specifics — what language used by a specific group is honest, and what language used by a specific group is dishonest?
The Exodus national office implies in its communications that “change” means change from predominant homosexual attraction and behavior to predominant heterosexual attraction and behavior. Do you agree with that definition of change, and do you believe that it should be applied to all groups and all exgays?
Ken,
The use of “ex-gay” in itself is what defines “change”. The suggestion is that the sexual orientation has altered.
Any group — gay, straight, or anywhere in between — is capable of tackling issues with anger, distress, social isolation, drugs, alcoholism, promiscuity, or even particular sexual behaviours. None of those issues are “ex-gay”. Or “gay”. Or “straight”. They have nothing to do with sexuality, per se.
Therefore, a change around any of those is not an “ex-gay change”.
Yet it is changes in those that exgay groups drag into their definition of change — ignoring, at the same time, the (complete) failure to alter sexual orientation.
If I went into a program expecting change in sexual orentation, but ended up merely altered my social circle… QED: the public promises of the exgay groups are dishonest.
ken,
perhaps you feel the ex-gay ministries are honest about the “challenges of change” within the program and to the participants.
However the leaders are notoriously dishonest about the meaning of change when they are lobbying to effect civic policy. Invariably they lead legislators and the public to believe that “thousands of people like me have left homosexuality” which is – I believe – deliberately deceptive.