If one reads the news coverage following pretty much any Love Won Out conference it quickly becomes obvious they are attended primarily by family, friends and clergy rather than actual ex-gays or gays. As I’ve stood at the driveways to churches where Love Won Out is hosted I’ve seen too many cars pass by with children in the back seat, looks of sheer fear and dread on their faces, their parents unable to reconcile their faith with their child’s sexuality. At Love Won Out Atlanta one such gay son stood outside with us while his mother attended the conference. An article about Love In Action (Exodus’ largest and oldest conversion ministry) in the current anti-gay AFA Journal makes it perfectly clear Love Won Out’s goal is to affect gay youth:
“I go to every Love Won Out conference,” [John] Smid [director of Love In Action] said, “and 60% of those who attend are parents. It’s primarily a ministry to parents, that’s their goal.” He said parents want to know how to build a respectful relationship with their children, which is necessary before they can help their children escape the tentacles of a homosexual lifestyle.
More kids being made to suffer for no good reason except they’re not what the parents want them to be. That’s all I can see. It really hurts.
When I attended LWO in Maryland, I would have guessed it to be a 40/30/30 split. Forty percent parents and family members of gays or ex-gays, including a handful attending with their teen or young adult child. Thirty percent interested folk who were generally Christians yet not as directly impacted by gay issues — pastors, members of the host church, teachers — folks who attend a few inspirational or faith-based conferences a year, and this just turned out to be one of them.
And, the ex-gay portion of the crowd was diverse and vocal during the break-out sessions. I wasn’t in break-outs with youth, but I met 18-20 year-olds, there were some ex-gay people of color, and an age spread of 20s to 50s.
To make the parents the agents of their work, means that there is more likelyhood of total control.
And less option for resistance. Children wouldn’t have the skills to analyze themselves or have OTHER gay youth or adults to positively influence their lives.
LWO their statement is fear based. It’s saying that a gay person is inevitably doomed or will have a ‘lifestyle’ that has no substance or anything positive or of merit in it.
This is why I refer to the Clark doll study.
When a CHILD is taught that what they are, or a charateristic (of which they have no control) will doom them to a life such as LWO describes, or that it keeps them from developing normally, or that society will not give them the same things as even their own siblings have: then this sort of thing is trauma delivered to a tender mind.
And without OTHER models to refute such claims, there is a void in which the child will tumble.
And there is truth to the claim of being treated differently.
In one’s own family, they WILL be less supportive of that child’s normal interests and social networks. Therefore stunting them in some way or another.
And the danger is, when total control is not realized, the youngster is treated as a delinquent.
L.A.s streets are full of youngsters like this.
LWO has an all or nothing approach.
They CAUSE more problems than they solve. And they treat gay success as a theory rather than a reality.
I don’t understand how the theoretical gains more weight than reality, but it’s much easier to engage parents to do the dirty work.
And it is dirty.
LWO is lying to everyone. Using tools that would be ugly in the best of situations, but are inappropriate ESPECIALLY in the case of gay kids.
Repression is never healthy. And a qualified pro always says so.
I think the approach with the FTC is a good angle to go with. LWO and Exodus have tentacles all over the country. Making it a state issue is trickier.
But not on a federal level.
Doing the research as we speak. Lawyers are always good to talk to on this. Especially litigators.
Parents don’t have complete carte blanche.
Especially sending their children into something harmful or risky.
For example:
Normalcy is also a matter of competence, function and intellectual levels.
A parent, for example, cannot take their healthy and normal child to a plastic surgeon for surgery to correct something that’s the figment of the parent’s imagination.
A parent cannot ignore sound and accepted science in favor of medieval science for something that isn’t there.
In the case of LWO, they are asking that pareant commit their normal child to something that isn’t there, a matter of belief and faith, not substance or risk.
The risks that LWO speaks on are entirely subjective and not a part of the child’s life at ALL.
Their risk assessment is also a matter of opinion and not fact.
That’s like removing a girls breasts because she MIGHT contract breast cancer!
Although it’s possible, it’s NOT A PROBLEM…yet.
You can’t submit a child to psychiatric treatment when there is no behavior or risk assessment by a professional that such treatment is indicated.
That is to say, there is no such thing as PREVENTIVE psychiatry.
Now, if the psychiatric community has clearly stated that ex gay practices are HARMFUL, than the ex gay industry is clearly being irresponsible.
And they are violating standards and practices for addressing mental illness AND addiction.
Parents are supposed to be well informed, but that also goes the other way.
The information provided by PFLAG, and most GSA’s doesn’t require long term commitment, nor expense.
And the information from these groups is non sectarian and doesn’t require religious affiliation.
The fact that a person KNOWS they are gay at tender ages, and can recall that they never chose, ‘it just happened’ as it does for straight kids, is precisely the reason why gay youth shouldn’t be held morally responsible for being gay.
You all know this.
But the FTC has guidelines, even in LWO and Exodus doesn’t.
And that’s just too bad for them.
More basic than misguided plastic surgery – Jehovah’s Witness parents cannot deny blood transfusions to their children. Christian Science parents cannot deny their children medical help.
Wayne is going to try to make a point that ex-gay therapy is quackery. If he can establish that in a court, then its not a very big step to say that parents who send their children to an exgay facility are abusers. That’s the truth and thank you Wayne for taking the first step.
I saw that documentary, “Jesus Camp”.
The children in that film were anywhere between 5 to 15.
I think anything that sends children into such emotional hysterics and chants, can’t be healthy.
The loss of innocence of children is often blamed on liberals or the non religious.
But the rigid and unrealistic standards set by some churches, temples and mosques, coupled with insular and less critical thinking are dangerous too.
Most obviously to females and the gay children in that group.
But it’s not like church leaders are incapable of abuse or malfeasance.
Quacks deserve to be restrained or stopped if possible.
Whatever their background. And religion is no excuse.
“”””Now, if the psychiatric community has clearly stated that ex gay practices are HARMFUL, than the ex gay industry is clearly being irresponsible.””””
They already have.
Parents of minors have a right 2 determine the behaviors incl. sexual behaviors. Kids r not old enough 2 engage in sex. I agree with Love Won Out & I’m not religious. I side with LWO in that even if sexual orientation doesn’t change, the sexual activities must b prevented or we must help people quit if they’ve started
Let me note that sexual proclivity is 2 me a moot point. I’m n/i in whether there’s an inborn cause 2 engage in these sexual behaviors, just as I’m n/i in whether pot smokers are born that way. The parents & LWO don’t hate homosexuals, they r against homosexual behavior. As I noted in another post, we don’t judge people 4 their proclivity, we r against the behavior.
LWO doesn’t want kids 2 engage in homo&lesbian sexual behaviors, just as the parents don’t want their kids 2 turn out like the Osbourns & even Ozzy Osbourn doesn’t want his kids 2 turn out like him.
Now I know the predictable replies. U will write about how they didn’t choose their feelings, but I’m n/i in that-it’s about ending the sexual behaviors, even if the proclivity or feelings 2 engage in the behaviors doesn’t change.
Who would have thought we would still be fighting ingnorance in this day and age. From one minority to the next shame on all of you. “Christian people” have always been at the forfront of hatred, predjudice, and persecution through out history…KKK, which burning and so on and so on. And all in the name of God. Start with walking out of church with a smile, do not tell me I am not a child of God because you can’t understand it. Shouldn’t you yourselves be noticed for you kindness, forgiveness, and love where a passer by could say oh he/she must be a “Christian a memeber of Focus on the Family” but no it’s usually a bout of road rage with a middle finger stuck out of a roll down window with a bumper sticker that says honk if you love Jesus.