The title of a press release issued yesterday by Focus on the Family was cause for joy:
“Love Won Out Looking Forward to Dialogue About Homosexuality”
That sounds most promising. But the press release makes it clear that no actual dialogue will occur:
Colorado Springs, Colo. – Focus on the Family welcomed news today that its April 14 Love Won Out conference at Trinity Church in Omaha will be protested by gay activists, saying it looks forward to adding its voice to a communitywide dialogue on homosexuality.
It is perhaps a sad self-reflection of Focus on the Family’s “values” that it considers antigay protest and counterprotest to be equivalent to dialogue.
The press release was e-mailed to Ex-Gay Watch by Focus on the Family Action, the politically partisan lobbying arm of Focus on the Family. It marketed the organization’s April 14 ex-gay road show in Omaha, Neb.:
Most of the 43 Love Won Out events held since 1995 have seen some form of protest, said Melissa Fryrear, a Love Won Out speaker and director of Focus on the Family’s Gender Issues Department.
Is the fact that LWO is protested really so pertinent to LWO’s mission that it belongs at the top of the press release? And is Focus’ preoccupation with protest beneficial to those families who are genuinely seeking help in their struggle with sexual orientation?
And that’s perfectly fine in America.
Not exactly. When a nation is so divided by political and religious partisans that conversation occurs solely by means of protest and counterprotest, that cannot be very healthy for the social cohesion of the nation — or its churches.
“How great is it that our country guarantees its citizens the right to speak out about issues they care about – even when those issues are controversial?” Fryrear said.
Fryrear’s statement is, literally, a repudiation of the campaign by the American Family Association, Concerned Women for America, and Exodus Groundswell to suppress the free-speech rights of Gay/Straight Alliances, Days of Silence, and safe-schools programs. But somehow one suspects this repudiation was not Fryrear’s intent.
“The protesters have every right to exercise that freedom with regards to their views on homosexuality. So do we – and that’s what we’ll be doing on April 14: exercising our right to offer families who are affected by homosexuality information they may not get elsewhere.”
Fryrear refrains from offering this “information” freely in her press release. Why must parents pay Focus on the Family $50 to $100 to discover that, in fact, Fryrear blames them for their adult children’s homosexuality?
Those who oppose Love Won Out have used words like “bigotry” and “hatred” to describe the event. Fryrear said that’s exactly the opposite of Love Won Out’s mission and message.
“Our conference is about truth, love and hope,” she said. “In every city we’ve ever gone to, we’ve found men and women who are dissatisfied living homosexually; what we offer them is the reality that change is possible – that unwanted same-sex attractions can be overcome. My life and the lives of thousands of other ex-gays like me are proof of that.”
I’m sorry to say that I find nothing truthful or hopeful about a program that blames allegedly overbearing mothers and overworked fathers for their children’s struggle, and which offers only two examples of poorly defined “former homosexuals” — Fryrear and Exodus chairman Mike Haley — out of the tens of thousands of people whom Exodus claims have passed through Exodus-affiliated ex-gay programs.
In addition to the personal stories of Fryrear and Mike Haley, a former homosexual and the conference host, the event will feature discussions of the roots of homosexuality and what the Bible says about the subject.
“The No. 1 misleading statement made about us is that we believe homosexuality is a choice,” Fryrear said. “That’s not at all true. We believe same-sex attractions are caused by many complex factors, and we explain that very meticulously in our sessions.”
“Many complex factors” — a euphemism for Focus on the Family’s blame game against parents.
The conference will be from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Trinity Church, 15555 West Dodge Road in Omaha. A news conference to address the charges leveled by protesters will be held at noon Friday, April 13, at the church.
It seems that Focus on the Family remains more interested in partisan protest, blame, and schism, than in nurturing families, promoting social conversation and preserving unity in church and nation.
A socially healthier, more spiritually mature approach would require Focus to:
- disclose its unscientific theories about parental causation to prospective attendees
- invite independent mainstream experts to disclose the established findings about biology to attendees
- refrain from strawman arguments about the concerns of protesters
- denounce discrimination and bullying
- present local success stories at each ex-gay road show, rather than importing partisan, paid political activists from Colorado Springs
- promote the well-being of same-sex-attracted persons and their families by refraining from partisan divisiveness and half-truth.
- support true conversation by co-sponsoring independently moderated roundtables with scientific and psychological experts from across a comprehensive spectrum of viewpoints.
Press releases for previous roadshows often had an invitation for gays to attend the conference so they could see for themselves that Love Won Out isn’t as awful as everyone says they are. I notice that invitation is missing from this press release. I wonder why?
Focus on the Family and the Exodus national leadership are pirmarily (if not completely) political actors in the Culture Wars. I don’t think that they have shown any real interest in the well being of same-sex attracted (gay) people and their families, except as pawns in the Cultures Wars. Asking them to abandon their current tactics and lies would be tantamount to asking them to disband.
By the way, the most disturbing thing that Fryear said at the Love Won Out conference that was reported in Box Turtle Bulletin was that every gay and lesbian person had been sexually abused in some way. Talk about a disturbing thought for the poor parents who in addition to hearing that they caused their kid to become gay, also didn’t do enough to protect their kids from some predator.
This is how they treat the poor folks to dole out money and sit down and listen respectfully to their spiel. The casualness with which these charlatans hurt people gives me little reason to believe that they have any desire to change, unless people just stopped showing up.
I want more than a presentation of sucess stories: I want each success story to:
1) Provide proof that they used to be gay in the form of an affadavit from a verifiable person of the same gender clearly stating that they had sex with them including genital contact, to prevent people from claiming to be “ex-gay” who were never gay in the first place.
2) State in plain language that for at least 5 years they have been actually attracted to persons of the opposite gender, and an affadavit proving that they have had sex with a person of the opposite gender more than once, and a statement from them that they actually enjoyed it and it was not traumatic, to demonstrate that they are functionally heterosexual rather than simply calling themselves heterosexual.
3) State in plain language that for at least 5 years they have felt no attraction to persons of their own gender at any time under any circumstances, to demonstrate that they’re not simply bisexual.
4) Disclose their tax returns for the last 5 years to demonstrate that they have a job with an employer unrelated in any way to any “ex-gay” or anti-gay organization, as well as an affadavit from their last listed employer stating that they’re still employed there, to demonstrate they’re not being paid by an anti-gay organization to claim they’re “ex-gay” for political purposes.
If any of the “ex-gay” organizations’ claims to have helped so many people to change their sexual orientation are actually true, Focus should have no problem coming up with a dozen or so people who meet these criteria, right? Yes, it’s a little intrusive, but finding a mere dozen successes who are so grateful that they’ll do it for the cause shouldn’t be too difficult, right?
‘Affected by homosexualty’?
Hmmm…that could be anybody.
Affected HOW?!
That’s a REALLY generally weird thing to say.
I know they consider being gay a pathology, which they don’t differentiate much from others.
But I asked them before, of all those who suffer from serious pathology, what others with them are BANNED from marriage a children, and in such a way that Exodus politically intervenes as well?
That would add credibility, Tom, but it’s not likely to happen.
I don’t doubt that some people have changed their orientation (at least temporarily), but to make a living from it seems dubious at best, disengenious at the worst.
If you just “walked away from homosexuality,” good for you (I guess), but why would you want to make money from it? “Walking away” or “leaving that lifestyle” would seem to imply a new beginning. Not continuing to revisit it.
Not so with these people.
“How great is it that our country guarantees its citizens the right to speak out about issues they care about – even when those issues are controversial?” Fryrear said.
————————————————————
Really, Melissa? Is that why so many of the Soulforce riders keep getting arrested merely for attempting to engage in a “dialogue” at so many of the nation’s dominionist-only institutions? Have we missed your disappointment about the lack of discussion concerning the “christian” treatment of members of the GLBT community among those schools?
Is Melissa going to repeat that lie that Robert Spitzer called her on or will she think of a new distortion in order to demonize gays and lesbians.
Moderator Note (DR):
This comment was deleted because we don’t allow cross posting the same comment to more than one thread, particularly if the comment is essentially just a request to view another blog. That’s called spam 😉
Focus says: “exercising our right to offer families who are affected by homosexuality information they may not get elsewhere.”
How true this is. They certainly won’t get this “information” from respected medical or mental health authorities, or from well-adjusted GLBT people. Indeed, only right wing political organizations will provide such disinformation.
1. We’re making the choice to remain homosexual.
2. Where did our God-given heterosexuality go, wouldn’t that be 2 choices we didn’t make?
-Our conference is about truth, love and hope,” she said. “In every city we’ve ever gone to, we’ve found men and women who are dissatisfied living homosexually; what we offer them is the reality that change is possible – that unwanted same-sex attractions can be overcome. My life and the lives of thousands of other ex-gays like me are proof of that.-
1) Dissatisfied living homosexually.
2) Unwanted same sex attractions.
If these ex-gays are really gays to begin with they would not be hammering out these two points like nobody’s business.
Same mantra. Same ex-gays. More disillusions that all gays are potential ex-gays. Wrong audience again.
That’s it isn’t it? We were never intended to be their audience.
Not their audience…
Yeah, Stephen Bennett on WAVA (in DC) yesterday was saying that at least in his ministries 90% of the calls to them were from parents “devastated” because their 16 – 18 year old just came out to them.
This is the true audience.
That and the RR voting public that needs intellectual aid and comfort for their anti-gay voting habits.
Check this out. Now The Hill, a Capitol Hill newspaper, has promoted the substance of this news release.
Sorry, left out the link
https://blog.thehill.com/2007/03/30/protesters-welcome/#more-2814