At the social-conservative website MichNews.com, Warren Throckmorton editorializes against gay author/activist Wayne Besen.
Comments about Prof. Throckmorton’s criticisms began at XGW here but should continue here instead.
My own reaction: I’ve discussed the dispute over who founded Exodus before. It’s old news.
Analyzing Exodus founders tells us only part of the story — a half-truth, not the whole truth. For almost 30 years, many Exodus member ministers across North America have launched, operated and finally abandoned local ministries as they became ex-ex-gay. The ex-ex-gay movement is now comparable in size to the ex-gay movement, though the former is neither as well-organized nor as political and partisan as the ex-gay movement has become.
Besen discusses the short average lifespan of local exgay ministries in detail in his book, Anything But Straight.
(Hat tip: Scott)
I’m currently writing an article on reparative therapy for Wikipedia and I’m be interested in your statement that Exodus “abandoned local ministries as they became ex-ex-gay”. Is there evidence that a lot of ministries turned away from Exodus and reparative therapies? If so could you mention some sources. Also, what reasons were given for these?
Note that I didn’t say that Exodus abandoned local ministries. 🙂
I said that local ex-gay ministry leaders formerly affiliated with Exodus give up their ministry and ties to Exodus when they turn ex-ex-gay. Besen’s book cites several examples that I can dig up, perhaps the most famous being Courage Trust in the United Kingdom.
Hi Mike,
Thanks for getting back to me. Apologies, I tend to type quick and dirty online.
Unfortunately (or fortunately) I’ve already listed the Courage Trust in my article: are there any more examples and sources on-line that you could point me to? As much as I’m sure Besen’s book is worth reading I’d rather take the cheaper approach of getting my information from the Internet 😉
Also, did many independant ministries turn away from just Exodus? What about other, similar organisations such as IHF and NARTH?
The general appearance of this situation is that ministries are organized by enthusiastic individuals. The person experiences a religious type event which they interperate as becoming exgay. Then, begins a ministry reaching out to others in their religious community, widely defined. A group begins. As time goes on, the exgay part of the ministry begins to fray and unravel. Finally, the ministry becomes engulfed in scandal or the leader decides to abandon the project. In a few cases, the ministry simply vanishes. Jeff Ford has commented on this extensively. There is a study that shows the life span of ministries, which is surprisingly short. What throws off the appearance is that Exodus main office has a long track record. As do a few of the larger ministries. At the local level, exgay enterprises come and go. There is a study on this; as well as a response from Exodus. It is called something like: are exgay ministries flakey?
There really is no way around reading Wayne’s book if you wish to understand this phenomena. Check out Jeff Ford on the internet. Some of his thoughts are posted. Also, look into Bridges Across which is linked here.
On NARTH, this is a strange organization. It involves old fashioned psychoanalysts and Christian counselors. It is worth noting that none of the NARTH people are themselves exgay. Rather they are in a position of providing services to those who wish to change. There are no public exgays now who came out of the 50’s and 60’s and early 70’s therapies.
Check out Martin Duberman’s Cures for this topic.
Various older gay authors deal with the subject of reparative therapy. Gore Vidal, Edmund White, Larry Kramer all address the issue. The single most comprehensive collection on line about this would be Bridges Across, which is a confidential members only forum. Almost every book on the subject has been extensively reviewed there. Also check out the links here, Berggren has some info in this line. Above all, Duberman’s Cures.
Thanks, Dalea,
I will investigate those sources carefully. If you have the time you might want to look at the ex-gay and reparative therapy articles on Wikipedia. You sound very well informed and your contributions would be welcome.
Thank you Ricardo. At Briges Across, the information and book reviews are in the private forums. This forum has probably the largest pool of people knowlegable on the subject of anyone online. Also Religious Tolerance has several studies of this issue.
Looked at the articles at Wikepedia. They seemed to me inadaquate and confusing. FWIW, most of the exgay movement is religious in nature. Reparative therapy seems to play little part in the actual lives of exgays. Where it comes in is when there is a need for some sort of theory that can back up the claims of change. It does appear that conservative Christian colleges use reparative therapy in situations that certainly look coerced. But by and large, IMHO, this is just a figleaf on what is clearly a relgious undertaking. There is a need to sort out the two, the religious and the scientific, which is an amazingly complicated undertaking. Without the religious, there would be virtually no market for change therapy. And without the therapy, cC’s would have no means of explaining their program to people who did not already believe in it.
There is one exgay site which starts off talking about RT and within three sentences is explaining demonic possession. I recall it as LIA, but could be wrong.
Halderman put together a book on the subject. It is reviewed at BA, by me. Beyond BA, I really don’t know anywhere to get all the information you seek. What sets BA apart is that people on both sides of the issue speak. The testimonies can be very moving. But they are private. You might join the forum and put up a post asking your questions. Don’t know if that would get you the responses you are looking for. The founder of BA knows a great deal about the subject.
A useful exercise is to take a map; put pins in where there are large vibrant gay communities; then put pins of a different color where there are exgay ministries. The two are pretty much unrelated. Go further, and use metro maps. You will begin to see that while gay communities are urban, exgays are suburban. Exgay is a program of the evangelical church. If you can get the information, do a time analysis of the exgay ministries. On the local level they come and go. For ec’s it is just another ex program: like exdrunks, exwifebeaters, exkleptomaniacs etc.
The main action tends to be at the local level, the national office does politics. RT is the name Christian therapists give to whatever they are doing. It has no real meaning outside a Christian context. IMHO, of course.
Last week a caller into Rush Limbaugh quoted Throckmorton in order to criticize Limbaugh’s sympathy for Governor McGreevey. Rush would have none of it. When I first heard Rush’s comments about McGreevey “living a lie” while being married I wondered whether Rush was pulling our leg. I don’t think so now. It appears to be real and a result of Rush getting help over his prescription drug addiction.
I can’t belive Rush would ever do that. Looks like I judged him wrong.
Perhaps Rush Lamebrain had trouble hearing the caller.
/sarcasm
Mike:
What evidence do you have that the ex-ex-gay movement rivals the size of the ex-gay movement? Further, do you have names of people or organizations that I could contact? Believe it or not, I want to survey ex-ex-gays to learn more about their experiences.
Most of the time I find that these ex-leaders just disappear. For instance, there used to be a live-in ex-gay ministry in Loveland, CO, ran by a Jami Breedlove (whose testimony is still running around online, of course). The ministry closed abruptly about 4 years ago and I heard (although I did not know her personally, just almost ended up going to that ministry) that she left her husband and family and took off with a woman. Another guy in Denver started one of the local ex-gay ministries (affiliated with Living Waters) and ended up divorcing his new wife because of the recurring gay issue. The problem is that a lot of these people just sort of fade off – they don’t end up in a high-profile ex-ex-gay kind of positions, they just slink off to parts unknown…some just continue to go in and out of the ex-gay life, trying to get more “healing.” Not sure how you would locate most of them.
The Metropolitan Community Church maintains some sort of informal list. The figure I have heard comes out of Cathederal of Hope in Dallas. The minister stated that his congregation had something like 3 times as many exexgays as there were exgays in all of Texas. Beyond MCC, there are other groups that cater to gay Christians. You might also check out White Crane Journal which at times does look into spiritual issues of men who have gone through exgay programs. Then there is always Duberman’s ‘Cures’.
I think a “survey” of ex-ex-gays only attempts to further Mr. Throckmorton’s agenda of exclusion.
Researching their failed attempts to suppress their natural desires only gives Throckmorton ammo to explain away the failures of the ex-gay movement.
I.E.
“They didn’t pray hard enough”
“They’re deceived by Satan”
The simple fact is, the ex-gay movement repeats over and over that “thousands have been helped by the ex-gay movement”.
What they don’t repeat is that thousands may have been through their movement but there is little or no follow up after the fact. Even Spitzer’s study involved “highly motivated” subjects hand picked by the ex-gay movement itself. Hardly a non-biased source of information.
There are still no peer-reviewed studies of the ex-gay movement.
As a member of the gay community with a vast network of gay friends (again, not a scientific sample, just personal experience), I can attest to at least 10 acquaintances (out of a few hundred) that have tried and failed to become “ex-gay”.
I also know one of Joseph Nicolosi’s personal failures who is still slightly warped from the experience of personal sessions with the good doctor. He’s out and in a relationship now but hardly over the reprogramming Nicolosi subjected him to.
I should have used the phrase “demographic” rather than “movement” when describing ex-ex-gays. As I said earlier, ex-ex-gays are not well organized; they lack the hundreds of millions of dollars in indirect support that the exgay movement enjoys from Focus on the Family, FRC, Coral Ridge Ministries, Jerry Falwell, and the AFA.
Nevertheless, the ex-gay movement’s own data suggest that the ex-ex-gay demographic is sizable.
Exodus says tens of thousands of people (or more) have been helped by ex-gay ministries each year. But despite the assistance of Exodus and NARTH over more than a year, Dr. Robert Spitzer only found about 200 people who had had been ex-gay for more than a few years.
Where did everyone else go? As others have indicated, Exodus and NARTH have declined to research this. Balanced and reasonably impartial clinical studies are needed to qualitatively and quantitatively measure both successes and failures. The religious right (including Exodus) and their opponents have made such research politically difficult.
Links to some ex-ex-gay groups are listed in this site’s sidebar under “Recovery.”
Thirty years ago, when I was first out, there were many people who had been through exgay therapy. At that time the early liberationists worked mightily to confront psychiatry. And succeeded. Nowadays, exgay and the repackaged reparative therapy are confined to a very small portion of the helping professionals. Looking back, what seems to be needed for the current exgay movement to be confronted is someone who is really pisssed off. This someone will begin organizing and going face to face, in your face style. Hasn’t happened yet, but it will.