"Ex-Gay" Ministries Are Being Taken On By People With an IQ

 By Cléo Fatoorehchi

  (IPS) - Groups peddling the widely discredited notion that gay people can be "cured" of their sexual orientation are encountering staunch resistance to their message, even as converts insist that they are leading happier lives.

In March, 150,000 people signed an online petition to successfully demand that Apple pull an app from the "ex-gay" organisation Exodus International, which claims that "homosexual behaviour is not in God's will or design", in the words of Jeff Buchanan, director of the Exodus Church Association.

"We removed the Exodus International app from the App Store because it violated our developer guidelines by being offensive to large groups of people," Apple spokesman Tom Neumayr told AFP at the time.

Exodus may be the best-known "ex-gay" organisation, but it is far from the only one.

Homosexuals Anonymous, Courage, NARTH (the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality), are PFOX (Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays) are just a few others, while countless Christian ministries share the same ideas and goals.

A side effect of gay rights?The year 1973 saw a huge step forward in the struggle for gay rights - the American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Ironically, that period also saw the creation of the first "ex-gay" organisations. After Love in Action emerged that same year, Exodus International was founded in 1976 in Anaheim, California. "That is sort of a reaction to acceptance," said Besen, "that shows success on our part." "As long as there is prejudice and discrimination these groups will exist," Besen acknowledged, but said he is confident that "every single year they would be less effective, their message will resonate less with the public." He noted that their power is already decreasing, at least in the U.S., where most people now clearly see the true nature of these organisations. "They are (thus) looking for new markets overseas… (where people) do not understand that they are fraud, like most of us do in the USA," he told IPS.

Buchanan told IPS that several passages of the Bible, namely Romans 1:18, clearly assert that homosexual behaviour is not acceptable.

However, the New York-based sexologist Barbara Carrellas pointed out to IPS that some Protestant churches not only accept gays and lesbians in their congregations, but as clergy members as well.

The United Church of Christ has allowed the ordination of gay people since the 1970s, and in 2003, the Episcopal Church consecrated the first openly gay bishop.

The problem then comes from "fundamentalist sects that take the word of the Bible absolutely literally and do not account for change, or cultural difference or the progress of time," Carrellas said.

For a member of a fundamentalist church, if "all (he/she) hears is that 'you're going to Hell, God hates you, you're going to be lonely and left, you're going to be miserable in this life and for eternity,' (he/she) might want to be convinced that they can change from being gay or lesbian to something else," she said.

"However, attempts to change people on that level, attempts to create a curriculum of formulas to change people from what they are to what you want them to be, generally just doesn't work," she added.

Fear, shame and guilt are usually "required to convince someone that what they are feeling, what their identity is…is fundamentally wrong," and that can lead to depression and suicide, Carrellas said.

"Anytime we tell somebody that who they are sexually is deviant, perverted, wrong, weird, and that they're going to have a horrible life... they will probably be in worse shape than they were before the conversion."

Her position is supported by the American Psychological Association, which has expressed concern about "ongoing efforts to mischaracterise homosexuality and promote the notion that sexual orientation can be changed and about the resurgence of sexual orientation change efforts."

Still, there is no lack of "ex-gay" people willing to share their experiences and advocate for the "straight life".

Buchanan, for instance, says he walked away from being gay with the help of the church, which gave him the means "to live a life that was congruent" with his faith.

Married to a woman for eight years now, he told IPS that "the transformation... does bring happiness."

"I'm content, I'm happy with my life; I would not choose anything else, or want anything else," he added. "I know others would say the same."

Buchanan said 3,000 people attend the Exodus ministry each week, and 400,000 reach out to the organisation via phone, e-mail and the web every year.

Wayne Besen, executive director of the LGBT advocacy group Truth Wins Out (TWO), describes the ex-gay movement as dangerous and says his organisation conducts seminars and protests to educate people on the issue.

"I think our information helps kids that they will not go in the first place," he told IPS.

He emphasised the importance of this awareness work since "people believe in lies, ... and (especially when) these lies are being spoken by people they trust, their pastor, their priest."

"It is a shame that they do this because they are harming a lot of people by doing so," he added.

According to him, "the best (one) can do is change behaviour, and the significant cost is mental health; but (one is) not going to change homosexual attraction to the (other gender)."