Just as anyone can claim their dedication to “truth” and “accuracy” is even more profound because they claim to be “Christian,” adherence to certain professional standards is what separates irresponsible reporting from wholesale manufacturing of the news. Mesko apparently happily falls into the category of manufacturing, not only staining the profession but managing to tarnish an entire religion as well.

The inability of an “associate editor” to distinguish between wished opinion and supportable fact (characterized by references to unnamed people as attribution) would normally not meet any journalistic standards for publication. And Mesko’s attempt to link “Christian” and “journalist” as if the two terms together arrogantly translates to some higher professional standard looks more like evidence that Mesko is likely unrelated to either of those terms.

Which part of the “Christian” religion mandates deliberate lying?

Obviously, at $40 for the registration fee, the numbers do not mean anything to us because we never intended to, or thought we could, break even. This conference will be paid for almost entirely by donations (um, we hope).

So I think folks can rest assured that when I say I didn’t care much about the numbers as an indication of success, I am being honest (and actually, those who know me will know that I am almost incapable of lying anyway).

Of course, we did want as many former ex-gay folks to attend as possible, because our goal was not to create a statement with our numbers, but to further healing and wholeness, and attempt to undo some of the damage for those in attendance.

The Exodus conference is very different from Love Won Out. I’d say most of the people there (more than 80% by my guess) were “strugglers.”

Everyone has abandoned the term “ex-gay” at Exodus. But Exodus leaders don’t have an alternate word. Ordinary folks however often outrun their leaders in coining terminology, and Exodus is no exception. They call themselves “strugglers,” although I suspect the leaders are still casting about for a more marketable term.

This number counts those who were only able to come for Saturday afternoon and Sunday, and those who were only able to come for Saturday morning, so someone walking through the grounds at a break time might say they only saw 150 people, and they’d probably be right.

I just put the numbers here for those who are interested, but personally, I don’t really care about the numbers.

If we had 25 people come, I would have felt the conference was a success. It was not about the numbers for us, it was about creating a space to help folks.

We had so many people who felt that their lives were changed from this event, and others who saw some hope for their future because of attending. To me, that’s the true measure of success.

I’m guessing 80% of your 175 were ex-ex-gays.

I’m also guessing that the Exodus conference didn’t have that high a percentage of ex-gays at their conference. If the crowd was anything like the Love One Out crowd I witnessed in Palm Springs, it was mostly parents of gays, concerned church goers and ministers.

I’ll bet if we could find a way to screen those people out of Exodus’ attendance figures, you guys probably ended up with more people who were actually a part of the ex-gay/ex-ex world.

1). tell the truth
2). lie
3). say nothing

Ms. Lesko has a choice, she should carefully consider which one is most important to her.