While with Exodus, I worked primarilry as a volunteer. There were no “paid” positions at that time. I attended college and loaded trucks at a nearby healthfood warehouse.

My parents helped some with books and tuition. Before our baby was born, my wife worked part-time at Del Taco. We lived in a single-wide trailer in Anaheim and shopped at a foodbank sponsored by the church.

Occasionally, my wife and I would recieve a small “love offering” from a church member because we had a young child. I left Exodus with no money and no job — the church would not keep an openly gay staff member.

It was only after I left Exodus and began work as a student intern that I began to make a real salary. In the years since I left Exodus, even with the a degree, I have never made more than $50,000 a year. Master’s level therapists don’t make much money in this economy. :)

Hope this puts the rumor to rest.

Your last point is more in accord with what I had thought myself. Namely that they are mainly gay people with a great burden of shame and guilt from their upbringing who found it hard to accept themselves and believed they could change.

That is an unfounded rumor and is completely false. Bussee and Cooper were volunteers, not professionals. They didn’t earn a living off of ex-gay therapy, let alone leave “with a lot of money.”

Moreso, I think the assumption that it is only about the money to be completely wrong and dangerous. I’ve personally met several ex-gay leaders. None of them are wealthy, and the vast majority of them are so deeply committed to what they are doing that they would do it even if it didn’t pay them a red cent. The vast majority are volunteers.

Dismissing them as only being after the money dangerously and foolishly underestimates their commitment to their cause. They are true believers, and they won’t let the lack of money get in their way.

Is this true?

If this is so then it would be like someone who becomes rich through dealing drugs and consequently ruining lives giving up the drug-dealing but keeping the ill-gotten gains.

Perhaps this is not the true, but I thought that in the interests of transparency it would good to know the truth of the matter.