The fact that the ad was placed by our local organization Hospital Christian Fellowship, though, doesn’t necessarily mean it wasn’t paid for with US funds. HCF, a small group of heterosexual lay Christian women who are doctors and lawyers mainly, targets both abortion and homosexuality. They have repeatedly imported Exodus affiliate His Way Out Ministries to Trinidad & Tobago to counter what in their own words is a growing acceptance of homosexuality. HWOM has aimed its message at young people (they tried to hold meetings in two high schools), appearing with politicians to legitimate themselves, and teaching local churches to change their approach to homosexuality from condemnation to a reparative one.

HWOM is also active in Guyana, where they claim to have a local base, and Jamaica where they appeared on television, at a broken sexualities conference and met with the head of state.

See our coverage of the first HWOM visit to Trinidad & Tobago: http://wp.me/pzQlW-IK

@David Roberts: I agree with Muscat; I’m glad exodus is trying to distance themselves from this sort of rhetoric. Of course, if they get too “nice” they might find themselves replaced by someone who is meaner, but there seems to be a growing awareness in the evangelical community that their outreach toward gays and lesbians has been a failure in terms of both converts & general public perception. Specifically I’m thinking of some of Bryan Wright’s statements around the time of the last SBC convention in July where he seemed to be at least acknowledging the failures of SB policies and placing some distance between his organization and some of the more hateful rhetoric.

Its not perfect but its Progress!

@F Young – We are still talking about Exodus here. Do you even have to ask?

So the support and encouragement is for the families of gays, but what gays get is “focused on discripleship.” Does that mean celibacy?

And the restoration of marriages impacted by same-sex attraction means restoring their opposite-sex marriages, not support for the same-sex marriages?

While I believe we share the same biblical worldview with regard to sexual expression, I do not believe we share the same philosophy on how to do public outreach or an identical message for those impacted by homosexuality

Just once I wish he would say categorically that they don’t agree with the content, i.e. they believe it is factually wrong.  Again, he’s done this sort of thing before, I’m not sure how this is a big deal.  I’m glad he did it, but didn’t you have to ask him to?

I know you are the eternal optimist on this, Timothy, just don’t fall down the same hole I did.  We wrote that story barely a month ago about how broke they are and to expect a re-branding effort.  Does that not give you at least some reason for pause?