“Should a person ever develop a desire to explore a heterosexual relationship, he or she will find it difficult to overcome the label [gay] that can deter interested parties.”

Buchanan is correct. Telling a potential life partner “I may never be physically attracted to you” will deter them from marrying you.

…and it should.

There is a section specifically about how a person should not call themselves gay because it interferes with hope for change in sexual orientation (see below). This just confirms that Chambers and company are engaging in the same old double speak that has been going on for years. While Chambers says Exodus is getting away from fixation on change, Buchanan is saying gays should “wait” and “hope” for it.

Quote:

“3) Absolute Anchor

While some who suffer receive immediate explanations from God, others are challenged to wait. In the midst of waiting, we must always have hope. An identity rooted in same-sex attractions serves as an anchor that keeps us docked in our present circumstance. We have accepted our lot in life, and experience now becomes our identity. Should a person ever develop a desire to explore a heterosexual relationship, he or she will find it difficult to overcome the label that can deter interested parties.”

Okay, that has merit. While Exodus was never the original source of the message, they did contribute or insufficiently contradict. (although to be nuanced, while the conservative evangelical worldview put homosexuality itself as the culprit, exodus would have been a smidgen better and have said that it was accepting and acting on one’s same sex attraction – theologically a vast improvement but in terms of mental health not much at all).

I disagree with characterizing Exodus as snake oil salesmen. (However, I do not consider it a slur or a phrase that is intended solely to demean).

Generally a snake oil salesman is pure deception, using trickery to present and profit from a product that they know has no value. I don’t think that fits well with Exodus – even during the “change” days.

First, most of Exodus’ focus was inward. They never tried to sell most of us anything and it has never been about money to them.

And Exodus leadership and members believed in their product. They were self medicating and any testimony about healing was as much hope and faith and determination as it was, shall we say, less than factual.

We are talking perception about intention, something difficult to measure even in ones own self, and I don’t fault you for having a different perspective than mine or insist that I’m more accurate.

But, for me, another comparison comes to mind.

In 1985 my young friend Vance excitedly told me about a new treatment for AIDS which involved oxygen. He was certain that this was the answer.

It wasn’t – and I attended his funeral later that year – but he wasn’t trying to sell me anything or deceive me or trick me in any way. He was sharing with me his desperate hope.

And while we believe that Exodus was trying to cure an ill that doesn’t need curing, their efforts have always felt to me to be more desperation than deception.

Put another way: if Exodus is now “supporting them in their daily walk” as opposed to trying to change them are they teaching or explicitly encouraging church-leadership to do the same?

Thanks & congrats on your recent award.

I think that the change that we need to hear more about is how people can change or reject their religious beliefs to enable themselves to grow into human beings that are fulfilled, not stunted or damaged, by their sexual drive. —F Young

Helping people to find a middle way might in fact be the best thing for all concerned.

Ask just about any member of the LGBT community whether or not they made a “choice” to be gay and they are almost certainly going to tell you that they didn’t choose to be “same-sex attracted” or “homosexual”. They didn’t one day wake up and say “henceforth I am going to be attracted to members of the same sex”.

It’s also very unlikely you will find the parents of gay people started out practically day one indoctrinating their children into becoming gay, creating a climate in which it would be unthinkable for them to be anything but gay.

At the risk of overusing a cliche, gay people are born gay. Asymmetrically however, people are not born “religious” nor “believing” in anything.

This is of course an area of contention between the fundamentalism of much of Christianity with its long standing perception of homosexuality, and the reality of being gay as experienced by a truly gay (or otherwise positioned near the higher valued end the Kinsey spectrum) person.

I don’t expect that from Exodus, but, seriously, there is a dire need for this type of change and one would think that people would be willing to pay for it. I would think that it could be as good and lucrative a business model as the ex-gay business. —F Young

Proposing the monetization of “defaithing” or “dechurching” of people is, at first glance, unsettling. It just sounds wrong. On the other hand, when religious practice turns dangerous or harmful, “therapy” may in fact be something worthy of consideration when belief engenders feelings of guilt, inadequacy, or worthlessness. Many people can and do seek counseling or therapy to address such feelings. Just because these conditions are induced by damage that may have been done in the name of religion doesn’t make them any less harmful.

In reality, there is a middle road, one that takes us a step closer to a more perfected personal (and interpersonal) tranquility: the acceptance of the differences between us and the emergence of societal norms that respect the need, even right, of the individual to grow up in a healthy environment, free of outmoded beliefs in old-age thinking, but also free to embrace their vision of their place in the universe. Implied in this is the need to respect the role of faith in the lives of many and how individual interpretations of legends and sacred texts can for some people be beneficial and help them to be more fulfilled and comforted.

Christianity has, over the centuries, incorporated into its traditions some very unhelpful beliefs and orthodoxy. Many of those missteps were based on the mistaken belief that because something is unknown, its operation can only be ascribed to God’s will. We now know this to be completely wrong in many cases and we have rejected superstitions, practices, and traditions that were embraced by those that peopled the stories and parables of the bible. The time has come to add condemnation of homosexuality to that list.

And I’m sorry if you’re offended that I think your post sounded like “singing praises” but that is my opinion. Whatever you think that says about me, so be it.

I do look forward to your next installment.