Box Turtle Bulletin
News and commentary about the anti-gay lobby“Now you must raise your children up in a world where that union of man and box turtle is on the same legal footing as man and wife…”
News and commentary about the anti-gay lobbyPosts Tagged As: Mixed Orientation Marriage
A multi-part video interview series with Michael Bussee, co-founder of Exodus International turned critic.
April 26th, 2010
Ex-gay Mike Haley showing off pictures of his wife and family while speaking at the Love Won Out ex-gay conference. Love Won Out is primarily attended by Christians who are unable to accept a gay friend of family member and wishes they would enter an ex-gay program. The message Mike's photos send is, "there's still hope for your gay loved one to turn straight and get married."
Some people in the ex-gay movement become so deeply involved they make the drastic step of getting married. Michael Bussee took that step and talks today about his inner conflict in doing so. Michael recognized he wasn’t a heterosexual when he got married but chose to anyway because he believed God would reward him with heterosexuality if he truly committed himself to God and took his vows as a leap of faith.
Once married Michael found himself in an uncomfortable position as a role model at Exodus and privately tried to discourage his own clients from marrying.
Lastly Michael talks about the damage caused by using marriage as proof of change and the collateral damage that occurs when mixed orientation (ex-gay) marriages come to an end.
(transcript after the jump)
February 16th, 2008
CNN recently profiled several married couples who remained married after finding out the husband or wife was gay. According to one couple, it takes a special kind of communication between them to make it work:
“He had to learn to talk to me — he had spent so many years not saying what was really on his mind, and not dealing with his true feelings,” says Anna Marie Will, now 39, a worker’s compensation program administrator. “We found out once we got past all that, our marriage was so much better. We still loved each other as people and partners.”
…”When we married, and now still, we feel that we could spend the rest of our lives together,” he says. “We want to be together.”
It’s easy to assume that when either the husband or wife comes out of the closet, authenticity requires that the marriage come to end. But authenticity doesn’t always demand that solution. When it comes to love, it doesn’t have to make any sense at all to anyone else other than that couple. It’s also important to recognize that one couple’s solution won’t work for everyone. In each unique case, the the bottom line is always what’s important to that particular couple. For Anna Marie and Jim, it’s this:
“You can’t help who you love,” Anna Marie Will says. “I can’t imagine sharing a sunrise or sunset, or good day or bad day, with anyone else.
When you find that person, you know that’s it.”
Says her husband: “Your relationship can be different from everyone else’s, and if it works for you in your heart, that’s what you do.”
September 24th, 2007
ABC has a new article on the choices women make when they find out their husband is gay. This story is hardly new – husband comes out, church recommends reorientation therapy, couple stays together, another kid or two, husband finally admits it just isn’t working.
As a happy note, it appears that the couple have grown through the experience and are aware of the pressures that trapped them in a non-functional relationship.
Jennifer says, in retrospect, one of her biggest regrets in life was to believe that her husband’s sexuality could be changed by conversion therapy. She wishes churches would embrace anyone and everyone, but doubts that will ever be a reality.
Featured Reports
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In 2005, the Southern Poverty Law Center wrote that “[Paul] Cameron’s ‘science’ echoes Nazi Germany.” What the SPLC didn”t know was Cameron doesn’t just “echo” Nazi Germany. He quoted extensively from one of the Final Solution’s architects. This puts his fascination with quarantines, mandatory tattoos, and extermination being a “plausible idea” in a whole new and deeply disturbing light.
On February 10, I attended an all-day “Love Won Out” ex-gay conference in Phoenix, put on by Focus on the Family and Exodus International. In this series of reports, I talk about what I learned there: the people who go to these conferences, the things that they hear, and what this all means for them, their families and for the rest of us.
Prologue: Why I Went To “Love Won Out”
Part 1: What’s Love Got To Do With It?
Part 2: Parents Struggle With “No Exceptions”
Part 3: A Whole New Dialect
Part 4: It Depends On How The Meaning of the Word "Change" Changes
Part 5: A Candid Explanation For "Change"
At last, the truth can now be told.
Using the same research methods employed by most anti-gay political pressure groups, we examine the statistics and the case studies that dispel many of the myths about heterosexuality. Download your copy today!
And don‘t miss our companion report, How To Write An Anti-Gay Tract In Fifteen Easy Steps.
Anti-gay activists often charge that gay men and women pose a threat to children. In this report, we explore the supposed connection between homosexuality and child sexual abuse, the conclusions reached by the most knowledgeable professionals in the field, and how anti-gay activists continue to ignore their findings. This has tremendous consequences, not just for gay men and women, but more importantly for the safety of all our children.
Anti-gay activists often cite the “Dutch Study” to claim that gay unions last only about 1½ years and that the these men have an average of eight additional partners per year outside of their steady relationship. In this report, we will take you step by step into the study to see whether the claims are true.
Tony Perkins’ Family Research Council submitted an Amicus Brief to the Maryland Court of Appeals as that court prepared to consider the issue of gay marriage. We examine just one small section of that brief to reveal the junk science and fraudulent claims of the Family “Research” Council.
The FBI’s annual Hate Crime Statistics aren’t as complete as they ought to be, and their report for 2004 was no exception. In fact, their most recent report has quite a few glaring holes. Holes big enough for Daniel Fetty to fall through.
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