Showing posts with label ex-gay. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ex-gay. Show all posts

15.5.16

My French Ex-Gay and Me: The Movie.


"Ex-gays" love to give their testimony on how God delivered them from the excruciating pain and sheer horror of homosexuality. One caught my attention because he didn't seem to go through all the molesting and sexual exploitation most 'former' homosexuals go through that made them hate homosexuality. I wrote a comment on his first YouTube video that he responded back to and after a few more comments we decided he should write me privately.

It started with me linking him to my blog testimony (in the tags below) in response to what he said in his video and I went further with saying; "Please, look over my blog and I will be glad to answer any question or walk you through whatever you need help with."
He wrote me back:

"So I've been reading through your testimony and I have to say that I quite understand your point of you, but you also have to know that what led me to where I am today is not according to men but according to the direction God put me into from the beginning. I would like to tell you more about my testimony now though it is quite long (this is an understatement from him), I don't have any blog to redirect you to but if you're interested in reading my story I'm ready to write it down for you in an email. 
Let me know!" 

I responded:

"I would love to here what you have to say (big mistake)."

NEXT thing I get is paragraph after paragraph of what was him telling me all kinds of personal issues including spiritual visions people seem to have approached him with when he was young to not be gay, God telling him to leave his first boyfriend and the Holy Spirit telling him he'll get all kinds of spiritual gifts and Christmas presents if the boyfriend isn't in the picture anymore (the 3rd Person of the Trinity really had it in for this particular boyfriend). He finally ended up leaving the boyfriend because of all the Holy badgering and all of a sudden communication was cut off from God's end, the Holy Spirit never gave him his wonderful presents that were promised and he becomes so despondent, he quit school, moved back to his parents and contemplated suicide. He ends up in ANOTHER gay relationship that this time is abusive and all of a sudden God decides to pop into his life again like a deadbeat dad who's kid just turned 18 to tell him stop being gay, again. This time it sticks and God didn't drop him later.

It all sounded odd and almost like a late-nite Mexican soap opera you find on the Telemundo channel, but with God causing the melodrama. I wrote him back with trying to find a place to start with what he wrote:

"My first issue is with how you think the Holy Spirit made you promises if you obey Him in leaving your boyfriend. The Holy Spirit doesn't work that way in being conditional in what He offers. All we desire from the Holy Spirit is there for the asking of we are saved and if it's not imparted to us? God's Will trumps our desire in His perfect wisdom. I noticed you had people around you (the people in the church you grew up in, the girl who came to you with her dream, the mother... ) who put in you that the love you had was wrong early on. I think they had more of an impact on you than you know. You're life collapsed AFTER you left your first boyfriend at the 'prompting' of God that started your spiritual journey? Do you think maybe the choices you made were not from God and that is why your life fell apart and you felt God abandoned you? You get another boyfriend who's abusive and it was only then God came to you again? I see all kinds of wrong here already. I stopped reading your testimony at this point because I want you to understand something brother. God is not a roller coaster of feelings and prophetic dreams and audible visitations. This is why we go by his Word that gives us discernment with what is from God and what isn't. I believe what has happened to you is you really believing God has brought you to this point, but if homosexuality is not a sin (remember the verses I brought up in your YouTube comment and how I put then in their correct context?), God's Holy Spirit wouldn't have been doing what you believe Him to be doing. As a Pentecostal I know full well the dangers of going by spiritual manifestations that are the work of the mind and flesh. Now what I see here could also be a case of if you truly believe homosexuality is sin, even though the case can't be made from the Bible, maybe God did leave you in your will to leave homosexuality because it became a stumbling block to you, THAT I understand."

The next e-mail from him:

"(My name) you should expect have a debate with me on this only after reading the all story. Apparently you didn't understand that I've spend hours writing It just for you and this is really disrespectful. Or you're not interested in my story and you move on or you take the time to consider what I said because you can not expect me to listen to what you have to say if you didn't even try with me ... And it makes you write a lot of nonsense that I can't answer, because the answers are found in the rest of what you didn't take the time to consider (they weren't because after he wrote me this, I read everything he said)."

My response:

"There is no debate with you because I never wanted to debate you in how we came to be in our different paths. Is that how you saw all this? We all have a testimony who have sought God and many times those testimonies contradict each other, who is right? The testimony that is in line with the Word of God outside of experiences and emotion. You say I disrespected you with not reading your whole testimony and I understand your anger because you are right, but what I had to say about the first few paragraphs of what you wrote, you didn't even respond to so we could go on from there. 

What I wrote was not nonsense because you didn't understand it or wanted to accept it.

I'm sorry."


He never wrote again and is continuing to post his "ex-gay" videos.






Beth had a sneaking suspicion she was in black and white again

25.4.16

Christopher Yuan


The anti-gay crows just love to throw out talking heads of some type of "ex-gay" and make them the star of the hour (Rosaria Butterfield had that distinction and once her hour was up, they threw her away like some washed-up actress the movie studios stopped calling). Give it time, and they'll come up with a new child of the hour when the previous star starts losing their luster (as predicted, Chris was kicked off the movie credits for Becket Cook and now even Becket is seeing fewer and fewer calls from his agent for roles). Christopher Yuan is still chugging along as a talking head and lately, he's gotten a resurgence in popularity in my town of Los Angeles. Yuan was like a Chinese Tony Montana drug kingpin who rose up so high in the drug trade, he became a drug supplier who supplied other big drug dealers throughout the country and slept with any man who breathed his way along the way. After a prison sentence and an HIV diagnosis later, he found the Lord. Yuan cleaned up well, was taught well by the rabidly anti-gay Bible Moody Institute, and now goes around the country on speaking engagements with talking about the struggle he has with homosexuality. What he should be doing instead is making talks on how drug addiction in a hedonistic lifestyle is a pointless existence, THAT would serve a better purpose (especially with those he directly affected) than what he's trying to do here with homosexuality.

He says on his website he's a "survivor" and "AIDS activist." The only surviving he did was survive a prison stint for damaging countless lives as a drug pusher and him saying he's an 'AIDS activist' is just unbelievable when all he's doing is using his HIV status as a way in to say God wants you to not be in a gay loving relationship. A real HIV/AIDS activist brings awareness to the disease, Yuan brings awareness God has issues with you being gay while he has HIV, big difference. The fact he doesn't mind being used by the anti-gay religious who have no compassion for gays who have HIV/AIDS, the same people who believe that the disease is a "sow what you reap" because of being gay, shows how clueless he is with insulting the audience he's trying to reach.

Someone left a comment on Yuan's old blog years back and I print it here because it clinches it for me with which path is the right one:


Dear Christopher,

Gay or straight, we are all subject to the risks of pornography, drugs, and HIV.

Being gay or straight is not a choice, just like being black, white, or yellow. But choosing pornography is a choice. Choosing to take drugs is a choice. Choosing to be a drug dealer is a choice. Choosing casual sex, choosing not to talk about and not practice safe sex with your partner(s), choosing not to ask your partner(s) to get tested, those are choices. Please take responsibility for your own actions.


I am also Chinese. I knew I was gay when I was 13 year old. I was the in closet in High School and College, not having a single gay friend. When I saw my straight friends getting serious in their relationships getting married, I knew I wanted that too. I wanted to find the person I love, find the person that loves for who I am, find my soul mate. In coming out, I reached out for support from an Asian support group called GAPSN. My first meeting at GAPSN was "Coming Out" to parents. I came out to my parents after that meeting. My second meeting at GAPSN was "HIV and AIDS", I went to this meeting with my boy friend, and we learned to talk about this uncomfortable issue together.

That was 20 years ago. I am happy to say today I've been in a loving committed relationship with my soul mate for 13 years. My soul mate is also Christian. My brother, sister, and mother are also Christian. My father is Buddhist. My soul mate's family members are also Christians. Dreams do come true. I am getting married to my soul mate next weekend in CA. All of our families and friends have been very supportive and encouraging. 

My sister and mother went to your talk, and told me about you. I read the hand out that was passed out during your presentation. It was heart breaking to read that hand out called "Rebel w/o a cause", specifically the 2 page argument against "Same-sex marriage." Will you have happiness by taking away the wishes and dreams of millions of committed loving same-sex couples? We know many same-sex couples who've been together for decades, where their life's dream is to be married one day. The path you have taking in your efforts in denying so many committed couples their hopes, dreams, and happiness, will that bring you happiness?

You are gay Chinese. I am also gay Chinese. We have taking very different paths in coming to terms with who we are. "I shall not bear false witness." With courage and honesty comes love and honesty.

Being HIV+ does not mean you have to give up your hopes and dreams. I pray to God that one day, you will find your soul mate, that you will have happiness.

God Bless,
Douglas.

P.S.: I also do talks. I do talks for the younger generations of Asian gays, like older generation have done for me when I was a young adult. The talks I do are about love, commitment, responsibilities, marriage, honesty, and courage. I know that through my talks, gays will be less likely to choose the path you have chosen of unsafe sex, drugs, drug dealing, and HIV. Gay or straight, we all want love, commitment and marriage.






What REAL AIDS activists look like.



9.3.16

MENTIRI TE

The newly started "Viceland Channel" played their segment on ex-gay therapy to a televised nation tonight (before you could only see it on their website and few did) and I wanted to re-post what I wrote about "ex-gays" a few months back that included the Vice link.

After watching it again it struck me that these men who want to be "real men" believe you can find being a man with being a husband, a father and having a white picket fence (what they actually stated). What they don't get is that's not what being a man is about. Being a man is rising above adversity with your head held high no matter the cost, having the strength, the fight, to come out and be true to yourself with who you are with what looks like, and sometimes is, institutions in our society like the Church fighting against you in finding peace in a grounded, gay, identity. 

These are cowards you see in the Vice story. They just don't want to go through the tough life of being gay in a straight world... they've taken a coward's way out and that is not being a man.


28.10.15

Joe Dallas

I try to stay within theological circles when debating homosexuality and the Bible because you take what theologians say with more weight because of their specialty. I wouldn't go to a toffee maker to learn how to take out my tonsils; I would go to a physician because he went to school for it. Now, with that being said, there is also plenty of room for lay Christians to make compelling arguments and even refute these learned scholars because I believe God gives discernment with His Word no matter where you are in the Body of Christ. Great or lowly, each plays a part. I tend to leave these lay Christians alone, except for a few bloggers like myself, even if they believe the opposite of me because I believe they are entitled to their respective opinions because their opinion is not one coming from leadership. This will not be the case with Joe Dallas who's taken up a leadership mantle for himself.

Joe Dallas is not only all wrong for his anti-gay bile you'd hear from a typical preacher touring the church speaker circuit, but he's also a detestable and smarmy human being who tries to make money off of it* (I have never written such harsh criticism on this blog about one individual and that should tell you how this man is in a class all his own). He is yet another "ex-gay" who at one time claimed (some refute this) that he was involved in the early gay church movement and brags he knew Troy Perry who founded the first official church made up of gay Christian believers called the Metropolitan Community Churches. When Dallas left the church and turned against it, he didn't just turn, he turned into a monster against it. Dallas did the unthinkable by saying gays are child molesters and being a "former" homosexual himself, it was like stabbing all gays in the back with what he knew was a lie, but he did it anyway to pander to the ugly religious crowd who at the time said that gays deserved AIDS and were pedophiles. He also made it his mission to tell gay Christians that they are liars who are fooling others by pretending to be Christians because that's what HE did. He not only told gays this, he told everyone who hated gays this. If "Gay Christianity" took on human form, Dallas would stab it 72 times and then run it over with his car over and over again all the while laughing.

Whosoever.org is a site filled with Christian love, but even they couldn't hold back reviewing Dallas's book by saying; "In this book, Joe Dallas distorts and misrepresents everything that Gay and Lesbian Christians have accomplished in the past 30 years... Joe Dallas uses out-of-context selected quotations from Gay Christian leaders in MCC and in other groups to support his rejection of the facts about the "ex-gay fraud." Any person who has accurate knowledge and experience with MCC knows that every congregation and every pastor has a great host of problems to face and handle as best they can. No church is an easy task for the leaders. The Metropolitan Community Churches, however, in the face of sometimes deadly opposition, have given spiritual support and acceptance to gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender people for many years. In this 30th year anniversary of MCC, the desperately needed spiritual and practical help given by this great Christian ministry speaks for itself.
... This book by Joe Dallas is a destructive and unfortunate misrepresentation of the Bible and the so-called "ex-gay" cause."

A kapo with no conscious for being what he is and a despicable Judas to the fledgling gay church is an individual that I have no name for. I've never seen such a man so ripe for the Gehenna pit.



There is a book that is counter to Dallas' book; "A Gay Gospel?" From a Missouri Pastor called; "The Rebuttal: A Biblical Response Exposing The Deceptive Logic Of Anti-Gay Theology" by Pastor Romell D. Weekly.









*Dallas bilks his customers with talking to them on the phone for less than an hour and charges $225, then offers the needed "companion book" for $200 through his sham organization called "Genesis Counseling." A group that isn't accredited with any health organization because they all refute reparative therapy as harmful and is becoming illegal from state to state as we speak.

11.6.14

Gagnon's Poor Passion

David Kyle Foster, who first posted this video on YouTube, pushes Gagnon videos on his website. And of course, he's yet another "ex-gay" who blames homosexuality for the same-sex trauma he experienced as a boy. He also blames it for his drug addiction, sex addiction, and steak fat addiction. He probably sat in a dark room thinking what else he could pin on homosexuality (this one makes the fantastic claims that 85% of lesbians come from abuse to all gay men have an "arrested emotional development"' because "not one of them had a loving father"). I don't know what it is, but ex-gays either come off as creepy, fanatical, or feign this hyper-happiness with glassy eyes like they're in a cult. David falls in the first category.

He won't let anyone post a refute on this Gagnon video because he's afraid Gagnon is going to be made fun of in the comments section (exhibit: A) he can't control, so he just hoards this video that gives Gagnon the opportunity to bullet his arguments without a challenge.

Since Foster will delete any dissenting view or negative comment on all of his YouTube comments (I believe he's literally checking comments on the daily and is ready and waiting with his trigger finger on the delete button), I thought I'd bring Gagnon here.

Gagnon pulls the same stunt on his own YouTube channel with even a little length of a refute. Gagnon also refuses to debate the audience with any type of a Q&A after one of his speaking engagements because he's a control freak with a debate setting.

[Updated: Someone contacted me and stated Gagnon will answer little questionnaire cards submitted by the audience, cards he can either reject or accept as long as they don't talk, but this is very different with having a dialogue back and forth with someone in the audience who can point out the contradictions and errors of what he's saying after he's said them.]




This blog has pointed out the error that's the "moral, ritual and ceremonial" paradigm enough to what's being presented by Gagnon here. The man thinks Paul speaks from the center of these Old Testament prohibitions with almost everything he wrote, as if the old Pharisee Saul didn't really completely die to the Law, but still makes a guest appearance from time to time. He misses the very core message of Paul who said the old prohibitions are dead to us and ignores Paul saying in 2 Corinthians; "He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant--not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life" and again in Romans; "But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code." It's re-stated in Acts; "Now then, why do you try to test God by putting on the necks of Gentiles a yoke that neither we nor our ancestors have been able to bear?" And in Hebrews; "The former regulation is set aside because it was weak and useless." "The law is only a shadow, not the realities themselves."
Even the ancient Jews believed the new "Messianic Torah" would replace their written Torah; "The Torah that a person learns in this present age is trifling compared to the Law of the Messianic King" (Koheles Rabah 11:8).

Homosexuality was never 'absolutely' proscribed in the New Testament. You have the homosexuality entwined with idolatry in Romans 1 where Paul patterns his sin list in Romans from other idolatry vice lists popular in his day and from Deuteronomy that mirrors Romans word for word. Paul only spoke on homosexuality through the narrow lens of idolatry or exploitation with Gagnon taking these examples to make a blanket statement on homosexuality using clever and deceptive hermeneutics tricks and I already brought up Gagnon's error with seeing homosexuality with being equal as exploitive homosexuality, so I don't need to go further with correcting this view he continues with now and later in the video with his interpretation of "arsenokoites" that's easily refuted by me all over this blog. This is a perfect example of Gagnon's "half-readings" I first brought up in my critique of his book. He quotes extensively from David F. Greenberg's book; "The Construction of Homosexuality" (an book I've also read) in his book. Greenberg gives an exhaustive narrative of homosexuality through the ages as a practice without condemning comment or consequence, all documented by Greenberg, all deliberately left out by Gagnon.

Gagnon brings up his two children and what they KNOW is wrong and equating that with how we are suppose to feel about homosexuality, we should KNOW it's wrong. Gagnon believes so strongly and so deeply homosexuality is so contrary to anything right or good or holy, he's incredulous you can't see it. This is a tactic of his to make you feel foolish with what he thinks you should see as a given. This is Gagnon who sees homosexuality as the equivalent of "a child touching a hot stove."

He takes apart the easy argument of those who bring up the "abomination" of mixing two types of cloth with the "abomination" of homosexuality in Leviticus. Why doesn't he bring up the more complex issue of divorce Christ takes away from Moses? The sin of usury in the Old Testament Christ actually carried over unlike homosexuality? Breaking the Sabbath that also calls for the death penalty? Circumcision the Old Testament says is a "forever" act? Or the other slew of what the Bible calls "abominations?"

Leave it up to Gagnon to make the story of the woman who was going to be stoned to be about the woman's adultery and not about how we are to be merciful and not judging, what Christ tells us to go and 'do likewise' in Luke 10:37. What do we get out of what Jesus did in here according to Gagnon? Saving someone for the future "Kingdom of God" who may choose not to repent. Is it this? Or is it Jesus showing the example of bestowing mercy over the letter of the law (James 2:12,13) to the crowd of witnesses? What made Him an enemy to the Scribes and the Pharisees who brought the woman to Christ to be stoned according to "The Law." By implication Gagnon says Jesus would have took part in the stoning if He could, but begrudgingly stops Himself for the singular reason of saving her for "The Kingdom." This is yet another case of Gagnon not being able to take his head out "Old Testament" weights and balances and missing the mark that Christ did what He did to give an example to the listeners around the adulteress and to us.

Paul called out a man at the church in Corinth with what he was doing that hurt another with what was a transgressional relationship, Gagnon says it's the same with two non-related homosexuals (ironically, Gagnon has stated that the Corinthian man's incest is preferable to homosexuality even when the Bible gives no such account of Paul taking a stance with a homosexual man in the church). He takes the Greek word "Porneia" (harlotry) in the verse describing the Corinthian man's sin and carries that description to mean homosexuality. In all Biblical instances the word is used, without exception, it is either in reference to a breaking of a marriage obligation or prostitution and is never carried over to homosexuality, what Gagnon would have you believe that again is him broadening a prohibition beyond it's clear and stated borders.

Gagnon gives away his bias against Homosexuality with saying tolerance is not loving, but then he says to show tolerance to the divorced with the excuse it's a "one time sin" and immediately it stops being a sin or living in a state of sin.

His question of; "Are homosexuals at risk?" He answers his own question because to him there is no other answer. Gagnon uses the term "Aggressive Love" that to him translates as fighting legislation that would stop gay children from being bullied in school to writing letters to church bodies telling then to kick gays out, THIS is Gagnon's "love" in action, a love he thinks he sees with Christ. Unlike what Gagnon believes, love does not dishonor others or demands its way... just ask Paul (1 Cor 13:5), a 'good disciple' of Jesus.

No comment is needed further with Gagnon's claim the only problem the Pharisees had with Christ was because he was pushy with an even more intensified Old Testament ethic while at the same time being loving, I really wonder if Gagnon believes this stupidity himself.

This is one of Gagnon's weakest argument (I'm assuming your stopping the vid and reading what I say as he's talking), along with the since discredited "science" in his book, that somehow men and women are to be 'complimentary parts' to each other and is a large part of why he believes as he does. I point out this error of his in my review of his book; "The Construction of Homosexuality... " and another reference to his work is another solid treatise on this pagan-based belief. Gagnon goes to bogus science because he can never show the "consequence" of homosexuality he compares to vices that do have notable consequences in Paul's vice lists.

When Gagnon brings up the fact Christ never talks about homosexuality with saying Christ never brought up incest either, he misses the fact Sodom was brought up to Christ. Instead of leading Christ to expand further with what was the sin of Sodom, Christ says nothing other than making it a case for inhospitality.* When Christ comes across the same sex practicing Centurion, He says nothing other than to admire the faith of the Centurion, When Christ does speaks on marriage, he's quick to bring up "born eunuchs" Gagnon himself concedes could fit the the historical definition of a homosexual.

He claims that the Christians of Paul's day would have seen homosexuality as a given prohibition from the Old Testament like incest, let's look at that closer.

Gagnon states; "There is no record of a Jew practicing homosexuality in early Judaism" and "There is no dissenting opinion anywhere in Judaism on the subject of homosexuality," he's wrong (see; "Wrestling with God and Men: Homosexuality in the Jewish Tradition" by Steven Greenberg and "Jacob's Wound: Homoerotic Narrative in the Literature of Ancient Israel" by Theodore W. Jennings Jr).

Gagnon's false claim of the Greek term "Malakoi" he tries to pass off as meaning an effeminate 'gay' man is easily refuted by myself and others (see "Love Lost In Translation" by K. Renato Lings with outside sources referenced: 490 - 499).

The Hebrew expression mishkav zakhar is the Hebrew translation of "lying of a male" from Numbers 31:18 and is only describing the act of penetration. 

This is a refutation of Gagnon saying Leviticus is an absolute prohibition on homosexuality even outside of it's idolatry context with outside sources referenced (see; Myth 2# and 2-3 A – Seven Myths in the Homophobic Interpretations of Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13) that also addresses Gagnon's other points mentioned in the video.

It's worth repeating with what scholar Jean-Fabrice Nardelli has to say on Gagnon that needs no further comment:

"Once and for all, let it be said that Gagnon is an inaccurate and poor student of Biblical homosexuality: he is far too opinionated and self-indulging for someone who would have us believe in his impeccable judgement (whence my jibe at his status as an ayatollah), has no grasp whatsoever of the major ancient Near Eastern languages apart from Masoretic Hebrew, never consults scholarly literature in other tongues (German and French Bible studies simply do not exist for him), and he is ridiculously parochial in his selection of primary and secondary sources (they are principally American, and wherever possible come from the Evangelical right). Just consult any piece of his which appears on his website; you will discover that he is all rhetoric and blistering, with virtually nothing in guise of scientific apparatus. I would have been loathe to expose him for what he is had he been decent enough not to charge his opponents with gross dishonesty. So let us not mince words any longer. As a parting shot, I shall like to adduce a point which speaks volumes about his academic credentials: in more than a decade, Gagnon only produced one large book (under, one might add, the covers of a religious publisher, not an academic press) and a handful of papers in peer-reviewed journals; such an output for a senior scholar, coupled with the fact that at well over fifty he is still an Assistant Professor in a second-rate theological seminary, comes on a long way, I think, towards explaining his tooth-and-nail stance as an ideologue and his preference for online preaching over academic work."



*Gagnon brings up Sodom in not this video, but elsewhere in an attempt to force the story from lack of hospitality he admits is the jist of the story to homosexuality. My response is here that also covers Jude 1:7. He makes the lack of hospitality with Sodom about homosexuality and then says no ancient Jews never practiced homosexuality, yet Jeremiah 23:14 says this about the people of Israel; "...They are all like Sodom to me; the people of Jerusalem are like Gomorrah." You can't have it both ways with making Sodom about homosexuality and saying the Jews didn't practice homosexuality when Israel was like Sodom.
As you can see, Gagnon has thoroughly been refuted with what are his general arguments he condensed in the above video on homosexuality and the Bible.



26.5.13

gay lite with half the calories

A few years back I got into it with a blogger for the Assemblies Of God church over the issue of gay Christians with the group Soulforce that were being booted off Christian school campuses. Out of the blue the blogger brought up a man's story who identified as an "ex-gay" and how he was "delivered" from homosexuality.

Now I've come across people like this before and at one time I was even a frequent poster at exgaywatch.com. I told the AoG blogger that if you look closely at the stories (like with the man he brought up) of these 'ex-gays,' you find a pattern of same-sex sexual abuse, forced same-sex prostitution and just horrible same-sex sexual experiences that led them to want to leave homosexuality. I questioned if many of these people were really even gay and by getting out of these damaging circumstances and getting over these traumas related to homosexuality, they went back to their true nature of heterosexuality (I don't see many heterosexual men and women running from being straight just because they've had bad opposite-sex experiences).

The big 3 who toot this "gays can change" line for the self loathing are Narth, considered the largest 'medical' organization touting the ex-gay myth with mental health quakes held over from the era when homosexuality was considered a mental disorder. Exodus International, the largest umbrella group for ex-gay ministries across the nation who's founder ran off with another man and renounced the organization and topping off the unholy ex-gay trinity is PFOX (a slap in the face to the friends and families gay affirming group PFLAG), a group with a persecution complex who's president is a mother who resents her son being gay so much, she makes it her life mission to tell other parents it's O.K. if you don't accept your child's homosexuality and still love Jesus.

If you follow the money trails with these organizations you'll find they are funded by rabid anti-gay conservative groups who parade these supposed ex-gays out in the public to say; "See?! You aren't born gay and here's the proof. Now dance like a monkey for us you ex-gay freaks so everyone can see you!"

Recently it was big news when Exodus International reversed it's stance on gays "changing" that sent a blow to the whole ex-gay circus that followed various scandals of ex-gay leadership who couldn't stay on the opposite-sex love bandwagon and ex-gay groups getting caught twisting scientific data for their own agenda. Even my favorite anti-gay theologian Robert Gagnon got in on the fray when he wrote that the president of Exodus International, Alan Chambers, step down (Gagnon's over the top piping made many realize what I've said all along, the man is unbalanced (read; Loopy) when it comes to the issue of homosexuality) that forced Exodus to give a public response.*

In a way I feel sorry for these rare birds called "ex-gays." To me they are the walking damaged who believe that for God to love them, they have to hate a part of themselves that can love another.

VICE


Now that reparative therapy is finally seen for the horror it is since I first wrote this post way back in 2013, "ex-gays" are now changing their tune to; "GOD changed me, not a group that I joined to help me change." I also see they are becoming more strident with holding events and marches, but isn't that rubbing it in our faces? What anti-gays say gays do with Pride events and parades?



* Exodus International is now shuttered with their leaders either apologizing or running into the private sector without saying a word (Paulk is now a chef who makes his own bĂ©arnaise sauce from scratch) and that includes the Jewish equivalent of Exodus, JONAH, that the courts shut down. 





Jeff couldn't pack his Dior luggage fast enough when he saw the "Ex-Gay Camp" counselors on the brochure


22.6.12

fighting paper dragons

Patience, like vino, is something I don't 'do' anymore when it comes to explaining my walk of faith with my homosexuality. I'm hoping the "love covers a multitude of sins" Scripture will cover me like the hood of a 68' Mustang for me not having the patience with the anti-gay religious who want a fight anymore. As a Christian, it's something I should have plenty of (patience, not vino).

Recently I was contacted by a gay man who was struggling to make peace with his wanting to follow God. He was in such turmoil because he just couldn't make peace with being gay and what he felt was him not being in the place God wanted him to be in. In our correspondence he made me realize that I can't make him, or anyone, believe God loves you if you're gay no matter how many argument I refute or how well I explain the Bible verses on here. If you've set in your mind your homosexuality is a stumbling block between you and God, that's where your heart will be also. I believe there are some people who are just so branded by their beliefs, so entrenched in what they were taught, they will never change and are a forever lost cause. 

I do believe God does miracles in a human heart, He is a wonder working God after all, but you have to make a conscious effort to loose the tethers around your mind so the heart can follow.