Exodus International, the most well-known of the “ex-gay” advocacy organizations, announced yesterday that it’s “shutting down” and the president of the organization issued a public apology to “the people that have been hurt by Exodus International.” I’ve written about my experience in the ex-gay movement before but I’ve had a hard time formulating a response to this latest news.
The immediate and most obvious reaction is one of relief. The ex-gay message has been thoroughly discredited and has harmed thousands of LGBTQ people, many of them teenagers. So it’s good to see Exodus and its president publicly disavow it and apologize for the harm they have done by selling it.
But my next reaction was of concern. I was lucky in that it didn’t take me long to realize that reparative therapy was a sham. But what about the thousands of people who have invested years of their lives and hundreds or thousands of dollars on Exodus’ conferences and literature? What about the young people undergoing reparative therapy right now? My heart aches for those people, knowing the sense of betrayal they must feel today.
And my final reaction was one of suspicion. While I appreciate Alan Chambers’ apology, it doesn’t make me trust him. I think the appropriate course of action would be to apologize, shut down the organization, and then perhaps spend some time humbly reflecting on the damage to the world that I have caused and the responsibility I have to try to correct it. I don’t think I’d wait to make my announcement until my annual conference, for which I charge attendees hundreds of dollars to attend. I almost certainly would not forge ahead with the conference, continuing to assert myself as a trusted authority on the subject of what’s best for LGBTQ people. I definitely would not start up my new organization on the same day I shut down the old one. I think I’d probably take down the pages on my site that solicit donations.
I accept Alan Chambers’ apology as someone who was hurt by Exodus’ actions in the past. I’m glad that they’re no longer trying to sell Christianity to gay people by claiming to be able to fix them. But I’m not much more optimistic about them trying to sell Christianity to gay people by claiming to love them just the way they are.
Matt Miklic 
Can you expound on this? Is this a fundamental disconnect between homosexuals and Christianity, or is it more specific to Chambers and his organizations? I’m kind of split. I think that they are ultimately incompatible, but I also can’t say that religions becoming more moderate and accepting is a bad thing.
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I’d have to say I’m also split. I don’t necessarily think they’re incompatible — though I came to terms with my sexual orientation around the same time I began questioning my faith, ultimately it was my complete lack of faith, not my sexual orientation, that I found incompatible with the Church. While many of my gay and lesbian friends are atheist or agnostic, some have deeply held spiritual beliefs and are members of accepting congregations, and that seems to work for them. I can’t find any incompatibility there, and any sign of a turn toward acceptance by Christian groups and congregations makes me happy for them.
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To answer your question then — in this case I’d say it’s a specific distrust of Alan Chambers’ and his colleagues’ attempt to make this transition (and all in one swoop).
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Though i am not familiar with the term “exodus international,” i do want to voice my opinion that gay people have the right to blend their beliefs with Christianity. Every walk of life including, gay, straight, transgender, bisexuals,are in every aspect, respective members of society. And for that reason, society does not have the right to dictate to anyone the criterion on religious matters.
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Reblogged this on crystalharrison76 and commented:
This is GREAT news!
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Interesting post. I hadn’t thought about this from the perspective of people who have gone through/are going through this “therapy.” I don’t think that being gay is necessarily incompatible with being Christian so long as it’s a less literal sect, but I agree with you that the majority of gay people I know tend to be more secular. That said, the majority of people I know in general tend to be more secular, but that may be because I live in the D.C area and to be honest and not very politically correct, it doesn’t seem there are that many biblical literalists among the yuppie/hipster crowd.
Anyway, glad I found your blog….looking forward to future posts!
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