The Downfall of the Ex-Gay Movement
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Tag Archives: Sexual Orientation
Ministry wants gay cure centre probe (South Africa)
The justice ministry has asked the Human Rights Commission to investigate claims of unfair discrimination at the Creare Training Centre in Bloemfontein.
“We trust the SA Human Rights Commission will be able to use its extensive powers to investigate this matter and to take the necessary and appropriate action,” the ministry said in a statement on Friday.
“The notion that a person’s sexual orientation can be changed at will, or by compulsion, feeds the very same homophobic attitudes that encourage the criminal and abhorrent practice of so-called corrective rape.”
The Sunday Times reported this week that the Christian arts academy had come under fire for advertising that it could “cure” homosexual students.
According to the centre’s prospectus they can “convert” gay students into heterosexuals through “rehabilitation”, it reported.
Creare founder Cornelius can Heyningen denied the institution was discriminatory.
“We are catering for those who say ‘I want to change as a homosexual’. That’s not saying no homosexuals are allowed,” he was quoted as saying.
He compared the academy’s stance on homosexuality to a drug rehabilitation programme. – Sapa
via IOL News
Response to Benedict: Dutch Gay Catholics De-Baptize Themselves
Thousands of Dutch Catholics are researching how they can leave the church in protest at its opposition to gay marriage, according to the creator of a website aimed at helping them find the information.
Tom Roes, whose website allows people to download the documents needed to leave the church, said traffic on ontdopen.nl (i.e. “de-baptise.nl”) had soared from about 10 visits a day to more than 10,000 after Pope Benedict’s latest denunciation of gay marriage this month.
“Of course it’s not possible to be ‘de-baptized’ because a baptism is an event, but this way people can unsubscribe or de-register themselves as Catholics,” Roes told Reuters.
He said he did not know how many visitors to the site actually go ahead and leave the church.
– more at Huffington Post
Jesus was gay, says NZ church billboard
St Matthew-in-the-City church says Jesus Christ’s sexuality is not know for sure but he would have backed gay marriage
Jesus was gay according to a Christmas billboard at a New Zealand Anglican church.
The Christmas billboard at St Matthew-in-the-City in Auckland is frequently controversial – previously it has joked about Joseph’s sexual prowess and shown the Virgin Mary with a pregnancy test.
This year it depicts Jesus in his manger with a rainbow halo and the words: ‘It’s Christmas. Time for Jesus to come out.’
St Matthew’s Reverend Clay Nelson said: ‘Some scholars have tried to make the case that he might have been gay. But it is all conjecture. Maybe gay, maybe not. Does it matter?’
While his colleague at the church, Reverend Glynn Cardy implied Jesus would have backed same-sex marriage, which is currently being debated in New Zealand.
He said: ‘There is almost nothing in the record of his teachings about sexuality while there is plenty about the perils of being rich. Certainly he always supported the marginalized in society.’
And he wanted to raise the question of sexuality among the faithful.
‘Would it make a difference if he was gay? Would that change the picture for you? Would it mean what we revere about him changes?’
Last year’s Virgin Mary pregnancy test billboard spread around the world, reaching 21 million people on Facebook. But it was condemned as ‘blasphemous’ by some Catholics and vandalized.
via Gay Star News.
Related articles
- New Zealand Church Thinks It’s Time For Jesus To Come Out (towleroad.com)
- Gay Nativity scene in Columbia sparks outrage (jesusinlove.blogspot.com)
- Pope blessing a gay marriage?! See it now in ad for power company (jesusinlove.blogspot.com)
- Let Us Remember, for Dec 17th – Some Queer Men in the Bible (queeringthechurch.com)
Campaign group launches action against ‘gay cures’
Campaign group AllOut is urging the public to take action against a phoney ‘gay cure’ group
A petition calling for a ban on phony ‘gay cures’ will be delivered to governments across the world, beginning in France tomorrow and then the UK. So far, over 26, 000 people have pledged their support for the Time to end ‘gay cures’ campaign. The aim is to get 50, 000 names on the online petition.
The group is hoping for enough public pressure to cause a ‘domino effect’, whereby the ten countries that the campaign is focusing on will denounce the treatments and make them illegal. There are fears that the practice leads to self-harm and may even drive some to commit suicide.
AllOut, which promotes LGBT equality internationally, are concentrating in particular on the activity of extremist Christian group Desert Stream. The organisation is conducting a world tour with their ‘healing’ programme. According to AllOut, each ‘gay cure’ session costs up to $1,200.
Desert Stream is holding Living Waters training programmes, claiming to teach people how to ‘cure’ homosexuality. The programme is currently happening in France, and will then be offered in other countries including the UK, Finland and Lithuania. The petition will be delivered to all the countries where the sessions are currently planned to take place.
-full report at Pink Paper
(Sign the AllOut petition here)
Related articles
- If US Christians have given up trying to ‘cure’ gay people, what next? | Hadley Freeman (guardian.co.uk)
- Sexual Healing: Evangelicals Update Their Message to Gays (queerchurchnews.wordpress.com)
- Exodus International is Right on Gay Reparative Therapy (i) (paulburkhart.wordpress.com)
- US Christian group renounces homosexuailty ‘cure’ campaign (telegraph.co.uk)
- Exodus International President Backs Off Gay ‘Cure’ (bilerico.com)
- Ex-Gays Give Up on the Whole “Ex-Gay” Thing (slog.thestranger.com)
Queer Eye for the Mormon Bishop Guy
Last year, as a sitting Mormon bishop, I came out publicly as an ally to my LGBT sisters and brothers in and outside the church.
In the aftermath of my talk in Salt Lake City apologizing to the LGBT community and LGBT Mormons for the pain that they have gone through and recognizing that all too often that pain has been inflicted in the “house of their friends,” their families, their religious institutions, and their communities, people have asked how I made my journey from an adversary to fence sitter and finally to becoming an ally and advocate.
One of the turning points was when I first began developing personal relationships and friendships with LGBT individuals. For me this came about first in a surprising way. I began watching a television show called Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. As is sometimes typical for Mormons on a variety of issues, I was late. I didn’t see it until a year or two ago, when it went into syndication.
What seemed to be a unique twist on the typical makeover show became for me my first significant introduction to the LGBT community. I had never had contact that I knew of or built a friendship with an LGBT person outside of work. The show spoke to me from the start. It had a catchy synth intro that reminded me of the dance grooves we used to club to in the late ’80s when I was at Brigham Young University, where I met my wife for the first time.
For me it was much more than watching five gay men help get straight guys’ act together in grooming, home decor, fashion, culture, and cuisine. It began to create a bond for me to these men. They had a certain synergy that kept me wanting to watch more. I liked them as people. I saw them as individuals expressing their God-given talents and trying to make people’s lives and the world a little bit better. As Carson Kressley, the show’s fashion guru, would often say, it’s not a makeover show, it’s a “make better” show.
-full commentary at Advocate.com
Ex-Gay Groups Go Back to the Future
Exodus leader Alan Chambers, who recently admitted that since “reparative” therapy cannot “cure” homosexuality his group will no longer promise “change,” has come under fire from other ex-gay proponents. One of those seeking Chambers’ scalp is Dr. Robert Gagnon, who has called for Chambers to resign as head of Exodus.
Apparently, what chaps Gagnon’s butt the most is Chambers’ assertion that gay Christians can go to heaven “if they have a relationship with Jesus Christ.” Gagnon is apparently so upset about Chambers’ position that it took 35 pages to cover all his objections, including this one:
Alan’s approach of providing assurances of salvation to those actively engaged in sexually immoral intercourse is a very different approach than Jesus’ and Paul’s warnings that immoral sexual behavior, among other offenses, can get one excluded from the kingdom of God and thrown into hell.
Gagnon’s verbose reaction belies the truth that “reparative” therapy is finally on its last legs, condemned by every reputable psychological organization and propped up only by discredited studies from the likes of de-certified Paul Cameron and the work of Robert Spitzer, who recently disavowed his own research.
Chambers is simply the latest “ex-gay” to realize he isn’t. Exodus’ founder Michael Bussee discovered that back in 1979, when he and Gary Cooper—another ex-gay pioneer—fell in love and got married.
“By calling ourselves ‘ex-gay’ we were lying to ourselves and others. We were hurting people,” Bussee recalls.
Now that “pray away the gay” is quickly headed for the historical dustbin, Gagnon and his “ex-gay” enthusiasts will need a new generation of leaders to keep the snake oil business going.
I have a suggestion. Instead of relying on new “science” why not get medieval on homosexuality and hire former Navy Chaplain Gordon James Klingenschmitt? He recently claimed on The David Packer show that he can exorcise the gay right out of you.
via Candace Chellew – Hodge, Religion Dispatches.
Related articles
- Ex-Gays Give Up on the Whole “Ex-Gay” Thing (slog.thestranger.com)
- Sexual Healing: Evangelicals Update Their Message to Gays (queerchurchnews.wordpress.com)
- Is Change Possible? Shifting the Ex-Gay Question (religiondispatches.org)
- A Leader’s Renunciation of ‘Ex-Gay’ Tenets Causes a Schism (nytimes.com)
- Defining Exodus: A Letter from Alan Chambers (Extracts) (queerchurchnews.wordpress.com)
- Exodus International is Right on Gay Reparative Therapy (i) (paulburkhart.wordpress.com)
Father Bernard Lynch, Gay Catholic Priest, Reveals He’s Married To A Man, Non-Celibate
In a new book, Father Bernard Lynch, a gay Catholic priest who has incurred the wrath of the Vatican for his views supporting LGBT Catholics, not only says he is non-celibate; he reveals that he has been married to a man for the past 14 years, and has officiated over the weddings of many gay and lesbian Catholic couples.
The Vatican, he says, is trying to “get rid” of him, while he has been operating a counseling program for closeted gay priests in London since 1992.
Lynch, who has been a Catholic priest for 40 years, left for London from New York in the early 90s, after he was completely cleared of charges related to child abuse allegations made by a man who recanted his story and whom court testimony showed to be a pathological liar. The scandal had Father Lynch at the center of a media firestorm. He believes to this day that right-wing Catholic groups and now-deceased Cardinal O’Connor of New York, angry at his advocacy on behalf of LGBT people and people with AIDS, were behind his trumped up indictment. He had previously gained awards for his AIDS advocacy from politicians and AIDS activists, while local church officials and the Vatican became concerned about his advocacy.
via Huffington Post.
Related articles
- Psychologist: “Catholic clergy need therapy”
- Gay Priests, Creeping Out of the Closet.
- “From the Belly of the Whale”: A Gay Priest Speaks.
- “From the Belly of the Whale”: Telling My Story
- From the Belly of the Whale: Coming Out Stories (or “Where are you?”)
- In the Eye of the Storm
- The Real Scandal of the “Miami Gay Priests’ Cabal”
- Gay,Celibate Catholic Priests: Mychal Judge, and Fred Daley.
- On Being a Catholic Lesbian at Georgetown University (queerchurchnews.wordpress.com)
- New documentary depicts Jesuit’s struggle for LGBT rights (queerchurchnews.wordpress.com)
- Committing the Sin of Honesty (queerchurchnews.wordpress.com)
Pauli Murray: Episcopal church votes on queer saint / activist for gender and racial equality.
Human rights champion Pauli Murray, an unofficial queer saint, will be voted on this week by the Episcopal Church at its general convention in Indianapolis.
Murray (1910-1985) has been nominated for inclusion in the Episcopal Church’s book of saints, “Holy Women, Holy Men.” If approved, she will be honored every July 1 on the church calendar.
She is a renowned civil rights pioneer, feminist, author, lawyer and the first black woman ordained as an Episcopal priest. Her queer orientation is less well known.
Murray was attracted to women and her longest relationships were with women, so she is justifiably considered a lesbian. But she also described herself as a man trapped in a woman’s body and took hormone treatments in her 20s and 30s, so she might even be called a transgender today.
Related articles
- Episcopal Church Panel OK’s Transgender Clergy (ontopmag.com)
- U.S. Episcopalians move closer to allowing transgender ministers (queerchurchnews.wordpress.com)
- The Truth in Transgender: Will the Episcopal Church Amend Its Rules? (queerchurchnews.wordpress.com)
- Episcopal Church To Consider Allowing Trans People To Be Ordained (lezgetreal.com)
On Being a Catholic Lesbian at Georgetown University
Catholic college campuses are among the most gay-friendly church institutions in the United States. Young people are increasingly more and more supportive of LGBT issues, and campuses reflect that spirit of inclusion.
Meghan Ferguson
Meghan Ferguson, a student at Jesuit-run Georgetown University, Washington, DC, has praise for her school in terms of their record on LGBT issues. In a recent article on NextGenJournal.com, , Ferguson delineates the many surprises she has had coming to the campus as a Catholic lesbian woman, and she concludes:
“Being out at Georgetown is nothing like I had expected, and I have been very fortunate to have such a positive experience, because I know it isn’t always the case for everyone. There have been ups and downs, and Lord knows I’ll gripe about something or other, but all in all, I owe a great deal to this community for creating a space that has challenged me to look closely at myself, my priorities, and grow into the person I want to be.”
She notes that the school has helped her to integrate her identities as a Catholic and a lesbian woman:
“My experience of being out at Georgetown is predominantly colored by two identities: namely, that I am Catholic, and that I am a woman. ’What?’ I hear you cry ‘you’re Catholic?!’ It’s shocking, I know. I spent most of high school as a closet Catholic around all of my gay friends, lest I hear more exclamations like that. . . .
“I suppose I had expected a similar situation at Georgetown, keeping those two spheres of my identity separate, so it was a surprise to say the least when I found a whole community of us. For the first time, I was able to be out as a Catholic lesbian and not only be accepted by both communities, but be a part of my own community.
“I have had some of the most profound conversations with friends about what it means to be queer and Catholic, the unique struggles we face, our doubts, how we reconcile those two identities and also the joys we have experienced. These conversations, and this community, are something I think is very unique to Georgetown, and it has helped me grow in my faith in a way I never thought possible; I dare even say it has made me a better lesbian, because I have learned to grapple with and embrace the intersection of my faith and sexuality.”
Georgetown University is perhaps one of the best examples of a gay-friendly Catholic college. They have an LGBT Resource Center on campus, which last year received a $1 million gift from former National Football League Commissioner Paul Tagliabue.
New Ways Ministry maintains list of gay-friendly Catholic campuses,, which continues to grow, as more and more schools respond to the needs of their students, faculty and staff. The schools on the list all have some policy, program, or organization on campus which is supportive of LGBT people. If you would like to consult the list, click here.
– –Francis DeBernardo, at New Ways Ministry/ Bondings 2.0.
Related articles
- Sister Jeannine Gramick Featured in Nine Short Videos on “The Daily Beast” (queerchurchnews.wordpress.com)
- LGBT Ministry: A Mustard Seed Begins to Sprout. (queeringthechurch.com)