More Double Speak from the Ex-Gay Crowd

All of the media circus surrounding Ted Haggard and perhaps in an effort to counter the bad image of "ex-gay ministries" arising from Prayers for Bobby, the ex-gay industry is once again trying to repackage a deceptive and false product. Rather than admit - as all legitimate medical and mental health associations concede - that sexual orientation is not changeable and that being gay is normal for a percentage of the population, Exodus International is going through all kinds of contortions to justify its poisonous programs. Exodus spokesman Randy Thomas changing song and dance are examined in a new piece on Ex-gay Watch. Here are some highlights:

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Because “ex-gay” organizations like Exodus International (of which Randy is the Vice President) have been closely publicly scrutinized in the last few years, their public facade has changed considerably. For one thing, they no longer loudly tout the idea of changing from homosexual to heterosexual. Since it has been revealed both by their own studies and by ex-gay program survivors that people can’t just flip a sexual switch through years (sometimes decades) of prayer and therapy, the complexities of sexuality have been grudgingly acknowledged to justify the notion of “change” in program leaders.

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The stubborn persistence of same-sex attraction in Exodus’ leaders and participants has even been acknowledged, largely shifting the focus from altering innate attractions to making it about the “journey of obedience to God.” The innateness of attraction has even been somewhat acknowledged, blaming its existence on the “fall of man” - saying we’re all sinners fighting temptation; be it adultery, slandering others, lying, or becoming romantically involved with members of the same sex.

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Randy rejects the term “lifestyle” but defends the validity of his own definition . . . I don’t have to “change” my sexual attractions in order to be reconciled and obedient (not act on those attractions) to God. I also don’t need to force myself into a self-imposed restriction of what God may bring into my life.

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If only people like Randy could embody this statement by taking an apolitical, “live and let live” attitude instead of trying to force others to adhere to his “false dissonance” of forcing people to either be “with” the Exodus ideology or “against” it.

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Sadly, until Thomas and other Christianists come to grasp the fact that the Bible is NOT inerrant and admit that the early Biblical writers were wholly ignorant of what we now know about sexual orientation, Exodus and similar groups will continue to sell their repackaged snake oil and leave a trail of emotional and psychological damage in their wake -pocketing the money all along the way.