Exodus Co-Founder: I’m A Vocal Critic of Reparative Therapy and of Exodus International.

One of the most calculated and perverse lies disseminated by Christianists and the political enemies of full LGBT equality is that sexual orientation is a "choice" and that it can be "changed." This lie has caused so much emotional pain and so many failed marriages - my own being one of them - that it enrages me that our enemies continue to deliberately peddle the same falsehoods even as mental health experts have increasingly concluded that one's sexual orientation is immutable and not changeable. Worse yet, the purveyors of the "choice myth" and "change myth" as I call them truly care nothing about the damaged lives that they leave in their wake. No, instead, it's all about the money to be made from these false cure programs and/or the political weapon the known lies provide. Some have come to see the error of their ways and now speak out against reparative therapy and organizations that promote it, Exodus International being perhaps the largest. One such person is Michael Bussee, an original co-founder of Exodus International. Daniel Gonzales has a must read piece at Box Turtle Bulletin that looks at an interview with Bussee in which he describes his own ill-fated marriage and the damage "marriage to make one self straight" has as its legacy. Here are highlights:
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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.
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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.
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[W]e were encouraged by people at the church that perhaps getting married was that final step that maybe I was “holding back the change” by not giving myself whole heartedly to her, that if I made the vows and truly gave our lives together to God that that might be the breakthrough and I might finally receive the heterosexual gift.
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So we were actually given that advice that we should marry. I realize now that it was irresponsible advice and some people are still given that advice that they really need to settle down and that eventually God will reward their vows by creating heterosexuality within them.
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That does so much collateral damage, I’ve talked to so many spouses who felt like failures themselves because their husband or wife didn’t change, there was something wrong with their faith too.
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To hear Alan Chambers talk about his marriage yet admitting it took 9 months or so to even consummate the marriage that he has “to daily deny what comes naturally for him.”
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You really need to talk to the spouses of gay men . . . ex-gay men to realize the harm, the collateral damage. It devastated my life, it devastated Gary’s wife when we came out and admitted that we weren’t really ex-gay. It devastated my family, it devastated my daughter.
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That collateral damage is minimized, they like to paint this happily ever after picture but they don’t say what happens when those marriages fall apart, when the masquerade is over.
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I myself was never in an "ex-gay" program, but due to the brainwashing I received in my religious upbringing, being gay was just to horrible to contemplate and I - like so many, many others - deceived myself and engaged in the same types of self-denial and lies encouraged by Exodus International and similar organizations. I truly believe that God has a special place in Hell for James Dobson, Robert Knight, and the other false Christians who knowingly and deliberately preach the "ex-gay" and "choice myths."