Ex-Gay Ministries Don't Work...

[SoleLove]

Alan Chambers, former minister of an "ex-gay ministries", admitted that no matter how much he believes in the Bible's "perfect ideal" of the heterosexual couple, the vast majority of people that follow such therapies do not become heterosexual...

"Alan Chambers says that maybe 0.1% of ex-gays have really changed, and that most of those seem to be women. He has seen thousands try to change, he has believed in it as strongly as he can, and at the end of the day he looks around and says: it doesn't work. I have an idea. Let's accept people the way they are. Is there something wrong with that? How about we let people love who they love?"
Anon URL

Alan Chambers Apologizes to Gay Community, Exodus International to Shut Down
Anon URL


The "homosexuality is a sin" mentality is very dangerous and not healthy at all! It only brings pain, despair, misery, self-loathing, bigotry, bullying, suicide, violence, torture, murder, executions and plain insanity... This is why I can't truly tolerate such a mindset. Sarah & Bristol Palin are calling LGBTs that don't agree with their views and Robertson's intolerant... How tolerant are they??? Trying to deprive us of civil rights just because homosexuality is a sin according to their beliefs?! Same-sex marriage is okay as long as Churches are not obligated to officiate same-sex weddings.

Not all Christians, Jews and even Muslims view homosexuality as a sin. Biblical verses used to shame homosexuality might have been mistranslations or reflections of particular cultural and social contexts (male shrine prostitutes, for instance). Homosexuality is not a sin in Paganism, Ancient religions from Greece, Rome, Egypt, Sumer, Babylon, in various schools of Buddhism, Hinduism, in Left Hand Path religions/philosophies such as Theistic Satanism, Atheistic (LaVeyan) Satanism, Luciferianism as well as Voodooism, Agnosticism & Atheism.


I now want to share with you a collection of links depicting atrocities inflicted on LGBTs across the world, even in North America. Brace yourselves...

Here is a photo of an alleged gay man burned to death in Uganda where homosexuality is now punished by life in prison:
EXTREMELY GRAPHIC - Anon URL

United States of America:
An innocent man got shot in the head and subsequently died in the gay village of New York. According to the authorities, the victim did NOTHING to antagonize his aggressor. After the arrest, the monster laughed about it, then rolled both his eyes back and stuck out his tongue...
Anon URL

A monstrous madman stabbed two men, two weeks in a row, for allegedly trying to seduce him... There is no indication either victims were gay; as a matter of fact, the one that died, was already 69 year-old and married to a woman.
Anon URL
Anon URL


A young man, Jared Fox, got attacked in a homophobic attack.
Anon URL

Jared Olson, one more victim of a very hateful attack.
Anon URL

A gay teen got savagely and gravely beaten up after meeting up with "potential friend or lover" encountered online...
Anon URL

Canada:
Gay Canadian Man Paralyzed in Alleged Hate Crime Stabbing
Anon URL


GRAPHIC PICTURES (Russian authorities have decided not to make any arrests nor press any charges. Only one of those assassins, Maxim ‘Tesak’ Martsinkevich, is being looked for by the authorities. They viewed the pictures but insist no harm was perpetrated. The young martyr sucbed to his injuries.):
Anon URL
Anon URL
Anon URL

A prominent gay rights activist got tortured and murdered in Cameroon
Anon URL

A cross-dressing Jamaican teen got stabbed to death by Jamaican mob...
Anon URL

A very graphic and blatant case of an homophobic attack on a gay couple.
Anon URL
Anon URL

 

[clh_hilary]

Old news.

 

[regnomraw]

Even if they were condemned in religious texts, doesn't mean we should instantly believe and follow that these texts tell us. Mistranslated or not, everyone has the right to be treated like a human being.

That being said, what you have posted of course is good news. Hopefully more of these ministries will shut down and otherwise confused and struggling homosexuals will be accepted in the wider community and learn to accept themselves.

Thanks for the post.

 

[jw4833]

I had mentioned in an earlier post of mine that my first bf was a priest in the Catholic diocese and we were together for several years. He was looked upon in the public's eye as this "saint" and a lot of his followers were not aware of his sexual orientation because he always separated the two and appeared to be "straight" in public. In recent years, he is recognized as a bishop and to this day, although there are guys whom he had been intimate with since myself had made mentioned throughout the city about his sexuality, and yet, he still personify himself to not be a gay man and he writes a weekly column for one of our local prominent publications.

Since our breakup years ago, whenever I happened to run into him, he still treats me very cold and bitter which I find to be "weird' but I speak to him and keep it moving. A few of his "so-called" friends and some of my family members have inquired to me over the years as to why I had never "outed" him due to the fact that he treated me like a possession instead of a human being due to his insane jealousy behavior. However, I never thought about doing such a thing in all of these years and still have no desire to do so. Nonetheless, there have been times when I wondered how does he keep this "charade" going all of these years and still be prominent within the religious environment??

 

[bigsal]

Dear JW, what you wrote in the message is just one of many cases that occur between members of the clergy.

I will not dwell too much on the subject, also because I have already made ​​my testimony in the last post of this thread

http://www.gayheaven.org/t424682-another-lost-sheep.html

:big hug:

 

[SoleLove]

JW... Very curious story... I thought Catholic priests were bound by a vow of chastity and not supposed to have sex at all (nor harbour sexual thoughts) lest they be in state of mortal sin? So, he's having sexual relations while being a Catholic priest? Why even be a Catholic priest, then? Does he even believe in that religion?

A very touching story:

Just Because He Breathes: Learning to Truly Love Our Gay Son
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/linda...ning-to-truly-love-our-gay-son_b_3478971.html

It's about a couple that tried to make their 12 year-old son become heterosexual. He prayed earnestly in order to become straight. He went to an ex-gay ministries, saw a therapist, followed all advices. He never became heterosexual. At some point, he left Christianity, turned to drugs and he died at age 20 four years ago...

Now, do you believe me when I say the "homosexuality is gross/homosexuality is a sin" mentality kills? Now, do you believe me when I say Phil Robertson's words encourage a mentality that kills? Do you believe me now?


Now, head there if you want and read comments...

Rose Parade Gay Wedding Going on Despite Protest
http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/story?id=21375156

See all the HATE people harbour towards LGBTs... No wonder why they kill themselves! But who cares?! "It's a sin in the Bible. It's a sin in the Bible. It's a sin in the Bible. It's a sin in the Bible. It's a sin in the Bible. It's a sin in the Bible."

This is how RETARDED the world still is... Here is an association that helps LGBTQs in crisis: https://twitter.com/TrevorProject

 

[topdog]

Well I went through an Ex-gay program with one of the former heads of Exodus, (not Mr. Chambers). For those who don't know, Exodus is (or, was) the association of ex-gay ministries around the world. My mother worked for one of those local organizations - mostly dealing with parents whose kids were in "the lifestyle", as they call it.

Needless to say I did my happy dance when Chambers announced the Exodus shut down and apologized for all they harm they had done.

Unfortunately for Allen, he is now in the position where the gays hate him because he still thinks homosexual acts are a sin, and the conservative Christians think that he is a traitor.

I have great respect for the man. How many people would step forward and say that they were wrong, take responsibility for the hurt they have caused, apologize, and then shut down their organization. It takes courage and dedication to a moral path to pull that off. Many others would have just quietly resigned and slink off as someone else took their place.

 

[clh_hilary]

JW... Very curious story... I thought Catholic priests were bound by a vow of chastity and not supposed to have sex at all (nor harbour sexual thoughts) lest they be in state of mortal sin?

Unless they are boys.

 

[Tom005]

I've always found it sad that they have clinics to cure gay people or pray the gay away but no clinics to cure stupidity.

 

[bigsal]

I've always found it sad that they have clinics to cure gay people or pray the gay away but no clinics to cure stupidity.

There is a saying in my country that says:

"the mother of fools is always pregnant"

 

[clh_hilary]

I've always found it sad that they have clinics to cure gay people or pray the gay away but no clinics to cure stupidity.

They are called schools.

 

[Tom005]

They are called schools.

Ah so grown adults who think they can pray the gay away are not at fault, it was the school teacher who failed to tell them gays can't be cured. O.K.

 

[brmstn69]

Ah so grown adults who think they can pray the gay away are not at fault, it was the school teacher who failed to tell them gays can't be cured. O.K.

No, it's not the teachers fault either. It's the Christian conservatives that campaigned and lobbyed for laws that made it illegal to teach that homosexuality was anything other than abnormal, deviant behavior.

 

[clh_hilary]

Ah so grown adults who think they can pray the gay away are not at fault, it was the school teacher who failed to tell them gays can't be cured. O.K.

Part of it is. But then of course the curriculum is shaped by the society.

 

[ihno]

Lol, when I was in school I informed my teachers about homosexuality. And it was a catholic gymnasium.

 

[gorgik9]

It could be important to realize, that ALL christianity isn't american bible-thumping evangelicalism. ihno just taught us this.
I'm as much atheist as I've always been, I'm just saying...

 

[clh_hilary]

It could be important to realize, that ALL christianity isn't american bible-thumping evangelicalism. ihno just taught us this.
I'm as much atheist as I've always been, I'm just saying...

It's just because those christians happen to be good people. They would have been good without the influence of christianity.

Christianity, however, has made a lot of good people bad, or do bad things.

 

[gorgik9]

It's just because those christians happen to be good people. They would have been good without the influence of christianity.

Christianity, however, has made a lot of good people bad, or do bad things.

To make an extremely long and complicated story much to short and oversimplificated : No. You oversimplificate much to much. You don't consider, for example, the immense differences between different theological and ecclesiastical traditions.

And when it comes to the infamous ex-gay movement - the ex-ex-gay movement if I understood the news correctly - it has been -and mayby still is- just as much a US problem as an evangelical christian problem. The "therapies" of the Ex-Gay Movement have had their roots in a) the psychoanalytical anti-gay therapy of dr. Edmund Bergler and his ilk in the 1940s, 50s and 60s, b) the so-called Aversion therapy from the psychological behaviorists in the 1960s and early 70s. It didn't have anything to do with any kind of christianity, until the psychoanalytical and behaviorist therapies couldn't get any public funding anymore - since the American Psychiatric Association declared in the mid-70s that homosexuality couldn't be considered a mental illness anymore - whence those therapies got fixed up with biblical quotations and rich evangelical funding in the 1980s. And then it was the right time to holler : God Hates Fags!

 

[clh_hilary]

To make an extremely long and complicated story much to short and oversimplificated : No. You oversimplificate much to much. You don't consider, for example, the immense differences between different theological and ecclesiastical traditions.

And when it comes to the infamous ex-gay movement - the ex-ex-gay movement if I understood the news correctly - it has been -and mayby still is- just as much a US problem as an evangelical christian problem. The "therapies" of the Ex-Gay Movement have had their roots in a) the psychoanalytical anti-gay therapy of dr. Edmund Bergler and his ilk in the 1940s, 50s and 60s, b) the so-called Aversion therapy from the psychological behaviorists in the 1960s and early 70s. It didn't have anything to do with any kind of christianity, until the psychoanalytical and behaviorist therapies couldn't get any public funding anymore - since the American Psychiatric Association declared in the mid-70s that homosexuality couldn't be considered a mental illness anymore - whence those therapies got fixed up with biblical quotations and rich evangelical funding in the 1980s. And then it was the right time to holler : God Hates Fags!

Then they just happen to be bad people, with or without christianity. But by using christianity, they are making their fellow christians believe that they have a point, when they originally may not have thought of it that way.