I don’t believe much sex object attraction is choice but what’s wrong with saying “choice if it’s present is just as good as nature” after all we protect freedom of religion which is socialization or choice.” It’s a Right. We keep letting our opposition set the debate and then buy into defending ourselves when it’s difficult to deliver the science. We keep calling on evidence in nature other than human to validate our attractions. Since when did we base our ethical choices on animal behaviour? “Gay” penguins are nice but so what?

Hey, we’re human adults and if we do have any choice and it doen’t hurt others, it isn’t up to a vote–that’s the point we should be arguing in this matter. Pursuit of happiness. That’s what our bill of rights, constitution and amendments are supposed to be about. We are supposed to have separation of church and state for this very reason. It isn’t just marriage equality various religious sects try to manipulate to suit their designs. In the present and past it’s been what you can eat, the role of man and woman, what you can wear, when and how you have to pray, who your enemies are; not just who and how you can be sexual. Partially the Enlightenment was (and is) about escaping religious domination. Religion is an important card but not the trump card.

We need tp develop our own agenda and stop being sidetracked into false defenses. We oughta be working for greater freedom when it doesn’t harm others. We should also start pulling ourselves together as a movement rather than arguing over nature or nurture or a national march or not, or a federal suit for our rights or not, or whether we want civil unions or must have marriage or Obama’s our friend, no he’s our enemy……. Hey if straights get a choice over civil unions or marriage then so should we. If we want as glbt folk to marry, claim it as religious freedom and do it. That’s how Canada won marriage equality. Freedom of religion has its place. Use the freedom of religion card in its rightful place. But it’s not the highest card.

Half the blogs I read sound like they’re written by someone trying to divide and confuse our movement. Or are we so confused about what our movement is that we really have no solidarity and that’s why it often feels like we’re shooting ourselves in the foot?
So many people’s blogs look like bent knees facing each other, a doctor is alternately tapping each with her little hammer, they take turns kicking each other with epithets of blame and ignorance and bigotry. It’s an ignorance reflex. Each accusing the other of dogma, lifestyles, perversions, wrongness, hate…….there’s one trump card that unites us. Stop generalizing all your perceived opponents as the other. We are all in this together. Educate your fellows about what they share with you so that they know it deserves protection.

What we’re really doing here is demanding our civil rights. Equality rights. Guarantees of our nation’s heritage. The ongoing world movement for individual freedom. Rational people of all races and political persuasions and sexual orientations and religions know that. Those who believe they can put their religion first they are wrong. Those who think they can put their race first are wrong. Those who think they can put their sexual identity first are wrong. Those who think they can put their gender first are wrong. We’re holding the card that trumps here! You got it in your hand. Know what it is and use it.

It seems the intent of FOF, PFOX, and other similiar movements is to control or eliminate those whose thinking is different from their own. Much like Nazi mind control.

Yes, the radical versions are the most obvious and get the attention, but all religion is based on a lie, we all know it and only are able to admit it in degrees. Mother Theresa was somewhere on that scale (surprisingly close to to the atheist side) and the pope is somewhere else. I’m way on the other end, but anyone with a brain can and does doubt the lies professed by ALL religion. Too bad we can’t move more people to the correct conclusion.

Until we stop, as an entire race, worrying about a future life, we will never get the most out of this life and will continue to allow all the immoral behaviour associated with propagating the lie and consolidating power.

Evolve beyond belief, it will save the human race!

They honestly don’t care whether a person converts and stays converted, or not. They simply care about their image, as cracked and flawed as it may be. And I doubt very seriously they, themselves, ever report, or even acknowledge, the number of ex-ex-gays.

For them, it’s easier to believe a lie than to love the fallen.

I think though that one should delve deeper into the logical conclusion of your article i.e. that the ex-gay movement is not aimed at gay people or their families at all, but their right-wing base and those they seek to add to it.

It’s sole aim is to use “ex-gay-ness” to affirm to their base and their potential base the acceptability of homophobia. The more they can encourage acceptance for homophobia by justifying it in ways such as this, the easier it is for them to recruit based on the tools they work with best: fear and hate. Homophobia does well with both.

I can fully agree that, just as there are people who realize late in life that they are gay, there are probably those who realize late in life that they are straight when they thought they were gay. Those people are not likely to be helped by an “ex-gay” ministry.

Such ministries will encourage them simply to deny their former attractions as perverted, unhealthy and sinful and to deny that they were whole people. Instead such people need guidance in incorporating all of their psycho-sexual components into an integrated and happy self.

I am one of those pathetic people who spent 20 years trying to reconcile my awareness of my homosexuality with my belief in the catholic church. Just when I thought I found a spot where I thought I could balance the two, BLAMMO!, something would happen that would remind me that the church I thought I loved would love me back only if I were willing to suppress an integral part of who I am.

I tried to participate in their “Courage” ministry. They do not claim to be an “ex-gay” ministry mostly because the people who join refuse to admit that they are gay. As a matter of fact, you can’t use the words “gay” or even “homosexual” in the Courage ministry. They believe that everyone is heterosexual, but some people “suffer” from same-sex attraction issues.

I went to one and only one meeting of a Courage group and was devastated. I knew I couldn’t do what they were asking of me. Many of the people there looked so forlorn I couldn’t stand it. Soon after that meeting I seriously considered suicide. (This is how pathetic I am: I was driving towards a bridge abutment at about 90mph with my seat belt off, but then realized I didn’t know how to disable the air bags and I was driving a Volvo with 8 of them. Why didn’t I buy a Pinto that would explode on impact?)

Soon after that I left the church, which had its own drama since I was assistant organist at a cathedral and my brother was the cathedral’s assistant pastor.

The bottom line is that, when someone (individual or institutional) claims to love and accept you – but only on their terms, run as fast as you can. To quote a bumper sticker I saw on a local minister’s car: God bless everyone. NO exceptions.