Comments on: Neff: The dangerous ex-gay movement

By: AR

AR — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 18:18:45 +0000

I would suggest that Exodus speak with my ex-husband. He now belongs to a straight partner network and is furious that society “forces” gay and lesbian persons to enter into straight relationships. He believes that gays and lesbians are being deceitful when they enter into a heterosexual marriage. He even considered suing me for deceiving him in marriage.

(Yes, I would have left him even if I were straight, but that’s another story.)

By: Facebook User

Facebook User — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 18:02:39 +0000

We will save you from our beating you with sticks.
A society creates a horrible existence for a specific type of its citizens and then claims that it will SAVE those citizens from society’s abuse because society’s abuse obviously makes them unhappy.
Howzabout we stop the abuse instead?
Then there won’t be any need to be led away from it.
If gaw-wad’s “better way” is to join up with the abusers, then they can keep it. I LIKE not being abusive toward my fellow citizens.
I have way more important things to do than to intrude into other peoples’ lives.
Unfortunately, these people obviously do not.

By: Ian

Ian — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 17:21:44 +0000

“These people are feaks!” quote from Will and Grace’s Jack (I don’t know how to spell his last name). As a community, we need to protect LGBT youth from these sickos. I hope those in 365, agree with me.

By: Jacquemar

Jacquemar — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 03:07:14 +0000

Is there ANY reliable data on their “conversion” rates? Any reliable way of calculating how many men and women have been through their therapy and are living a heterosexual life? No!

It seems to me that the only people really threatened by this “Ex-Gay” movement are people gullible enough to believe it.

By: Emily Prozonic

Wed, 29 Jul 2009 01:09:27 +0000

Kelson,
I whole-heartedly agree with you. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m Christian myself and do believe in God. But to me, the bible is nothing more than a story book, a fairy tale, because…

In the beginning God created Adam and Eve, two and ONLY two people, to populate all of planet earth, and they say incest is as sinful as homosexuality. In the old testament, God is a jealous, wrathful God, in the new testament, he is a kind and merciful God, guess having a kid really mellowed him out huh?

The bible was not written by God, but interpreted over and over and over again by man. For all we as humans know, the bible could’ve been written by a bunch of drunks sitting around a fire seeing who could tell the craziest story!

By: OhPlease

OhPlease — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 22:25:42 +0000

Oh please. Religion is a joke, god in the sky, oh please

By: bobco85

bobco85 — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 22:25:21 +0000

First off, we should all know that the American Psychological Association does not list homosexuality as any sort of mental illness. Then why should it be “cured”?

As far as the “conversion rate” goes, there was no scientific testing done and therefore the Masters and Johnson data is useless. I would like to see the full statistics (data from all “gay camps”) that show their actual rates of conversion, as determined by an unbiased expert.

There is no good data. Heck, what they’re trying to “cure” isn’t even an illness. And do you want to know what that means? They’re PSEUDOSCIENCE!

I give the ex-gay movement as much thought as I do other pseudoscientific things such as reflexology (it’s JUST a massage), biodynamic wine (magical farming?), and homeopathy (biggest source of anti-science since religion). Note: look up these other things to see what they really are.

Lastly, I think we need to protect our children from such nonsense as this. Teach them the truth, reality, how things REALLY are.

By: Kelson

Kelson — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 22:18:16 +0000

How about an Ex-Christian/Islam organization? The only requirement would be a brain that thinks on its own and is not subject to indoctrination or fear of or belief in mythology.

By: gayjim0726

gayjim0726 — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 22:11:54 +0000

We really need to fight back with large bold lettering. This crap with leviticus and gays. How about eating shellfish, sleeping in the same bed as ones wife while she is menstrating, wearing cloth made of two fabrics. All abominations. I’d like to hear one hypochristian explain their way out of that one. Then lets look at the cultural aspect. Things and people change with the times. Back then you had to breed, breed, breed. Scientificly it may not be proven without a doubt. But there is some serious leaning towards being gay is biological. This constant intrusion upon our rights to exist. Using the excuse we are trampling on their rights. The far right are like dry drunks and/or sociopaths who blame everyone for what they feel, fear, really love inside and ourwardly hate. Living in hypocrisy. Everyone else to the religous far right is damned. Yes bring this one up to your loved ones who are not of the far right nut job minority. The far right (pick a religion) would be happy as pigs in shit if we all just poofed away. On the other hand the most of the middle of the road and center left are quite content to live and let live. Which in some ways makes us lazy because we really don’t give a rats ass about the far right and just want to live our lives quietly. If we continue to live our lives quietly. If we do not take a stand and make that far right explain and prove thier statemets with facts. Real facts and not propoganda or ancient fairy tales. Make them see that all the crapola they have been spewing in nothing but lies and get this out for the rest of humanity to see. If we don’t take a stand, expose their lies, hate, fear, and dysfunction. We may just lose. And we will have no one to blame but ourselves.

By: Sara Bellum

Sara Bellum — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 22:03:02 +0000

Like Drewski, I grew up in an area dominated by these types of religious fundamentalists. Even in terms of race, I have seen otherwise good people engage in or tolerate vile behavior because their church was somehow involved, even if peripherally.

People not familiar with these groups vastly underestimate their perspective on proselytizing. They generally believe most people, even most other Christians, are bound for Hell because of wrong beliefs and sinful actions. To compare them to someone trying to save a drowning man doesn’t even get to the point. Because a drowning man only dies once. They truly believe Hell is forever. And that unless you follow their relatively narrow (sometimes extremely narrow) doctrine exactly, that is your fate.

Which leads to the next problem when talking with them. It’s not that they are confused, or stupid, or illogical, or uneducated. Many of these fundamentalists are shockingly bright and educated (don’t let your prejudices mislead you). It’s that they fear for their own soul as well. The world is a place of temptation and if they fall off this narrow path, they will be bound for Hell as well. The harder you press, the more they feel they fighting to preserve their own fate.

It’s hard enough to debate rationally without becoming defensive and admit defeat. What if admitting defeat put you in fear for your soul? What if disagreeing with your church (/preacher) on any topic automatically meant that you were lost and needed saving? How open would you be to discussion?

Before the harpies jump in with the knee-jerk refrains on the evils of religion, these people completely have the right to live their lives this way. They have the right to raise their children this way (within certain established guidelines, eg children can’t be exposed to snake-handling or drinking poison). And they have the right to try to convince others to live this way. (As was noted on here recently, one thing they don’t understand is that we generally don’t believe that people can be “recruited.”)

Even though their right to swing their fists end where our noses begin, it will not be them (at least as a group) that decides to find a way to live with us. At the risk of sounding patronizing, as the more rational group, it is up to us to develop means to deal with them.

I agree that we should primarily ignore them while trying to limit any public harm they do. I believe that before long the ex-gay movement will simply be a fringe group like the Klan (itself a Christian organization). At the same time, when people show up in our midst scared because they fear their nature might be leading them to Hell, we have to be prepared to offer them more than just, “religion is mythology.” Can you see how that could easily only scare someone more?

Is there an org for ex-ex-gays? The ones that I have meet personally only found peace by contacting a local MCC or Unitarian Universalist Church (with UU often being more liberal than these people are accustomed to). But what about all those people who don’t have such groups near them?