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** Helping the wayward go straight

February 2001

Helping the wayward go straight
A survey of Christian efforts to reform lesbians and gays

By Jim D'Entremont

Programmed efforts to transform gay men and lesbians into heterosexuals are at least as old as the moment in 1869 when Hungarian physician Karl Maria Kertbeny coined the term homosexual. As Neil Miller observes in Out of the Past (Vintage Books, 1995), "the creation of homosexuality as a category often meant turning it into a medical condition to be cured."

Early "cures" ranged from Krafft-Ebing's regimen of behavior modification to quack aversion techniques entailing drugs or electric shock. The intent was to free homosexuals from presumptive psychic torment by shoehorning them into that wellspring of health and stability, heterosexual married life, or by bullying them into celibacy.

From sickness to sin

As the medical community backed away from interpretations of homosexuality as a pathological condition, religious conservatives sought to shore up their adversarial positions on homosexual behavior. Love in Action (LIA), a Pentecostal system of steps out of homosexuality, was founded in 1973, the same year the American Psychiatric Association dropped homosexuality from its roster of disorders.

As the post-Stonewall gay rights movement asserted itself, dissenting members of the mental health professions forged alliances with religious reactionaries. In the 1970s, schemes for "healing" homosexuality proliferated, with efforts to combat sin acquiring a therapeutic veneer. The so-called ex-gay movement is now dominated by the more homophobic factions of the Christian Right, and promoted most fervently by evangelicals and Pentecostals who believe in the literal truth of the Bible.

Beverly LaHaye's Concerned Women for America, Donald Wildmon's American Family Association, and D. James Kennedy's Fort Lauderdale-based Coral Ridge Ministries have notably obsessive involvements in programs intended to transform unruly queers into well-behaved, straight breeding units. Coral Ridge Ministries (see The Guide, January 2001) is the home of a ministry called Worthy Creations, "a way out of the gay lifestyle," and the Center for Reclaiming America, perpetrator of the 1998-'99 "Truth in Love" ex-gay ad campaign.

Worthy Creations is an affiliate of Exodus International, a Seattle-based umbrella group that describes itself as a "nonprofit, interdenominational Christian organization promoting the message of `freedom from homosexuality through the power of Jesus Christ.'" Exodus, founded in 1976, encompasses about 135 ex-gay ministries in 17 countries, primarily across the U.S. and Canada. Its annual conferences, attended by more than a thousand ex-gays, Christian therapists, pastors, and individuals fighting the homosexual menace, offer workshops on "sexual struggles," ecumenical anti-gay worship events, and help in setting up new ex-gay ministries. The 26th Annual Exodus Conference will take place in Ridgecrest, North Carolina on August 6-11, 2001.

Besides Desert Stream Ministries, whose Living Waters program is described in the accompanying article, operations linked to Exodus International include Minnesota's Outpost, Inc., Florida's Eleutheros, Oklahoma's First Stone Ministries, Kansas's Freedom at Last, Washington, D.C.'s Transformation Christian Ministries, Pittsford, New York's One by One, and Love in Action, now an international organization centered in Memphis, Tennessee.

Shake your money maker

The latter could equally be called Money in Action; the "sexually broken" are hit up for hefty application and processing fees, an up-front $2000 entrance fee, and $950 a month plus other expenses during a protracted residence in an ex-gay group home. "Former homosexual" John Smid, sometime president of Exodus International, is Love in Action's Executive Director. Ex-gay poster boy John Paulk, ousted as board chairman of Exodus North America last year after an escapade at a gay bar, is a product of LIA.

Some ex-gay groups have specific denominational affiliations. Transforming Congregations operates under the aegis of the United Methodist Church. While it has no formal connection to the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-Day Saints, Evergreen International is an organization created by and for sexually troubled Mormons, to whom it provides group therapy, help in dealing with masturbation, counseling aimed at curbing same-sex desire, and advice on "raising gender-secure children." Courage, the Vatican-approved Roman Catholic ex-gay apostolate, combines elements of an AA-style recovery program with fasting, prayer, and special devotions to the Virgin Mary.

While some organizations within the ex-gay movement maintain a secular front, nearly all are driven by religion. Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays (PFOX), the ex-gay answer to Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG), is funded by Gary Bauer's Family Research Council, a Christian Right lobby. Homosexuals Anonymous, which tries to pass as just one more 12-step program (it's actually a 14-step program), has the motto "Fill yourself with Hope in Our Lord Jesus Christ" emblazoned across the bottom of its website.

Leopard spot removers

A key resource for ex-gay ministries is the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH). Its Executive Director, psychologist Joseph Nicolosi, author of Reparative Therapy of Homosexuality, founded the Thomas Aquinas Psychological Clinic in Encino, California. The Exodus International website (www.exodusnorthamerica.org) lists Nicolosi's clinic as an "affiliated ministry;" Nicolosi is a member of the Exodus Speakers Bureau. A tireless proponent of reparative therapy, Nicolosi maintains that homosexuality is a curable disorder caused by dysfunctional parent-child relationships.

Nicolosi claims a 30% success rate, but presents no evidence to support such a figure. John Smid has variously claimed 50, 60 and 70% success rates for Love in Action. "I would say that someone is successful if they live under sexual chastity," Smid explained to an interviewer in 1994. No meaningful tracking studies have been conducted to gauge the rate of ex-gay recidivism. Most credentialed mental health professionals consider gay-to-straight conversion therapy a fraud.

The American Psychological Association has stated that no scientific evidence exists to prove that such therapy works, and that in practice "it can do more harm than good." Equality Colorado, nemesis of the homophobic Colorado for Family Values, quotes psychotherapist Phyllis Hart's assertion that ex-gay programs have a "nearly lethal effect on sensitive, deeply spiritual gay Christians" who turn into "shells of the people they could have become if they would have accepted their gay orientation years before."

Members of ex-gay programs who decide to accept their sexual orientation follow in the footsteps of Exodus International co-founders Michael Bussee and Gary Cooper, who left the movement in 1979 to become life partners until Cooper's death in 1991.