PFOX Will Not Like This

To rehash for newcomers, the Montgomery County, Maryland, Public Schools came under attack a couple of years ago by a radical religious cell that opposed teaching about homosexuality. Besides the usual stereotype stuff -- that gay people are dirty, promiscuous child molesters who spread diseases and undermine decency, etc. -- the radicals claimed that gay people could become heterosexual. "Change is possible," their billboard announced, on 355 near the MCPS office building. It's their motto, their mantra, they repeat it over and over again, and some uncritical, wishful-thinking people seem to buy it.

In 2005, a lawsuit was filed by two groups, our local nuts and an organization based in Virginia called Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays or PFOX, or, if you believed the "and Gays" part and used all the letters, PFOX-GAG. They were represented by a national-level legal group, based out of Jerry Falwell's Liberty University.

PFOX's mission is to make gay people think they can become straight. Their typical approach is to do something obnoxious, and then when people object, they claim that as proof of widespread discrimination against "ex-gays." Oh, and they claim there are tens of thousands of these "ex-gays" out there, though if you ask to talk to one you always get one of the same handful of them, guys who make their living being "ex-gays" or have some public investment in the whole hoax.

You might not remember last summer, I blogged a thing called "Ex-Gay" Label to be Retired. It reported on an interesting discussion on Warren Throckmorton's blog (wow, twice in a row), where a bunch of the originators of the "ex-gay" movement were talking about the obvious fact that nobody is really "ex-gay." You may be able to act straight or commit yourself to celibacy, but those who are innately homosexual will always be that way. Everybody knows that. And these "ex-gay" leaders were discussing among themselves the inadequacy of the term and the fact that it needed to be retired.

It looks like they're finally getting around to it.

The LA Times has an interesting article this morning, pointed out in the comments section by Orin.

Alan Chambers directs Exodus International, widely described as the nation's largest ex-gay ministry. But when he addresses the group's Freedom Conference at Concordia University in Irvine this month, Chambers won't celebrate successful "ex-gays."

Truth is, he's not sure he's ever met one.

With years of therapy, Chambers says, he has mostly conquered his own attraction to men; he's a husband and a father, and he identifies as straight. But lately, he's come to resent the term "ex-gay": It's too neat, implying a clean break with the past, when he still struggles at times with homosexual temptation. "By no means would we ever say change can be sudden or complete," Chambers said.

His personal denunciation of the term "ex-gay" — his organization has yet to follow suit — is just one example of shifting ground in the polarizing debate on homosexuality.

Despite the fundamental gulf that divides them, gay-rights activists and those who see homosexuality as a sinful disorder are starting to reach agreement on some practical points.

Chambers and other Exodus leaders talk deliberately about a possible biological basis for homosexuality, in part to explain that no one can turn a switch and flip from gay to straight, no matter how hard they pray.

New ground in debate on 'curing' gays

I mentioned in a previous post, and other places. that PFOX represents Denial. Their Executive Monkety Monk Regina Griggs has a gay son, and she has to keep going "Lalalalalalalala change is possible lalalala" rather than accept him for what he is. Sad, delusional, but attractive to a certain kind of religious fanatic who insists that a certain handful of passages in the Bible -- especially those that seem to denounce homosexuality -- are literally God's word.

I don't know these other guys, Chambers for instance, and I do wish they'd just find a community that will let them live as they are, but that's not the way they want to do it. They want to try to suppress their natural feelings so they fit a religious expectation. Okay, it's a free country. I think that's kind of dumb, I wouldn't do that if I were you, but ... I can't see how it's entirely different from a Catholic priest practicing celibacy. Again, it'd drive me crazy, but for some guys it's worth doing.

And some of these guys, it seems to me, are very honest about their feelings and the difficulty of adjusting to the church's demands.

A leading conservative theologian outside the ex-gay movement recently echoed the view that homosexuality may not be a choice, but a matter of DNA. To the shock and anger of many of his constituents, the Rev. R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, wrote that "we should not be surprised" to find a genetic basis for sexual orientation.

That's heretical to many conservative Christians. But it's a view increasingly embraced by the public at large; a Gallup Poll last month found that 42% of adults believe sexual orientation is present at birth. (Three decades ago, when Gallup first asked the question, just 13% held that view.)

Yes, the CRC and PFOX love to roll their eyes and complain that the school district tells students that sexual orientation is innate.

Well, it is.

And now we see that people on their side, evangelicals and fundamentalists, are realizing you can only deny reality for so long.

This article takes an interesting turn just about here ...

"Something's happening. And I think it's very positive," agreed Michael Bussee, who founded Exodus in 1976, only to fall in love with another man — a fellow ex-gay counselor.

Now a licensed family therapist in Riverside, Bussee regularly speaks out against ex-gay therapies and is scheduled to address the Ex-Gay Survivor's Conference at UC Irvine at the end of the month.

But Bussee put aside his protest agenda recently to endorse new guidelines to sexual identity therapy, co-written by two professors at conservative Christian colleges...

Skipping down ...

"It's about helping clients accept that they have these same-sex attractions and then allowing them the space, free from bias, to choose how they want to act," said Lee Beckstead, a gay psychologist in Salt Lake City who uses this approach.

The guidelines for this type of therapy — written by Warren Throckmorton of Grove City College and Mark Yarhouse of Regent University — have been endorsed by representatives on both the left and right. The list includes the provost of a conservative evangelical college and the psychiatrist whose gay-rights advocacy in the 1970s got homosexuality removed from the official medical list of mental disorders.

"What appeals to me is that it moves away from the total polarization" common in the field, said Dr. Robert Spitzer, the psychiatrist.

In my perfect world, people just accept one another. Yeah, sure.

A guy goes to the shrink. He says, "Doc, I am attracted to guys but my religion doesn't allow me to be gay. What should I do?"

To me, the shrink should say, "Find a church that accepts you." But -- I am not King of the World. An alternative is, some shrinks might say, "You will always be attracted to men, but maybe we can work out a way that you can still live within the rules of your church."

Given that this is not My Perfect World, that might be reasonable. I don't know, tough call.

"For many years, mental-health professionals have taken the view that since homosexuality is not a mental disorder, any attempt to change sexual orientation is unwise," said Spitzer, a Columbia University professor.

Some therapies are widely considered dangerous, and some rely on discredited psychological theories. "But for healthcare professionals to tell someone they don't have the right to make an effort to bring their actions into harmony with their values is hubris," Spitzer said.

And I look forward to some good comments about how people feel about that.

Critics of Exodus note the group still sponsors speakers who attribute homosexuality to bad parenting and assert that gays and lesbians live short, unhappy lives.

And though Chambers has disavowed the term "ex-gay," his group's ads give the distinct impression that it's possible to leave homosexuality completely behind.

The Irvine conference, for instance, is being promoted with radio spots that talk of "sudden, radical and complete" transformation. (Chambers apologized for those ads in a recent interview, saying they were meant to urge church leaders to radically change the way they treat gays and lesbians, not to imply that conference-goers would magically transform their orientation.)

Yes, there has been some talk on the Internet about a possible contradiction between what Exodus believes and what they say they believe. This last "apology," for instance, does have the ring of bull-oney, don't you think? Chambers knows how people will take it when he says you can have a "sudden, radical, and complete" transformation.

The American Psychological Assn. set up a task force this spring to revise the group's policy on sexual orientation therapy. The current policy is a decade old and fairly vague; it states that homosexuality is not a disorder and that therapists can't make false claims about their treatments.

The new policy, due early next year, must help psychologists uphold two ethical principles as they work with patients unhappy about their sexuality: "Respect for the autonomy and dignity of the patient, and a duty to do no harm," said Clinton Anderson, the association's director for lesbian, gay and bisexual concerns. "It's a balancing act."

(By the way, one of the more thorough articles on this APA task force was written a couple of weeks ago by Josh Lynsen at the Washington Blade.)

The problem here is simply polarization; the right has used "ex-gays" as a wedge issue, intentionally. Some groups formed to help gays adjust to a church whose God requires them to live without romantic love. Then somewhere along the way, stupider people got hold of the concept and started saying you could stop being gay -- this meant of course that sexual orientation is a kind of choice, and that meant that gay people were that way because they chose to be, which makes it a moral choice, which is a bad choice because a couple of verses in the Bible can be interpreted to say men shouldn't have sex with other men (I don't think there's anything to discourage lesbians in the Bible, is there?). So then the whole "ex-gay" thing became a big hoax to badmouth gay people. Now it sounds like some of these guys are trying to de-polarize the situation and disentangle themselves from the nuttiness.

How about this: they stop trying to recruit people. If somebody wants to live their life differently, that's one thing, they'll look for help with that; going around putting up billboards and sending home fliers ... no, that's just rude.

By the way, the post immediately before this one talked about an "Ex-gay survivor" conference. I think this LA Times article is a direct consequence of that conference. See? Already some good has come out of it.