So-called "ex-gay" ministries are deceitful and destructive
Why is it that people (on both sides) get so bent out of shape about gay Christianity? Why do people battle so heatedly when it is even suggested that someone could be a follower of the Lord and still fall in love with someone of the same gender?
For the record, let me just state that the last sentence was carefully worded that way for a reason. As I've mentioned elsewhere in these pages, treating others with anything less than love and respect is wrong. Therefore, so is using others for sex or anything else. So for those who protest because they don't believe someone could be the Lord's follower and then still go around "cruising" or otherwise "picking up" sex partners, I agree wholeheartedly. I completely understand their lack of sympathy! How can a person truly be following Christ, all the while using people as objects for one's own pleasure? That's not how God wants us to treat each other. But watch out; that goes for heterosexuals, too!
That said, I have some qualms about the very existence of ex-gay "ministries." Why are they so stuck on this one subject to begin with? For example, why are there no ex-adulterer, ex-cruiser, ex-wifebatterer, or ex-childmolester ministries? These things are obviously very destructive, complete with victims who may need years or even a lifetime to work through their aftereffects. If they believe being gay is destructive, surely they'd have to agree that these other things are far more harmful.
Don't think some of these things are a big deal?
What about when an adulterer brings AIDS home to an unsuspecting spouse and/or an unborn child? Does the spouse or even the whole family get to suffer and die from AIDS? Does the spouse get to fight gonorrhea or live with herpes for the rest of his/her life? How about when a wife and "the other man," or a husband and "the other woman" conceive? What happens to any "love child" in this situation? Is the baby aborted in order to
destroy the evidence? Put up for adoption, to wonder later why its parents abandoned it? Raised with no mommy, or no daddy? Or in a home where one parent is resentful because the child is a constant reminder of the affair? And how does one explain to the child how s/he came into being? No one seems to consider anything
other than the adulterer's own "boredom" and pleasure.
What about "cruisers," looking for one-night-stands and flings? Gay, bi, or straight, cruisers can spread AIDS and other STD's like wildfire, because they may have sex with several more people before a disease is discovered. The concept of "safe sex" is a lie. Condoms and latex can slip or break, and they don't protect you against everything. I sure wouldn't want anything that flimsy standing between me and disease or possible death. You never know if a stranger's been having sex with prostitutes or using drugs, maybe even intravenous drugs. Birth control fails more than one would think, mainly because the careful controlled environment of a testing lab doesn't reflect real life results. Again, what happens to any babies in this situation? Here there are even more questions. How do you explain to a child that you don't even know who his or her father is? What happens when drug users conceive? What about the babies who are born with drug withdrawals or diseases? Although people may claim to be concerned about health by practicing "safe" sex, they can't truly be all that concerned. If they were, they would choose the one way to be
certain no one will get a disease or have an accidental pregnancy -- abstinence. When people think of cruising, they think of fun and pleasure. Not illness, at least not really. And not crack babies or AIDS-infected babies, to be sure.
The point I am making is this: If one is bent on trying to persuade people not to sin, and is convinced that anything other than heterosexuality is a sin, there are far more destructive things to worry about than sexual orientation. The whole idea of "converting" people to heterosexuality or preaching and/or rallying against those who aren't heterosexual is a just a big load of hype. It's the latest religious fad. It ignores real problems and wastes precious resources and energy on nonexistent ones. There is so much effort and money being wasted on trying to "save" gay people, that could be better dedicated to helping the homeless or battered women's shelters or people dying of cancer! I read an article back in the 1990's, in which Fred Phelps admitted to his organization spending some $250,000 per year in travel expenses for its members to fly out and picket at gay people's funerals! Can you imagine how many people we could feed with that? How much career training for the poor that we could fund? With that kind of money, at that time, we could have bought a new building every year for a battered women's shelter, homeless shelter, or Christian counseling center for families in crisis. Instead, they're using it to make a political statement and a disrespectful public spectacle out of someone's death. That is sick and disgusting.
Before you say, "Oh, but Phelps is an extreme case," take a careful look at where the time, energy, and money goes in any organization that actively condemns homosexuality. How much good could be done if they focused all that time, energy, and money on helping the poor and destitute instead? How many urgent problems are being ignored or pushed aside in order to focus on this issue? Resources are always limited, so wherever you concentrate your efforts, it speaks volumes about your character. When you look at it that way, they're not that different from Phelps after all.
Very few of these most vehemently anti-gay proponents seem to actually sit down and carefully research the Scriptures they are so readily throwing at people. (Or employ Scriptural principles to other aspects of their lives, for that matter!) They hear anti-gay statements from their preachers, friends or families, and since there is pressure to conform, they just agree and don't bother to dig deeper. They don't research the Scriptures in depth, they don't try to find out more about gay people, and they don't weigh the gravity of the issue against other issues of far greater significance. Some people conduct their lives in whatever harmful manner they please and with no regard for others; but then when the subject of homosexuality comes up, all of a sudden they are "Christians," whipping out Bibles and thumping on them. (Then when the person they're having an affair with shows up, they spot someone they can take advantage of, or they see someone who could desperately use their help, those Bibles conveniently and magically disappear as quickly as they came out.) The hypocrisy is appalling. It would almost be humorous if there weren't such gross injustices being served. Anyone who pays enough attention to see this in action, will be understandably disinterested in hearing anti-gay Biblical rhetoric from people such as these. It's easy to observe how bigoted and irrational their entire approach is.
Some people claim that homosexuality is an "attack on families," "tears apart the fabric of American families," or causes the "breakdown of the family." I beg to differ. While for some it might be nice if they could find a gay scapegoat, the truth is that
the problems in straight families are caused by their own straight family members. It's heterosexual adultery, cruising, wife-battering, and child-molestation that are an "attack on families," and that "tear apart the moral fabric of American families." They blame us for the divorce rates, single-parent homes, AIDS, child molestation, and many other maladies. But truly, just to pick one issue, what do we do to influence the divorce rates so? Lure people out of their marriages and break up homes? Doubtful. Divorces mainly happen when people refuse to work things out, are abusive, commit adultery, or molest children. How do gay people cause those things? We weren't even there!
Some of the outrageous claims these people make also extend to the subject of gay marriage, stating that it "undermines traditional marriage," thus warranting such anti-gay measures as the so-called "Defense of Marriage Act." But in all seriousness, how does the denial of my right to marry the woman I love strengthen the marriage of the couple next door? Are they seriously implying that gay people "ruin the sanctity of marriage," but things like "Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire," "Two Strangers and a Wedding," and Britney Spears' 55-hour just-for-fun marriage do
not? Heterosexuals have done a fine job of trivializing, perverting, and ruining the sanctity of marriage all by themselves, without our help, thank you very much.
For those who contend that we have some big part in child molestation, studies have proven that an overwhelming majority of child molesters are heterosexual men. If I remember correctly, that figure rests at 97%. Can we say, then, that heterosexual men are the cause of the "breakdown of the American family?" Of course not. What I am illustrating here is the frequent tendency of the media and others to use outlandish examples by which to measure the gay community. They will take the most outrageous actions in the gay/lesbian community (or even just the most outrageous things they
imagine might happen in our community) and present it as if it were commonplace amongst all of us. How ridiculous we would sound, were we to be fair by applying this method across the board!
If we were going to be consistent, we would frighten, indeed terrorize people, with appalling examples to represent heterosexual groups as well. For example, we would cite people such as Ted Bundy, Charles Manson, and the Night Stalker to represent the "depraved nature" of all heterosexual men. We would warn heterosexual women about the dangers of their heterosexuality, using philanderers, wife-batterers, and child molesters to typify the everyday activities of all heterosexual men. Lorena Bobbitt, Evelyn Dick, and Susan Smith would be used to represent the "evils of heterosexual women." We'd warn heterosexual men against the dangers of all heterosexual women, including gold-diggers who marry and then murder their husbands, players of vicious child-custody games (such as false accusations of child molestation or abuse in order to obtain sole custody), and prostitutes, as typical examples of everyday heterosexual female activity. Furthermore, we would look at Jimmy Swaggart and Jim Bakker as examples, and claim that typical Christians all preach against adultery while cheating on their wives in seedy hotels with prostitutes. Anyone can see these examples are not fair!
Discussing extreme examples as if they were the norm, and coining frightening phrases like "attack on families," are merely scare tactics. One could use the same type of arguments to say that since the great majority of gang members are teenagers, we should all stop having children. It's not that ridiculous! After all, we know that the overwhelming majority of those children will go on to become teenagers, and we know teenagers are the segment of the population most involved in the "gang wars" that "tear apart the fabric of American families" by accidentally shooting 3-year-olds all the time. Therefore, we can prevent the "mass slaughter" first by not having any teenagers to shoot each other, and second by not having any 3-year-olds around any more to be hanging around getting shot. This makes the same amount of sense as the idea that gay people's existence or desire to marry rips apart straight families. Or the notion that we can save straight families by denying gays the same rights that straights enjoy and "converting" them to heterosexuality.
Mind you, I don't mean to sound callous here by throwing terms around in such a way. I only wish to call attention to the broken logic people try to use to construct their arguments against gay people and our treatment as equals, both in society and as Christians. People are killing themselves every day because these hypocrites have been so successful in convincing them that they aren't worthy of God's love. A good number of them are teenagers. Gay teens must endure all of the difficulties adolescence typically brings, and then some. Often they must also contend with the fact that they've been told by their family, friends, and church that they are unworthy, perverted and evil; that they stand for everything being American or being Christian is against. And oftentimes their loved ones aren't even aware of the damage they are inflicting because the teen is afraid to tell anyone. Then they are shocked when those teenagers go and quietly commit suicide. God's children are killing themselves because they're being taught they're not worthy of His love! Isn't that enough reason in itself to stop this madness? Is this what the Lord wants from His followers? I can't imagine Him being pleased with it. Can you?