Ex-gay Ministries:
A Step Toward
Acceptance Within
Modern Evangelical
Christianity?
"GOD HATES FAGS" -- though elliptical -- is
a profound theological statement, which the world needs to hear more than it
needs oxygen, water and bread.[1]
Pastor Fred Phelps’
Luckily,
despite what some on the political left seem to believe, this is not the way
all, or even most, evangelical Christians see gays and lesbians. Evangelicals Concerned, Inc., on the other
end of the spectrum, is a nationwide network of evangelical Christians whose
belief statement would likely be appropriate to any evangelical Christian
congregation:
We trust God, our Creator. We trust Jesus Christ, Savior and Lord. We trust The Holy Spirit, our Helper. We believe the Bible, God's inspired
Word. It is our infallible guide for
faith and conduct. We believe the Good
News that God was in Christ reconciling the world to God and making possible
our reconciliation with ourselves and each other. We affirm the universal communion of
believers. We commit ourselves to be
Jesus’ followers.[4]
Dr. Ralph Blair,
who founded the organization in 1975, studied at
Most evangelicals fall somewhere
between these two views of homosexuality.
Proponents of a “hate the sin, love the sinner” ideology, they tend to
believe gays and lesbians deserve to be treated compassionately while
homosexual acts themselves deserve zero tolerance. Given the belief that unrepentant sinners
cannot enter heaven, the way these Christians believe homosexuals can be
redeemed is by abandoning the sin of homosexuality. This explains the rise of “ex-gay
ministries”, which seek to free gays and lesbians from the binds of lust for
others of the same sex, so that they may be saved from damnation. Exodus International, the largest such
ministry, describes itself as “a worldwide interdenominational, Christian
organization called to encourage, strengthen, unify and equip Christians to
minister the transforming power of the Lord Jesus Christ to those affected by
homosexuality.”[6] Exodus explicitly places itself between
groups like
Compared to Fred Phelps and Matthew Shepard’s murderers,
those in ministries like Exodus International seem to have taken a step in the
right direction and are a welcome relief from the blind hatred that is too
frequently expressed toward gays and lesbians.
On the other hand, for those who do “uphold homosexuality as a valid
orientation”, a ministry seeking to provide “freedom from
homosexuality through the power of Jesus Christ” (emphasis added) is, at best,
an insufficiently large step in the right direction. At worst, the ex-gay genre may ultimately
hurt the movement for gay and lesbian acceptance far more than it could ever
help. After discussing the views gay
evangelicals and those in ex-gay ministries have of each other, I will focus on
ex-gay ministries in order to assess their significance as move toward
acceptance. In doing so, I will briefly
consider some evangelical responses to feminist and racial issues, in order to
discuss how the ex-gay genre can be seen in a larger context of reconciling
past wrongs to an insufficient degree, thereby allowing present discrimination
to continue unabated.
How Each Side Sees the Other
Unlike the overtly homophobic
a problem with God.…Anything short of active compassion toward all
people, toward even the worst of people, is a shortfall of serious spiritual
consequence.…For all of us who feel like, ‘God hates sinners, and so do I,’ for
all of us who’ve ever even thought that, we desperately need to know that God
loves sinners. He died for them and is looking for some of us to share His attitude
toward the worst of the lost.[9]
These excerpts suggest that
mainstream evangelical Christianity is a far cry from the hatred exhibited by a
few radical fundamentalists. However,
with their characteristic “hate the sin, love the sinner” mentality, moderate
evangelicals are also far from condoning homosexual activity or any official
recognition of its acceptability. The Christianity
Today editorial quoted above makes sure to reaffirm the
sinfulness of homosexual behavior and expresses relief at the refusal of
several denominations to “equate homosexual unions with marriage.” And Stowell, in another broadcast, says, “I
do not know that I have ever grieved so deeply about something recently on the
American front, as I did about the ordination and the appointment, and as they
said in the newspapers, the consecration…can you imagine using that word, which
means to set apart and be sacred…the consecration of this gay man as bishop in
a church, because it was done…the point of my grief, it was done in the name of
Jesus, and under the banner of Christianity.”[10]
In the original spirit of
Christianity, these evangelicals seek to treat all people with compassion, but
this does not extend to acknowledging any right of gays and lesbians to act on
the love they may feel for someone of the same sex. Many, of course, deny that the feelings some
people have for others of the same sex are anything more than lust. And even when they acknowledge that true
romantic love can exist between two men or two women, most moderate
evangelicals argue that gays and lesbians should no more be allowed to act on
their love for individuals of the same sex than pedophiles should be allowed to
act on their love for preadolescent individuals or parents be allowed to act on
sexual love for their own children.[11] Gays, lesbians, and their allies counter by
claiming that true homosexual love is possible and that that it occurs all the
time, and they go on to say that a world of difference exists between
consensual, adult (homo)sexual activity, and
pedophilia and incest. Specifically, the
love a gay couple feels for each other is shared while the love of a pedophile
or lustful family member is generally not returned in the same way. Opponents of gay rights respond in turn by
pointing out that pedophilia and incest are illegal even if there is consent by
all involved.
This general argument can go back and
forth with no resolution in sight, but gay rights activists,
and many gay evangelicals in particular, have a specific criticism of ex-gay
ministries that is less easily countered.
Evangelicals Concerned’s Dr. Ralph Blair argues that the ministries
simply do not work, and that they never have.
In an article he wrote nearly two decades ago, he says,
All of the early movement’s leaders who claimed to be personally
"ex-gay" have now dropped out: Guy Charles of LIBERATION in Jesus
Christ, Roger Grind staff (also known as Roger Dean) of Disciples Only and a
consultant to Teen Challenge, John Evans of Love in Action, Jim Kasper and Mike
Bussee of EXIT at Melodyland, Greg Reid of EAGLE, Rick Notch of Open Door, and
many others. Alan Mediger, executive
director of EXODUS, the "ex-gay" umbrella organization, acknowledges
"that his group has had problems with ministry leaders who return to a gay
lifestyle...and that when an ex-gay is trying to help a struggling homosexual,
the temptation to fall is great."[12]
In a postscript
to this article, written a year later, Blair informs us that Colin Cook, who
led Homosexuals Anonymous, was “ousted for having sex with male counselees over
the past six years.”[13] Exodus’ own board chairman John Paulk was
seen in a
Apart from
believing ex-gay programs to be futile, it is a widely held belief among gays
and their allies that such therapy is just as unnecessary as creating
ministries to help “cure” straight people of their sexual attractions to
members of the opposite sex. While there
are doubtless gays and straights alike that would jump at a chance to be freed
from the intensity of lustful feelings they each have, the need for entire institutions
to facilitate this change is questionable.
Of course, this brings us back to the fundamental difference in beliefs
about the morality of homosexual activity itself, a topic outside the scope of
this paper. Whether it is, in principle,
morally right or wrong to do so, it is possible that by institutionalizing and
promoting the supposed liberation from homosexuality that these ministries
offer, moderate evangelicals may end up hurting gays and lesbians even as they
try to help. In order to more fully
assess this possibility, we will diverge briefly into a discussion of how race
and gender issues are handled by many evangelical Christians.
Race and
Gender Issues
In their book, Divided by Faith, Michael
Emerson and Christian Smith describe what they see as a tension between the
professed evangelical goal of racial reconciliation and the actual effects that
white evangelical Christianity has on racialization in the
By getting to know one or two
individuals or families of a different race, many white evangelicals can effectively
convince themselves that they are not personally racist, and thus that they
have done all they can to counter racism in general. “Because most white evangelicals perceive
racism as individual-level prejudice and discrimination, and do not view themselves
as prejudiced people, they wonder why they must be challenged with problems the
did not and do not cause…. When they do [have interracial contact], they are
friendly toward people they do meet from other races, and some even claim
healthy interracial friendships.”[16] Failure (or refusal) to recognize structural
aspects of racism allows it to continue nearly unabated on a societal
level. Having black friends who have
never been poor, or who managed to rise out of poverty, leads many whites to
conclude that those still living in poverty have no one but themselves to
blame. This is an especially common
conclusion among that majority of white evangelicals who have had only limited
contact with people of other races, and who are thus able to maintain their
belief in the individualistic nature of race relations in this country.
It is widely acknowledged among
evangelical Christians that feminism has allowed women to achieve more than
they would have been able to a few generations ago. Regarding the historical accomplishments of
feminism, many evangelicals go so far as to admit that the increased
successfulness of women is deserved, though they may deny the legitimacy of
most of the current goals of the feminist movement. Modern feminism is seen as illegitimate for
many of the same reasons as modern anti-(structuralized)-racism efforts are:
the central problems are believed to be solved.
Ralph Reed, in After the Revolution, says, “The movement of women to a
position of equality in the workplace where they can advance as far as their
talents can carry them is clearly progress…. The women’s movement won the right
to pursue careers for those women who wanted them.”[17] While the notion of women’s equality in the
workplace being progress is relatively new to conservatives, the notion that
enough social progress has already been made is not. On the contrary, it is perhaps one of the
core beliefs that define conservatism.
To believe enough change has already happened is to believe that
progressive movements demanding more are illegitimate.
One of the key factors supporting
the belief that the civil rights and feminist movements have accomplished what
needs to be accomplished is the achievement of formal equality. Official laws and regulations, for the most
part, are no longer discriminatory on their face, so to find the inequality
that still exists, one has to dig deeper than was necessary during the time of
Jim Crow. A strong supporter of the
authenticity of the American Dream, as most white evangelical Christians are,
will likely believe that this lack of formal discrimination implies a lack of
any inequality of opportunity. To use
the common playing field metaphor, this amounts to believing that, once the
playing field is level and none of the rules explicitly favor one side over the
other, the game is entirely fair.
Inequality in the enforcement of those rules, or in how well equipped
each team is to begin with, goes largely unnoticed, and so one side’s failure
to finish on an equal footing with the other is blamed on a failure to work as
hard as the other side.
How Ex-Gay Ministries Fit Into This Context
At first sight, it would appear that
the situation gays and lesbians face is significantly different from that faced
by women and racial minorities. Laws no
longer prohibit interracial marriage, for instance, but there has yet to be a
single state that officially recognizes same-sex marriages. So while it seems that formal equality has
been achieved with regard to race and gender, no such equality exists with
regard to sexual orientation. However,
the influence and popularity of the ex-gay genre helps convince many that sufficient formal equality has been achieved. If homosexuality is something that can be
cured as easily as any other harmful addiction, then refusing to recognize
same-sex marriage is less like refusing to recognize interracial marriage than
it is like refusing to allow an alcoholic to be a bus driver or a pedophile to
be a kindergarten teacher. Complete
formal equality is unnecessary and even foolish when it would require granting
equality to groups that are not equal.
Deciding what kinds of inequality are allowable, which amounts to
deciding what kinds of difference are significant enough to be reflected in the
law, has been a central question in the American legal system since its
beginning. Many race and sex differences
that are now seen as insufficient for warranting discrimination were once ruled
to perfectly legitimate bases for formal inequality, so we can hold out hope
that eventually those involving sexual orientation will be seen the same
way. But in the meantime, ex-gay
ministries and their most vocal supporters have done a good job convincing many
that, not only is homosexuality a choice people make after being born naturally
heterosexual, but it is also a choice that can be unmade by anyone willing to
take advantage of ex-gay programs.
Women and people of color who make
less than white men doing equal work are seen to deserve less pay because they
are assumed not to be working as hard or as effectively as their white male
counterparts. People of color living in
poverty are seen to deserve their socioeconomic class because they are assumed
to simply lack the abilities and drive that allow others to get themselves out
of poverty. Similarly, gays and lesbians
who are discriminated against or degraded at school or work or when trying to
get a marriage license are seen as deserving this degradation because, if they
didn’t want to be discriminated against, they either shouldn’t have chosen to
be homosexual in the first place or they should have taken advantage of
evangelicals willing to help them turn away from homosexuality.
Many or even most moderate
evangelicals probably believe that, while discrimination in hiring or granting
marriage licenses to gays and lesbians may be legitimate, no one deserves to be
made fun of or otherwise gratuitously degraded.
(Recall Dr. Joe Stowell’s statement that anyone with an attitude about
people in the world has a problem with God.)
But however inadvertent it may be, the programs these evangelicals
advocate to help gays and lesbians allow many of the less universally
compassionate to insult, degrade, and otherwise hurt gays and lesbians with impunity. Fred Phelps defines “fags” as those who are
unrepentant and proud of their sin (see note 15), and it is because of this
that he sees no problem running a website and leading a congregation so
explicitly dedicated to promoting hatred of all open gays and lesbians, as well
as anyone who enables gays and lesbians to come out without fear of violent
retribution.[18] If one
believes that homosexuality is a voluntarily sinful orientation, and that ample
opportunities exist for people to free themselves from it, then there is a
question of why open gays and lesbians should be afforded any more respect than
pedophiles or incestuous parents. As
long as members and advocates of ex-gay ministries continue insisting that a
“cure” for homosexuality is available to anyone who wants it, it seems that
those inclined to respond with ignorance and fear will continue to have some
ideological support for their sometimes violent mistreatment of gays and
lesbians.
Notes
[1] Fred Phelps, “Purpose of godhatesfags.com”, http://www.godhatesfags.com/main/purpose.html.
[2] Phelps, “
[3] Phelps, “Upcoming Love Crusades (Pickets)”,
http://www.godhatesfags.com/fliers/pickets.html. The Laramie Project link brings one to a
flyer describing the play, which is dedicated to Matthew Shepard, as
follows: “The Laramie Project fag play
is a tacky bit of banal melodrama -- unaffecting and drearily predictable --
without artistic or literary merit or redeeming social value. Its only purpose is to promote the satanic
sodomite agenda. The play's propaganda
scheme is to make a hero of Matt Shepard, for utilization as a poster boy to
recruit other young people to lives of sin, shame, misery, disease, death and
Hell. A 21-year-old misfit trolling for
illicit, perverted, promiscuous, anonymous fag sex in a cowboy bar in
[4] “Home Page”, 2004, http://www.ecinc.org.
[5] “Blair Bio”, http://www.ecinc.org/blairpg.htm.
[6] “Exodus International – Freedom from homosexuality through the power of Jesus Christ”, http://www.exodus-international.org/.
[7] “Exodus International – About Exodus”, http://www.exodus-international.org/about_exodus.shtml.
[8] Christianity
Today, “EDITORIAL: Walking in the Truth”,
[9] Dr. Joe Stowell, “Relentless Compassion – 1”, July 7, 2003. No. 1896 in the Moody Broadcasting Network’s daily Proclaim program. Transcript can be found at http://www.mbn.org/default.asp?SectionID=8C2DF60DDA3B4AEF85A79219F2A70FF6&subID=6879923C6A864B0EA33A49D722D08589
[10] Stowell, “Question on Grace – 1”, March 15, 2004. Proclaim #2076. Transcript can be found at http://www.mbn.org/default.asp?Sectionid=8C2DF60DDA3B4AEF85A79219F2A70FF6&subid=4652E23551434384B6D8A4FC3E71B45E
[11] In this same broadcast by Dr. Stowell, he says, “love can’t trump truth….The whole principle [of love justifying action] could be extrapolated to say, as a man I have a fourteen year old boy, whom I deeply love, and we are committed to each other,…so is pedophilia then justified on that? Or if a woman says, ‘You know my son is fifteen and he and I love each other, and we have a committed relationship to each other…’ the affirmation of love cannot be the ultimate point of morality.”
[12] Dr. Ralph Blair, “The Real Changes Taking Place in the Ex-gay Movement”, reprinted from Open Hands, Fall 1986 issue, http://www.ecinc.org/RealChanges.htm.
[13] Blair, “Postscript”, Winter 1987, http://www.ecinc.org/RealChanges.htm.
[14] Jody Veenker, “Ex-Gay Leader Disciplined for Gay Bar Visit”, October 6, 2000, http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2000/140/53.0.html.
[15] Barbara Dozetos, “
[16] Michael Emerson and Christian Smith,
Divided by Faith,
[17] Ralph Reed, After the Revolution, W Publishing Group, 1996, p. 39.
[18]
The Laramie Project protest flyer (note 3) includes the words, “God Hates Fags!
& Fag Enablers! Ergo, God hates The Laramie Project and
all producing it.”