‘Ex-gay’ ministry reaches out to Hub
Critics abound, but converts credit God
By Patricia Wen, Globe Staff | October 28, 2005
**This is a repost of an article that appeared in the Boston Globe but is no longer available on-line
Brenna Simonds runs a small ministry less than a block from the State House for gays and lesbians who want to change their sexual orientation.
Simonds says she doesn’t care who wins the political battles over same-sex marriage. She is a humble Christian, she says, focused on God’s healing power. Those who seek her help are told that a heterosexual switch may never happen or that they may endure years of celibacy and struggle. But the stirrings of same-sex attractions can end, she says, as they did for her before she married a man two years ago.
”We believe when people grow in their relationship with God that their temptations will be lessened,” said Simonds, 30, who identified herself as a lesbian for 10 years before starting her ministry at Park Street Church. ”We’re here for people who are not happy with their lives.”
Perhaps no message is more incendiary to gay-rights advocates than the idea that sexual orientation is a matter of choice and that gays can convert from homosexual to heterosexual lives. Tomorrow, the national ”ex-gay” movement that shares this view will land in Boston for a conference that is expected to attract hundreds, including Simonds.
The movement’s theories about homosexuality have been widely rejected by the American Psychiatric Association and mainstream psychological organizations.
The conference, called ”Love Won Out,” has already set off protests from Boston’s gay community, with regular picketing at Tremont Temple Baptist Church, where the event is to be held. Protesters say the conference sets a hateful tone toward gays and lesbians.
Organizers, however, insist that their message focuses on quiet compassion and embracing all people. Gone, they say, are the loud fire-and-brimstone threats toward the gay community or any promises of overnight conversions to heterosexuality.
The event is sponsored by Focus on the Family, the nation’s most politically powerful group of conservative Christians. Speakers will include people who say they were previously gay and are now living as heterosexuals, as well as psychologists and ministers. Programs are aimed at parents, educators, and youth. One topic is described as advice on how to reduce the chances that a child will become a homosexual. And one speaker is Nancy Heche, whose daughter had a high-profile relationship with comedian Ellen DeGeneres.
Organizers, who have been running such events for seven years, say they have long wanted to bring the conference to Massachusetts, which legalized same-sex marriage in May 2004. While they anticipated resistance, they did not expect so much in advance.
”We have experienced more hostility and intolerance from the gay and lesbian community in Boston than anywhere else,” said Melissa Fryrear, a former lesbian who works at Focus on the Family.
Critics of the conference say that no matter how gently put, the message from the ex-gay movement is that homosexuality is wrong, something to be avoided.
Furthermore, critics say, the rehashing of the nature-versus-nurture debate has the insidious effect of undermining gay rights. National polls show that Americans who believe that homosexuality is innate are far more likely to support same-sex marriage.
”There’s a hidden agenda here,” said Mark Snyder, founder of Queer Today, a political group that expects scores of protesters at this weekend’s conference. ”They want to turn back the clock.”
While ex-gay ministries may have softened their tone, they have ”been forced to change the message because of embarrassing scandals and failures,” said Wayne Besen, author of the book ”Anything But Straight,” about ex-gay groups.
Besen photographed John Paulk, a former national spokesman for the ex-gay movement who founded the ”Love Won Out” conference, coming out of a gay bar in Washington, D.C., in 2000, though Paulk has insisted he is straight. Also, two men who helped launch Exodus International, the nation’s largest umbrella group of ex-gay ministries, left their wives for each other.
The message from ex-gay ministries is especially damaging to gay teenagers struggling to accept their sexual identities, said Jack Drescher, who chairs the committee on gay, lesbian, and bisexual issues of the American Psychiatric Association.
”They can mask it in the language of love all they want,” said Drescher. ”But it’s about revulsion and hatred of homosexuality.”
But conference organizers, as well as leaders of local ex-gay ministries, insist they have been misunderstood. They do interpret the Bible as condemning homosexuality, but they say their chief aim is to help those who struggle against their homosexuality and seek Christian guidance.
”We don’t cure people,” said Randy Thomas, membership director for Exodus International, which has more than 100 ex-gay ministry chapters nationwide. ”The goal is Christ, not a particular orientation.”
Thomas said he had gay relationships from the time he was a teenager. He believes he was drawn to men largely to make up for troubled bonds with his father and says he stopped seeking gay relationships when he found Christianity in his mid-20s. Now 37, he said he is starting to date women, but is unsure if he will ever attain his dream of marriage.
Thomas said he doesn’t understand why Massachusetts gay activists are so hostile to his group’s message. He recalled being humiliated when he testified at the State House in Boston two years ago against same-sex marriage. When he talked about his decision to renounce his homosexual life, he said, ”the whole room erupted in laughter.”
”When I was a young teenager, I was laughed at for identifying as gay,” he said.
Dawn Videto, who says she used to be a lesbian and who runs a ministry out of Uxbridge in western Masschusetts, said she never gets involved in politics. Right now, she is focusing on helping five people in her group, including two teenage students from devout families who are struggling with homosexual feelings.
A 24-year-old real estate broker said he was spiritually lost when he entered Simonds’s ”Alive in Christ” ministry in Boston. He and his longtime boyfriend, who nearly married last year in Boston, had split up. He said that the ministry helped him deal with his struggles over homosexuality and that while he is celibate now, he hopes to yearn for women. He said he would never have stayed with the ministry if it had tried to dictate his behavior.
”They do not want me to be straight and sleep with girls,” said the young man, who asked to remain anonymous. ”It’s not what it’s all about.”
Simonds agreed that members are free to speak their minds, even to express a continued desire for same-sex relationships. She said she doesn’t solicit members to her group, only helps those who approach her. She says she tries to show universal compassion, including toward the woman who recently quit her group because she no longer agreed with its premise on homosexuality.
”She wasn’t sure it was a sin,” Simonds said.