Gay Rights Groups Protest Outside Of 'Love Won Out' Conference

MANCHESTER, MISSOURI - A traveling conference of former gay ministries came to the suburbs of west St. Louis County on Saturday.
As gay-rights groups staged a peaceful protest outside the First Evangelical Free Church, conventioneers spent the day inside, mostly listening to speakers who say they were previously gay. Parents of gay and lesbian children got advice and could speak to counselors about what to do, short of accepting their child’s behavior.
"We suggest you decline an invitation to a civil commitment ceremony," Melissa Fryrear told a group of parents. Some busily took notes; a few others wiped away tears. "So many Christians are yielding on this part."
The Love Won Out event was sponsored by Focus on the Family, a conservative Christian group that Fryrear works for in Colorado, and Exodus International, an umbrella group of ex-gay ministries. The conference is in its eighth year, but this is its first time in St. Louis.
Organizers say the turnout of 1,700 was the largest of their 37 U.S. conferences. Organizers said people came from 28 states.
Most of the audience were parents and family members of gay people, while about one-fourth were ministers.
"There’s not one set model of, ‘If you do this, someone will go straight tomorrow,’" said Alan Chambers, president of Exodus, who said he left homosexuality in 1991. "It’s a long process."
Bill Maier, a psychologist and conference speaker, said the talk isn’t fire-and-brimstone as churches did in the past. Organizers stressed that parents should be nice to their children’s gay partners. They shouldn’t bring it up in every phone call or the kids will stop calling.
Still, no matter how kind the organizers said family members should be, their point was not lost. They all stressed that a gay lifestyle is a sin. The speeches breezed right over normally divisive topics without challenge because the opposition was largely outside in the cold. As conventioneers arrived in the morning, more than 350 protesters waited with handmade signs. Police reported no trouble. Protesters waved and smiled at the sedans and minivans lined up to park.
A few young women chanted at cars, "Two-Four-Six-Eight, how do you know your wife is straight?"
"It’s ridiculous the church thinks we need therapy," said Warren Lacey, 65, of St. Louis. He carried a sign, "God Made Me Gay." Lacey said he’s known since about age 5 that he was attracted to males. "It’s part of your nature. It’s not a decision to be made. It’s part of you."
At least four of the conference’s main speakers said they previously were gay but were now living heterosexual lifestyles. They took center stage in the church’s massive sanctuary, with highly orchestrated slide presentations flickering on overhead screens on either side of a stained-glass cross window.
Fryrear’s presentation was typical for the day: Bathed in overhead lights, she paced the stage in her cream-colored skirt and business jacket. She chronicled how she went from a 13-year-old questioning her sexuality to a college student whose whole life revolved around being gay. She said she left that lifestyle after immersing herself in church activities in Kentucky and now works for Focus on the Family as a genders issue analyst.
She told parents in the crowd not to blame themselves for their children’s struggles with same-sex relationships. Sometimes, she claimed, lesbianism can be traced to "an inner sense of emptiness and longing," a fractured mother-daughter relationship" and some type of sexual abuse.
"Ever wonder why some lesbians look mannish?" she asked. "It’s a vulnerability to be a woman. That suit of armor to keep you from being hurt."
One parent, Diana Hoaglan of Memphis, has a 21-year-old son who told her six years ago that he was gay. She said she loves her son and insists they have a good relationship, but she told him early on that he can never bring his partner into her home.
"He has a choice" about his sexuality, Hoaglan said. "I can pray for him but I can’t control him."
Conference speakers hawked books outside. A $50 boxed set called "Male Homosexuality Package," for example, included books called "Coming out of Homosexuality" and "You Don’t Have to Be Gay."
Not everyone inside the church supported the conference’s message. Critics came, as well – paying the same $50 or $60 admission fee to take part. One was Meredith Anderson, a student at Eden Seminary and a member of the United Church of Christ. She said the tone at the conference was far from any feel-good message of love that promoters claimed.
"What I’m hearing instead is, ‘We’ll really love you more if you will change,’" Anderson said. "What makes me so angry is that a lot of clergy and straight folks aren’t speaking out about this."
Elena Pahl, 21, of St. Louis, said she was standing with the protesters Saturday because she doesn’t like the message the convention was sending.
"They call (being gay) a disease," Pahl said. "I’m a pretty active Christian and I don’t appreciate that view."
In one small group session Saturday, Chambers admitted that one of the founders of Exodus had left the group and married a gay man in a civil ceremony. "What sense do I make of it? People fall back into sin," Chambers said. "There are all sorts of reasons why people go back."
from St. Louis Post-Dispatch