Ex-Gay Or Just Exploited?

IRVINE- The commercial airing on Christian talk radio promises "sudden, radical, complete change. Through Christ, freedom is possible for those who struggle with same-gender attraction."
The radio spot is advertising the Exodus International conference this month in Irvine, where evangelical Christian ministers pledge to help reform gays and lesbians into living the straight life.
The controversial topic has attracted picketing by gay rights groups during Exodus' annual conferences in the past. This year, activists are doing something different: They are holding a competing conference the same weekend, a mile away at UC Irvine.
"This time, we decided instead of having a protest, why not just have an alternative conference?" said Michael Bussee, a co-founder of the Exodus movement who later recanted and now lives as a gay man.
The annual Exodus "Freedom Conference" expects to attract about 1,000 men, women, children, parents and spouses affected by homosexuality at Concordia University June 26 to July 1.
A bike ride away, at UC Irvine, co-sponsored by the university, is scheduled "The Survivor's Conference: Beyond Ex-gay."
"I think there will be cross-pollination going on, because many of us know each other," said Peterson Toscano, who said he had three exorcisms, and estimated he spent 17 years and $30,000 trying unsuccessfully to go straight. "Private meetings have already been set up for lunch and dinner."
The organizers of both conferences tell the same growing-up stories about being teased mercilessly. About being called ugly names. About the shame they felt about their attraction toward people of the same sex.
About the misery of evangelical Christians who struggle with the contradictions between what they consider a biblical injunction against homosexuality and the reality of their own lives.
Organizers of both conferences got counseling designed to help them "go straight," also known as "pray the gay away."
But they came to very different conclusions about the success of such programs and how much harm or help they can be.
"I chose to live differently, and my feelings changed, too," said Alan Chambers, president of the Orlando, Fla.-based Exodus International, who is married. "Today, I am a far different person. Not that I don't struggle, but my life has changed. I certainly don't have the desire to be involved in homosexuality. It has no power over me."
One of the original founders of the Exodus movement has a different view. Michael Bussee, who co-founded Exodus at Anaheim's Melodyland Christian Center in 1976, said he quit counseling people to go straight when he realized he couldn't even "cure" himself.
Bussee, who now lives in Riverside and is a licensed marriage and family therapist, said he knew he was gay since he was a boy. At age 12, he went to the public library looking for a book "about homosexuality so I could cure it, but the books said it was the result of mental illness."
Bussee became a born-again Christian, got married, studied anthropology and psychology at Cal State Fullerton, and hoped while involved with Melodyland that he could live as a straight man.
"I loved my wife and we both thought over time God would create heterosexual feelings in me," Bussee said. "Instead, I fell in love with my wife's best friend's husband."
By 1979, Bussee began to believe he was hurting the people he was trying to counsel in his ex-gay group.
"There were suicide attempts," Bussee said. "I had a guy in my group who took a razor blade to his genitals because he felt so guilty."
Bussee said he left Melodyland, was divorced and had several long-term committed gay relationships. He is still a practicing Christian. In recent years, he has picketed outside the Exodus conferences that he helped found. This year, he intends to attend the conference at UC Irvine instead.
Is homosexuality a disease to be cured? Not according to the American Psychiatric Association, which in 1973 changed its classification of homosexuality from a mental disorder to an orientation. The American Psychological Association followed suit in 1975.
"Reparative therapy" is "based on an understanding of homosexuality that has been rejected by all the major health and mental health professions," according to the American Psychological Association.
The American Academy of Pediatrics reported in 2004 that "current literature and most scholars in the field state that one's sexual orientation is not a choice; that is, individuals do not choose to be homosexual or heterosexual."
"Therapy directed specifically at changing sexual orientation is contraindicated, since it can provoke guilt and anxiety while having little or no potential for achieving changes in orientation," a position paper of the American Academy of Pediatrics states.
The American Psychiatric Association reported that the "potential risks of 'reparative therapy' are great, including depression, anxiety and self-destructive behavior, since therapist alignment with societal prejudices against homosexuality may reinforce self-hatred already experienced by the patient."
President Bush's choice for U.S. surgeon general, Dr. James Holsinger, has come under fire by gay rights groups for a position paper he wrote on homosexuality and his co-founding of a church that offers an ex-gay ministry.
While Exodus serves Protestant Christians, Evergreen International offers ex-gay programs to Mormons and Courage International for Catholics.
J. Larry Rivera, a Mission Viejo hospital nurse and Christian musician, was one of the people who sought help at Melodyland. He now believes such counseling is harmful.
"When you get fed the message that 'God loves you but he hates your sexuality,' that is a very nasty mixed message," said Rivera, a practicing Christian who now accepts himself as a gay man.
Toscano, a high school teacher from Connecticut, said he was so desperate to go straight that he moved into a Memphis-based residential program called Love in Action, where he paid $900 a month to learn how to overcome his homosexuality.
"Since I was 15, I had begged God to stop me from being a pervert," Toscano said in his book on the subject.
Program participants, Toscano said, were not allowed to wear after-shave, Calvin Klein clothing or anything too fashionable, because it was considered "homosexual." Classical music and classic movies were also banned, though biblical movies were allowed until it became obvious that scenes of half-naked Bible heroes were too arousing.
Rambo, though, was allowed as an example of a good he-man role model. Although most of the participants were white, middle-class men, a few women also were involved, he said. Lesbians got Mary Kay makeovers, he said.
Male participants were taught to play "manly" sports like football.
Today, Toscano travels the world with his one-man show about his experiences, "Doin' Time in the Homo No Mo Halfway House," which he plans to stage at UCI.
Exodus president Chambers agreed that people can't necessarily change their sexual orientation, but he said they can "live in accord with their beliefs and faith" by renouncing homosexuality and not engaging in same-sex relationships.
The ex-gay program "wasn't emotionally harmful to me and there are thousands and thousands of people who would agree," Chambers said.
While no statistics are kept, Chambers estimated about one-third of the people who seek help from Exodus "find and live out goals for their lives, including living heterosexually, restoring their marriage or living a celibate life."
Despite the controversy, thousands of people, including parents and spouses, contact Exodus each year seeking help with what they believe is a sinful lifestyle.
Although Toscano now mocks them, Chambers said football lessons for gay men are a "healing tool."
"Sports was something that was very difficult for me as a kid. I was made fun of a lot," Chambers said. "Going out there and playing with a bunch of people who were all made fun of for throwing like a girl, it's tremendously healing. Now, as a dad today, I'm not afraid to go out with my kid and throw a football."
from The Orange County Register