'Love Won Out' To Have New Organizers

Focus on the Family announced on Tuesday that it will be passing the reigns of its Love Won Out conferences on homosexuality to another ministry.
The move is a logical step, the Colorado Springs-based evangelical organization said, especially as it faces a "serious" budget shortfall.
"Everyone knows these are challenging times for organizations and individuals all across the globe," said Gary Schneeberger, vice president of media and public relations for Focus on the Family, in a statement. "It is not an inexpensive undertaking to put on a Love Won Out event; and contrary to what our detractors say, the conferences rarely have recouped the financial investment made in them. That is a cost we have always paid because of the positive impact the events have had."
Jim Daly, president and CEO of the family ministry, said income is down nearly $6 million from what they planned for this year.
Starting November, Love Won Out conferences will be led by Exodus International, one of the largest Christian organizations that deals with homosexual issues and promotes "freedom from homosexuality through the power of Jesus Christ." Exodus has always contributed to and been a part of the conferences.
Although financial realities played a role in the conference's transition, Schneeberger said the move also makes strategic sense.
"Exodus is really the one who should be running 'Love Won Out' anyway," he said, according to The Associated Press.
Launched in 1998, the Love Won Out conference has traveled to churches around the world, educating Christians on how to respond to the issue of homosexuality in a biblical way and offering hope to those struggling with same-sex desires. The conference has been met with dozens of protests by gay activists who claim the event sends a message of homophobia and hatred.
But James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family and a preeminent evangelical, has stressed that Love Won Out conferences are not about hate or rejection.
"Regardless of what the media might say, Focus on the Family has no interest in promoting hatred toward homosexuals or anyone else," he last year as the ministry marked the 10th anniversary of Love Won Out. "We also don't wish to deprive them of their basic constitutional rights. The Constitution applies to all of us."
While the conservative family group opposes redefining marriage, Dobson said they are committed to loving homosexuals and reaching out to them.
Focus on the Family will continue to support Love Won Out financially and by providing speakers.
"After all, we're still in the truth and grace business," commented Melissa Fryrear, director of the ministry's gender issues department and a Love Won Out speaker and host for more than six years.
The transition comes as Exodus International is boosting efforts to educate and equip mainline and evangelical churches to respond to homosexuality compassionately and effectively. Last month, Exodus announced plans to merge with outreach ministries of the Presbyterian and Reformed faith communities and The United Methodist Church.
Alan Chambers, president of Exodus International, said the Love Won Out conference is "a natural fit" in their ongoing efforts.
"Love Won Out has been and will continue to be a powerful event dedicated to helping the global Christian church better understand and more effectively reflect biblical truth and Christ-like compassion to a hurting world," Chambers assured.
The final Love Won Out conference for 2009 is scheduled for Nov. 7 in Birmingham, Ala., and will be led by Focus on the Family before the transition.
from The Christian Post

Sorry Exodus, Homosexuals Can Completely Change

Stephen Bennett, President of Stephen Bennett Ministries, a pro-family organization advocating for the traditional family, the protection of children and proclaiming the truth about homosexuality, condemned the irresponsible and disturbing remarks attributed to and made by Alan Chambers, President of Exodus International, an organization claiming to be "The largest information and referral ministry in the world on homosexual issues."
Bennett, along with many others pro-family leaders, were shaken Monday by Chamber's remarks and are eagerly awaiting Exodus International's official response to their President's misguided statements.
In Monday's Los Angeles Times article, the writer alludes to a posed question to Chambers, possibly, "Are there really such people as ex-gays?"
The writer, then based upon a response from Chambers writes, "Truth is, he's not sure he's ever met one."
What's odd is that Alan Chambers, President of Exodus International, is a supposedly a former homosexual himself.
In the same article, one of the most troubling quotes by Chambers states, "By no means would we ever say change can be sudden or complete."
What? Then what exactly does Exodus International offer as "hope" to individuals struggling with unwanted same-sex attraction and to families of homosexual-identified individuals?
On CNN's "The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer", the interviewer positioned Chambers as concurring there may be a "biological" basis for homosexuality.
There is ZERO biological, scientific "evidence" for homosexuality to this date. The biblical evidence for homosexuality is very clear: it's sin.
For Bible believing Christians, homosexuality is, was and always will be a sinful lifestyle - condemned by God throughout the Old and New Testament - a sin that anyone involved in, must repent from.
Stephen Bennett, an ex-gay himself now for 15 years, happily married for 14 years to his wife Irene and the father of their two children, stated, "Frankly, I am shocked that the President of the largest information and referral ministry in the world on homosexual issues, would ever make such irresponsible and false public statements. If Mr. Chambers, a married man and father who once engaged in homosexuality himself, says he's never met 'a former ex-gay' or one who has 'changed completely', he's personally invited to our home in Connecticut to meet one. I'd also be happy to introduce him to numerous other individuals - all former homosexual men and women."
Bennett once engaged in the homosexual lifestyle for 11 years with over 100 men - losing partners and friends to HIV/AIDS, until everything changed in 1990 - when he was confronted with the gospel of Jesus Christ. He dealt with his root issues and in 1992 completely changed. Stephen no longer struggles whatsoever with homosexual temptation.
"Homosexuality is an outward expression of an inward conflict. When I completely dealt with my inward conflict, my alcoholism, cocaine addiction, bulimia AND homosexual struggle were completely gone," said Bennett.
Stephen continued, "What we see here is the public divide of the pro-family movement. One camp believes 'dialoguing' with homosexual advocates and activists will bring about a happy middle ground and compromise for all. That, I'm afraid, will NEVER happen. You see, 'compromise' is not in God's dictionary -- and of course homosexual activists are loathe to compromise on their core beliefs. The other pro-family camp biblically believes homosexuality is, was and always be a sinful lifestyle that individuals were not born with, yet a lifestyle they CAN experience COMPLETE freedom from. I am in that camp. I don't believe in encouraging a dysfunctional, dangerous and potentially deadly lifestyle, but COMPLETE liberation from it."
Bennett ended, "Let the chips fall where they may. It's time the world knows where those in the pro-family movement stand. It was Jesus Christ alone who set me free from the sin of homosexuality - not an ex-gay group, not reparative therapy and not any psychologist. I was made whole by the Word of God and the blood of Jesus Christ shed for me on Calvary, and I will proclaim and offer that same hope, freedom, grace, truth and reality to all who seek it until the day that I die. I pray my brother Alan Chambers will grasp that same message.
"For I am NOT ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ [Romans 1:16], for it was Jesus Christ alone who saved me, delivered me and set me COMPLETELY free from my sinful homosexual past."
from The Christian News Wire

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

'Ex-gay' movement: Saved? Or Shoved Back Into The Closet?

COLORADO SPRINGS, COLORADO - The Rev. Ted Haggard story has reignited discussion about what makes a person gay - and whether someone can switch sexual orientation and become an "ex-gay."
On one side are organizations like Focus on the Family and Exodus International, which at conferences across the country teach that homosexuality is a lifestyle that can be overcome.
On the other are groups such as Truth Wins OUT, formed specifically to counter such ministries and whose director, gay activist Wayne Besen, says there's no such thing as an "ex-gay."
"It's a recloseted homosexual," Besen said. "I have never met an ex-gay who isn't on the payroll of a group like Focus on the Family or Exodus."
Besen monitors both ministry groups, sometimes attends their conferences and said he has exposed "ex-gays" - including a former Focus on the Family employee - in compromising situations. Just last week, Truth Wins OUT posted two videos on YouTube aimed at further debunking what Besen calls "the ex-gay myth."
A video released Thursday features Robert L. Spitzer, a Columbia University psychiatry professor who says Focus on the Family is using his research on homosexuality out of context. And on Valentine's Day, Besen posted a nine-minute video that features a Mormon couple who are divorcing after 25 years because the husband is gay.
Besen said the movement to reform gays by encouraging marriage ends up hurting spouses and children.
"There is a lot of pressure to be normal and get married," Besen said. "They treat the spouse as collateral damage in their social experiment."
Besen said no amount of therapy - he calls it "praying away the gay" - can turn a gay person straight.
"It's about denial. If you look at the programs themselves, it's about actors playing roles," he said.
"All roads run through Colorado Springs," Besen said of the ex-gay movement. "James Dobson's calling the shots."
Besen's Web site calls the "Love Won Out" conferences sponsored by Focus on the Family "the single biggest ex-gay threat individual communities face."
Focus on the Family holds six such conferences a year that average 1,000 attendees each, according to Melissa Fryrear, the ministry's director of gender issues and self-described former lesbian. The most recent conference was Feb. 10 in Phoenix.
"We're addressing a number of topics related to homosexuality from an orthodox Christian viewpoint," Fryrear said. "We're offering attendees an explanation as to what we think is the development of same-sex attraction."
Fryrear and others in the movement believe environmental factors, temperament, childhood influences and a person's interactions with peers all can contribute to the formation of same-sex attractions.
She said a disproportionate number of people she's worked with have had a breakdown - real or perceived - in their family relationships.
"Understand we're not saying that in every case. We've talked with some men, for example, and their father wasn't able to be really physically and emotionally present to them."
The result, she said, is that some men then seek out the affirmation of other men in homosexual relationships.
"We don't believe there's a gay gene. We also believe that by and large, men and women don't choose these feelings," she said.
Fryrear said she spent 10 years immersed in the gay community, beginning at age 16. In 1992, when she was 26, she said she "made a conscious decision that homosexual behavior was wrong" and began intensive work that included counseling, support groups and conferences.
"I've come out of so many closets, it's a wonder I can find my shoes," she said. "And by the way, they're pumps now instead of Army boots."
Fryrear believes her attractions to women were influenced by the fact she was adopted and by other childhood issues.
She said that even if science can prove a genetic link to homosexuality, it would not change what Focus teaches.
"The reason why is because homosexuality for us is also a moral issue," she said. "It's really what we believe and what we're for is sexual behavior expressed within the boundary of marriage between one man and one woman."
Fryrear said she has not talked with her former partner in more than a decade. She said she is very happy with her life and has a preference for red-headed men.
She doesn't have a boyfriend, but is "accepting proposals."
At Focus, she has the position once held by John Paulk, whose story of leaving homosexuality and getting married was on the cover of Newsweek in 1998. Paulk also was on the board of Exodus International and became the face for the organization's cause.
He made national news again in 2000, this time when Besen photographed him at a gay bar in Washington, D.C. He resigned from Focus in 2003 and moved with his family to Oregon, where he is a chef and owner of a catering company.
Paulk declined a request for an interview, saying he is living a normal life out of the media glare with his wife and children.
Floyd Godfrey, director of Family Strategies & Coaching in Phoenix who works with men wanting to change their sexual orientation said he, too, spent several years in counseling. He said he's now been married 14 years and has three children.
Godfrey, like Fryrear, cited "a constellation of factors" behind same-sex attraction, which often includes "a disruption in the connection with their father," and that his work focuses on the emotional issues behind those factors.
"If a young boy misses the bonding or insufficiently bonds with the same-sex mentor, that need for bonding doesn't go away," he said.
"This is not a fast therapy," he said, adding he only works with people who want to change. "If a kid is coming (to therapy) and their parents want them to change, we don't do that."
Besen believes no amount of therapy or prayer will make someone straight.
"I think Haggard has done more damage to the ex-gay cause than any activist could do in a hundred years," Besen said.
"If this guy couldn't pray away the gay, who can?"
from The Kansas City Star