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The Ex-Gays

Discussion in 'Current Events, World News, & LGBT News' started by Legnaj, Jan 31, 2009.

  1. Pendrin2020

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    Look at the suicide rates among graduates.... Case closed.
     
  2. ccdd

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    I believe the whole ex-gay movement is misguided and dangerous. For starters, it is based on the premise that there is something wrong with being gay and that you should try and change yourself. Not only is this wrong, but if you then fail to "change", then you are that much further away from self-acceptance, and can be overcome with feelings of guilt and shame.

    It is also not possible, I don't believe, to change your orientation by force. I personally feel (from my own experience) that some people whose overall life experiences point to them being bisexual overall can feel their sexuality change over time (going through periods when more gay, other periods when more straight, for instance, this periods being either long or short), but this, I believe, is who they are in the first place, and cannot and should not be controlled.

    In any case from what I seem to have read, very few ex-gays experience a total end to same-sex attraction and experience real and true opposite-sex attraction. It appears that for many, it's a case of not acting upon the same-sex attraction, or repressing it so much that you feel no attraction to anyone at all. To those who do come to feel attracted to people of the opposite sex, I personally wonder if they are perhaps, in fact, bisexual, and repressing their gay side and only letting their straight side flourish. Or indeed, those who are happy (if there are any) in a heterosexual relationship are bisexual and have met their "soul mate" or whatever, who happens to be the opposite sex - in a way totally irrelevant to the ex-gay movement and their practices. These are just my thoughts anyway. But I certainly don't agree with their methods, their explanations for homosexuality, or indeed anything they say, and think it can be terribly harmful.
     
    #22 ccdd, Feb 2, 2009
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  3. 1974

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    I think its a bunch of crap, they tried to pray it out of me and it didnt work, DENIAL....:bang:
     
    #23 1974, Feb 2, 2009
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  4. moonlake

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    What I don't understand about these people is how they arrive at the conclusion that homosexuality is a sin. And such a big one mind you, that people must be subjected to intense and difficult therapy in an attempt to cure them.

    One of the great things about Christianity is that moral rules are always subject to questioning and need justification in order to be considered valid. That was one of the major changes Jesus introduced into Judeo-Christianity.

    With almost all of the major moral issues (abortion, divorce, stem cell research etc) you can find rational reasons to justify these being a sin. That is not to say that there aren't reasons against such a designation also - but at least you can construct logically coherent arguments pro and con.

    Regarding homoseuxality I have yet to hear a single reason why homoexuality is inherently bad or sinful. All that fundementalists ever come up with is that it's "disgusting and every decent person knows that" - not a very sound argument if you ask me. After all many people find spinach incredibly disgusting - is it a sin to eat spinach as well ?
     
  5. zoeee

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    when i hear that i think of the movie but i'm a cheerleader xD
    but i think it's weird...have never really thought about it. if there are "ex gays" i think they either werent actually gay before and just thought they were or they pretend they aren't anymore even though they still are...i guess
     
  6. BabyBoy

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    Saying "I'm not gay anymore" just sounds like fear in the form of a lie to me. :dry:
     
  7. 1974

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    I think they should use the verse

    "do not point out the speck in you friends eye when there is a plank in yours" its something like that anyway. What they dont realise is the history behind the verses they use to bash us. there are 5 that relate to homosexuality and nearly all of them realte to rape which is wrong anyway and another one which relates to married men sleeping with male protestutes. Not that two people who love each other who happen to be the same sex should be damned. Where as there are hundreds of verses that talk about so called immoral hetrosexual acts, me thinks there is alsight imbalance here


    Sorry kinda feel strongly about this one, im fed up with the right wing christian attitudes, what happened to love thy neighbour???? eh!

    That being said i have tonight comeout to two of my most christian friends and they were brilliant so there is hope still. :icon_bigg
     
  8. silas99

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    Well done 1974, that's good work.

    On this whole issue I'm with ccdd. Im a big believer that sexuality is very much on a sliding scale, from totally heterosexual to totally homosexual at the ends. From my experience the majority of people do not fall on the ends of the scale. They spread themselves across the line. In a perfect world people would express their true sexuality for what it is, but unfortunately in this society homosexuality is portrayed as a weakness. So most of the people on the scale will actually only express the heterosexual element of their sexuality. Perhaps the self confessed "ex-gays", who are genuinely happy, are those who were somewhere in the middle and so where not entirely homosexual to start off with. OK not sure if that makes any sense...it does in my head anyway.

    Just on a completely different side; In ancient Greece and Rome it was very common for older men to have "toyboys" and it was socially accepted. The romans very much believed in expressing their true sexuality. Its written about in mythology as if it was the norm... Hercules and Iolaus, Achilles and Petroclus. Anyone who has watched the movie Troy will know that Petroclus was portrayed as Achilles' cousin, but in Homer's Iliad he was actually his best friend and they were also lovers. Achilles had several lovers mainly female, but his love for Petroclus was true.

    Went completely off topic but this whole issue on interchangable sexuality made me think of that story. Geek at heart!
     
  9. silentsound

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    Sometimes, after a trip or other extended period of time spent sleeping, eating, and breathing alongside my straight friends talking and acting as though I were straight as well I find myself thinking "ha, I was straight all along this gay thing was just some freak out I created for myself...duh." My point is that if you say something enough times you start to believe it yourself. It's the same thing, except at the end of the day I know I'm still gay and I will feel the same way once I am alone in my room chatting on EC. But if you want to believe something bad enough over time, you start to. I believe that reformed gays believe themselves to be "cured". Whether they are is another matter.
     
  10. JMar2222

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    i say if you're gay, you're gay and same for being bisexual. it's in our DNA, that's who we are, what our brain is programmed and wired to recieve other sexes sexually attractive. It's as simple as that. I think being "ex-gay," whether it is through religious or "moral" force is just a hopeless desire to rid oneself of anything that keeps them from the status quo, and fear of being gay, or homophobia. To forcefully try to make someone heterosexual is like trying the catch the reflection of the moon on the lake. A man can marry a female, a female can marry a male, but if they're gay, they always will be.
     
  11. avlgirl

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    a cure for being a lesbian? Thank goodness I did not realize it before I contracted it!

    Hmmm.... what will they do when they realize that homosexuality exists in all animal life forms not just humans?
     
  12. gutsrie

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    I actually have a friend who is an ex-gay. He claims his religion and God changed him but I really don't see it. He still checks out guys and tells me whenever he sees a cute one. The only thing that has changed is he is forcing himself to date girls. Unless he's bi but still... Can someone say denial???
     
  13. Emberstone

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    they basically drill the notion that "god hates you and you will burn forever in hell and your family will be murdered so they burn along side you if you dont change your orientation." i wish that was a exageration, but i have heard basically that exact thing from people who were sent to those repression bible camps.

    It should be outlawed, because it poses as medical treatment, and comes with a vulgerly high suicide rate.
     
  14. Maggi

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    i think they are just trying to deny it for external reasons. i dont beieve that they are "cured" at all.
     
  15. Alexander

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    While I desperately want to give ex-gays the benefit of the doubt, they sound too "good" to be true (it's all a matter of perspective!).
     
  16. Amy

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    If someone tries to change themselves because they think who they are is wrong is one thing, but trying to force someone into thinking that they are a disgrace is one of the worse things I could imagine.


    Ex-lesbians are just as common. There is a current court case on the East Coast (MA and CT, if I remember correctly). An ex-lesbian couple is having a custody battle over their legal daughter. The ex-lesbian had a daughter and her partner legally adopted her while they were together. The ex-lesbian is now suing for full custody as she believes her ex-partner is a terrible influence on their daughter. She also believes that she should be the one taking care of her as she is her biological mother and also the one who is right in the eyes of God.
     
  17. Nugget

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    Gee, I wonder how far that would take her (if not for the biological relation).
     
  18. Dazed

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    the girl i loved was cured by the mormon church. >_<
    Ex-Gays break hearts.
    :[
     
  19. xequar

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    You've never heard of them because they're much like leprechauns and unicorns. Little kids can be positive that Santa Claus exists, but that doesn't make it true.

    Ex-gays are a MYTH put out by the same people who brought us the myths of the bible for their own financial gain. Every legitimate medical and psychological association has condemned ex-gay therapies as ineffective and downright dangerous to the health and well-being of the patient. Every legitimate study done on the matter has shown that those who have gone through ex-gay therapy are still gay, and any study that does say that there are ex-gays was funded by the likes of NARTH and Yarhouse Jones, both of whom are big proponents of ex-gay therapy. A comparable situation would be the cigarette companies funding studies that ultimately say that cigarettes have positive effects on your health.

    Indeed, some of the poster children for the ex-gay movement have been found out to be gay. Ted Haggard, who used to be the pastor of the virulenly anti-gay New Life mega-church finally admitted he had been sleeping with male prostitutes and using meth, and it's recently been revealed that his church, which funded an ex-gay program, had been paying hush money to several people to keep it all quiet.

    The American Family Association sells a DVD called "It's Not Gay," and one of the major "success" stories actually spoke out against the DVD about three years later. He is still gay and now regrets ever having been part of it. Yet, the AFA STILL to this day has the DVD for sale for a "suggested donation" of $15. The AFA has also had a number of researchers issue cease-and-desist orders when they discovered the AFA was misrepresenting their work.

    But, there's one big part of the equation that most people miss. These ex-gay groups like NARTH and the Cristofacist religious right deliberately change the meanings of words to confuse the conversation. We all know that "gay" refers to sexual orientation, as in to whom we're physically attracted, to whom we form emotional and romantic bonds, and ultimately, with whom we have sex. That's the definition accepted by society, by all legitimate medical and psychological organizations, and of course, by us. The Christoban religious nutters, on the other hand, define gay ONLY as those people who live completely openly and unrepentantly. I would be called gay by the religious reich, but a gay person who's still in the closet would NOT be called gay by them. A closeted gay person to them is one that "struggles with same-sex attractions," or something similar.

    And finally, speaking from my own experience, I tried to be straight for several years. All it did was make me a very depressed and traumatized person, and yes, it was one of the contributing factors to me very nearly killing myself about five years ago. I tried liking sports and prayer and most of the ex-gay therapy without actually doing one of the camps. Trust me, it didn't work.
     
  20. Remington

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    I know there was this one lady who was part of a big gay/lesbian organization, and she had been standing in the middle of the park, watching all of these gay/lesbian couples.

    Well, apparently, she heard the voice of God, ("This is wrong!") and 'repented'. She then met a man and got married.

    Yaay, ex-gays. T_T