Overview of Ex-Gay Issues

Ex-gay ministries and therapists have been active for about 30 years and say that thousands of folks have changed because of them. Their views, based in conservative religious faith, dominated the mental health fields in the early 20th century.

However, when researcher Dr. Robert Spitzer went looking for well-established ex-gays to study in 2000-2001, he only found 200 people eligible to participate in his study — even though he publicized his study through ex-gay ministries and reparative therapists for 16 months.

Most ex-gay leaders say that it’s possible to change from gay to straight, and a few sincerely believe they have changed their orientation. Most ex-gays, however, report they have only modified their behavior, not their sexual attractions.

Few leaders in the ex-gay movement claim a success rate any higher than 20 to 30 percent — and they do not clearly define what constitutes success.

In any event, they do not discuss what happened to the other 70 to 80 percent. Many of those who did not “succeed” have organized an “ex-ex-gay” movement with its own ministries to encourage tolerance, sexual moderation, and spiritual healing from wounds they say were caused by intolerant fundamentalism and prejudice.

Some ex-gay ministries and political outfits generalize about “homosexuality” or the gay “lifestyle,” asserting that all or most gay people are promiscuous, drug-addicted, depressed, emotionally unstable, incapable of long-term romantic relationships, and effeminate or tomboyish.

Of course, those generalizations are inaccurate, but some ex-gay groups believe in the stereotypes because their recruitment techniques happen to appeal disproportionately to people who suffer from untreated addictions, depression, or a desire for religious absolutism.

Groups like NARTH (the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality) say they are putting science to work in studying homosexuality and evaluating “treatments” for it. In fact, NARTH releases few detailed study results, none for peer review, and its public statements are frequently tainted by political and religious biases. For these reasons, NARTH has little credibility among mainstream therapists.

Exodus International is a conservative Christian network of ex-gay groups. Exodus says that faith is the problem and the answer — homosexuality happens when people walk away from God and the solution is to adopt conservative Christian faith and politics, and be either celibate or married. Exodus speaks for more than 100 local ex-gay ministries, many of which are relatively informal, unfunded support groups, a few of which have paid staffs. These ministries are more often led by laypeople who are ex-gay themselves than by professional therapists; open hostility toward the professions of psychology, psychiatry, social work, as well as Christians who affirm gays, is not unusual.

http://www.exgaywatch.com/about.html

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