ex gay was homosexuality fact fiction tony while i honestly believe you believe you are doing a good thing by posting that piece of propaganda i believe the more people believe that the more they will feel justified in their blatant persecution of gay oriented people i have seen the film called the gay agenda and along with my church we found it to be horrifying not because of what was actually shown cleaver use of editting can create any image one wants to portray rather becaseu we are familia familiar with how widely it was actively distributed and how many naive people are actually believing the garbage found within it the truth is that neither you nor i can fully speak for anyone who calls themself gay but knowing as many as i do and knowing their testimonies and witnessing thier faith and life i have to say that the report you posted is a very biased report something obviously claimed against gays as well the truth is that unless you are innately gay you cannot know what harm you are causing i speak as an abolitionist who supports affirming gay rights in our society i do not support wild sex or any other misrepresentations perpetrated by christian fundamentalist extremists but i know people who are not the sexual deviants your report paints them to be it is no mistake that the apa removed homosexuality from it s list of mental illnesses it is also no mistake that there are many christians and homophobes who long to bring it back to the list i do not feel threatened by gays i don t understand why others are the following is an article concerning two of the more popular ex gay min istries exodus international homosexuals anonymous the founder of an ex gay support group chooses homo over hetero by robert pela from gay oriented magazine advocate in december david caligiuri received one of the advocate s homophobia rewaa awards the a prayer a day keeps the lust away citation as director of free indeed a national ex gay ministry caligiuri was singled out for offering discontented gays and lesbians a way out of the homosexual death style through prayer i d like to give the award back caligiuri now laughs i m no longer deserve it caligiuri s eight year involvement with the national ex gay movement peaked with his founding of the phoenix chapter of homosexuals anonymous ha as well as free indeed he has since abandoned his pulpit and now says that the ex gay movement is a fruitless effort based on deception there s no reality in it he says i was selling a product and my product was a lie headed up by national ministries like exodus international and courage the organizations of the ex gay movement rely on the tenents of born again christianity to convince disatisfied homosexuals usually young gay men who are just coming out that they can shed their sexuality by suppressing their sexual urges and embracing christianity we offer support to people who are seeking to leave the sin of homosexuality explains bob davies director of exodus he ventures that about of those seeking to abandon their homo sexuality are men anybody who is involved in the ex gay ministry is misguided and is wasting their time says lisa seeley a former redeemed lesbian who worked with caligiuri as ha and appeared with him on the sally jessy raphael show these organizations are for people who are spiritually and emotionally wounded it s possible to change your identity or your behavior says sex educator brian mcnaught author of on being gay but it s really impossible to change your orientation these people are no longer calling themselves gay but they continue to have same sex erotic feelings caligiuri says he founded free indeed after an ominous week in when all hell broke loose in his personal life a few days after his lover ended both their romance and their business partnership caligiuri was sexually assaulted by a man he picked up in a bar i was really drunk he recalls and i went home with this guy he tied me up and raped me he left me tied up all night and the next morning he raped me again when caligiuri was eventually freed by the attacker he returned home to the home he shared with his ex lover he had another man there with him caligiuri recalls i thought at this time if this is what being gay is about i don t want to be this way anymore caligiuri vowed that if he could find a way out he would share his discovery with others he organized an antigay contingent to demonstrate at phoenix s gay pride parade in june and a few months later free indeed held its first public protest at a meeting to promote a gay civil rights ordinance free indeed members loudly blasted gays telling them ther were sinners headed for hell free indeed began receiving about a hundred telephone calls a week thanks in part to a deceptive listing in the local yellow pages we were listed under lesbian and gay alternative services caligiuri says so people thought we were a gay information switchboard people would call to find out where the local bars were and we d preach to them about the sins of homo sexuality ruses like this are typical of the movement caligiuri says adding they ll do anything to reach these people david used to go on radio and say really stupid things recalls peter kelly a counselor at phoenix s catholic diocese aids program like that he knew he was gay when he started wearing pastel colors caligiuri s family first found out about his ministry when they saw him on raphael s syndicated talk show in they were relieved he recalls they figured that if they had to have a gay person in the family better that i should be a reformed gay person but caligiuri was hardly reformed by the time i appeared on sally s show i d started having sex with men again men would call our hotline and tell me about thier latest sin sex with their pastor sex with their father i was horny all the time unable to risk going to gay bars where he might be recognized from his numerous television appearances caligiuri says he used to go to bookstores and get blowjobs when he wasn t working the bookstores he was sleeping with other reformed homosexuals i didn t realize it at first but a lot of the ha leaders were having sex with one another caligiuri says we d go to conferences in other cities and we d be paired up in hotel rooms everybody was sleeping with everybody else by the time he appeared on am philadelphia television show in may caligiuri was having anonymous sex a couple times a week when the show s host asked him if he ever acted on temptation his answer was a lie caligiuri s duplicity began to take it s toll on him however he was suffering from chrinic fatigue syndrome and candidiasis a dibilitating yeast infection and this led to his escape from the sect i was too sick to go to church he explains the more time i spent away from those people the more i began to feel like myself i began to remember who i used to be late in caligiuri turned free indeed phone lines over to a local church and closed the ministry s doors i d convinced myself that there is no need in the world for ex gay people he says today caligiuri is studying alternative spiritualities i m interest ed in belief systems that aren t judgemental considering romance but not with a christian and searching for a new project to devote himself to i feel compelled to commit myself to gay causes he says i want to eventually stop feeling guilty about what i did and make up for the damage i may have brought to our community end article caligiuri s tory is by no means unique and i have read several other articles of former leaders and founders of ex gay ministries who have said very similar th similar things fortuantely not all of them have left christianity but have come to realize that god loves them despite the attitudes of others some like chris glaser director of the presbyterian lazarus project of west hollywood presbyterian church have actually been working with the gay community to bring them into the sheepfold of christ and encouraging real ethical values of sexuality within the sphere of being gay i have also as i said talked and become and become close friends with many who once attended such groups as love in action and others who either once claimed to have been reformed or who were too honest with themselves to live a lie no matter who was disappointed in them some were even encouraged to marry as a way of sealing their new heterosexuality only to eventually start hitting the bars bathhouses and bookstores since these were usually activities under the concealment of night and one night stands of promiscuous behavior meant no continuous sin through a committed relationship this is a horrible trap which the church has dumped on the backs of the truly gay oriented people and the very inno cent victims in these cases are the wives and children of such marriages yet the church insists that there are only two options they are willing to allow gay people heterosexuality or celebacy this is sad what is also mrtifying is in the cases of those who cannot suppress their desires and fear for thier sanity in such a mixed up confusion that the church forces on them they may even opt for suicide or surgical dampering of the brain functions in the past lobotomies and heavey drug suppressants were common place there are now becoming available more and more literature on the threat of coercive christianity toward gays such as sylvia pennington s ex gays there are none and others there are also a great many fact based books being written to help people trapped in this confusion such as maury johnston s gays under grace and chris glaser s come hom i seriously recommend those for people seeking help for this persecution and self acceptance thank you
