An Ex-Gay Watch reader found this item on Yahoo’s exgaydiscussionboard group. Someone there had asked whether an ex-gay should “minister” to gays at a gay pride festival. The response:

I would say that an ex-gay better be fully equipped
with armor… he/she better be really grounded in who he/she is
before taking on such a task… One would be walking in on their
turf… they are going to be at the peak of their “belief” are in the
depth of their sin if you will…. and it would take some really
strong people to address them at a parade! I would also worry about
the temptation of such an event… some folks just beginning their
recovery… ummmm that would be tough…

I frequently encounter this attitude among ex-gay friends and ex-gay political activists.

Where to begin with the observations?

  1. The speaker is still experiencing strong same-gender sexual attractions but misinforming the public about having left homosexuality.
  2. The speaker is projecting his own fears and hostilities onto his audience, assuming the worst about their reaction. I have spent years observing ex-gay ministers at tables in Washington’s Dupont Circle and the city’s gay pride festival. Apart from the few troublemakers likely to emerge on any controversial issue, the audience response has overwhelmingly been to ignore or politely engage the minister.
  3. The speaker is projecting his own superstitions onto the audience, accusing them of being at the “peak of their ‘belief'” and “depth of their sin.” Sexuality is not a religion or ideology. Nor is equality under the law. The speaker’s condescension toward “sinners” has no legitimate place in any faith, Christian or otherwise. And it is hypocritical, given the speaker’s own ongoing sexual attractions.

Unfortunately, it’s common for ex-gays to draw Satan into any discussion, transferring responsibility for their own decisionmaking, their own spiritual journey, from themselves to Satan.

Satan makes sin attractive… sin is fun! It is the consequence of
sin that is so painful… I think that if Satan could get me to a gay
parade then he would put before my face the most attractive guys
in “my type” category that one could find! Even though I think I am
very healthy… a firefighter does not jump into a blaze to see if it
is hot…..

The speaker projects Satan onto his audience, instead of accepting responsibility for his own thoughts. The speaker also declines to take charge of his own behavioral choices — assuming, for example, that if he meets an attractive stranger, he has no choice but to strip off his clothes and have sex.

The speaker needs to develop some maturity, but it does not appear that he is encouraged to do so by the particular ex-gay ministers that he has selected as peers at the exgaydiscussionboard. Instead, he is encouraged to blame gays, and Satan, for having to confront and make difficult choices in life. Instead of confronting these choices, he is encouraged to support legislation denying gays equality under the law, as a means of removing the choices one must confront as an adult. In the view of these particular minister-activists, liberty sucks. Life would be so much better if every potential sin under the sun were illegal and punishable by Big Government.

One thing that could be done is that a group could “Prayer Walk” the
parade route before the event takes place… praying for floats to
break down… for guys/gals to not find anyone at the event that
appeals to them… that is would rain on their event… that the Holy
Spirit use this time to convict folks of their sins…. that fussing
and bickering take place among the leadership and participants of the
event…. that pictures taken for the media would not turn out…
that cameras and other media equipment would break down… I have
been taught to get very creative and very specific in my prayer
life!

Here is yet another example of why gays become so impatient and annoyed at ex-gay activists. Ex-gays frequently pray, in public, for bad things to happen to gays. They become resentful when things don’t go badly, and blame the media. They pray for God to somehow tell other people how terrible they are, but they do not accept criticism in return.

To be fair, they do pray sometimes for God to make bad things happen to themselves, too — if God decides they are doing something “bad.” Again, this is an abdication of responsibility for one’s own behavioral decisions. Better to do something that might be harmful to others and wait to see if God punishes them, than to act responsibly in the first place.

I would have to look up specific scriptures, but didn’t even Jesus
avoid certain places and certain people in his journey??

Jesus of Nazareth avoided religious hypocrites, specifically those who condescended toward “sinners” and projected their own ill will onto God and humankind.

Categorized in:

Tagged in: