Pro-exgay blogger Disputed Mutability calls the Exodus leaders’ new book, God’s Grace and the Homosexual Next Door, “profoundly alienating.”

DM is especially dismayed at Exodus leaders Alan Chambers and Mike Goeke for their assertion that celibacy is sinful and for their sloppy repudiation of official Roman Catholic policy on both celibacy and the unlikelihood of so-called “change.”

Says Alan Chambers:

This is why I believe that it is so important to clarify that just living a celibate gay life is just as sinful as living a sexually promiscuous one. The sin is in identifying with anything that is contrary to Christ, which homosexuality clearly is. (218)

Says Mike Goeke:

Many who leave homosexuality behind are unwilling to accept that their only option is to live a life of celibacy, simply managing unwanted attractions. What they really want is a change in identity. They no longer want the gay label attached to them. (69-70)

The Exodus authors seem to be consumed by ideology and labeling, and this preoccupation with labels separates them from the shared day-to-day reality that gay and exgay individuals experience. When the authors advocate “true change,” aren’t they really trivializing true sexual change and turning it into a switch in political and religious afiliation?

In the comments on DM’s article, celibate same-sex-attracted Catholic Ron Belgau, who over the years has been affiliated with the pro-exgay Catholic group Courage, shares his own concern about Goeke’s statements.

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