Exodus president Alan Chambers has just notified members that Alan Medinger has passed away. Medinger was once himself executive director of Exodus International, and president of ex-gay ministry Regeneration. Medinger was an established figure in ex-gay circles. He authored the familiar title Growth Into Manhood and believed that homosexuality was a disordered condition which could be healed.
In an article written for Exodus in 1995, Medinger wrote:
Homosexuality took form out of our response to pain — most often the pain of rejection, abuse, or low self-esteem. The patterns of behavior and thinking that led to our homosexuality were patterns of self-protection from these pains. Having experienced pain early in life, we became determined never again to allow ourselves to be in a position where the painful experiences could be repeated.
This is basically reparative theory as championed by Joseph Nicolosi. In another article (PDF), Medinger wrote:
We don’t choose homosexuality, but I am convinced that most of us made wrong decisions—often sinful decisions — that set us on the path towards developing same-sex attractions.
And as XGW writer Emily K has written, Medinger left the Episcopal Church in part due to their opposition to the evangelizing of Jews.
-The Texas Republican Party calls for the criminalization of same-sex marriage and the reinstatement of sodomy laws.
-Massachusetts Republican gubernatorial candidate Charlie Baker marches in Boston’s gay pride parade.
-The Obama Administration announces plans to extend family and medical leave rights to gay employees.
-The Chicago Blackhawks to march the Stanley Cup in Chicago’s gay pride parade.
-A new study finds more similarities in brain use between gay men and heterosexual women.
-Beijing, China hosts its second gay pride event.
-The New York state senate passes an anti-bullying law after nine years of failure.
-GOProud fires back at the Family Research Council.
-Iraqi police raid and burn down a gay safe house.
-A Philadelphia grand jury rules that the city cannot evict the Boy Scouts from public facilities for violating anti-discrimination laws.
-The US Supreme Court rules that publicly releasing the names of petition signers does not violate the signers’ First Amendment rights.
-The European Court of Human Rights rules that member nations need not provide full marriage equality.
-A Minnesota Judge declares that anti-gay activists cannot be barred from a park rented for a gay pride event.
An ex-staffer from Australia’s most famous megachurch is being ordained in the Metropolitan Community Church, the broadly evangelical denomination that caters specifically to the LGBT community.
Penny Davis, who underwent ex-gay therapy during her stint at Hillsong Church, Sydney, will become a pastor at CRAVE, an MCC congregation in the Paddington suburb of the city.
“My journey has led to this moment, where I stand as a confident woman who is being ordained and happens to be a lesbian,” she told the Sydney Star Observer.
The 20,000-strong Hillsong Church is well-known worldwide for its praise and worship songs, which have dominated Christian album sales and charismatic worship for almost two decades. It has, however, also faced criticism for its teachings, its finances and late Pastor Frank Houston’s confession that he sexually abused a boy. His son, Brian Houston, now leads the church.
American evangelical leader Lou Engle has confirmed his support for the leaders who drafted Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill 2009.
Engle, whose TheCall conference in Uganda promoted the bill that would spell execution for gays and their supporters, told Sarah Posner of Religion Dispatches that he was in favor of “the principle of a nation … restraining [homosexuality] from coming into their nation.”
He said he supported “a legal restraint and punishment” to keep out the “homosexual agenda,” but was evasive about what type of punishment he favored. He denied supporting the death penalty for gays, but said there were biblical grounds for execution in the case of a person transmitting HIV to a minor.
Engle downplayed his association with David Bahati, the Ugandan MP who drafted the bill, and said he did not even remember meeting Bahati and his right-hand man, Bishop Julius Oyet. He did, however, say that he “appreciated the two guys whose hearts were to bring forth a principled bill.”
In May this year, Engle praised Ugandans for “showing courage to take a stand for righteousness in the earth.”
More analysis from Dr Warren Throckmorton can be found here.
-Two US Marines are arrested in Savannah, GA for beating up a gay man.
-California’s Fair Political Practices Commission fines the Mormon church for failing to report all of its non-monetary contributions to the Prop 8 campaign.
-The mayor of Cambridge, MA comes out of the closet.
-Incidents of anti-gay hate crimes increase in Canada.
-Prop 8 supporters renew their effort to nullify the 18,000 same-sex marriages performed in California before the measure went into effect.
-A German court rules against recognizing same-sex marriages, but says the couples could register as life partners.
-Judge Walker Vaughn hears closing statements in Perry vs. Schwarzenegger.
-Rapper Eminem voices support for marriage equality.
-Republican activist Grover Norquist joins the board of GOProud.
-The Tulsa, OK city council expands its non-discrimination law to include sexual orientation.
By Justin Lee
For years, former leaders and “success stories” of the ex-gay movement have been coming out and saying that ex-gay ministries don’t really work as advertised.
But if that’s so, why are these ministries still as popular as they are, after all these years?
One of the main reasons has to do with faith. A 2007 Barna Group study found that 91% of young non-Christians and 80% of young churchgoers believe that Christianity is anti-gay. And yet, a 2003 study by Christian Community found that approximately 10% of churchgoing high schoolers identify themselves as gay, lesbian, or bisexual. Our churches are filled with LGBT young people who believe that their own faith is against them.
Why do they believe this? There are, of course, a handful of Bible passages that (according to some interpretations) cast negative light on same-sex relationships, but that doesn’t justify Christianity’s strong public reputation of being anti-gay. The Bible never says gay people must become straight. It never says gay people are worse sinners than anyone else. And a growing number of Christians believe that it doesn’t even condemn same-sex relationships at all when properly interpreted.
In reality, Christians are divided on Bible interpretation, and yet, the popular image of the church is that it’s not only united in its condemnation of gay people, but that it’s virtually obsessed with the subject. It’s no wonder, then, that gay kids in the church (and their parents) are willing to go to such great lengths to try to change their orientation. Read more…
Ugandan MP David Bahati was “ecstatic” that American evangelical leader Lou Engle supported his Anti-Homosexuality Bill 2009, according to journalist Jeff Sharlet.
The bill, which would effectively make homosexuality – and “aiding” homosexuality – a capital offense, was promoted heavily at Engle’s TheCall Uganda conference in May this year. More recently, Engle apologized and denied having anything directly to do with the promotion, claiming it occurred in his absence. But, as Warren Throckmorton has shown, the bill was promoted in Engle’s presence as well.
Now writer Jeff Sharlet adds more confusion to this web of inconsistencies and half-truths, saying he spoke to Bahati, who believed Engle explicitly supported the bill:
Both [Bishop] Oyet and Bahati told me that Engle had explicitly expressed his support for the bill, telling them that he had to lie to the Western media because gays control it.
The rest of Sharlet’s account throws doubt on other claims by Engle, including the suggestion that Christian leaders in Uganda are trying to soften the penalties in the bill. Bahati supports the harsh punishments, obviously, since he drafted the bill. It appears Bishop Oyet is now his right-hand man.
Throckmorton follows up Sharlet’s guest post with some pressing questions for Engle, whose words have been inconsistent at best, deceptive at worst. Read the full article here.
Abortion, suicide, homosexuality, addiction, child slavery…Christ is the only hope for this depravity.
Looking over the Exodus Freedom Conference website (archive), this quote really jumps out. It’s from a band called Take No Glory (the members call themselves musicianaries). Exodus lists them as special guests performing in the Wednesday evening general session.
I listened to one of their songs called “Straight.” From the scripture references (Romans 1:18-27) it appears the title does mean straight as in heterosexual. Subject matter aside, I can’t say much for the music or the lyrics. There must be better bands that Exodus could afford.
What really grabs me is that, here we are again, it’s 2010 and Exodus is still putting quotes like that on their literature, and still inviting groups that say this, without someone saying “hey, that’s really lame and offensive, let’s not do that.”
I hate to pile on, especially when it seems Alan made a decent policy statement just last week, but can Exodus be this dumb? Or am I missing the point entirely and this really is how they think and it’s just that they occasionally slip and let it show?
Your take?
-A new study reconfirms that children raised by lesbian parents fare as well children raised by opposite sex couples, and possibly better.
-Oklahoma City councilman Brian Walters votes against approving a gay pride event, comparing gays to pedophiles.
-Malawi couple Steven Monjeza and Tiwonge Chimbalanga have reportedly broken up.
-A brutal anti-gay attack takes place at the Washington high school frequently scrutinized by pastor Ken Hutcherson.
-Details Magazine takes a look at the practice of gay exorcisms.
-LGBT candidates fare well in Tuesday’s primary elections.
-A transgender attorney runs against Oklahoma State Rep. Sally Kern.
-Two gay students are crowned King and Queen of prom at a New York high school.
-Washington, DC renames a two-block stretch of road after gay rights pioneer Frank Kameny.
-Transgender Americans can now change the gender on their passports without undergoing reassignment surgery.
-A homeless shelter for gay youth is vandalized.
-Iceland’s parliament legalizes same-sex marriage by unanimous vote.
As noted by Evan Hurst at Truth Wins Out, the following is the Declaration of Causes of Texas’s secession from the Union in the prelude to the American Civil War:
In all the non-slave-holding States, in violation of that good faith and comity which should exist between entirely distinct nations, the people have formed themselves into a great sectional party, now strong enough in numbers to control the affairs of each of those States, based upon the unnatural feeling of hostility to these Southern States and their beneficent and patriarchal system of African slavery, proclaiming the debasing doctrine of the equality of all men, irrespective of race or color–a doctrine at war with nature, in opposition to the experience of mankind, and in violation of the plainest revelations of the Divine Law. They demand the abolition of negro slavery throughout the confederacy, the recognition of political equality between the white and the negro races, and avow their determination to press on their crusade against us, so long as a negro slave remains in these States.
We hold as undeniable truths that the governments of the various States, and of the confederacy itself, were established exclusively by the white race, for themselves and their posterity; that the African race had no agency in their establishment; that they were rightfully held and regarded as an inferior and dependent race, and in that condition only could their existence in this country be rendered beneficial or tolerable.
That in this free government all white men are and of right ought to be entitled to equal civil and political rights; that the servitude of the African race, as existing in these States, is mutually beneficial to both bond and free, and is abundantly authorized and justified by the experience of mankind, and the revealed will of the Almighty Creator, as recognized by all Christian nations; while the destruction of the existing relations between the two races, as advocated by our sectional enemies, would bring inevitable calamities upon both and desolation upon the fifteen slave-holding States. [emphasis added]
The language used to justify and rationalize pure, evil bigotry is eerily familiar over the years.
Hat Tip: Evan Hurst, Truth Wins Out
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