Ex-Gay Watch

Edmund Smith of Real Love Ministry (RLM) Malaysia believes his homosexuality was caused by his mother, as he shared in the February edition of the Malaysian Women’s Weekly.

I am the fourth boy in my family. When Mum was pregnant with me, they had hoped that I would be a girl. Perhaps that’s why, until I was five, my mother brought me up like a girl. I played with dolls and was dressed in dresses.

When asked whether he would return to what he deemed as the “homosexual lifestyle,” he added:

My faith, and the fact that I’m married with children, helps me to stay straight. Similarly, it is easier for an ex-smoker to start smoking again if his immediate circle of friends consists of smokers. I don’t frequent joints where gays hang out, so I’m out of that lifestyle.

In a recently launched video, he re-iterated his past dislike of being a boy. The video also featured Mr. Smith’s youngest sister, Helga Smith, in which she expressed the shame of people calling her “the gay’s sister”. Smith’s account takes for granted the theory of homosexuality being caused by cross-dressing. Alan Chambers, president of Exodus International, describes the same journey. Read more…

Reverend John Smid, one of the founders and now president and CEO of Love In Action (LIA), recently claimed homosexuals are intolerant of those who wish to seek “change” of their sexual orientation.

There are many people within that community who are very intolerant of people who choose to walk away from it,” says Smid. “And I find that some of the people like that are unsupportive of someone who says, “I want to be free from homosexuality, I want to walk away from this lifestyle. Or I want to live sexually celibate and free, or I want to pursue marriage.” There’s very little tolerance for the choices I’ve made in my life.

I think that we put our head in the sand and we kind of cover things with “plastic answers” about sexuality rather than really being willing to get into what I call the “swamp trip of life,” he says. “It’s hard to invest in people who are confused and struggling and have some really ugly things in their life“. [emphasis added]

The reasons for any individual’s decision to pursue “freedom” from homosexuality — whether due to societal prejudice or family concerns, or even pressure from groups such as LIA — are not presented for all to see. Mr. Smid’s own understanding of homosexuality (PDF) is already questionable. Read more…