I do like the style of some of you. You really seem to know where you are at and where not to go. They have warning labels on cigarette packs. “THIS…… CAN/DOES SERIOUSLY DAMAGE YOUR HEALTH. LEAD TO DEATH.” Is that extreme ? I don’t for one second believe so.

One person here I saw spoke of his experience. I hope he is OK.

If GCN helps you, or seems to help, in your healing – well and good. Depends where all are on their journeys. Don’t be surprised though if one day such places seem to stick that knife right back in your back, heart, mind and soul. God/Church is the great head basher through whatever organisations religious. Going to another, albeit one graced with seemingly soft pink religious velvet can punch just as hard, and cause as much and more damage. IF you allow that.

I would just issue a warning to survivors about such places. The person who said ‘one is too many’ is so very right and true. If it helps, and heals you, that is marvellous. People should be well warned though and given choices.

Isn’t a lot about abuse about disempowerment ? I am no expert. But why hand that to someone else wearing a different color hat. Empower your selves. I wish you all – all the very best and healing in all ways.

Take care. Over and out.

I also wanted to acknowledge that in the past Exodus has made statements about change, which have confused and, at times, unintentionally misled those who support us and those who don’t.” ~ Alan Chambers

I can’t begin to describe how anemic that statement is compared to the issue it is supposed to confront. Exodus, and Alan personally, need to mount a campaign to correct the record which is at least equal in fervor to the one they used to spread the lies in the first place. Anything less is morally unacceptable.

Dave: I completely agree.

“There were at least a few students down there while we were filming who were sent primarily because they were gay, however teenagers were sent to this school for a variety of reasons ranging from drug abuse, mental illness, to just not getting along with their parents.”

It’s bad enough parents think their gay or questioning kid would be ‘straightened out’ by spending the summer at a wilderness adventure camp or enrolling for a year at a remote Christian boarding school that offers computer labs and community service projects, if all parents know about these programs is what they read on Lifeline/New Horizons websites.

But the administrators of these programs know what behavioral modification techniques the residents are actually subjected to (e.g. military-style discipline, corporal punishment, humiliation, hard labor, physical abuse, isolation from family and friends, communications silence, cultural disorientation).

Why would educators – like Dr. Charles Redwine of Wesley Seminary (Marion IN), who was program director of New Horizons Ministries for 25 years and until recently its COO – or Lifeline CEO Mark Terrell or VP of Residential Services Tony Fingerle think that their kind of ‘scared straight’ youth prison (for this is the best analogy) would be appropriate for any kid, much less one whose only ‘maladjustment’ is that they’re gay?

It’s time evangelicals stopped treating their gay children like criminals or mental patients. Will Lifeline Youth and Family Services disavow this activity and promise not to enroll youth to their programs simply because of their real or perceived sexual orientation?

Michael Bussee :

[Alan Chambers:] I also wanted to acknowledge that in the past Exodus has made statements about change, which have confused and, at times, unintentionally misled those who support us and those who don’t.

Exodus International has deliberately promoted a message of sexual orientation change. There’s been no unintentional misleading and confusion; rather fundamental dishonesty.

Culture shock is a form of psychological disorientation produced by a sudden and complete change in one’s cultural environment. … [It tends] to make adolescents remarkably more dependent upon our Christian staff for direction and emotional support, while also rendering them more malleable and capable of new perspectives.

Brainwashing 101.