KILL OR CURE?

The so-called ‘ex-gay’ movement, which claims to be able to ‘cure’ people of their homosexuality, is deeply entrenched in American culture.

Organisations such as Focus on the Family (the influential voice of the Christian Right in US politics) Love in Action, and the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH) run prayer meetings, hold exorcisms and employ a variety of therapies (including the dubious practise of beating pillows with a tennis racket to assist gay men rediscover their ‘guy-ness’) in order to help gays and lesbians heal their ‘broken’ sexuality.

With the increasing influence of the Pentecostal movement and the Religious Right in Australia, as typified by the Hillsong Church (whose founder, Frank Houston, resigned his ministry in 2000 after admitting to committing paedophilic offences) and the Family First Party, the ex-gay movement is now targeting Australia.

Liberty Christian Ministries in NSW, which aims to provide “support, hope and education to Christian men and women who struggle with unwanted same sex attraction,” is one such organisation. The Queensland-based Exodus Asia Pacific, which claims to have “been helping men and women find a way out of sexual brokenness” since 1987 is another.

Here in Victoria, charismatic Christian singer-songwriter Adrian Rowse says he wants to help young people “who are struggling with issues of same-sex attraction.”

Rowse, who “asked Jesus into my life sitting on the toilet one day aged five or six,” is the founder of East Ringwood’s Roundabout Ministries.

“The ministry began when God put it on my heart to begin sharing in churches and youth ministries about my own journey with sexual brokenness and struggle through my teenage years,” he explains. “I thought I was gay and struggled with porn from my mid-teens onwards and so really struggled deeply with trying to figure out why I felt the way I did, and why I could struggle with these things when I was a Christian and deeply loved God.”

Today Rowse claims to be heterosexual, and happily married to his wife Chelsea.

So can you – assuming you want to – really ‘cure’ homosexuality? Not according to ex-ex-gay Anthony Venn-Brown.

“Ex-gay programs exist because some Christian churches persist in placing same-sex-attraction in the category of a sin and perversion. This is ludicrous in this day and age,” he says. “Any intelligent person today knows that sexual orientation can’t be changed.”

A former leader in the Assemblies of God, Venn-Brown says he tried Christian counselling, exorcisms, 40-day fasts, all the transformation methods that the ex-gay movement claims can heal ‘broken’ sexualities in order to turn himself straight.

“I actually spent six months in Australia’s first live-in ex-gay program back in 1972, going through what is known as ‘reparative’ or ‘conversion’ therapy. It was one of the most traumatic experiences of my life, [and] took me years to get over.” Venn-Brown says.

Since publishing A Life of Unlearning, an autobiography detailing his experiences with the ex-gay movement, Venn-Brown has received hundreds of e-mails from people in similar situations as himself.

“One person told me he attempted suicide three times after his failed efforts to change [his sexuality] kept him in depression.”

According to the Hillsong Church, in which Venn-Brown used to preach, depression, like homosexuality, is a sin.

“The bottom line is: depression is a supernatural spirit of destruction straight from the devil,” the church stated on its website earlier this year.

Such erroneous claims are just one of the reasons why Venn-Brown is actively opposed to the ex-gay movement increasing its foothold in Australia.

“Ex-gay programs have been operating for three decades now and have a horrific history of failure,” he explains. “In the early 1970’s mental health professionals acknowledged that same-sex-attraction was not an illness. As usual it is taking some Christian denominations decades to catch up.”

One Christian group that still has its head firmly in the sand on the issue of sexual re-orientation therapy is the Melbourne-based fundamentalist organisation the Salt Shakers.

In a recent members’ newsletter, Salt Shakers’ executive officer Peter Stokes falsely claimed that the American Psychological Association (APA) had changed its stance on re-orientation therapy.

“Homosexuals CAN change and they should “be allowed to do so” – says APA President,” Stokes wrote.

APA President Gerald P Koocher did state that the “APA has no conflict with psychologists who help those distressed by unwanted homosexual attraction,” provided that the client is entering into such treatment of their own free will. However the APA has since clarified its position on ‘curing’ homosexuality due to misrepresentation of Koocher’s comments.

“For over three decades the consensus of the mental health community has been that homosexuality is not an illness and therefore not in need of a cure,” the APA announced in August. “There is simply no scientifically sound evidence that sexual orientation can be changed.”

This was something that playwright Matt Crowley knew in the 1960’s, when he wrote the groundbreaking The Boys in the Band (later filmed by Exorcist director William Friedkin).

“You may one day be able to know a heterosexual life if you want it desperately enough,” says Harold, one of the play’s arch gay characters. “If you pursue it with the fervour with which you annihilate. But you'll always be homosexual as well. Always Michael. Always. Until the day you die.”

This article originally appeared in MCV #297 on Thursday 21st September.

Some other helpful links:

Ex-Gay Watch
B.A.S.H.
unBelief.org
Anything but Straight