'Love Won Out' Offers Way Out for Those Entrapped by Homosexuality
by Allie Martin
June 10, 2005
(AgapePress) - A conference aimed at uncovering the truth about homosexuality takes place in Seattle later this month. Focus on Family is sponsoring its "Love Won Out" conference in the northwest metropolis on June 25.
Focus on the Family promotes the message that homosexuality is both preventable and treatable -- and maintains that such a message is "routinely silenced" these days. To overcome that obstacle, the Colorado Springs-based ministry sponsors one-day "Love Won Out" conferences at venues around the country that feature former homosexuals and other experts who tackle a wide variety of questions about the subject -- such as, Can homosexuality be prevented? Is it genetic? and What causes homosexuality?
Mike Haley is Director of the Homosexuality and Gender Department for FOTF's Public Policy Division. He says the conferences are always met with protest by homosexual activists.
"The other side hates the message that gays and lesbians can change, because it goes against the very foundation upon which their whole movement is established," Haley explains. "[They believe that] if you're born this way, then they should be allowed special and civil rights status -- and those things just aren't true."
Haley suggests that is one reason why homosexual activists dislike the message of the conferences. "[T]hey believe that what we're doing is that we're pointing the finger -- making some of the mistakes that the church has made in the past -- and we're not doing that at all," he confesses. "Indeed ... we're helping people to understand that this is a mission field that we need to reach for Christ."
Haley acknowledges that in the past, some in the body of Christ have done "very harmful" things in dealing with homosexuals. But many churches, he says, are finally dealing with the issue in a more constructive and loving way.
"Now we're coming and saying that, for those of us that were part of the gay and lesbian community, here's how better to reach us," he explains. "So what's been interesting is when gay and lesbian activists have come into the conference, one of the things they will say after the conference is, while they didn't agree with everything that was said, the tone in which it was said was very different than what they expected."
The site of the June 25 conference is Northshore Baptist Church in Seattle. Other "Love Won Out" conferences are scheduled for Birmingham, Alabama, in September, and Boston in October.
Allie Martin, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
