Love Won Out Tackles Homosexual Issues With Information, Compassion, Biblical Truth
by Jenni Parker
September 28, 2005
(AgapePress) - Earlier this month, Focus on the Family brought its international Love Won Out conference to Birmingham, Alabama, for a one-day gathering designed to educate and equip participants to wrestle with key issues surrounding homosexuality and to offer hope for those struggling with unwanted same-sex attractions. Speakers included experts on homosexual issues straight from the front lines of the culture wars as well as former gays and lesbians whose personal testimonies affirmed the possibility of freedom in Christ.
One of the featured speakers at the Birmingham LWO Conference was former lesbian Melissa Fryrear, a gender issues analyst for Focus on the Family. She says even though homosexuality and same-sex marriage are becoming increasingly politicized in contemporary culture, the conference focuses on love and hope in Christ. 'We are here to offer a perspective that is rarely heard anywhere else,' she says. 'There is a way out of unwanted homosexuality.'
Fryrear presented two separate breakout sessions, entitled 'Someone I Love is Gay' and 'Questions & Answers on Lesbianism.' In them, she balanced factual information, scriptural truth, and personally vulnerable sharing of her own path out of homosexuality, along the way providing penetrating insights into homosexuality from a female perspective.
'I never met a person who aspired to be homosexually challenged,' the gender issues expert noted at one point. 'Sexual trauma is a huge piece of the puzzle. Having talked with hundreds of homosexuals, I have never met one that had not been sexually violated in his or her life.'
Other speakers helped supply further pieces of the puzzle. Dr. Joseph Nicolosi, president and principal researcher for the National Association of Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH) presented a talk on 'The Condition of Male Homosexuality' and another on 'Prevention of Male Homosexuality.' And Exodus International's Randy Thomas presented 'Hope for Those Who Struggle' and a two-part session called 'Reaching the Homosexual.'
Also, guest speaker Nancy Heche shared the lessons of faith and forgiveness she learned during her celebrity daughter's high profile lesbian relationship, and even before that, when she lost her husband to AIDS after discovering he had secretly lived a homosexual lifestyle during their marriage. Later, Heche also presented a session called 'Three Things to Say When You Don't Know What to Say.'
A number of featured speakers focused on combating the homosexual agenda, aptly distinguishing between issues of personal homosexuality and the aggressive assault of homosexual activism. These speakers presented information designed to help Christians in all walks of life combat the homosexual agenda's increasing encroachments into virtually every area of contemporary culture.
For instance, teacher, principal and public policy analyst Dick Carpenter presented 'Why is What They're Teaching So Dangerous?' and 'Teaching Captivity? Addressing the Pro-Gay Agenda in Your School.' And Focus on the Family's psychologist in residence, Dr. Bill Maier, put the same-sex marriage debate in context with 'Straight Thinking on Gay Marriage.'
A Challenge for the Church
Another LWO conference speaker, former homosexual and former Exodus International president Joe Dallas, is the author of three books on homosexuality, including Desires in Conflict and the recently released When Homosexuality Hits Home. At the Birmingham LWO conference, he presented 'Responding to Pro-Gay Theology, a brief analysis of several of the so-called biblical arguments presented in defense of homosexuality.'
Also, in his wrap-up remarks at the end of the conference, Dalls addressed the question, 'How Should We Respond. His closing observations offered Christians a multifaceted challenge - to be understanding and loving towards homosexuals, to confront gay activists misinformation with truth, and to be biblical, bold, and unwaveringly vocal in the face of the homosexual agenda.
Dallas points out that homosexual activists' agenda is not only to normalize the homosexual lifestyle, but also to silence all those who oppose that normalization. This will to silence all opposition is what he calls 'the most frightening aspect of the gay rights movement.' And that is why he says each Christian, more than ever, needs to be an unsparing voice in the debate -- 'unsparing in your compassion and unsparing in your conviction.'
Also, the author asserts, the church needs to 'repent of being intimidated by the gay rights movement and recommit itself to its prophetic role.' He says if Christians, who are 'the conscience of the state,' allow themselves to be intimidated into silence, then 'the state has no choice but to become a sociopathic state.'
And if the church allows that sociopathic, homosexuality-affirming culture's increasing self-destructiveness to proceed unchallenged to its logical, morbid conclusions, Dallas contends, 'God will require the blood of the state at the hands of his visible representation, who allowed itself to be intimidated into silence.'
