Ex-Gay Ministry Leader Refutes Protesters' Anti-Reparative Therapy Claims

by Jim Brown and Jenni Parker
November 18, 2005

(AgapePress) - - Ex-homosexuals and "reparative therapy" advocates recently gathered in Marina del Rey, California, for the 13th annual conference of the National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuality, or NARTH. Reparative or reorientation therapy is designed to help men and women in conflict with their homosexuality attain the goal of reaching their heterosexual potential.

NARTH comprises more than 1,000 therapists, sociologists, and psychoanalysts who believe homosexuality is not inborn and can be changed. However, the organization's November 11-13 gathering in Marina del Rey (Los Angeles County) attracted an angry group of protesters, many of whom argued that reparative therapy is dangerous and encourages self-hatred in homosexuals.

However, one of the conference speakers, Exodus International president Alan Chambers, disagrees. "I myself was a homosexual man 15 years ago," he says, "and for over a decade now, I have been leading a heterosexual life. And it wasn't about me hating myself; it was about me wanting something different than what I found myself struggling with."

According to Chambers, the fact that ex-homosexuals exist invalidates the notion that homosexuality is biologically determined. And at the same time, he contends, those homosexual activists and other individuals who deny that hundreds of thousands of men and women have found freedom from homosexuality are, in effect, invalidating their own messages calling for tolerance and respect.

Among the protesters denouncing the NARTH event was homosexual L.A. City Councilman Bill Rosendahl, a practicing Catholic. According to an ExGayWatch.com blog, Rosendahl called the group's research and methods "unproven, unsafe and abusive," and described its persistence in viewing homosexuality as a condition to be corrected as "another form of rationalization for the continued persecution and prejudice against gay people."

But Chambers feels it is the councilman and the other protesters who are promoting persecution and prejudice. "It's the ultimate of hypocrisy among the small minority of the gay community and this local politician who is denying people the right to their self-determination -- denying the right for someone to choose their path in life," the Exodus International spokesman says, "and I think that's not only un-American, it's inhumane."

Chambers believes more people than ever are finding out that homosexuality is detrimental to an individual's physical, emotional, and spiritual health. And, he asserts that, as countless people -- himself included -- have demonstrated, same-sex desires can be overcome with the help of Jesus Christ.