About Ex-Gay Ministries

By David Williams

NOTE: Numbers in parentheses indicate end notes, which are printed after the text.

 

8. Reparative Therapy

     Because conservative Christians believe that homosexuality is not predetermined through genetics or other causes beyond the control of the individual, it follows logically, then, that they believe is it malleable, "curable," or "reparable." Methods used to "treat" homosexuals for their "problem" have centered mainly around prayer and intensive psychological counseling, but some groups within the movement are now reportedly using more extreme means, such as hypnosis, powerful psychotic drugs, and radical deprogramming techniques to alter the development of homosexuality, especially in adolescents.

     (1) These religious-based groups, most of which appear on the surface to be well-meaning, believe that, by helping to save souls from certain damnation, they are carrying out the wishes of the founder of their religion, Jesus Christ (who was actually silent about homosexuality). One of the most prominent proponents of "reparative therapy," as it is called, is Rev. Lou Sheldon, head of the Traditional Values Coalition in Anaheim, California. Another is Dr. Charles W. Socarides.

 

8.1 The May Tabloid

     In the May tabloid (page 2), Freedom's Heritage Forum (of Louisville, Kentucky) mentions a couple of such ministries: Exodus International, an umbrella organization founded in 1976 and headquartered in San Rafael, California, which the tabloid says has 110 groups under its wing; and Transformation Ex-Gay Ministry, a branch of Exodus International that was founded in 1988 by Anthony Falzarano, who the tabloid says is now a "family man." The May tabloid states that:

     "Anthony Falzarano's life is a daily rebuttal to the gay myth that homosexuals cannot change their 'orientation.' From a past that included male prostitution, he is now a family man who is helping to free others from homosexuality's powerful grip.

     "'Homosexuality is certainly not innate,' Anthony says. "It is a learned behavior.' He urges deep compassion toward homosexuals, but grieves over the 'gay' churches that affirm men and women in their homosexuality."

     It is instructive to note here the way in which homosexuality is described, as an enslaving force with a "powerful grip" from which people can be "freed." Anyone who has had any experience with any sexual urges of whatever nature can attest to the "powerful grip" the sex drive may have on men and women in general--especially during adolescence or early adulthood. This sometimes self-destructive force may lead individuals into bizarre and even violent sexual behavior, not caring to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation.

     In its attempt to portray reparative therapists as simply concerned citizens, the tabloid uses such words as "compassion" and "grieves." There is little doubt that many individuals in this movement are sincere, but the psychological and physical damage often caused by these methods--especially if they fail--is well documented.

     But the tabloid's most misleading statement here is its characterization, as a "gay myth," claims that gays and lesbians cannot change. Such claims are supported by numerous heterosexual psychologists and psychiatrists as well.

 

8.2 EXODUS International

     In order to learn more about Exodus International and Transformation Ex-Gay Ministry, we wrote letters to both organizations asking five basic questions (2). A conscious attempt was made to word the questions in as impartial a manner as possible. We asked:

1. How many chapters are currently in operation today? When was your organization founded?
2. How many men and women go through your program each year? How many men and women have gone through your program since its founding?
3. What is your success rate? What is your failure rate?
4. Do you have any statistics on the number of people who may have returned to homosexuality after finishing your program?
5. Do you have any follow-up programs after a person has gone through your program?

     Transformation Ex-Gay Ministry (actually Transformation Christian Ministry, according to information supplied by Exodus International) did not respond, but Bob Davies, Executive Director of Exodus International, sent a packet of information detailing their program (3).

     Exodus International is a referral agency only, according to Davies. In November 1993, it listed 78 agencies in 35 states (not 110 "nationwide," as the May tabloid claims) (4). Two of these ministries are listed for Kentucky: CrossOver Ministries, founded by Bruce Grimsley in Lexington in 1985, and Pathway Ministries, directed by Martin Ward in south Louisville.

     Exodus International is clearly affiliated with the Protestant Christian belief system. In one of its pamphlets, "Exodus: A Way Out," it offers "Freedom from homosexuality, not through a method but a person, the Lord Jesus Christ!" It believes that only through total surrender to Christ can homosexuals hope to change into heterosexuals (although it does have special materials aimed at Catholics, Mormons, and others). It offers a huge selection of educational items, including videotapes as well as audio tapes, and provides lectures on request. It also publishes a quarterly newsletter, "The Standard."

 

8.3 Efficacy Of The EXODUS Program

     Interestingly, Davies had "no idea how many people go through counseling" but said that Exodus processes up to 600 requests for information each month. Presumably, our request was one of those.

     One of their local agencies, Love In Action, in San Rafael, California (north of San Francisco), estimates that they have processed over 30,000 requests for information since its inception in 1974. Davies guesses that all ministries nationwide have processed over 100,000 requests for information in the past 18 years (5). He provided no information on how many of these requests resulted in individuals signing up for their program.

     Davies also did not have an answer concerning the success rate. "Each agency would probably give you a different answer," he states. Love In Action, he said, "estimates that about half the men who complete their program remain out of homosexuality after five years." Davies made no mention of any follow-up programs.

     Here again, saying that they have remained "out of homosexuality" is not the same as saying they are now heterosexually involved: some of them may be celibate or impotent, or they may simply have given up sex with other members of the same gender but retain homosexual masturbatory fantasies. Without a lack of follow-up, success rates are difficult to ascertain.

     In fact, the efficacy of a "cure" has been called into question by many gays who have gone through the Exodus program. And gay activists note that Exodus' so-called success stories consist almost entirely of tormented homosexuals who have become celibate rather than heterosexual, according to Kalmansohn.

 

8.3.1 Michael Bussee and Gary Cooper

     Perhaps the most famous "former ex-gays" are Michael Bussee and Gary Cooper, who were instrumental in establishing Exodus International in 1976 (6).

     Both Bussee and Cooper, troubled by their homosexual feelings, became fervent Christians in 1971 while still in their late teens. They met and became friends while working for a counseling and referral line at the Melodyland Christian Center in Anaheim.

     Bussee, knowing what a struggle he'd had in dealing with his own homosexual feelings, grew worried when he heard operators of the center's hot-line tell gay and lesbian callers that they were "possessed by demons." Requesting specific training for such calls, he learned that none existed. "I told them I was a Christian homosexual," Bussee says. They replied, "There's no such thing. If you trust God, all your homosexual desires will be replaced by heterosexual ones."

     Accepting this claim at face value, Bussee and Cooper soon became Melodyland's specialists in the conversion of homosexuals. In 1976, they helped found Exodus International.

     Ironically, however, the more they worked together, the more they found themselves falling in love. Their breaking point came simultaneously in the late 70s on a road trip, when they found themselves booked by chance into a hotel room with only one bed. They took this accident as a sign from God and eventually left Exodus in 1979. In 1982, they were married (7). Cooper died of AIDS nine years later.

     "The desires never go away," says Bussee, "the confrontations begin and the guilt gets worse and worse." Bussee recalls that some people who went through the Exodus program had breakdowns or committed suicide. "One man slashed his genitals with a razor and poured Drano on his wounds." Another man impulsively underwent an incomplete sex- change operation because he believed his sexual desires might receive divine approval were he biologically a woman (8).

     "After dealing with hundreds of people," Bussee concludes, he and his lover hadn't "met one who went from gay to straight. Even if you manage to alter someone's sexual behavior, you cannot change their true sexual orientation."

     "If you got them away from the Christian limelight," he concludes, "and asked them, 'Honestly now, are you saying that you are no longer homosexual and you are now heterosexually oriented?'...not one person said, 'Yes, I am actually now heterosexual.'"

 

8.3.2 John Paulk

     Another notable ex-gay is John Paulk, who served as the administrator of Love In Action for six years until late 1993, when he and his wife left to deal with unspecified personal problems. He was prominently featured as an "ex-drag queen" in a videotape produced by Lou Sheldon, The Gay Agenda, which Paulk now repudiates (9).

     According to Paul, "The Gay Agenda" exaggerated statistics and indulged in many distortions and misrepresentations. Now, he seriously questions the statistical gathering methods and the person responsible for them. He was especially angry at the way he was portrayed.

     He feels that a few individuals are using American society's deep-seated homophobia for their own political and financial advantage. In a letter published in the Marin "Independent Journal" on November 27, 1993, he wrote that "Some Christians use the name of God to spread hatred [and] prejudice against gays and lesbians who are satisfied with their sexual identities."

     "We all have a right to believe whatever we want [including gays]," Paulk says today, "and every one of us...will have to answer to [our] God for the way we've handled things." Although he stops short of endorsing gay and lesbian civil rights, he does "defend homosexual people's right to live and work...and be treated fairly as citizens of the United States."

     Paul himself admits that he is still tempted. "I know my [gay] desires were not a choice. I didn't choose to be attracted to men." However, his marriage and his relationship with God have taken the place of most of his gay desires, he says.

 

8.3.3 Bruce Grimsley

     Bruce Grimsley is another "ex-ex-gay" who nevertheless harbors no ill will towards Exodus and other such groups. Believing that he, too, could change his sexual feelings, he founded CrossOver Ministries in Lexington in 1985 and had what he thought was a successful five- year ministry. But during its most successful period, he was secretly having homosexual contacts--sometimes right after he had preached in church against them (10).

     Grimsley notes that while there are Exodus Catholics and Mormons, most are closeted gay evangelicals who never accepted their sexual feelings. "The one thread of continuity of these people is that they never lost ties to their evangelical backgrounds. They were never able to see themselves as anything other than wrong. Homosexuality as wrongness defines the minions of Exodus as much as the closet defines most people in the gay community."

     He does note one benefit of Exodus which he feels is lacking, overall, in the gay and lesbian community: the love, support, and caring. "When one hurts, the other hurts with him....In the gay community I've noticed a lot of selfishness."

     Yet Grimsley has no regrets about abandoning his ministry. "The greatest victory that I've ever experienced in my life was in the last year or two that I've accepted the fact that I have a gay orientation...the peace that I have that I don't have to fight!"

 

8.4 Deprogramming Techniques

     While most reparative ministries rely on psychological and religious therapies, more radical groups have arisen lately which are targeted especially towards adolescents. Shannon Minter, an attorney for the National Center for Lesbian Rights, has talked with some self-identified gay and lesbian adolescents who were locked up by psychiatrists for such "vaguely defined" problems as "gender identity disorder" and "borderline personality disorder."

     Once institutionalized, she says, they were subjected to treatments ranging from homophobic counseling, in which the youths are constantly told their homosexuality is abnormal and something they will outgrow, to drugging and hypnosis (11).

     Many of the males, Minter continues, were subjected to a penile plethysmograph, a ring-like device put around the penis and attached by wires to a computer to measure changes in arousal when they were shown erotic pictures. One boy was held down on a bed by adults who surrounded him and shouted homophobic phrases in an effort to upset him and force him to confront his anger.

     Gay and lesbian teens are often treated like members of a cult in need of deprogramming.

     Lyn Duff, a 17-year old lesbian now living in San Francisco, says she spent six months at an institution in Utah where her treatment consisted of isolation rooms, powerful psychiatric drugs, behavior therapy linking sex with the pits of hell, and punishment that included scrubbing floors with a toothbrush. She managed to escape and has since founded a group called Students and Teens Opposing Psychiatric Abuse Network (STOPAN).

     "People want to believe that the psychiatric abuse of minors doesn't happen," she says, "because if it does, they know they'll have to do something about it" (12). Disorder classifications can be abused, notes Dr. Rochelle Klinger, chairwoman of the APA's committee on gay, lesbian, and bisexual issues. And Dr. Richard Isay, professor of clinical psychiatry at Cornell Medical College and the author of "Being Homosexual," says that if such charges are true it is "poor practice, malpractice, and unethical." At present, however, there are virtually no laws in place that protect minors from being subjected to these kinds of therapies.

 

8.5 Reaction of Others

     Many reparative programs have been in existence since the 1970s, and as late as 1992 a new group of people in the psychiatric profession formed the National Association for Psychoanalytic Research and Therapy for Homosexuals. Several psychologists and psychiatrists continue to insist that they can change homosexuals into heterosexuals if a patient is strongly motivated. One psychologist, writing in 1971, reported that up to half of homosexuals "who enter treatment can anticipate effective personality reorganization and eventual ability to overcome the intrapsychic barriers which prevent them from advancing to a heterosexual orientation" (13).

     Others, including Drs. Glover, Gershman, and Socarides, have also noted varying degrees of success in their programs (14). But the APA, along with the American Psychiatric Association, has branded reparative therapy a hoax and has taken an official stand against it. Bryant Welch, a director of the APA, says that "efforts to 'repair' homosexuals are nothing more than social prejudice garbed in psychological accouterments." (15) According to the APA, people who voluntarily enter these programs are possibly doing so because of social bias "that has resulted in internalized homophobia." Others doubt the long-term benefits of such therapies. Dr. Klinger says that "there is no published scientific evidence supporting the efficacy of 'reparative therapy' as a treatment to change one's sexual orientation" (16). Dr. Richard Ammon, a clinical psychologist, agrees. In fact, he says, the inherent conflicts involved in such therapy can be severe enough to induce psychosis in some patients. Ammon accuses Lou Sheldon and his supporters of manipulating discredited data in order "to foist untested behavior modification techniques on innocent people" (17) "Exodus set their sights wrong," according to Robert Bray of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. "They present us as sick or deranged individuals that need to be changed to fit a heterosexual society. What should be changed is their intolerance of gays and lesbians." Exodus isn't outwardly homophobic, he says, but the homophobia is there nonetheless, beneath the surface. He calls it "homophobia with a happy face" (18). The APA has so far refrained from labeling such therapy unethical; a vocal minority of its membership has discouraged the group from doing so. But the APA continues to stand by its 1973 removal of homosexuality from its list of mental disorders, and Dr. Isay sees no movement within the APA to reinstate it (19). In 1988, Tineke Bodde asked several psychologists and psychiatrists, "Can lesbians and gays change their sexual orientation through therapy or other means?" (20) Their responses are reprinted below.

Lee Ellis, Ph.D., Chairman of the Department of Sociology at Minot State University in North Dakota: It would be "...as difficult to make a homosexual prefer to sexually interact with a member of the opposite sex as to make a heterosexual prefer to sexually interact with a member of the same sex."

Martin S. Weinberg, Ph.D., Professor of Sociology at Indiana University: "No."

James D. Weinrich, Ph.D., a Sociobiologist: "A homosexual orientation, as I define it, is apparently rarely (possibly never) changed by therapy or other means."

John Money, Ph.D., Director of the Psychohormonal Research Unit, Professor of Medical Psychology, and Professor of Pediatrics, Emeritus at the Johns Hopkins University and Hospital School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland: "...for those whose bisexual ratio is in the range of 60:40 to 50:50 to 40:60, it may be claimed that they can change--even without therapy."

Alan T. Bell, Ph.D., Director of the Counseling and Psychology Department at Indiana University: "Lesbians and gays may...behave sexually in a heterosexual manner, but their basic orientation would be virtually unchanged."

Richard Green, M.D., J.D., Psychiatrist at the University of California, Los Angeles, Medical Center: Some gay men "change behavior markedly, but fantasy minimally."

Gilbert Herdt, Ph.D., Associate Professor in the Department of Behavioral Sciences at the University of Chicago: "There is virtually no evidence to suggest that lesbians or gays can reverse their orientation through normal therapeutic procedures."

Evelyn Hooker, Ph.D.: "I know of no evidence that lesbians or gays can change their sexual orientation through therapy or any other means."

Judd Marmor, M.D., University of California at Los Angeles: "A minority of gays and lesbians (usually with a bisexual capacity) can--if strongly enough motivated--learn (through therapy or other means) to suppress their homosexual behavior. But the inclination usually persists in dreams and/or fantasies."

Richard C. Pillard, M.D., Director of the Family Studies Laboratory at Boston University School of Medicine: "...many individuals can modify an exclusive homo- or heterosexuality if they are motivated to do so....At the same time, no 'therapy' can currently claim to be able to permanently and reliably alter sexual orientation."

June Machover Reinisch, Ph.D., Director of the Kinsey Institute: "Permanent change through therapy in the attraction and emotional components dictating with whom an individual falls in love is therefore not likely....This is evident from anthropological studies of natives in New Guinea whose boys regularly participate in homosexual acts from ages 6 through 19. (It is believed that without the daily ingestion of semen the boys will not become men and procreate). Despite this daily exposure to homosexual acts for 13 years, 99 percent of the boys never again practice homosexuality after age 19, when they are matched with a woman....We also know from studies of twin brothers reared apart that if one twin is gay, it is likely that the second twin will be gay as well (but that is not true for lesbians)."

 

8.6 COMMENTARY

     The main objection that most gays and lesbians have to such groups is twofold.

     First, few of them feel they ever had a choice in determining their sexual attractions. Most gays and lesbians had no significant homosexual models while growing up from which they could develop a healthy homosexual self-image, and the mass media overflows with heterosexual images. Churches continually stress that homosexuals face eternal hellfire if they engage in such behavior. Yet, despite all of these messages, a certain percent of each generation continues to develop homosexually--even among the most fervent fundamentalist Christian households.

     Secondly, gays and lesbians argue, even if it is assumed that homosexuals can change, they feel that the Declaration of Independent and the US Constitution guarantees them protection in their life choices--just as it does for heterosexuals.

     The Kentucky Gay and Lesbian Educational Center has no problem with those gays or lesbians who, for whatever reason, wish to attempt a VOLUNTARY change: that is their business, that is their choice, and they should not be hindered. But we are concerned about the kind of message that groups like Exodus is handing out, that homosexuality is shameful and that all homosexuals need to be changed for their own good. Shame seldom changes behavior patterns: it simply redirects it into other channels which are often self-destructive.

     This is where reparative therapy becomes a problem. Much as many blacks once felt compelled to "konk" their hair and act more like whites in order to gain acceptance from the white super-culture, Exodus' main aim is to turn homosexuals into something they are not. This desire for conformity has taken many intrusive forms in American history, but none more insidious than the desire of fundamentalist Christian groups to make the rest of the country over into their own image. History shows us that no society has ever succeeded in such endeavors without severely damaging its own social structure in the end. The current anti-gay rights drive is no more likely to succeed than any other.