Lovejoy said:
It is a very powerful technique for discrediting a group. It is a little like "poisoning the well", ie, you can say that "I tried that and it did not work" "or I knew someone that it did not work for" as a way of defeating the approach without ever actually entering to a true debate over its merits.
http://www.mabenterprises.com/gaychristians/religious_text/failures6b.htm
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."
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.
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.'"
