Founded in 1976 by Michael Bussee, Gary Cooper, Frank Worthen, Ron Dennis, and Greg Reid, Exodus International is an international Christian-based organization, currently headed by Alan Chambers, dedicated to the false pretense of converting gays to heterosexuals. Bussee, who left the program three years later in 1979, and acknowledges he’s a full-blown homo, reveals he “never saw one of our members or other Exodus leaders or other Exodus members become heterosexual.” [BTB]
denouncements
Exodus International Co-Founder: It Doesn’t Freakin’ Work
Help make sure LGBTQ+ stories are being told...
We can't rely on mainstream media to tell our stories. That's why we don't lock Queerty articles behind a paywall. Will you support our mission with a contribution today?
Cancel anytime · Proudly LGBTQ+ owned and operated
PLAYS WELL WITH OTHERS
SHOCKING!
Sean Newham
Better late than never, but as a community we need to be more vocal to the general public that these “therapies” don’t work.
If we don’t make parents generally aware, they could make their children undergo years of self-hating for not being able to change, all while just trying to help them live happily and I think that’s what’s most horrible, these people are making parents harm their own children.
Nelson G
What is disgusting and reprehensible is that is this is someone who contributed to the second biggest cancer to the gay community next to the inclusion of NAMBLA, and here he is trying to undermine his effort by making videos on YouTube with a crucifix sticking noticeably out his shirt and music so no one would notice that he’s no different that those Afghans in that PBS Frontline report.
Lamar
We gays knew that that crap ‘conversion therapy’ doesn’t work ages ago. I personally think it should be illegal as a large proportion of people who undergo it go into a spiralling depression when they find out all the money the spent, all the time they wastes in these institutions was all for nought.
Jack E. Jett
I am so shocked!
Andy
@Lamar: Agreed. It’s quackery and those who practice this should be in jail.
B
No. 6 · Andy wrote, “@Lamar: Agreed. It’s quackery and those who practice this should be in jail.”
Exodus International is not “quackery” in the legal sense but religion. They were very careful about that. If you look at http://www.exodusinternational.org/content/category/6/24/57/ you’ll find what they actually claim, “Exodus is the largest Christian referral and information network dealing with homosexual issues in the world. A list of current qualified member ministries is available on this website (see Find A Ministry). Each listing is an independent organization which has met Exodus’ criteria for membership.”
They’ll give you referrals, accept donations, and the whole staff will pray for you if you fill out a “prayer request”. They probably spend a minute a day praying for whatever happens to have been entered and not already prayed for. They also sell books. They have a network of professional councilors, all of whom must have malpractice insurance and give Exodus International a yearly fee. It’s described at http://www.exodusinternational.org/files/EPC%20Standards.pdf .
Any charges of quackery have to be directed to the councilors they refer people to, and Exodus has most likely set up the rules so that the councilors will be the ones holding the bag if anything goes wrong.
It’s all a sham, but they covered their bases in the legal sense.
Jonah
Well. Duh.
Even more important then people speaking out against de-gayification theory is people speaking out against evangelicalism as a whole.
Evangelicalism is not Christianity. Evangelicalism does not reflect scripture. In any way.
schlukitz
No. 8 · Jonah
Evangelicalism is not Christianity.
“Indeed, by the 1820s evangelical Protestantism was by far the dominant expression of Christianity in the United States.”
http://isae.wheaton.edu/defining-evangelicalism/