THERE'S AN APP FOR THAT?

Mobile App Puts Ex-Gay Therapy In The Psalm Of Your Hand

Screenshot_2013-05-29-08-13-47A Queerty reader tipped us off to a mobile app, available through the iTunes App Store and Google Play Store, that provides ex-gay therapy for the confused homosexual on-the-go.

The free app is a product of Setting Captives Free, a purportedly “non-denominational ministry which teaches the biblical principles of freedom in Jesus Christ.” How a ministry can teach biblical principles and be non-denominational is beyond us, but we’ve clearly already left logic at the door. Setting Captives Free offers a number of courses seeking to free people from their vices, such as overeating, alcoholism, substance abuse, gambling and that affliction as old as sin itself — homosexuality.

Remember that door we left logic at? It’s the Door of Hope, the entranceway to a life free of homosexuality.

“First, let me just say,” Setting Captives Free founder and president Mike Cleveland writes in the course introduction, “that despite what you may have heard elsewhere, you do not have a ‘homosexual gene,’ nor were you born this way with no hope of freedom.”

The 60-day course guides those hoping to free themselves from The Gay through a series of lessons, including Biblical principles and personal stories from people who’ve thrown those same-sex shackles off their feet. The course promises that, if you follow these principles, you too can “walk through the Door of Hope into a new life with Christ, free from sexual impurity and self-gratification.”

Having gone through the Door of Hope course when he was 13 — at the recommendation of a “prayer hotline” — our reader was especially troubled to see that door still hanging onto the hinges:

I was exposed to stories of men that were dealing with issues like pedophilia when I didn’t even know (prior to enrolling in the course) what these things were, ironically because of my religious upbringing. They might have changed the structure of the class since I was enrolled (I am now 23 and in college) but at the time I took it there were lessons that said homosexuality was caused by demons, that there was a subculture that exists in the gay community that is a cult that worships male genitalia (I really wish I was making this up. I’m not.), and had graphic descriptions of how anal sex allegedly causes men to lose the ability to hold in feces.

The gist of it is that the course was very traumatic for me and I actually attempted suicide while taking it. The class was interactive and I was assigned a mentor that I communicated with on the phone so it had the effect of being more than something I was just passively reading. He made me report to him every time I masturbated, and if I did masturbate then that was used as blame for my lack of “recovery” and I was encouraged to punish myself by cutting off television, video games, etc. and also wearing a rubber band around my wrist to snap when I had a “homosexual thought.”

Luckily, he has since gone through years of non-religious therapy and has come to grips with his homosexuality. As for the Door of Hope, that’s best left unopened since it only leads down the Hallway of Denial into the Living Room of Self-Hatred, part of the House of Lies…on the corner of Shame Street and Deep Depression Drive.  Gaytown, USA.

Meanwhile, why this app is available for both iPhone and Android but Dragopolis is not serves to only further frustrate us.

Don't forget to share:

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