30.4.10

EX-GAY


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Ο Michael Bussee υπήρξε συνιδρυτής το 1976 της οργάνωσης Exodus International, μιας από τις κύριες ομάδες στις ΗΠΑ που επιδιώκουν την «θεραπεία» των ομοφυλοφίλων. Το 1979 εγκατέλειψε την οργάνωση και έκτοτε δεν παύει να καταγγέλλει αυτές τις «θεραπείες».
Να σημειώσουμε ότι το διευθυντικό στέλεχος της Exodus International Don Schmierer υπήρξε ο ένας από τους τρεις αμερικανούς συνέδρους (βλ.εδώ) που προκάλεσαν το πρόσφατο κύμα ομοφυλοφοβικών διώξεων στην Ουγκάντα.
Το 2007 ο Michael Bussee, μαζί με άλλα ηγετικά στελέχη, ζήτησε επίσημα δημόσια συγγνώμη (βλ. εδώ) για τον ρόλο του στο κίνημα των ex-gay και σήμερα περιγράφει τον εαυτό του ως σύμβουλο γάμου, πατέρα, ευαγγελικό χριστιανό και περήφανο γκέι.
Η ιστορία της αποχώρησής του από την οργάνωση μαζί με έτερο συνιδρυτή της, τον Gary Cooper, και η ανακοίνωση των διαζυγίων από τις συζύγους τους και της αισθηματικής σχέσης τους περιγράφεται στο ντοκυμαντέρ One Nation Under God.

Συμπληρωματικά, ρίξτε μια ματιά εδώ:
http://www.therapeiaomofylofilias.blogspot.com

9 σχόλια:

erva_cidreira είπε...

A sincere apology
Leaders of ex-gay programs apologized to LGBT people in a press conference and called on other leaders to do the same

By Michelle Garcia

As the director of an ex-gay ministry in Hayward, Calif., Darlene Bogle appeared on shows like Sally Jesse Raphael, Jerry Springer, and 48 Hours to tell people that being gay is “curable.” She wrote several articles and two books—Long Road to Love and Strangers in a Christian Land—about being an ex-gay and held workshops on the subject.

In 1990, Bogle met Des, who was attending one of her ex-gay workshops, and sensed instantly that God bought them together. Within weeks Bogle was asked to step down from her leadership position at the Foursquare Church and she was removed from the Exodus ministry.

Bogle, joined by former ex-gay ministers Jeremy Marks and Michael Bussee, held a press conference on June 27 at the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center with Soulforce and Beyond Ex-Gay to apologize for exposing LGBT Christians to such indoctrination.

The press conference and apology precedes the Ex-Gay Survivor’s Conference in Irvine, Calif., this weekend. Beyond Ex-Gay and Soulforce partnered with the University of California, Irvine’s LGBT Resource Center to sponsor the conference with workshops, speeches, and entertainment.

“Although we acted in good faith, we have since witnessed the isolation, shame, fear, and loss of faith that this message creates,” Bussee said, speaking for the group. “We apologize for our part in the message of broken truth we spoke on behalf of Exodus and other organizations.”

Bussee, the cofounder of Exodus International, said that he was a devout evangelical who started the ex-gay movement in the 1970s out of his own self-hate. Eventually he and another cofounder, Gary Cooper, left the group and their wives to be together and happy. He has been critical of Exodus ever since.

In 1986, Marks became a member of a ministry in the United Kingdom where he met other gay Christians mired in the same struggle to be straight. He headed several ex-gay programs, including Courage U.K., and later became president of Exodus International Europe. By 2000, Marks abandoned the ex-gay theories and transformed Courage U.K. into a gay-affirming evangelical ministry.

erva_cidreira είπε...

Ex-gay survivor Eric Leocadio was on hand to witness the official apology in Los Angeles. As a high school freshman Leocadio ingested two fistfuls of pills, hoping to kill himself so that he would not have to struggle with his sexual orientation. “When I survived,” said Leocadio, now 31, “I realized that God wasn’t done with me. There was so much more that God had planned for me.”

But his journey of self-acceptance was arduous. After his suicide attempt Leocadio became a devoted Christian and used his spirituality to stifle his same-sex attractions. At 26 he ended up at the Desert Stream Ministries in Anaheim, Calif., where he underwent an intensive ex-gay program to heal his “brokenness” (along with masturbators, prostitutes, and fellow gays), yearning to live a straight and “normal” life.

“I received a lot of mixed signals from the church,” he said. “Everyone gets unconditional love from God but only conditional love from the church, based on the concept of ‘wholeness.’ ”

Leocadio left Desert Stream in 2004 when he realized the promise of an ex-gay life devoid of same-sex attraction wasn’t true. It became clear to him that one could not just shed sexuality and that he would have to devote the rest of his life to praying against his sexual urges. The following year Leoncadio started his TwoWorldCollision blog to document the conflict between being gay and being Christian; his posts have been known to move people to tears and inspire e-mail responses from around the world.

“I wanted to get to the point where I owned my belief,” he said. “What I knew about Christianity was the only thing I was taught. I decided to take a step back and learn more. I met other gay Christians who had a genuine faith and love for God. Through meeting them, I have been able to truly learn the love of God and own it for myself.”

advocate.com, 29/6/2007

erva_cidreira είπε...

Americans’ Role Seen in Uganda Anti-Gay Push

By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN nytimes.com, 3/1/2010

KAMPALA, Uganda — Last March, three American evangelical Christians, whose teachings about “curing” homosexuals have been widely discredited in the United States, arrived here in Uganda’s capital to give a series of talks.
The theme of the event, according to Stephen Langa, its Ugandan organizer, was “the gay agenda — that whole hidden and dark agenda” — and the threat homosexuals posed to Bible-based values and the traditional African family.

For three days, according to participants and audio recordings, thousands of Ugandans, including police officers, teachers and national politicians, listened raptly to the Americans, who were presented as experts on homosexuality. The visitors discussed how to make gay people straight, how gay men often sodomized teenage boys and how “the gay movement is an evil institution” whose goal is “to defeat the marriage-based society and replace it with a culture of sexual promiscuity.”

Now the three Americans are finding themselves on the defensive, saying they had no intention of helping stoke the kind of anger that could lead to what came next: a bill to impose a death sentence for homosexual behavior.

One month after the conference, a previously unknown Ugandan politician, who boasts of having evangelical friends in the American government, introduced the Anti-Homosexuality Bill of 2009, which threatens to hang homosexuals, and, as a result, has put Uganda on a collision course with Western nations.

erva_cidreira είπε...

Donor countries, including the United States, are demanding that Uganda’s government drop the proposed law, saying it violates human rights, though Uganda’s minister of ethics and integrity (who previously tried to ban miniskirts) recently said, “Homosexuals can forget about human rights.”

The Ugandan government, facing the prospect of losing millions in foreign aid, is now indicating that it will back down, slightly, and change the death penalty provision to life in prison for some homosexuals. But the battle is far from over.

Instead, Uganda seems to have become a far-flung front line in the American culture wars, with American groups on both sides, the Christian right and gay activists, pouring in support and money as they get involved in the broader debate over homosexuality in Africa.

“It’s a fight for their lives,” said Mai Kiang, a director at the Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice, a New York-based group that has channeled nearly $75,000 to Ugandan gay rights activists and expects that amount to grow.

The three Americans who spoke at the conference — Scott Lively, a missionary who has written several books against homosexuality, including “7 Steps to Recruit-Proof Your Child”; Caleb Lee Brundidge, a self-described former gay man who leads “healing seminars”; and Don Schmierer, a board member of Exodus International, whose mission is “mobilizing the body of Christ to minister grace and truth to a world impacted by homosexuality” — are now trying to distance themselves from the bill.

“I feel duped,” Mr. Schmierer said, arguing that he had been invited to speak on “parenting skills” for families with gay children. He acknowledged telling audiences how homosexuals could be converted into heterosexuals, but he said he had no idea some Ugandans were contemplating the death penalty for homosexuality.

erva_cidreira είπε...

“That’s horrible, absolutely horrible,” he said. “Some of the nicest people I have ever met are gay people.”

Mr. Lively and Mr. Brundidge have made similar remarks in interviews or statements issued by their organizations. But the Ugandan organizers of the conference admit helping draft the bill, and Mr. Lively has acknowledged meeting with Ugandan lawmakers to discuss it. He even wrote on his blog in March that someone had likened their campaign to “a nuclear bomb against the gay agenda in Uganda.” Later, when confronted with criticism, Mr. Lively said he was very disappointed that the legislation was so harsh.

Human rights advocates in Uganda say the visit by the three Americans helped set in motion what could be a very dangerous cycle. Gay Ugandans already describe a world of beatings, blackmail, death threats like “Die Sodomite!” scrawled on their homes, constant harassment and even so-called correctional rape.

“Now we really have to go undercover,” said Stosh Mugisha, a gay rights activist who said she was pinned down in a guava orchard and raped by a farmhand who wanted to cure her of her attraction to girls. She said that she was impregnated and infected with H.I.V., but that her grandmother’s reaction was simply, “ ‘You are too stubborn.’ ”

Despite such attacks, many gay men and lesbians here said things had been getting better for them before the bill, at least enough to hold news conferences and publicly advocate for their rights. Now they worry that the bill could encourage lynchings. Already, mobs beat people to death for infractions as minor as stealing shoes.

“What these people have done is set the fire they can’t quench,” said the Rev. Kapya Kaoma, a Zambian who went undercover for six months to chronicle the relationship between the African anti-homosexual movement and American evangelicals.

Mr. Kaoma was at the conference and said that the three Americans “underestimated the homophobia in Uganda” and “what it means to Africans when you speak about a certain group trying to destroy their children and their families.”

“When you speak like that,” he said, “Africans will fight to the death.”

Uganda is an exceptionally lush, mostly rural country where conservative Christian groups wield enormous influence. This is, after all, the land of proposed virginity scholarships, songs about Jesus playing in the airport, “Uganda is Blessed” bumper stickers on Parliament office doors and a suggestion by the president’s wife that a virginity census could be a way to fight AIDS.

During the Bush administration, American officials praised Uganda’s family-values policies and steered millions of dollars into abstinence programs.

Uganda has also become a magnet for American evangelical groups. Some of the best known Christian personalities have recently passed through here, often bringing with them anti-homosexuality messages, including the Rev. Rick Warren, who visited in 2008 and has compared homosexuality to pedophilia. (Mr. Warren recently condemned the anti-homosexuality bill, seeking to correct what he called “lies and errors and false reports” that he played a role in it.)

Many Africans view homosexuality as an immoral Western import, and the continent is full of harsh homophobic laws. In northern Nigeria, gay men can face death by stoning. Beyond Africa, a handful of Muslim countries, like Iran and Yemen, also have the death penalty for homosexuals. But many Ugandans said they thought that was going too far. A few even spoke out in support of gay people.

“I can defend them,” said Haj Medih, a Muslim taxi driver with many homosexual customers. “But I fear the what? The police, the government. They can arrest you and put you in the safe house, and for me, I don’t have any lawyer who can help me.”

Ανώνυμος είπε...

Καλησπέρα, μια & βάζεις την ιστοσελίδα μου ως παραπομπή να βοηθήσω γράφοντας τον ακριβή σύνδεσμο που έχω κάνει εκτεταμένη αναφορά στην EXODUS INTERNATIONAL & είναι:
http://therapeiaomofylofilias.blogspot.com/2009/08/18_27.html Εξορκίζοντας τη δαιμονοπληξία:Φωνές από την Κόλαση ΜΕΡΟΣ Β' 18+
όπου παρατίθενται ρεπορτάζ της εφημερίδας USA TODAY & του περιοδικού NEWSWEEK

Για το συγκεκριμένο κύριο υπάρχει σχετικό άρθρο στην οργάνωση που κατηγορεί http://exodusinternational.org/content/view/161/56 όπου αναφέρεται μεταξύ άλλων:

- Δεν υπήρξε συνιδρυτής, αλλά συμμετέχων μεταξύ πολλών άλλων ηγετικών πρώην ομοφυλόφιλων (οι οποίοι & παραμένουν άντρες)σε μια συνεδρίαση το Σεπτέμβριο του 1976 όπου αποφασίστηκε όλες οι κινήσεις να πραγματοποιούν σύνοδο σε ετήσια βάση & να σχηματίσουν ενιαία οργάνωση.

- Στα τέλη του 1978, αυτός παντρεμένος με μια κόρη & ένας άλλος παντρεμένος με 3 παιδιά που γνωρίστηκαν στην EXODUS ξεκίνησαν ερωτικές επαφές, έφυγαν το 1979 από την οργάνωση & συνέχιζαν & εκτός αυτής να μοιχεύουν κανονικότατα μέχρι να πάρουν διαζύγιο από τις συζύγους τους 2 χρόνια αργότερα & να συζήσουν. Ο εραστής του πέθανε από AIDS.

- Μόλις απέτυχαν ως άνδρες & ως σύζυγοι & ως γονείς εξαπατώντας & γελοιοποιώντας τις οικογένειες τους & τους εαυτούς τους, άρχισαν μετά να βγαίνουν & να κατηγορούν την EXODUS & τον χριστιανισμό, ο οποίος είναι δογματικός στα πάντα & μέσα σε όλα στην απόρριψη της ομοφυλοφιλίας.& η EXODUS έχει ποσοστά επιτυχίας από 1/3 έως 1/2+ των ενδιαφερομένων. Οι υπόλοιποι θα αποτύχουν, αλλά αυτό συμβαίνει σε όλες τις αρρώστιες. & στα προγράμματα απεξάρτησης ναρκωτικών οι περισσότεροι θα αποτύχουν & στον αλκοολισμό το ίδιο & στο κάπνισμα το ίδιο κ.ο.κ. Οι έξυπνοι άνθρωποι έχουν ως πρότυπο αυτούς που πετυχαίνουν & όχι αυτούς που αποτυγχάνουν σε όλους τους τομείς έτσι & εδώ. Όσοι αποτυγχάνουν, μπορούν να ξαναπροσπαθήσουν, αλλά δείχνει φοβερό complex, ενώ ξέρουν πολύ καλά αυτοί που απέτυχαν ως άνδρες, ότι κάποιοι τα κατάφεραν & κάναν οικογένειες & προχώρησαν φυσιολογικά στις ζωές τους (ακόμη & αν έχουν ομοφυλοφιλικές καύλες κατά καιρούς, δεν επιθυμούν να τις ικανοποιήσουν, διότι υπερτερεί ο ανδρισμός τους) να λένε, ότι όλοι απέτυχαν.
ΕΠΙΒΕΒΑΙΩΝΟΥΝ ΜΕ ΤΟΝ ΚΑΛΥΤΕΡΟ ΤΡΟΠΟ ΤΗΝ ΠΑΘΟΛΟΓΙΑ ΤΟΥ ΟΜΟΦΥΛΟΦΙΛΟΥ ΚΑΤ' ΕΠΙΛΟΓΗΝ - ΣΥΜΠΛΕΓΜΑ ΚΑΤΩΤΕΡΟΤΗΤΑΣ ΠΡΟΣ ΤΟΥΣ ΑΝΤΡΕΣ ή όπως το λέει ο λάος: ΟΣΑ ΔΕΝ ΠΙΑΝΕΙ Η ΑΛΕΠΟΥ, ΤΑ ΚΑΝΕΙ ΚΡΕΜΑΣΤΑΡΙΑ.

stassa είπε...

Γεγονός είναι πως με τις φωνές δεν φεύγει το γκέι.

(ούτε με τα κεφαλαία).

stassa είπε...

Και (πολύ) αναλυτικά για την υπόθεση του κατατρεγμού των λοατ ατόμων στην Αφρική και το ρόλο των δυτικών καλοθελητών:

http://www.publiceye.org/magazine/v24n4/us-christian-right-attack-on-gays-in-africa.html

«Amid the utter hysteria, any sense that homosexuality has been in Africa from time immemorial was lost. While hardly embraced, and indeed illegal in many countries, at least LGBT people were not hounded by churches and police alike until American culture warriors came to Africa. Bishop Christopher Ssenjonyo, one of the most progressive voices on LGBT issues in Uganda, expressed his own concerns about the Americans' role to me in March, "I am sure that these lies will incite public hatred against gays."»

gay super hero είπε...

@ erva

Γνωρίζοντας ότι υπάρχει πολιτική μετριασμού σχολίων, ελικρινά δεν μπορώ να καταλάβω για ποιο λόγο θες να φιλοξενείς το πιο πάνω σχόλιο του Θεού και του βοηθού.

Θεωρείς ότι τα "απέτυχαν ως άντρες", οι "ομοφυλοφιλικές κ..λες" και τα τοιαύτα υπηρετούν την ενημέρωση; Δεν φτάνει που προβάλλεις το site του με link;