(90) Sat 24 May 97 21:35 By: Rod Swift To: Jan Deboer Re: KY Elixer oil St: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ @EID:969e 22b8ac60 @MSGID: 3:690/660.0 3386ee90 * On 14-05-97 at 20:52, JAN DEBOER wrote to KEN YOUNG, on the topic of "KY Elixer oil" in echo Holysmoke: JD> > KY> There may be a good reason why most groups that try to heal gays, ar e JD> > KY> Christian. JD> > KY> Could it be, that the "cure" often is the healing power of the JD> > KY> Lord, Jesus Christ? JD> GUFFAW!! Ever seen some of the "cured"? Howcome they still have the JD> fagotty voice and the effeminate mannerisms, if they're "cured", Ken? JD> Hey Ken - tell us about the biggest of the "homo-curing" christian JD> organizations - you know, the one where the two "chrisitan" guys who ran JD> it fell in love with each other? It's not just Exodus International's founders, but the founders of a number of other groups have now left :) There are no less than three groups that have suffered the "loss" of their leadership! :) From "ABOUT EX-GAY MINISTRIES" By David Williams: ___------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 hotline 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 whoa re 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 tha I don't have to fight!" ___------------------------------------------------------------------------- (5) Kalmansohn says in "Frontiers" that Exodus had "counseled" over 100,000 people by 1990, but this information seems to be erroneous. (6) Most of the following information about Bussee and Cooper comes from the article by Kalmansohn, "Former 'Ex-Gays' Denounce Homosexual 'Healing'", Frontiers, 2 March 1990, p25. (7) The marriage, as for all gay and lesbian unions at present, was not recognized by American law, of course. (8) "Ex-Gay Ministry Founders Recant," "Keeping in Touch" (The Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches), May 1990. (9) Information and quotes from Paulk are taken from Dennis Anderson, "'The Gay Agenda' Video Star Repudiates Sheldon's Tactics," "Bay Area Reporter," Vol. XXIII, No. 51, December 23, 1993, p. 5. (10) DewBerry, Ibid. All information and quotes about Grimsley were taken from this article. ___------------------------------------------------------------------------- * OLX 2.1 TD * Found God? 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