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You are here: Home > Forum > A Place of Safety > General Talk > Are 'ex-gay' ministries therapy or spiritual abuse?
Are 'ex-gay' ministries therapy or spiritual abuse?  [message #29192] Sat, 11 March 2006 20:12 Go to previous message
E.J. is currently offline  E.J.

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Registered: August 2003
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Task Force study fuels debate over success rates, personal toll
By PHIL LaPADULA, Southern Voice

FORT LAUDERDALE — Justin Flippen first became aware that he was different in the sixth grade. By the 11th grade, Flippen, who grew up in a Southern Baptist family in Coconut Creek, Fla., realized that his attraction to other boys was not a passing phase.

Flippen, a spiritual young man who was active in his church and sang in the choir, decided to bring what he perceived as his "gay problem" to his parent's attention.

At his parents' urging, Flippen began one-on-one and group counseling with Worthy Creations, an ex-gay ministry affiliated with Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Fort Lauderdale. The Worthy Creations counselor told Flippen, whose parents were divorced, that he was gay because he didn't bond properly with his biological father as a small child, Flippen recalled.

"The counselor said that because I lacked an everyday presence of my biological father in my life that I didn't bond with him and, therefore, developed a same-sex attraction," Flippen recalled.

Flippen, who was 17 at the time, said he was "puzzled that not all boys who came from divorced families struggled with homosexuality." He said he was also confused because he thought he had a good relationship with both his stepfather and his biological father. He said his biological father frequently took him on trips to places such as the Grand Canyon.

After a year and a half of "reparative therapy," Flippen said he began to feel deeply depressed and "abandoned by God" because "there was no progress, and I still felt the same."

"At one point, I even contemplated suicide," Flippen said.

Flippen's story is typical of what many gay youths and adults experience when they become involved with ex-gay ministries and attempt to change their sexual orientation, according to a just-released study by the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force's Policy Institute.

The study, titled "Youth in the Crosshairs: The Third Wave of Ex-Gay Activism," documents the high failure rate of conversion therapy. The study also contends that ex-gay ministries harm gay people by causing depression and damaging their relationships with family members and friends. Participants in ex-gay programs also reported loneliness and sexual dysfunction, the study says.

Do ex-gay groups cause family rifts?

"Many participants complained that conversion therapy harmed their relationships with family and friends, particularly with their parents," the study says.

"They play this game of blaming the parents," Jason Cianciotto, one of the study's authors, said in an interview. "Conversion therapy primarily focuses on supposed dysfunctional relationships with same-sex parents."

Cianciotto said the groups also focus on child abuse and molestation as alleged causes of homosexuality.

But those theories have been widely rejected by psychological and psychiatric experts, Cianciotto noted.

Dr. Douglas Haldeman, a clinical psychologist in Seattle, said he has seen firsthand "the wreckage of the ex-gay ministries." When he first started his clinical practice in 1983, Haldeman said he treated a gay Mormon who had undergone electro-shock therapy to try to change his sexual orientation. Since then he said he has treated numerous patients who dropped out of ex-gay programs.

"All of organized mental health, which is based on science and research, discredit these conversion therapy theories," Haldeman said.

Haldeman said the ex-gay ministries tend to attract vulnerable people who may already suffer from low self-esteem.

"When it doesn't work, the shame and stigma are doubly painful," Haldeman said. "People become depressed and self-loathing. It spikes suicidal feelings and propensity toward alcoholism and drug abuse."

He noted that both the American Psychological Association and the American Psychiatric Association have come out against conversion therapy.

Groups that push the theory that a lack of family bonding causes homosexuality, such as Focus on the Family, whose web pages on homosexuality focus almost exclusively on a child's relationship with his or her same-sex parent, may actually be creating rifts in families, Cianciotto contended.

He pointed to a study of 202 individuals who had participated in conversion therapy. The study, conducted by two psychologists, Dr. Ariel Shidlo and Dr. Michael Schroeder, found that only 26 of the participants (13 percent) reported believing that they had successfully changed their sexual orientation. But of that 26, only eight reported that they were not experiencing "slips" back into same-sex attraction.

Of the 176 participants in the self-perceived failure group, 155 (or 88 percent) reported significant long-term harm, including depression, "some to the point of wanting or attempting to commit suicide," Cianciotto said.

'I no longer struggle. Jesus healed me'

Rev. Jerry Stephenson, a former Baptist minister, was also a client in the Worthy Creations program and now counts himself among the ex-ex-gay. Stephenson was a Baptist minister for 15 years and taught at Miami Christian College for more than three years. In 1986, he sought Christian counseling for his homosexual attractions. When the dean of the college found out that he was in Worthy Creations, Stephenson said he was fired.

"I may be the only person to be fired for being ex-gay," Stephenson said.

After he was dismissed from the college in 1990, Stephenson became associate pastor of the First Baptist Church in Key West, where he counseled others on how to overcome homosexuality.

"I would tell them, 'I no longer struggle. Jesus healed me,'" Stephenson said. "But inside nothing had changed. You can take an orange and paint it blue and put a hula skirt on it, but it's still an orange."

Stephenson said he went through a period of severe depression before he finally reconciled his sexual orientation and his Christian faith.

"I went from teaching at a college to working at a 7-Eleven pushing a broom," he said.

Stephenson came out in a South Florida Sun-Sentinel article in 1992.

Stephenson, who has a master's degree in biblical studies from Miami Christian College and a doctorate in pastoral psychology from Atlantic Institute Bible College and Seminar in Panama City, Fla., now runs his own counseling practice called the Sanctuary. He is an outspoken critic of ex-gay ministries.

"Not only do these groups destroy the individuals, they also destroy their families," Stephenson said.

Homosexuality 'wasn't God's will for my life'

Cordy Campbell, a volunteer leader with Worthy Creations who described himself as an ex-gay, conceded that conversion therapy "is very hard work." But he insisted that people can leave behind being gay and learn to lead happy heterosexual lives.

"People want a quick fix, and it's not a quick fix," he said.

According to Campbell, Worthy Creation's drop-in group draws about 30 people per week. Campbell said that he sees "people quit all the time after just a few meetings." But he said some people had been with the group for three or four years and "are doing great." He said the group doesn't keep records on its retention rate.

Campbell said he was "in the gay lifestyle" from the age of 12 until he was 45. He said after he became a born-again Christian, "I felt like it wasn't God's will for my life."

Campbell said he thinks a lack of bonding with his father, who was an alcoholic, caused him to be gay.

"I didn't bond with him," Campbell said. "He wasn't there, and when he was there, he was drinking. A dad is supposed to call the child out of mom's circle into manhood. A lot of dads don't do that. They don't spend time with the boy."

Campbell said he also became disillusioned with being gay.

"I saw a lot of tragedy in that lifestyle," he said. "I saw a lot of depressed people, especially older people. It's a lifestyle for young people."

Campbell said he got tired of sitting on bar stools and talking to depressed older gay men. He said he worked with a man who committed suicide after his boyfriend left him.

"The relationships don't last," he said.

Campbell, who said he is a recovering alcoholic, now dates women but is not currently in a relationship. He said he wants to be a "man among men."

Campbell said he knew "former drag queens and others who had been in long-term gay relationships" who now regard themselves as ex-gay.

Campbell said he has nothing but empathy for gay people, whether or not they choose to overcome their homosexuality.

"I love gay people because I came from that lifestyle," he said. "I understand why people are gay. They're looking for love. But it's the result of brokenness, and we live in a very broken world."

Ex-gay ministries 'not bulging with members'

Wayne Besen, author of "Anything But Straight," a book that challenges what he calls "ex-gay myths," said the ex-gay ministries "are not bulging with members."

He said ex-gay ministries such as Exodus International exaggerate their numbers.

"[Exodus president] Allen Chambers pulls numbers out of thin air," Besen said. "In 2003, he claimed that there were thousands of members. By 2004, he said he knew of tens of thousands. Last week, it was hundreds of thousands. The ex-gay ministries are apparently the next Starbucks."

Besen said many of the ex-gay ministries are small groups started by a "charismatic leader with a checkered past."

"They are mini-cults of personality," Besen said. He said the leaders often have a history of dysfunctional behavior, such as alcoholism or drug abuse. He recalled one ex-gay leader who was a former porn actor.

"They blame homosexuality for their behavioral problems," Besen said.

Florida is an epicenter of ex-gay activity. The state has hosted 10 ex-gay conferences. It will host another one when Focus on the Family's "Love Won Out Conference" comes to the Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Fort Lauderdale May 6. There are also at least 11 ex-gay ministries in the state, according to the Task Force's Cianciotto.

Besen said Texas, North Carolina and California are other states with a lot of ex-gay activity. Portland, Ore., has one of the "more active" ex-gay ministries, he said. There is not much activity in New England. surprisingly, ex-gay groups do not have much of a presence in deep South states such as Mississippi and Alabama, Besen said.

'I was born to be gay'

After a year and a half of ex-gay therapy, Justin Flippen said he finally decided to accept who he is.

Flippen, who now serves on the board of directors and the worship ministry team at the Metropolitan Community Church's Sunshine Cathedral in Fort Lauderdale, said he had an epiphany one day while driving down I-95. He recalled a passage in the Bible in which Jesus is overwhelmed by sorrow because of the burden of his role on Earth. But he finally accepts it.

"Just as Jesus was born to be the Messiah, I was born to be gay," Flippen said.

© 2006 | A Window Media Publication


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