Ex-Gay Survivors Stand Up to Love Won Out

October 27, 2008 / Uncategorized / 2 Comments »

A group of LGBT-affirming groups, ministers and others stood up to  the confusion and misinformation dished out by Focus on the Family at their Love Won Out conference in Colorado Springs. The local Gazette published a good story about it,

The battle of beliefs over the idea that gays can become heterosexual will play out today at two events in Colorado Springs.

In the north part of town, Focus on the Family will hold its “Love Won Out” program, which the ministry created in 1998 to help gays overcome same-sex attraction. Focus has since held 52 of the seminars in the U.S. Its most recent, in Anchorage, garnered national media attention because Sarah Palin’s church, Wasilla Bible, advertised it.

The other event, called “Love Came Out,” is being sponsored by a coalition of local gay leaders who want to warn people of the dangers of trying to change one’s sexual orientation. The free program takes place at Shove Chapel on the Colorado College campus, and features gay speakers who participated in so-called reparative programs and now question such faith-based attempts to change one’s sexual orientation.

They also quote blogger and ex-gay survivor Daniel Gonzales,

Though many scientific studies suggest that people are born with their sexual orientation, Focus research analyst Jeff Johnston said he believes it has more to do with how they are raised – in other words, nurture, not nature.

“Pro-homosexual advocates and their allies aren’t dealing with all the evidence in their insistence that people are ‘born gay’ and cannot change,” Johnston said in a statement.

But Daniel Gonzales has a different view. The 28-year-old Denver resident will be one of four panelists at the “Love Came Out” event, where he’ll talk about embracing his sexual orientation after years of trying to change it while attending faith-based reparative programs.

“It all boiled down to trying to make up excuses for what was causing my attractions and convincing myself that my attractions had some other meaning and ultimately could be ignored or pushed aside,” Gonzales said.

“If that sounds like a fancy way of saying ‘repression,'” he said, “that would be exactly right.”

Wow, Repressive Therapy, yeah, that sounds a lot like my own experience.