GAYS TO PROTEST AGAINST “EX-GAY” FRAUD
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CHICAGO - On June 27, Activists with the Chicago-based Gay Liberation Network will protest against the national convention of what they term as the "ex-gay fraud" of Exodus International.
EI is a well-funded far-right organization which claims that it uses Christianity to change Lesbian and Gay people to straight. On their web site, Exodus obnoxiously claims to bring "freedom from homosexuality through the power of Jesus Christ." All of the major professional psychological and psychiatric associations have denounced the "ex-gay" movement as damaging and based on pseudo-scientific quackery.
"One of the principal excuses used by anti-gay bigots to justify promoting discrimination against us is their claim that we can 'change' from gay to straight," said the Gay Liberation Network's Bob Schwartz. "By this 'logic,' discrimination against religious minorities is also okay, since they too can change."
"Their actual track record in 'changing' lesbian and gay people is predictably abysmal," Schwartz said. "People hoodwinked into joining the 'ex-gay' movement find that no matter how much money they give the movement and no matter how much prayer and 'Christian therapy' they get, their gay sexual desires remain intact -- they almost invariably 'fall off the wagon' as their gay sexuality reasserts itself."
The protest will take place at the convention's opening session, 7 p.m., Tuesday, June 27, at the Philippe Performing Arts Center of Indiana Wesleyan University, Nebraska Street in Marion, Indiana. The Gay Liberation Network will be organizing transportation from Chicago.
"If it wasn't so psychologically damaging, Exodus would be a bad joke," Schwartz said. "Due to its manifest failure to permanently brainwash adults, Exodus has now begun focusing its recruitment on teenagers. The danger this represents -- damaging the self-esteem of Lesbian, Gay, Bi and Trans kids already prone to suicide thanks to the hatred they often face at home and in society at large -- can't be underestimated."
For more information, visit www.Gayliberation.org. [6/26/06]
