Tolerance for the Ex-Gay Community

TOLERANCE FOR EX-GAYS

Each year, thousands of men and women with unwanted same-sex attractions make the personal decision to leave homosexuality. Their decision is one only they can make. However, there are others who refuse to respect that decision, and endeavor to attack the ex-gay community. Media dealing with tolerance and hate issues generally fail to discuss the discrimination faced by ex-gays and their supporters. Consequently, many Americans are unaware of the widespread intolerance practiced against homosexuals who choose to leave homosexuality:

The Gay, Lesbian and Straight Educational Network (GLSEN) spent thousands of dollars distributing a school booklet accusing ex-gays of "harassment" because ex-gays want the same access to schools that gay affirming groups like GLSEN currently enjoy. Through its Gay Straight Alliance (GSA) student clubs, GLSEN teaches public school students that ex-gays are not entitled to equal access to public school programs, event, or facilities. GLSEN’s opposition to sharing school access with ex-gay representatives and allowing ex-gay resources to be made available to schools demonstrates their own disregard for diversity.
The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) demanded that a contributor reconsider her sizeable donation to a children’s school merely because it had indirect ties to an ex-gay ministry.
Tim Wilkins was fired from his job as supervisor at the Raleigh News & Observer for daring to “come out” as a former homosexual.
An episode of the NBC TV show “Will and Grace” condemned ex-gays as “freaks,” “self-loathing closet cases,” and “morally wrong.”
Harvard University conducted two separate investigations against employee Larry Houston because he “came out” as ex-gay on the school campus.
The Falls Church News Press, a newspaper owned by an openly gay man, regularly carries a column belittling ex-gays and denouncing their existence.
Cornelius Baker, the executive director of an AIDS clinic (Whitman-Walker) that receives federal funding, labeled ex-gays as “political extremists” who “tortured and brainwashed” teens, although he endorses gay outreach to questioning youth.
After receiving “threats, insults and brutal letters” for running an advertisement for an ex-gay book, Psychology Today Editor Bob Epstein acknowledged the “dark, intolerant, abusive side of the gay community.”
Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays & Gays (PFOX) filed a sexual orientation discrimination complaint against the National Education Association (NEA) for prohibiting ex-gays from exhibiting at NEA conventions. The NEA, which allows gay booths, is the nation’s largest teachers’ union, and in some areas membership by educators is mandatory. Although the NEA has condemned the Boy Scouts for excluding gays as scout leaders and urges public schools to refuse use of their facilities for Boy Scout meetings, it consistently discriminates against former gays. The NEA claims it can legally exclude ex-gays from its facilities because it is a private organization. Ironically, this is one of the same arguments used by the Boy Scouts in its successful Supreme Court case, Boy Scouts of America v. Dale. However, unlike the Boy Scouts, the NEA has issued resolutions calling for sexual orientation tolerance and diversity, so it cannot claim that it has asserted views opposing sexual orientation.
Orlando Commissioner Patty Sheehan denounced her fellow commissioner for issuing a proclamation honoring an ex-gay organization even though she herself freely makes proclamations celebrating “Gay Days” every year at Disney World. Ms. Sheehan, an open lesbian, went so far as to compare the ex-gay organization to the KKK, thereby demeaning African-American ex-gays.
Equality Virginia and other gay activist groups demanded that DC Metro remove PFOX’s subway billboards advocating tolerance for ex-gays. As a result, the District of Columbia Metro system voted to eliminate the non-profit billboard rate for all charities.
Ex-gay volunteers staffing PFOX’s exhibit booth at the Arlington County, Virginia Fair were verbally and physically assaulted by homosexuals who insisted that hate crime laws do not apply to ex-gays. Arlington County council member Jay Fisette, an open homosexual, labeled the assault a “fabrication” and “fiction” for fundraising purposes by PFOX. When confronted with police evidence of the assault, Fisette refused to apologize.

The list is endless because every day brings new hostile acts against the ex-gay community simply because we dare to exist. The demonization of ex-gays by gays themselves is a sad end to the long struggle for tolerance by the gay community. That ex-gays and their supporters are now oppressed by the same people who until recently were victimized themselves, demonstrates how far the gay rights movement has come. Indeed, a new chapter in the movement has begun – the right of homosexuals and lesbians to leave unwanted homosexuality.

The ex-gay movement is a civil rights movement to ensure the inclusion of former homosexuals in all realms of society. Ex-gays and their supporters should not have to be closeted for fear of other’s negative reactions or disapproval. They do not think something is wrong with them because they decided to fulfill their heterosexual potential. Nor do they believe others should condemn them for the personal decision they have made for their lives. Because of the abuse heaped upon them by society, former homosexuals experience discrimination at every level. When a gay marries an opposite sex partner, that ex-gay is ridiculed by former friends. Ex-gays find heterosexuals also reject them if their past is known because "Once gay, always gay" is assumed. While gays can come out of the "closet," ex-gays are forced to stay in theirs because of public prejudice. While gays gain sympathy as victims, ex-gays are criticized and face life-long intolerance for simply existing as living proof that homosexuality is not innate.

Although gay organizations advocate for the rights of homosexuals, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgenders, they do not add “ex-gay” to that list. Therefore, if it were not for ex-gay organizations like PFOX, former gay men and women would have no support in an increasingly hostile environment. Americans need to face the real issue of bigotry -- oppression of ex-gays. Gay activists cannot claim sympathy as victims when they victimize their own.