Georgia-based ex-gay activist D.L. Foster is something of a leader within Exodus Global Alliance.
In recent years, Exodus has given Foster an international soapbox from which Foster affirmed violence and imprisonment in Jamaica and Barbados as tactics to coerce local gay people to closet themselves and pretend to be heterosexual.
At his blog Gay Christian Movement Watch today, Foster berated Canadian ex-gay advocate Wendy Gritter of New Direction for a comment yesterday here at Truth Wins Out. Gritter said:
I would go to a close friend’ gay wedding and yup, I’d bring a gift. I know that all of my close friends know what I believe about sexual ethics and would not assume my beliefs had changed but that my attendance was a sign of my love and friendship. I’m sure I would get some serious flack for this decision – but at the end of the day, I believe loving people is what God asks of me.
Unlike Jesus of Nazareth, Foster disapproves of — in his words — “hanging out with sinners.” Even though Foster has exploited the Exodus global network, Foster now warns antigay clergy not to support Exodus’ North American operation, Exodus International:
Pastors should not refer people to the organization until it can solidify its message and practice into one which is faithful to the Word of God not science, polls, surveys and people like Wendy Gritter.
Foster’s demand spotlights an apparent difference in approach, between the global alliance’s support for antigay violence and imprisonment, and the North American operation’s approach of hiring professional ex-gays to distort science and create appealing soundbites at ex-gay roadshows and ex-gay support-group meetings. Unlike Exodus in North America, Foster rejects science and critical thinking outright — advocating blind obedience to his selective and brutal reinterpretations of the “Word of God.”
So long as Exodus International affiliates with Exodus Global Alliance — thereby aiding ungracious and politically correct thugs like Foster — it puzzles me that relatively gracious moderates like Gritter bother to affiliate with Exodus International.
Surely there are effective and ideologically consistent ways to draw referrals and to promote one’s message, without sacrificing individual, intellectual, and religious freedom?
