For the past several months, Exodus International president Alan Chambers and Exodus “women’s ministry” director Yvette Cantu Schneider — a former Family Research Council political operative — have used their ex-gay soapboxes to wage political war against California gay couples.
Appearing at events in support of Proposition 8 to eliminate the right of gay and lesbian couples to marry, Chambers has told audiences that — just as some right-wing Christians demand that Jewish school children be denied tolerance to pressure them to become fundamentalist, and other Christians demand that American youths be denied public education in order to turn them into Sarah Palins — gay people must be denied equal opportunity under the law.
Why?
Chambers is clear about the reason: Gay people, in his opinion, must be given no legal alternative to a nightmarish lifestyle of secretive hole-in-the-wall bars, unsafe encounters, and round-the-clock fear of bigoted co-workers and fellow church-goers.
Last month, Chambers told an audience that young gay people “don’t need this obstacle [marriage] in their way” of becoming insecure, ego-centric fundamentalists:
I’m so grateful that back in 1990 and 1991 that wasn’t something that stood in my way in coming to Christ in the way that he had me come to him. If that had been an option for me, I certainly would have chosen it …
Having insulted Christ, Chambers then further lied that gay people “remember the Church as that awful, hateful place that only spoke the truth.”
Not only are many gay people Christian — contrary to Chambers’ desire — but Chambers is also intentionally dishonest about right-wing churches speaking supposed truth.
Chambers is a proponent of sexual dishonesty: The Exodus leader condemns gay celibacy as a sin and he demands that same-sex-attracted people falsely proclaim a phony heterosexual “identity” in order to be accepted as legitimate people of faith.
To the extent that Americans in this election season are rebelling en masse against the U.S. religious right party (the Republicans) — it is because religious rightist churches have become infamous for lying and destroying community values — not for telling the truth:
They are lying about Barack Obama’s religious and ethnic background. Concealing religious-right support for terrorism against Latin Americans. Supporting social policies that promote unwed pregnancy, abortion, and divorce. Condemning the people of Iraq to prolonged terror, ethnic cleansing, and exile.
And they are waging a $30 million campaign in California — funded primarily by wealthy out-of-state Mormons — against the health, biology, faith, social needs, and equal rights of same-sex-attracted and gender-variant Americans.
The ex-gay “identity” itself is a lie. And in order to survive — Chambers admits — that false identity requires that honest same-sex-attracted people be suppressed and and condemned to a life of illegality and unhealthy behavior defined not by the aspirations of gay people, but by the nightmares of fundamentalists.
Chambers’ openly stated desire to make life hellish for gay people in order to make them pretend to be ex-gay contradicts his claim, made almost simultaneously to the Times of London, that he tolerates gay people and merely seek tolerance in return.
Hat tip: Ex-Gay Watch
