A couple of years ago, I was in Macon, Georgia to counter an ex-gay conference. I encountered ex-gay activist Chad Thompson who told me that he was a speaker at Rick Warren’s Saddleback church. This was somewhat surprising, since Warren was positioning himself as a “moderate.”
TWO’s Mike Airhart revealed that Thompson, along with ex-gay activist Tim Wilkins were also invited to the 2006 Global Summit on AIDS and the Church – which was hosted by Warren.
On Andrew Sullivan’s blog, a man wrote today about his experience in Warren’s Friday ex-gay program, Celebrate Recovery. According to this individual:
I was in full time ministry at a neighboring evangelical megachurch, where I was fighting a desperate battle against depression and despair in attempting to “cure” myself of my homosexuality. This was, without a doubt, the worst time in my life. I spent the majority of my Fridays as a young, 23 year old gay man sitting in a room with a group of men whose self loathing and struggle was overwhelming. These were largely married men, men with children, some of them former ministers, whose entire lives became consumed with undertaking the impossible act of modifying, or at least seeking to neuter, their own sexual orientation.
Far from a pragmatist, Warren is Jerry Falwell in a Hawaiian shirt. But, at least he feeds doughnuts to protesters who are upset that he has taken away their equal rights.
