Chris Delaney, ex-gay activist and poster boy for P-FOX billboards, admitted last month to the Chattanooga Times Free Press that, as a “gay” man, he sought male affirmation — not sex.
The apparent fact that he did not experience a lifelong, predominant, and unvarying sexual attraction to men — and that he wasted his “gay” years in bars instead of pursuing constructive relationships and hobbies — hasn’t stopped Delaney from boasting for 12 years that he achieved freedom from homosexuality.
His claim is ironic. If anything, he is more deeply addicted to the subject than when he claimed to be gay.
For most of this decade, his picture has appeared on billboards to aid P-FOX in its ongoing campaign to divide families and blame parents for their children’s predominant and unchanging same-sex attraction.
In November, Delaney joined other ex-gay activists and antigay church leaders to strategize against equality and freedom in Tennessee.
And last week, Delaney revealed to OneNewsNow that he is willing to distort science and smear researchers who have discovered signs of a naturally occurring, biological predisposition to same-gender attraction.Delaney is one among many activists who advocate ex-gay “therapy” — even though independent studies and former ex-gays say such therapy worsens depression and unhealthy compulsion without changing patients’ sexual orientation.
According to the Times Free Press, Delaney says that “he doesn’t have specific data to track his clients’ outcomes, but acknowledged some people don’t respond to the therapy and return to the gay lifestyle.” Delaney does not detail how therapy worked for him. Worse, Delaney does not seem to care whether ex-gay therapy actually works for anyone else — or whether his religious condemnation of sexual honesty and and his false characterizations of gay persons’ diverse lifestyles damage people emotionally and spiritually.
No matter: Delaney — and Jeff Buchanan, Exodus church activist — are both men on a mission to convince the religious right, parents in particular, that anyone can “change” — if they really want to.
Delaney admits the reason why he asserts that anyone can change: It is because, to do otherwise, would be to admit that gay people deserve the same freedom and respect as anyone else:
The question of whether someone can choose to be gay is at the heart of all gay-rights issues, Mr. Delaney explained. By saying that a homosexual is genetically born with gay tendencies in the same way a black person is born with dark skin, gay rights advocates are trying to bolster their arguments for equal treatment of gays, he said.
“What I do flies in the face of their agenda,” said Mr. Delaney, who noted that he periodically is the target of hate messages on his Web site and threatening voice mails.
But Mr. Delaney and Mr. Buchanan say they aren’t going to let resistance interfere with their work. Mr. Buchanan said he believes the ex-gay movement will not only continue but will expand.
“I work with a network of about 115 churches. It’ continuing to grow, and I have reason to think it will multiply into the thousands,” he said.
In an interview last week with the religious right’s OneNewsNow, Delaney goes even further, deliberately mischaracterizing available science regarding the biological origins of sexual orientation. While several studies have found a biological predisposition for sexual orientation –one that is admitted even by some ex-gay pundits — Delaney clings to the false supposition that scientists seek a “gay gene”:
“There is absolutely no conclusive evidence of a gay gene. There’s [sic] been lots of studies, but they’ve been slanted,” he contends. “There’s been an agenda behind it, and there is no gay gene that’s been discovered as of yet.”
Delaney sees an “agenda” — intellectual and personal freedom — behind growing calls for equality. And he appears determined to do whatever is required — redefine “gay,” mischaracterize science, smear the professionalism of researchers, blame parents, ostracize those who are failed by his “therapy” — to oppose that freedom.
