In two recent articles, Box Turtle Bulletin has noted major changes at the Roman Catholic organization Courage.
Courage, founded by the recently deceased John Harvey, at one time encouraged gay men to seek a life of chastity and to channel their sex drives into asexual means of serving God.
In the past 10 years, however, the organization has been gradually been influenced by Christian Rightists who advocate scientifically disproven myths about the origin and changeability of sexual attraction. Its website is now peppered with ex-gay propaganda including a professionally repudiated 12-myth program patterned on 12-Step programs, false assumptions about whether one is born with a given orientation, pressure to “develop one’s heterosexual potential” in violation of church policy, and Exodus-style condemnation of sexual honesty (coming out).
It would seem that Courage has now followed Exodus International in reducing support for celibate gay men, in order to devote resources to antigay prejudice, discrimination, and ostracism.
The Catholic News Agency reported Jan. 6 that the organization’s board members will use Courage as supposed evidence against the civil rights and equalities of their Protestant, non-Christian, and liberal Catholic neighbors:
The new president of the U.S. Catholic bishops’ conference, Archbishop Timothy Dolan, announced Jan. 5 that he appointed Bishop Salvatore Cordileone of Oakland, California as chairman of the conference’s Ad Hoc Committee for the Defense of Marriage.
Dolan and Cordileone are board members of Courage, and Cordileone — Box Turtle Bulletin notes — is the father of California’s anti-marriage Proposition 8. Together, the pair have swiftly wedded Courage to the Vatican’s battle against marriage equality.
