“Ex-gay” poster couple John and Anne Paulk may be Splitsville.
Sources tell Truth Wins Out today that John has moved out of the couple’s Portland, Oregon home. Other sources in Portland have informed Truth Wins Out that Paulk was dating a man, although the current status of that relationship remains murky, and that Paulk has frequented homosexual establishments in the city.
Speculation on the status of their relationship was heightened today after TWO spotted a cryptic status message posted by John Paulk on his business’s Facebook page:
“After a lifetime of heartache, July 19, 1992 [the date he married Anne] was the happiest day of my life. I will never forget it… It is emblazoned in my memory. And although a lot has occurred since that day long ago and I am on a hard journey right now, i want this woman to know how much she has always meant to me and that no matter where things pan out… I always will love you.”
John Paulk is the former chairman of Exodus International, who was photographed by me in Mr. P’s, a Washington, DC gay bar on September, 19, 2000. Anne was part of the 1998 Truth in Love campaign and was featured on the cover of Newsweek with John, and in a full page New York Times ad under the headline, “I’m Living Proof That Truth Can Set You Free.” Additionally, John was the founder of Focus on the Family’s “ex-gay” roadshow, Love Won Out, and the couple has a book by that name. The Paulk’s have three sons and John runs a catering business.
John, a former drag queen, found Jesus one drunken night on a gay bar dance floor while high on poppers:
“Then for some reason I glanced upward, and my eyes were suddenly transfixed by a mirror ball that was rotating slowly near the ceiling,” Paulk wrote in his book, Not Afraid to Change. “I smiled as I watched the intricate patters of light swirling across the ceilings and walls. Suddenly, all at once, I seemed to enter another place and time. “Come back to me,” the voice said, “and I will change your life.” I immediate recognized it as the voice of God. “Come back to me,” he repeated.
There was speculation that John was creeping back out of the closet when he dyed his hair and lost weight. In his book, Not Afraid to Change, Paulk attributed weight gain to becoming “ex-gay”:
“My weight started to increase, and I found little desire to keep on a strict diet in order to stay fashionably slim. My very appearance was changing; I was looking less and less gay. And I was very happy about it.”
People have noted that Paulk has returned to his stylish ways — with him even earning the nickname “Fabio” in some gay circles. (Check out before and after pictures. It’s almost like he has an entire new head)
John has been active in the so-called “ex-gay” industry as recently as 2010 when he spoke at an Evergreen International conference, the Mormon “ex-gay” organization. According to the event program:
Together, John and Anne have shared their remarkable stories of overcoming homosexuality to audiences world-wide and extensively in the national media. Both John and Anne have served on the Exodus board of directors and in 1998, John went on staff with Focus on the Family and founded the Love Won Out ministry and conference which toured the country speaking to audiences for 11 years.
Anne still remains on the “ex-gay” circuit and her tale is prominently featured on the propaganda website Hope for Homsexuals. Keeping tabs on John remains important because the Religious Right still claims that he is a successful “ex-gay.” Here is a snippet that is still up at SameSexAttraction.org.
“It was a significant lapse in judgment,” says Julie Niels, spokeswoman for Focus on the Family referring to Paulk’s outing in a gay bar, “but not a lapse in heterosexuality. We know that for sure. And one person’s serious lack of judgment does not negate the fact that thousands of people have struggled out of homosexuality….We all make mistakes. People are very understanding, and they have been very supportive of John. But a lot of homosexual activists are trying to
turn it into an example of someone returning to homosexuality, and it’s not. It’s been misportrayed in the media….the reality is that John has 1,000% left homosexuality.”
In a radio show I appeared on earlier this year, Focus on the Family spokesperson Timothy Dailey claimed that John was still a heterosexual man and that his therapy had been a success, despite the fact I had photographed him at Mr. P’s. The question is, will Focus on the Family admit failure and apologize if their former poster boy comes out of the closet?
It is doubtful. As I have stated numerous times, these groups love to show you the “ex-gay” wedding photos, but they never show you the divorce papers.
In 2002, John endorsed Dr. Joseph Nicolosi’s controversial book that he co-wrote with his wife Linda, A Parent’s Guide to Preventing Homosexuality:
“Dr. Nicolosi’s principles on prevention of homosexuality would benefit any parent of a young son to raise him with a healthy sense of gender identity. I wish my parents had this material when I was in my formative years. The practical knowledge and timeless — but often unknown — principles would have saved me from years of heartache when, as an adult, I began the tough road to overcome my homosexual struggle. Joseph and Linda Nicolosi’s book should be required reading for all education classes on child development.”
I wonder if John still feels that abusing children by forcing parents to read this heinous book is the right course of action?
John and Anne Paulk began their career by starring in two virulently homophobic propaganda films, The Gay Agenda and Gay Rights, Special Rights. In The Report’s Gay Agenda, this is what John Paulk said:
“The majority of homosexuality, especially male homosexuality is centered around anonymous sexual encounters. Relationships, long term partners are very rare. Most people don’t even know these activities are taking place. If they knew they would be extremely shocked, because they are going on right underneath your nose.
Some of the places, for example, could be, public parks in a big city where there are secluded areas. Um, homosexuals will meet and cruise one another and go behind a clump of bushes and have an encounter. This is very, very common from the people that I knew. Also, they go to public restrooms in malls and have sex.
There used to be a joke in New York City about shopping bag day. You would take a shopping bag and go into a restroom and close the door and stand in the shopping bag. And someone else would sit on the stool, and so you would only think one person was in there because the feet were obscured by the shopping bag.
Another location that’s probably the most prevalent place for gays to go is called a bathhouse. And I know when the AIDS scare became really prevalent, a lot of the bathhouses in larger cities like New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, supposedly closed them down. But, I know for a fact that as recently as just this year, I know that people are going to bathhouses. And what a bathhouse basically is, is a large building in a very obscure part of town. It has nothing to do with baths at all or taking baths.
But you usually pay $12, get a little membership card. You go into a locker room and check your clothes, basically into a locker. Put a towel on and you walk around with with as many as one, two hundred people. And what would go on is, what does go on is, they have a series of rooms. Private rooms with doors. Or large rooms with mats on the floor or bunks and things like that.
Most of the rooms are either pitch black or very dimly lit. And, for example, orgies go on in there. People will walk in there and have sex with multiple partners and have no idea who they are having sex with. I know this first hand. And from the many, many people I was associated with in the gay lifestyle.”
If you ever wondered how the fundies got their tainted ideas about the LGBT community, look no further than John Paulk. The Gay Agenda video not only circulated in churches throughout the country in 1992, but it made its way to Congress during the original gays in the military debate.
Thanks, John. Isn’t it time Paulk apologizes to the LGBT community?
