A seemingly new “ex-gay” group, Joel 2:25, has popped up like a unwanted weed in a garden. The organization recruits clients by regurgitating old Exodus International advertising 
that asks: “Feeling Trapped By Homosexuality? You Are Not Alone.”
It turns out that the advertising is accurate. If you are bamboozled into parting with your money and joining this group — you will be greeted by the same discredited handful of “ex-gay” shame-filled snake oil salesmen who have been peddling this poison for decades. Instead of fresh faces, the “links” page reveals a list of tired golden oldies: Exodus International dead enders such as Living Hope Ministries in Dallas, Desert Stream in Kansas City (this group preaches that homosexuality is demonic); and First Stone Ministries, which is run by Stephen Black, a man so radical that he brought Holocaust revisionist Scott Lively into Oklahoma for a seminar.
Links for national groups include, Jews Offering New Alternatives to Homosexuality (JONAH), which is run by Arthur Abba Goldberg, a convicted felon who was incarcerated for illegal bond schemes; Joseph Nicolosi, the discredited co-founder of NARTH; Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays (PFOX); Richard Cohen’s pillow banging International Healing Foundation, and The Restored Hope Network, which is run by Anne Paulk. Additionally, the pretty boy Mormon organization, North Star, the Catholic celibacy cult, Courage; and the for lots of profit enterprise Journey into Manhood (the group that takes gay men into the woods to butch them up for $650 per weekend) are listed.
Yes, it does seem there really are 25 or so “ex-gay” people in existence, given that we rarely encounter new faces. This is most evident by the fact the “new” website is filled with stock pictures of actors who have nothing to do with “pray away the gay” ministries. Much like Christopher Doyle’s failed “ex-gay” pride, which drew a handful of people to Washington, DC, instead of the thousands that he predicted, these stock photos reveal that unpaid “ex-gays” are a very rare species.
What is disturbing about this website is its focus on propagandizing to the international community. So-called ex-gay organizations have become a laughingstock at home, so they are peddling their poison abroad (the site can be translated into eight languages including Arabic and Russian). The site not only links to Exodus Global Alliance, but it unconscionably links to a Russian resource, Overcoming Russia. Promoting “ex-gay” junk science and religious persecution in Russia at this time proves what I have always said: The “ex-gay” industry is about raw hatred of LGBT people and has no regard for their safety and well-being. The empty rhetoric about “love” is a smokescreen for their nefarious intentions. The only things the leaders of this racket love are money and watching LGBT people and their families suffer.
These are people who have no compunction about deliberately going into police states or theocracies where LGBT people are persecuted, jailed, and murdered, to fan the flames of hate at our expense. “Ex-gay” rhetoric in places like Uganda, Nigeria, Russia, Jamaica, and the Middle East, allows our jailers, tormentors, and executioners a way to justify their crimes against humanity. By exporting junk science and fraudulent “ex-gay” cures, all of the organizations involved with Joel 2:25 are partly culpable for the anti-gay atmosphere that has led to the demonization of LGBT people in foreign lands.
If you think I’m being a bit rough on these groups, consider the words of key Joel 2:25 member Andy Comiskey of Desert Stream Ministries, who wrote in his book, Pursuing Sexual Wholeness:
“Satan delights in homosexual perversion because it not only exists outside of marriage, but it also defiles God’s very image reflected as male and female…Another related source of demonization is the homosexual relationship itself…That attachment and communion are indeed inspired, but their source is demonic.”
How do you think such vile and divisive propaganda plays in an ignorant police state such as Russia?
