TWO Offers Media Interviews with Survivors and Former ‘Ex-Gay’ Leaders

PHILADELPHIA – Truth Wins Out (TWO) accused the American Family Association (AFA) today of committing consumer fraud by promoting a dishonest new “ex-gay” documentary. The new video, In His Image: Delighting in God’s Plan for Gender and Sexuality, grossly distorts the lives of LGBTQ people and deliberately confuses stereotypes with science. The effort also obscures the American Family Association’s past embarrassing forays into promoting conversion programs, with their many “ex-gay” spokespeople almost uniformly reverting back to homosexuality. In their latest propaganda video, they mendaciously conceal their record of folly and failures.

Truth Wins Out is offering the media interviews with “ex-gay” survivors and former “ex-gay’ leaders who can attest to the harm and mental duress caused by these destructive programs.

“The American Family Association has repackaged its failed ‘ex-gay’ poison and is presenting it as new,” said Truth Wins Out’s Executive Director Wayne Besen. “Their track record is humiliating and the conversion programs they shamelessly flog don’t work and have caused needless pain and suffering. We urge people to do their research so they can see that the AFA is an immoral outfit that deliberately misleads people for profit.”

An Action Alert today from the American Family Association claims: The documentary preview has been played more than 127,000 times. Also, more than 8,000 have financially partnered with AFA to share the redemptive hope of the gospel presented in In His Image and will receive a DVD of the full film, which ships in November.

Dr. Robert Jeffress, who is senior pastor of the 14,000-member First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas, is also promoting In His Image. In 2010, Jeffress called both Islam and Mormonism “a heresy from the pit of hell,” then issued a warning to Jews. “Judaism―you can’t be saved being a Jew,” he declared on the Trinity Broadcasting Network.

Tragically, AFA’s last “ex-gay” documentary, “It’s Not Gay” featured Michael Johnston. In 2003, a Truth Wins Out investigation, with the assistance of Virginia attorney Michael Hamar, revealed that Johnston was meeting men online in various Virginia motel rooms, even has he worked for Rev. Jerry Falwell and claimed that Jesus had healed him from his homosexuality. Johnston resigned his position in infamy and disgrace, yet AFA continues to support the “ex-gay” lie, undeterred by reality. TWO is countering this documentary with a historic, in-depth interview series with former “ex-gay” leaders who now renounce their past “pray away the gay” work.

“We are calling AFA’s new venture consumer fraud because they know firsthand from experience that ‘ex-gay’ programs end in failure,” said TWO’s Wayne Besen. “What they are doing is morally repugnant and ethically challenged. How is lying and deceit helpful to American families?”

Recently, Truth Wins Out slammed the AFA for posting a dangerous op-ed that spreads deadly COVID-19 misinformation. A column on the group’s website, written by AFA radio host Bryan Fischer, “Masks Do Not Work. Period”, puts lives at risk and is indicative of the pseudoscientific drivel regularly espoused by AFA, which the Southern Poverty Law Center has labeled an official hate group.

“Unfortunately, no scientific study has demonstrated that masks do any good at all in terms of protecting people from COVID-19,” writes Fischer on AFA.net. “Some mask wearers may feel a little better, because they may feel like they have some protection even though in reality they have none.”

Founded in 2006, Truth Wins Out is the oldest nonprofit advocacy organization and educational resource dedicated to monitoring and ending “ex-gay” conversion programs, while working to eliminate anti-LGBTQ prejudice and discrimination. Truth Wins Out also fights against right wing extremism, which is the underlying source of power, money and influence behind “pray away the gay” political campaigns.

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