Advocate.com Exclusive: Leaders of ex-gay programs apologized to LGBT people in a press conference and called on other leaders to do the same

A sincere apology
Leaders of ex-gay programs apologized to LGBT people in a press conference and called on other leaders to do the same

By Michelle Garcia
An Advocate.com exclusive posted June 29, 2007

As the director of an ex-gay ministry in Hayward, Calif., Darlene Bogle appeared on shows like Sally Jesse Raphael, Jerry Springer, and 48 Hours to tell people that being gay is “curable.” She wrote several articles and two books—Long Road to Love and Strangers in a Christian Land—about being an ex-gay and held workshops on the subject.

In 1990, Bogle met Des, who was attending one of her ex-gay workshops, and sensed instantly that God bought them together. Within weeks Bogle was asked to step down from her leadership position at the Foursquare Church and she was removed from the Exodus ministry.
Bogle, joined by former ex-gay ministers Jeremy Marks and Michael Bussee, held a press conference on June 27 at the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center with Soulforce and Beyond Ex-Gay to apologize for exposing LGBT Christians to such indoctrination.

The press conference and apology precedes the Ex-Gay Survivor’s Conference in Irvine, Calif., this weekend. Beyond Ex-Gay and Soulforce partnered with the University of California, Irvine’s LGBT Resource Center to sponsor the conference with workshops, speeches, and entertainment.
“Although we acted in good faith, we have since witnessed the isolation, shame, fear, and loss of faith that this message creates,” Bussee said, speaking for the group. “We apologize for our part in the message of broken truth we spoke on behalf of Exodus and other organizations.”
Bussee, the cofounder of Exodus International, said that he was a devout evangelical who started the ex-gay movement in the 1970s out of his own self-hate. Eventually he and another cofounder, Gary Cooper, left the group and their wives to be together and happy. He has been critical of Exodus ever since.

In 1986, Marks became a member of a ministry in the United Kingdom where he met other gay Christians mired in the same struggle to be straight. He headed several ex-gay programs, including Courage U.K., and later became president of Exodus International Europe. By 2000, Marks abandoned the ex-gay theories and transformed Courage U.K. into a gay-affirming evangelical ministry.

Ex-gay survivor Eric Leocadio was on hand to witness the official apology in Los Angeles. As a high school freshman Leocadio ingested two fistfuls of pills, hoping to kill himself so that he would not have to struggle with his sexual orientation. “When I survived,” said Leocadio, now 31, “I realized that God wasn’t done with me. There was so much more that God had planned for me.”
But his journey of self-acceptance was arduous. After his suicide attempt Leocadio became a devoted Christian and used his spirituality to stifle his same-sex attractions. At 26 he ended up at the Desert Stream Ministries in Anaheim, Calif., where he underwent an intensive ex-gay program to heal his “brokenness” (along with masturbators, prostitutes, and fellow gays), yearning to live a straight and “normal” life.

“I received a lot of mixed signals from the church,” he said. “Everyone gets unconditional love from God but only conditional love from the church, based on the concept of ‘wholeness.’ ”
Leocadio left Desert Stream in 2004 when he realized the promise of an ex-gay life devoid of same-sex attraction wasn’t true. It became clear to him that one could not just shed sexuality and that he would have to devote the rest of his life to praying against his sexual urges. The following year Leoncadio started his TwoWorldCollision blog to document the conflict between being gay and being Christian; his posts have been known to move people to tears and inspire e-mail responses from around the world.

“I wanted to get to the point where I owned my belief,” he said. “What I knew about Christianity was the only thing I was taught. I decided to take a step back and learn more. I met other gay Christians who had a genuine faith and love for God. Through meeting them, I have been able to truly learn the love of God and own it for myself.”

Garcia is The Advocate's editorial assistant.

Advocate: SIngapore to Host Asia's Biggest Gay Festival, August 7-9

Advocate, August 7, 2004

This weekend the conservative city-state of Singapore will play host to what is being promoted as Asia’s biggest gay and lesbian festival, according to a report by Agence France-Presse. A record 8,000 revelers are estimated to attend the fourth annual party in what is expected to be a lively boost to Singapore’s emerging reputation as one of Asia’s premier gay tourism and entertainment hubs. Stuart Koe, the chief executive of regional gay Web site Fridae.com, which is organizing the event, said the three-day festival beginning Saturday, August 7, was projected to generate $5.8 million in tourism revenue. “We have large numbers of people coming from Hong Kong, Japan, Taiwan, and the United States,” Koe told AFP, adding that the numbers of partygoers had grown from 1,500 in the event’s first year in 2001. “There’s nothing else like this in Asia. It’s really the only event on this scale.”

The festival is expected to increase tensions between Singapore and Thailand over which country can lay claim to the title of Asia’s gay tourism capital after a Bangkok-based lobby group was formed last week to win back the pink dollar from the city-state, AFP reports. However, Koe stressed the event, which coincides with Singapore’s National Day celebrations on Monday and boasts some of the region’s best DJs at its beach and nightclub parties, is not targeted solely at the gay and lesbian community. “This is an event that welcomes gays, lesbians, bisexuals, heterosexuals. It’s an event that does not discriminate against anybody,” he said. “We are trying to create an event that puts prejudices aside and really empowers people to be who they are.”

But many gay activists question whether the Singapore government is cynically chasing gay tourism dollars rather than genuinely trying to encourage a more tolerant and open society. Indeed, gay sex is still outlawed in the nation, and authorities are maintaining a ban on gay groups registering as societies. “All [the government leaders] are interested in is the entertainment dollar, not rights and freedoms and liberalization of the mind,” local gay rights activist Alex Au told AFP. Au’s People Like Us group, which represents Singapore’s gay and lesbian community, has been trying to become registered as a society since 1996, with its most recent effort failing in March this year.

The government restrictions reflect a self-confessed double standard on the part of the nation’s leaders toward gays. Singapore prime minister Goh Chok Tong said in July last year that gays would be allowed to work in civil service, while a first-ever help center catering specifically to gays opened a few months later offering phone counseling services and medical and legal advice. The city-state has also seen many gay-friendly clubs, karaoke pubs, saunas, restaurants, and fashion outlets open in recent years. Yet Goh insisted last year that gay sex acts would not be decriminalized because of opposition from Singapore’s conservative majority Chinese population as well as the Muslim community. “The heartlanders are still conservative. You can call it double standard, but sometimes it is double standard. They are conservative,” he said. “And for the Muslims, it’s religion, it’s not the law. Islam openly says the religion is against gay practice.”