Free Republic

‘Ex-Gay’ Men Fight Back Against View That Homosexuality Can’t Be Changed By ERIK ECKHOLM LOS ANGELES — For most of his life, Blake Smith said, “every inch of my body craved male sexual contact.” Mr. Smith, 58, who says he believes homosexual behavior is wrong on religious grounds, tried to tough it out. He spent 17 years in a doomed marriage while battling his urges all day, he said, and dreaming about them all night. But in recent years, as he probed his childhood in counseling and at men’s weekend retreats with names like People Can Change and Journey Into...

California Weighs Bill To Ban Gay Teen 'Conversion' Therapy California may ban a controversial therapy designed to convert teens from gay to straight. By James Eng A California lawmaker says he’s optimistic about the prospects of a bill that would make it illegal for therapists in the state to try to “convert” gay youths. Sen. Ted Lieu, a Democrat from Torrance, says so-called “reparative” or “ex-gay” therapy wrongfully treats homosexuality as a disease and can be dangerous to minors. If his bill becomes law, California would become the first state to ban therapy aimed at turning gay and lesbian teens...

<p>In a move that serves as a significant blow to "ex-gay" programs and anti-gay organizations, Dr. Robert Spitzer repudiated his much-criticized 2001 study that claimed some "highly motivated" homosexuals could go from gay to straight. His retraction occurred in an American Prospect magazine article that hit newsstands today. Spitzer's rejection of his own research, which was originally published in the prestigious Archives of Sexual Behavior, is a devastating blow to "ex-gay" organizations because it decisively eliminates their most potent claim that homosexuality can be reversed through therapy and prayer.</p>

Without any reputable evidence, the entertainment culture, uneducated media, and sexual activists have seduced today's teenagers, in particular, to believe that people are born homosexual. However, science has found no biological basis for homosexuality, bisexuality, or transsexuality. Study after study has found the “LGBT” lifestyle to be unhealthy, with the highest rate of sexually-transmitted diseases, and higher cancer rates and earlier deaths. While all people are worthy and valuable, the fact is people are not "born this way," as a popular song insists.On this page you will find: 1. The facts on homosexuality2. Resources to overcome homosexual behavior and gender...

Rev. John F. Harvey, OSFS Reverend John F. Harvey, OSFS, 92, an Oblate of St. Francis de Sales for 73 years, died on Monday, December 27, 2010, at Union Hospital in Elkton, Maryland. Fr. Harvey, son the late Patrick J. and Margaret (Harkins) Harvey was born in Philadelphia in 1918. He attended St. Columba Parish School, and after graduating from Northeast Catholic High School for Boys in 1936, he entered the Oblate Novitiate, making his first profession of vows on September 8, 1937. He was ordained to the priesthood on June 3, 1944 at the Cathedral of Saints Peter and...

John Townsend, a writer for Lavender magazine, wrote a commentary ("What I wrote in Lavender, and why," July 5) attacking me and the Catholic support group Courage, which I was attending. This is a group for Christian men who struggle to overcome same-sex attraction. Townsend had lied his way into this confidential group in order to attend and expose my presence there. This was done because of my public stance against homosexual behavior and same-sex marriage. It is true that I attended this group. But contrary to what Townsend and the Lavender article strongly implied, I have never engaged in...

Friday July 16, 2010 Ex-Lesbian Janet Boynes Tells Moving Story of Conversion By Matthew Cullinan Hoffman July 16, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Former lesbian Janet Boynes says that her homosexuality began as it does for many women: as a response to sexual and psychological abuse she suffered as a child. She was raised by one of her mother's boyfriends, an alcoholic who abused her mother, who in turn showed Boynes little affection. At 12 she was molested by a relative, then an altar boy at her church.  She began to suffer an aversion to men, and found that her own...

Visit most public school libraries and you'll find an array of books that address the subject of homosexuality. Many include sexually explicit content, and some even include graphic images. But if you're looking for a book that refers to the possibility that homosexuality can be "reversed," a Chicago-based group says your best bet is the banned books list.

Toronto, Canada — A chorus of voices in the professional world today proclaims that it is impossible to change sexual orientation, particularly homosexual orientation, and that the attempt to change sexual orientation is harmful. A supposed consensus of science is invoked in support of such claims. For example, for many years the Public Affairs website of the American Psychological Association stated: “Can therapy change sexual orientation? No. . . . [H]omosexuality . . . does not require treatment and is not changeable.”¹ Psychologists Stanton L. Jones and Mark A. Yarhouse will announce on August 9, 2009, at the annual convention...

LOS ANGELES — After six years together, the relationship between a pair of gay male penguins at San Francisco zoo is apparently over, with Harry leaving Pepper for another penguin -- Linda. The Los Angeles Times reported Friday that the relationship between Harry and Pepper, who lived side-by-side, protecting eggs abandoned by other penguins, came to a shocking end when Harry moved into a neighboring nest with recently-widowed Linda. The development has sparked a variety of reactions in the blogosphere, where Linda has been called a "home wrecker" who "lives for her own happiness, no matter who gets hurt." Harrison...

New York ABC radio reporter George Weber, 47, was murdered by a young, self-described “sadomasochist” with whom he had hooked up for sex on Craigslist.com. A former homosexual, David, who has become a friend of AFTAH, says hook-ups, anonymous sex and “instant gratification” are “part and parcel of the male homosexual lifestyle.” Folks, the greatest threat of violence to homosexual men comes from … other homosexual men. The stabbing murder of WABC reporter George Weber in New York is a terrible tragedy and yet it is instructive about the perils of promiscuous “gay” life. There is simply nothing that approaches...

Italy's "Festival di San Remo," the most important musical happening in my country which is seen on T.V. by millions of Italians, became the unlikely platform this year for a powerful ex-gay testimony. The singer, Giuseppe Povia, winner of the festival in 2006, presented a song entitled, "Luca Era Gay" (Luca was once gay) -- SEE VIDEO HERE. The title of his song, implying that some gays can change to heterosexuality, was sufficient to destabilize the Italian gay movement. Gay activists threatened to block the festival, and Europarlimentary member Vittorio Agnoletto asked for a European resolution to stop Povia from...

As religious conservatives gather in Washington this weekend for the “Values Voters Summit,” Senator Barack Obama’s campaign announced its latest effort to attract people of faith to the campaign: a gospel concert tour. All three of the dates of the “Embrace the Change” tour are in South Carolina, where Mr. Obama is locked in battle with Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton for black voters. Gospel acts including Mary Mary, Donnie McClurkin and Hezekiah Walker, Byron Cage and the Mighty Clouds of Joy are scheduled to appear. “This is another example of how Barack Obama is defying conventional wisdom about how politics...

A former gay rights activist's "coming out" story about his path to becoming straight and his experience of a personal encounter with God has drawn skepticism, prompting the ex-gay to attempt to set the record straight. "[I]t wasn't internal homophobia that caused my so-called 'hatred' of my own homosexuality. It was God," said Michael Glatze, former editor of Young Gay America magazine, who recently announced in a column that he is now a heterosexual. After nearly two decades of identifying himself as gay and leading gay rights activism and Young Gay America magazine, Glatze left all of that and homosexuality...

Exodus International, the largest Christian outreach to ex-gays and those dealing with unwanted homosexuality, has entered a new phase of expansion – expanded vision, expanded network and expanded influence. "Exodus is expanding its message to reach more arenas in the public sector," said Randy Thomas, executive vice president of Exodus International. "We're finding that people are wanting our perspectives on a variety of cultural, social as well as spiritual issues." In the past three decades, Exodus has challenged churches and the wider public who respond to homosexuals with ignorance and fear as well as those who uphold homosexuality as a...

The Transgender Double Standard By Randy Thomas It's always astounded me how willing some in the gay activist community are to celebrate someone surgically altering their body to "become" who they perceive to be internally. Yet when I determine I want to reorient my sexual orientation, which does not require drastic surgery or body altering drugs, according to those same activists, I am the one doing damage to myself and others by simply holding to a particular worldview that brings me contentment and sexual reorientation. The transgendered are applauded for radically altering their bodies while I am scolded for holding...

McLEAN, Va. -An organization that provides support for people who renounce their homosexuality is suing a northern Virginia school system for refusing to distribute its fliers to students. The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in federal court in Alexandria by Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays (PFOX), accuses Arlington Public Schools of infringing on its First Amendment rights by arbitrarily refusing to allow distribution of PFOX materials. Fairfax County-based PFOX alleges in the lawsuit that other community outreach groups are routinely allowed to distribute material through the school system, but that Arlington school officials repeatedly ignored PFOX's request for similar access....

It can be met in one via of Milan, confused between the crowd of the saturday, to make purchases with the fiancèe, careful not to spend too much because it is putting from part the moneies for the wedding. Calm, "normal" as it says of if same, virgolette comprised. Who had known it ten years ago could think is mistaken itself. Instead it is just Luca Di Tolve, in its new life. "That one - he tells - that they are conquered to me after six years of riparativa therapy of the omosessualità: three rosaries to the day, groups of...

A national communications company refused to display a conservative Christian group's potentially controversial advertisements promoting a conference on sexuality over the weekend. Focus on the Family expressed disappointment at Clear Channel Outdoor's decision to block ads for its international Love Won Out conference in Phoenix, Ariz. The billboard ad was drafted to read, "I questioned homosexuality: Change is Possible, Discover How." Gender issues director at Focus on the Family, Melissa Fryrear, said Monday the advertising company had turned down the business, but as of Monday, its lawyers had not received an explanation for the decision. A Clear Channel Outdoors representative...

An informational flyer distributed by an ex-"gay" group at a Maryland high school has administrators, faculty, and students who support homosexuality seething. Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays (PFOX) recently passed out the flyer to 3,000 students at Montgomery Blair High School in Silver Spring. The handout distributed by the ex-homosexual group states its belief "in unconditional love for family members with same-sex attractions" and its goal of seeking "to eliminate prejudice and discrimination against former homosexuals." PFOX executive director Regina Griggs says those who are raising angry objections to the flyer distribution are demonstrating intolerance.