Love Won Out

"On September 18, 2004, a 'Love Won Out' conference sponsored by the national conservative evangelical Christian organization Focus on the Family (FOF) was convened in Minneapolis, Minnesota. According to FOF, 'The Love Won Out ministry provides Christ-centered, comprehensive conferences enlightening, empowering, and equipping families, church and youth leaders, educators, counselors, policy-makers, and the gay community on the truth about homosexuality and its impact on our culture.' This report details the authors' first-hand account of the conference and describes the frames and world view put forth by ex-gay leaders."

So begins A Report From "Love Won Out: Addressing, Understanding and Preventing Homosexuality" courtesy of the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force. They went undercover and issued this report just under a year ago. Those are some ballsy folks. I couldn't even make myself go to church anonymously on Sunday and these gals were infiltrating lynch mob training. I don't even remember how I stumbled across the report online today. But it was spellbinding in its calculation and manipulation. It's 20 pages you won't regret having read.

The whole of the report is available for free reading on NGLTF's Web site at http://www.thetaskforce.org/reslibrary/list.cfm?pubTypeID=2#pub229. It reminded me why I don't fellowship with those folks like I once did. It's not that I don't like the idea of God, prayer, worship, etc. I just really don't like the people who congregate there. If they would clean the place out and let me have an hour with a microphone, a piano and the assurance of uninterrupted bliss, I would do it faithfully. But as this report reveals (like you didn't know this already) - these people will say and do anything, including sacrificing their own integrity on the altar of your conversion.

Here's one of those Guide To Life things that has stood me in good stead over the years: If the other guy is lying to bring you to The Truth, something is wrong. Like I've said before, I'm pretty simple when it comes to the big questions. Lest I be too obtuse, manipulation and subterfuge count as lying. If they have to trick you into their idea of holiness, something - yet again - is wrong. When observing two actors in a scene, the one who is most truthful is the one with whom you should cast your lot. Don't trust a liar. Don't believe a manipulator. These people are friggin' creepy scary.

Leave aside the notion that you can trick somebody straight. That they think their choice of words and posture can talk you out of same-sex attraction is just flat frighteningly stupid. They throw around the best psychology 1930 has to offer when they discuss emotionally distant parents as responsible for homosexual children. Wouldn't that be convenient? Nothing is ever noted, however, about the children of emotionally distant parents who are straight. Exceptions do pose problems for rules, no matter what they ask you to believe. But how sweet, in a way, to think that a hug from Dad would cause Vagina Lust to spring forth from my loins. These people are friggin' creepy scary.

And why are they so interested in my loins, anyway? I liked it better when they pretended we didn't exist. If one lie is just as bad as the next, let's go back to that one.

I spent enough time behind the lines myself to know that the very name of this program is a double-entendre: Love One(of those queers)Out(of homosexuality). They have a lot of history at "loving" people out of things...mostly out of their ranks. Most frequently, their version of love toward gay men and lesbians is as toxic as an arsenic martini. I was briefly encouraged by the admonishment they offered one another to drop the Adam & Steve line and to focus a little more on the Love part of "Love The Sinner, Hate The Sin". Never mind that the "ex-gay" leaders who addressed the crowd are, of necessity, congenital liars if their own words are true. Almost to a person, they split the hair between their own definitions of "gay" and "homosexual".

One is "homosexual", they contend, as long as one is unhappy with his or her orientation. One is only "gay", no pun intended, if one is happy with it. Therefore, the "Ex Gays" are not "gay" as they define it, they are merely homosexual. Let's bring this into a little clearer focus. If you cut my leg off, I would be an amputee. Whether or not I was happy being one-legged would not change the fact that I would be an amputee. I could choose whatever label suited me best, but it would be undeniable that I was missing a leg. A rose, by any other name, the man said, is still a queer with a limp. The distinction they draw is clever. Oh, it's still a lie, for sure. But it's undeniably clever. That they can deliver it with a straight (pun intended) face is the scary part.

No real surprises, just sad confirmation that most churches are still being held hostage. Until the God I know chooses to pay whatever ransom these "lovers" require, I'll keep having church at the piano in my living room or, as Mark calls it, "Worshipping at St. Mattress". That's too bad, too. I think we'd make a pretty nice addition to the scene.

Then said he unto the disciples, It is impossible but that offences will come: but woe [unto him], through whom they come! It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones. -- Luke 17:1,2 (King James Version)