One doesn’t hear much about ex-gays these days, but NBC recently profiled a group that traveled to the U.S. Capitol to protest some upcoming legislation that would criminalize conversion therapy. That is, counseling for gay people who wish to be celibate or straight.
The story appeared on the print portion of NBC’s site. Oddly, the network had no video of this group. It was a product of NBC Out, a branch of the newsroom that concentrates on news about homosexuality and, as I wrote last year, serves as a cheerleader for LGBTQ issues. And the reporting left out a huge angle; the name of the Christian ministry backing this ex-gay group, as well as a few other things.
NBC’s lede was straightforward enough.
A group of people from across the country who formerly identified as gay and transgender have descended upon Washington this week to share their stories and lobby against two proposed LGBTQ-rights bills.
The group is made up of 15 members of Church United and Changed, two California-based organizations that seek to provide community for, and protect the rights of, “formers” — individuals who formerly identified as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender.
The bills the group is lobbying against are H.R. 5, better known as the Equality Act, and H.R. 3570, or the Therapeutic Fraud Prevention Act. Both have been supported by the country’s major LGBTQ advocacy organizations, though neither is expected to become law anytime soon.
Several members of Changed, interviewed by NBC, said they didn’t buy the idea that gays are discriminated against.
Despite federal hate crimes data and academic research to the contrary — along with countless anecdotal news stories — the “formers” question the existence of anti-LGBTQ discrimination and thus the necessity of such bills.
“I live in Portland [Oregon] and I don’t see the discrimination that LGBTQ people talk about,” Kathy Grace Duncan, a member of Changed who formerly identified as a transgender man, told NBC News. “They’re asking for certain rights in this legislation, but these are rights that they already have.”
Jim Domen, founder of Church United, identifies as formerly gay. He said, “Sexual behavior should not be a protected right.”
After this, NBC interviews activist groups such as Human Rights Watch that politely say the Changed folks haven’t a clue what they’re talking about. This balance is, of course, basic journalism. It would be good to see similar interviews with religious conservatives in many stories about the work of groups on the cultural left.
Next, the Changed folks are asked about conversion therapy and come across as dunces at this point.
Though Domen and Duncan concede that conversion therapy — which has been discredited by major health organizations — is harmful, they don’t believe it is as widespread as it has been purported to be since they’ve “never met” anyone who has been subjected to conversion therapy. The two said they’re specifically against H.R. 3570 because the bill insinuates that it’s harmful for people to seek therapy to “overcome” their sexual orientation or gender identity, thus undermining the very existence of “formers.”
While they stressed that those in their organizations willingly seek to change their sexual orientation and gender identity, neither Domen nor Duncan could clearly explain how “conversion therapy,” which they do not support, differs from an attempt to “overcome” one’s sexual orientation or gender identity through therapy or religious guidance,” which they do support.
“I’ve never been a part of a ministry program that promotes conversion therapy,” Duncan said. “I do think conversion therapy should be banned, but first we need to prove that it’s actually happening.”
“In discipleship programs like the ones I’ve participated in,” he added, “we’ve looked at the root issue — ‘Why are you living like that?’ — and we’ve provided community and accountability against temptation.”
“Discipleship programs?”
It’s obvious the reporter and interviewees were on two different planets. Lifesite News posted a piece soon thereafter saying NBC had gotten everything wrong on the Changed group’s intent. But the reporter, who seemed more intent on reprinting hymn lyrics rather than investigating these folks, didn’t shed a whole lot of light.
What was interesting was the final paragraph.
The hour-long spontaneous prayer erupted at the end of a tour of the historic building led by U.S. House members Doug LaMalfa, R-CA, and Louie Gohmert, R-TX, pro-life champions and defenders of religious liberty.
LaMalfa represents California’s first congressional district, wherein lies Redding, where the Changed group hails from. And this is what was missing in both reports: Changed originates from the famous but controversial megachurch in Redding known as Bethel. A CBN report mentioned Elizabeth Woning, the Bethel pastor who helped found Changed, but didn’t follow the dots from there.
To figure out how Bethel has dipped its big toe in the ex-gay movement, you need to have clicked on a Religion News Service story from September, that interviewed Woning and Ken Williams, the other founder of Changed.
The two pastors at Bethel Church, an independent charismatic megachurch in Redding, California, are rebranding the mostly discredited notion that gays can become straight with a sleekly designed, visually updated website that features stories of people who consider themselves #oncegay.
The pair — both are married to other people of the opposite sex — disavow the term “conversion therapy” and say they have no particular program or curriculum. They do not offer therapy, they say, but testimony. Neither are they licensed counselors — but they said they will meet with individuals wanting to become heterosexual to offer discipleship and prayer.
The RNS piece, by Yonat Shimron, is as good a summation that you’re going to get about where conservative Christians stand on the issue.
… For a large segment of Christianity including evangelicals, charismatics, Pentecostals and Catholics, the belief that homosexuality is a sin — and therefore a choice — is pervasive and deeply ingrained.
Just last week, Russell Moore, the chief ethicist for the Southern Baptist Convention, hosted spoken word poet and ex-lesbian Jackie Hill Perry on his podcast. The two talked about her faith journey, which led her to abandon her same-sex attraction, and he peppered her with questions about what advice she would give parents whose kids are sinning or considering a life of sin.
As Woning put it: “We wouldn’t want to identify as gay because that’s not human thriving. It’s not the direction God wanted us to head.”
It’s a mystery why Bethel wants to jump into such a fraught arena. Many leaders of the Christian ex-gay movement have disavowed it in recent years. It sounds like the Changed group sees itself as having an effective therapy, but they’ve labeled it as ministry so as not to attract the attention of the state. California has banned conversion therapy by mental health professionals since 2012.
But then the Changed group showed up in DC to stage a demonstration in the Capitol and hold a press conference featuring a former drag queen, two survivors of the Orlando Pulse Nightclub shootings and a woman who had transitioned into a man for 11 years, then de-transitioned.
What are they really after and are they aware of the array of groups that oppose them? What do they have to say about the many ex-ex-gay Christians out there?
I’m hoping more reporters, especially from California media, will want to find out. Changed has got a nice website and now that they’ve seen Paree (to rephrase that famous World War I song that turned 100 years old this year), they’re not going back to the farm.
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