Jun 29, 2007  |  By: ELIZABETH PERRY  | COMMENTS     

Three former “ex-gay” leaders were scheduled to make public apologies Wednesday in Los Angeles for the harm their ministries caused gays and lesbians, and will call for those still involved in ex-gay therapy to acknowledge their part.

Michael Bussee, one of the founders of the ex-gay movement; Darlene Bogle, former director of Paraclete, a California-based ex-gay ministry; and Jeremy Marks, a former president of Exodus International Europe, will issue the apology to coincide with Exodus International’s annual Freedom Conference going on this week at Concordia Lutheran University in Irvine, Calif.

The event will overlap with the Ex-Gay Survivor Conference, which starts today and runs through the weekend, sponsored by Soulforce, beyondexgay.com and the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Resource Center at UC Irvine.

Paige Schilt, Soulforce director of national media and public relations, said the apology is for ex-gay survivors, and while Soulforce leaders would like ex-gay leader Alan Chambers, president of Exodus International, to sign on, they are not holding their breath.

“In talking with ex-gay survivors we found this was what was needed in the healing process,” she said. “They will issue a call for other leaders to join in the process of healing and reconciliation to sign onto the letter of apology. We are urging current leaders to listen to stories of ex-gay survivors and evaluate the outcome of their own ministries.”

Soulforce is a national civil rights and social justice organization working on behalf of gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender individuals through nonviolent action. Schilt said the organization was involved with planning the Ex-Gay Survivor Conference for more than a year and that contrary to a press release by Exodus, the event is not a protest. She said that direct action is sometimes important, but that protests can also end up polarizing both sides.

“Exodus came out with a press release saying we are protesting their conference, but we are having our own,” she said. “The ex-gay survivor community is vibrant online but not face to face. The emphasis of our conference will be on community building and heading away from trauma. We want them to tell their stories so they are out there.”

In many ways, Exodus and Beyond Ex-Gay have been polar opposites with regard to whether or not change from gay to straight is possible. But a recent article in the Los Angeles Times suggested there might be some movement on the part of ex-gay leaders on the issue of sexual orientation.

The newspaper reported that Rev. R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary “wrote that ‘we should not be surprised’ to find a genetic basis for sexual orientation.”

Bussee said even Chambers does not really care for the term “ex-gay” anymore and that Exodus now uses “people struggling with same-sex attraction.” 

Chambers, who is a husband, father and identifies as heterosexual, told the paper that he resents the term because it implies a clean break with no struggle against same-sex attraction.

“By no means would we ever say change can be sudden or complete,” he said.

Attempts to reach Chambers for further comment by press time were unsuccessful.

Tensions abound between gays and ex-gay movement as both sides argue passionately about whether homosexuality is immutable or not.

With both conferences going on within four miles of each other at the same time, Schilt said not only does her group expect participants of both conferences to check each other out, organizers of the Ex-gay Survivors conference planned it into the schedule. 

Events open to the public on Friday and Saturday nights will include performance activist Peterson Toscano’s one man show, “Doin’ Time in the Homo No Mo Halfway House,” a concert by gay singers Jason and DeMarco and excerpts from the documentary, “God and Gays.”

The rest of the conference is closed to the public and will feature workshops and keynotes by Bussee, Bogle, Marks and Toscano, as well as Soulforce co-founder Mel White, beyondexgay.com co-founder Christine Bakke and others.

Bussee, Bogle and Marks spoke to the Blade the week prior to the conference to describe their journeys from “ex-gay” to “ex-ex-gay.” For each of them there was the realization that even though they were living heterosexual lifestyles and actively “praying the gay away,” it did not work.

Not one of the three was able to bring about a change in sexual orientation within themselves or anyone else. Their lives took different paths when they left the ex-gay movement, but they all remain devoted gay Christians who speak out against the ex-gay movement.

Bussee said he knew he was ...