Last night we had an open question forum at the Sydney monthly F2b chapter meeting. http://www.freedom2b.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=3690

Here are the questions that were asked so that those who didn’t get time to respond can and also those who weren’t there can add their thoughts.

1. To what capacity does the route of self hatred and unacceptance effect and relate to a person who has not found peace in accepting their sexual orientation (being gay or bi) and still live as a Christian.

2. Why am I gay?

3. What attitude should I have to my ‘ex-gay’ friend? I really want to ban his head in (figuratively) and tell him what a warped attitude he has. Or tell him off. Instead I am polite. What should I do?

3. What attitude should I have to my ‘ex-gay’ friend? I really want to ban his head in (figuratively) and tell him what a warped attitude he has. Or tell him off. Instead I am polite. What should I do?

This is an area I admit to having difficulty with, mostly because I’m going through it right now. Not specifically the ex-gay relationships, but the people who disagree with you. I think you need to strip away the details and find what is the basic conflict here. If you think about it, it’s really just a difference of belief. It can be a really difficult difference of belief and you can be 100% adamantly opposed to everything about the other side, but you need to realize your friend is a human being, not an abstract concept. If your friend is saying things that are outright offensive to you, then you can lovingly go to him and explain how what he says makes you feel offended. But we as gays are quick to say God loves us as gays, but we must also recognize that God loves those who are opposed to homosexuality as well. Remember that almost all of us went through periods of rejecting our orientation as well. We need to be patient with others who don’t agree. Who knows, they could end up becoming supporters later on. But regardless, you need to extend love and grace to everyone, including those who don’t agree with you. Yes, it’s very hard to do at times, but if you want to be love and accepted as you are, you must also love and accept others as they are.

What attitude should I have to my ‘ex-gay’ friend? I really want to bang his head in (figuratively) and tell him what a warped attitude he has. Or tell him off. Instead I am polite. What should I do?

This is an interesting question… I mean it comes back to right/wrong, black/white etc. which is dangerous territory (I think) – after all, these are belief systems that people have! Although I am quite happy to “journey to find the truth” (like that, Anthony? ;-)) and also explore theology that accepts living authentically as gay etc. I also have one of my closest friends who doesn’t want to accept himself at all and is exposed to a lot of the ex-gay messages and probably even believes in these. This can cause me a lot of frustration, tension as well as doubt because it brings back all my old feelings about the issue… It also throws up a whole lot of questions for me about fundamentalism but that’s another story…

But you all make some awesome points there – about “practising what we preach” in a way! – i.e. all we can do is live our lives as authentically as we can according to our life experience and what we believe and being led by our most innermost voice – and love and accept each other on the journey. Who’s to say, really, what the future holds!

Maybe I’m just in a jaded, cynical place right now but I think there is too much made of the ex-gay/pro-gay divide. It’s fueled by emotion when really the only difference theologically at least is a very small discrepancy in belief.

I’ve been reading a case study recently on a woman with a brain tumour who during the six months she had left to live believed that she had met the love of her life and they went on holiday all over the world. In reality she didn’t leave the house much and there was no Mr Wonderful. But her last six months were the happiest and most fufilled of her life because she believed something that was false.

I know I’m going to get no where suggesting that maybe there are people out there who are ex-gay genuinely and just because it didn’t work for some doesn’t mean it doesn’t work period. So I’ll take another tact and say this: if the individual truely and honestly believes they are ex-gay and they are happy and fufilled because of it and not having the stress and anxiety associated with being gay and Christian then what the hell is wrong with that? They are not commiting any kind of sin and, if anything, their relationship with God is strengthened due to the “healing”. Maybe for some it will all crumble eventually but for many others it doesn’t and they live happy and fufilled.

I know I go on and on about honesty and integrity but lets face it: someone has got to be wrong unless God is postmodernist… which I highly doubt. Is it so hard to believe that there are people out there who believe just as strongly as you do, just as genuinely as you do that ex-gay is a real solution and are just as happy as you are with that outcome? I know the defintion of denial entails that you don’t know you’re in denial because then it wouldn’t be denial would it? But think about the way you feel when someone says that to you. All your hard work and prayers and self-reveraltion are all a product of an elaborate attempt to protect yourself from the truth?

But because they can’t respect the fact that there are such things as gay christians……we have a problem.

Well you have me there 😕 😆 But it works both ways, pro-gays aren’t exactly overly tollerant of ex-gays either by all accounts i.e. wanting to bash them over the head. I get your point though. Still, increasingly its becoming an individual choice is it not? To choose to be try to be ex-gay or to accept pro-gay theology. For most Christians with access to technology both are options and I think its a good thing to have options. For the conservative Christian who is not convinced of contemporary revisions to not have ex-gayness as an option is pretty depressing. Its pretty much suggesting that God’s leaving you to fend for yourself.

There are many reasons I have never chosen to ex-gay myself but I have respect for those that do as do I respect those who choose a different take on theology. I’m somewhere in the middle and from my vantage point I can see the merits of both sides. Tollerance needs to reign mighty here I think and stating absolutes like no one can change and “practising” (winces) homosexuals are not Christians is not going to get anyone anywhere.