Tony-

While I honestly believe you believe you are doing a "good thing" by posting
that piece of propaganda, I believe the more people believe that the more they
will feel justified in their blatant persecution of gay oriented people.  I
have seen the film called "The Gay Agenda" and along with my church we found
it to be horrifying.  Not because of what was actually shown (cleaver use of
editting can create any image one wants to portray), rather becaseu we are familia
familiar with how widely it was actively distributed and how many naive people
are actually believing the garbage found within it.  The truth is that neither
you nor I can fully speak for anyone who calls themself gay, but knowing as
many as I do and knowing their testimonies and witnessing thier faith and life
I have to say that the report you posted is a very biased report, something
obviously claimed against gays as well.  The truth is that unless YOU are
innately gay you cannot know what harm you are causing.  I speak as an
abolitionist who supports affirming gay rights in our society.  I do not
support wild sex or any other misrepresentations perpetrated by Christian
Fundamentalist extremists, but I know people who are not the sexual deviants
your report paints them to be.  It is no mistake that the APA removed
homosexuality from it's list of mental illnesses, it is also no mistake that
there are many Christians and homophobes who long to bring it back to the list.
I do not feel threatened by gays, I don't understand why others are.

The following is an article concerning two of the more popular ex-gay min-
istries:  Exodus International & Homosexuals Anonymous.

THE FOUNDER OF AN "EX-GAY" SUPPORT GROUP CHOOSES HOMO OVER HETERO

by Robert Pela (from Gay oriented magazine ADVOCATE)

In December 1985, David Caligiuri received one of The Advocate's homophobia rewaa
awards: the A Prayer A Day Keeps the Lust Away citation.  As director of FREE
INDEED, a national ex-gay ministry, Caligiuri was singled out for offering
discontented gays and lesbians "a way out of the homosexual death-style"
through prayer.  "I'd like to give the award back," Caligiuri now laughs, "I'm
no longer deserve it."
  Caligiuri's eight year involvement with the national "ex-gay" movement peaked
with his founding of the Phoenix chapter of Homosexuals Anonymous (HA) as well
as Free Indeed.  He has since abandoned his pulpit and now says that the ex-
gay movement is a fruitless effort based on deception.  "There's no reality
in it," he says, "I was selling a product, and my product was a lie."
  Headed up by national ministries like Exodus International and Courage, the
organizations of the ex-gay movement rely on the tenents of born-again
Christianity to convince disatisfied homosexuals -- usually young gay men who
are just coming out -- that they can shed their sexuality by suppressing their
sexual urges and embracing Christianity.  "We offer support to people who are
seeking to leave the sin of homosexuality," explains Bob Davies, director of
Exodus.  He ventures that "about 80% of those seeking to abandon their homo-
sexuality are men."
  "Anybody who is involved in the ex-gay ministry is misguided and is wasting
their time," says Lisa Seeley, a former "redeemed lesbian" who worked with
Caligiuri as HA and appeared with him on the Sally Jessy Raphael show.  "These
organizations are for people who are spiritually and emotionally wounded."
  "It's possible to change your identity or your behavior," says sex educator
Brian McNaught, author of _On Being Gay_. "But it's really impossible to
change your orientation.  These people are no longer calling themselves gay,
but they continue to have same-sex erotic feelings."
  Caligiuri says he founded Free Indeed after an ominous week in 1981 when all
hell broke loose in his personal life.  A few days after his lover ended both
their romance and their business partnership, Caligiuri was sexually assaulted
by a man he picked up in a bar.  "I was really drunk," he recalls, "and I
went home with this guy.  He tied me up and raped me.  He left me tied up all
night, and the next morning he raped me again."
  When Caligiuri was eventually freed by the attacker, he returned home to the
home he shared with his ex-lover.  "He had another man there with him,"
Caligiuri recalls.  "I thought at this time, 'If this is what being gay is
about, I don't want to be this way anymore."
  Caligiuri vowed that if he could find a way out, he would share his discovery
with others.  He organized an antigay contingent to demonstrate at Phoenix's
gay pride parade in June 1985, and a few months later Free Indeed held its
first public protest.  At a meeting to promote a gay civil rights ordinance,
Free Indeed members loudly blasted gays, telling them ther were sinners headed
for hell.
  Free Indeed began receiving about a hundred telephone calls a week, thanks
in part to a deceptive listing in the local yellow pages.  "We were listed
under Lesbian and Gay Alternative Services," Caligiuri says, "so people
thought we were a gay information switchboard.  People would call to find out
where the local bars were, and we'd preach to them about the sins of homo-
sexuality."  Ruses like this are typical of the movement, Caligiuri says,
adding, "They'll do anything to reach these people."
  "David used to go on radio and say really stupid things," recalls Peter
Kelly, a counselor at Phoenix's Catholic diocese AIDS program, "like that
he knew he was gay when he started wearing pastel colors."
  Caligiuri's family first found out about his ministry when they saw him on
Raphael's syndicated talk show in 1985.  "They were relieved," he recalls.
"They figured that if they had to have a gay person in the family, better
that I should be a 'reformed' gay person."
  But Caligiuri was hardly reformed.  "By the time I appeared on Sally's
show," "I'd started having sex with men again.  Men would call our hotline
and tell me about thier latest sin: sex with their pastor, sex with their
father.  I was horny all the time."
  Unable to risk going to gay bars, where he might be recognized from his
numerous television appearances, Caligiuri says he "used to go to bookstores
and get blowjobs."  When he wasn't working the bookstores, he was sleeping
with other "reformed" homosexuals.
  "I didn't realize it at first, but a lot of the HA leaders were having sex
with one another," Caligiuri says.  "We'd go to conferences in other cities,
and we'd be paired up in hotel rooms.  Everybody was sleeping with everybody
else."
  By the time he appeared on 'AM Philadelphia' television show in May 1988,
Caligiuri was having anonymous sex a couple times a week.  When the show's
host asked him if he ever "acted on temptation," his answer was a lie.
  Caligiuri's duplicity began to take it's toll on him, however.  He was
suffering from chrinic fatigue syndrome and candidiasis, a dibilitating
yeast infection, and this led to his escape from the sect.  "I was too sick
to go to church," he explains.  "The more time I spent away from those people
the more I began to feel like myself.  I began to remember who I used to be."
  Late in 1991, Caligiuri turned Free Indeed phone lines over to a local
church and closed the ministry's doors.  "I'd convinced myself that there
is no need in the world for ex-gay people," he says.
  Today, Caligiuri, 31, is studying alternative spiritualities ("I'm interest-
ed in belief systems that aren't judgemental."), considering romance ("But
not with a CHristian!"), and searching for a new project to devote himself to.
"I feel compelled to commit myself to gay causes," he says.  "I want to
eventually stop feeling guilty about what I did and make up for the damage I
may have brought to our community."

---end article---

Caligiuri's tory is by no means unique and I have read several other articles
of former leaders and founders of 'ex-gay' ministries who have said very similar th
similar things.  Fortuantely not all of them have left Christianity, but have
come to realize that God loves them despite the attitudes of others.  Some,
like Chris Glaser, director of the Presbyterian "Lazarus Project" of West
Hollywood Presbyterian Church have actually been working with the gay community
to bring them into the sheepfold of Christ and encouraging real ethical values
of sexuality within the sphere of being gay.  I have also, as I said talked and become
and become close friends with many who once attended such groups as "Love In
Action" and others, who either once claimed to have been "reformed" or who
were too honest with themselves to live a lie, no matter who was disappointed
in them.  Some were even encouraged to marry as a way of "sealing" their
new heterosexuality, only to eventually start hitting the bars, bathhouses
and bookstores, since these were usually activities under the concealment of
night and one-night-stands of promiscuous behavior meant no continuous "sin"
through a committed relationship.  This is a horrible trap which the CHurch
has dumped on the backs of the truly gay oriented people, and the very inno-
cent victims in these cases are the wives and children of such marriages.  Yet
the church insists that there are only two options they are willing to allow
gay people: 1) heterosexuality or 2) celebacy.  This is sad.  What is also
mrtifying, is in the cases of those who cannot suppress their desires and
fear for thier sanity in such a mixed up confusion that the church forces on
them, they may even opt for 'suicide' or surgical dampering of the brain
functions.  In the past lobotomies and heavey drug suppressants were common-
place.  There are now becoming available more and more literature on the
threat of coercive Christianity toward gays, such as Sylvia Pennington's
_"Ex-Gays?  There Are None_. and others.  There are also a great many fact
based books being written to help people trapped in this confusion such as
Maury Johnston's _Gays Under Grace_, and Chris Glaser's _Come Hom!_.  I
seriously recommend those for people seeking help for this persecution and
self-acceptance.