On Thursday, June 20, 2013, I sat in the chapel at Concordia University in Irvine, CA, attending the Exodus International “True Stories” conference. Alan Chambers, the President of the organisation he’d led for the past 13 years, said he’d love me to attend as it would be like no other previous conference. (Read the full back story HERE).

In March of that year, I’d joined a secret Facebook group with several Exodus leaders, including Alan, alongside about 40 other individuals who identified as “ex-gay” survivors. Our conversation centred around the harm caused by Exodus and the organisation’s future. Alan wanted to listen. A brave move, considering the majority of the group were from the “other side”. Alan was already on a journey. The year before, the New York Times reported that Alan had “declared that there was no cure for homosexuality and that ‘reparative therapy’ offered false hopes to gays and could even be harmful.”

I didn’t know just how historic the opening night of the conference would be. Alan intended to publicly announce the shutdown of Exodus. He’d hinted this in messages to me, but it was difficult to believe such a thing was possible; a dream come true. Since I’d begun my work in this area, I’d seen two-thirds of the “change is possible” organisations in Australia close, but Exodus.

The “ex-gay” movement and fundamentalist Christian communities were already in shock from Alan Chambers’ public apology to the LGBTQ community published just the day before the conference. But another bombshell was about to drop.

While Alan was making his historic announcement at the conference, another seismic event was happening. Across America, a show aired on the popular Oprah Winfrey Network, presented by Lisa Ling. God and Gays delivered another strategic blow to the ministry, which had operated for nearly 40 years. During the show, Alan, with his wife Leslie beside him, read the apology to a room full of conversion “therapy” survivors. It was a brave move.

Not everyone was ready to so quickly forgive.

The apology, Alan’s statements and the Lisa Ling show on the same night of the conference, had effectively pulled the rug out from under the organisation, ripping apart its credibility and undermining its foundation, beliefs and the lies that had sustained it for decades.

This show, God and Gays, should be mandatory viewing for every politician deliberating legislation to ban so-called conversion “therapy”—particularly those who oppose it. And of course, any Christian still holding on to the erroneous belief that God turns gay people straight.

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god and gays