Loving the 'Other,'
Loving Oneself

Moral Maxim
By Fr. Richard R. Mickley, OSAe., Ph.D.

Let me comment on the ex-gay movement from my own experience in three countries – the US, New Zealand, and the Philippines. 
In every country I have worked in LGBT ministry, I have been called upon to help “put back together again” people who felt torn apart by perhaps well-meaning ex-gay movements. Perhaps well-meaning, but ever so misguided, as they usually resort to “religious conversion” tactics that, over the long haul, in the vast majority of cases, their tactics don’t work.  Even two of the greatest sex psychologists in the world, Masters and Johnson, using sophisticated psychological techniques, did not report overwhelming success with their one experiment to change gay people to straight.  They reported only limited “success” in their “scientific” experiment, and declared that “results” should not be expected except under the most rigid of conditions.

My first exposure to the movement in the Philippines was on the occasion of my first appearance on the Mel and Jay TV show in 1994 — along with representatives of Bagong Pag-asa.  Not too long after that, more than one person who tried their “cure” came to me with varying but similar reports of the experience, asking for reprogramming from the programming they got there.

In every country I have worked in the LGBT movement, victims of these conversion programs have come to me not only with horror stories of the programming, but with equally or more traumatic stories of the one day anti-gay programming, and next-day propositions to gay sex from the very people who were programming them.

Perhaps the most potent story of how “it doesn’t work” is summed up in what happened to two of the founders of Exodus International in the US, of which Bagong Pag-asa was an offspring – in accordance with my own experience in this matter, I find the Wikipedia.org comments (on them) to be accurate: They actually appeared before the General Conference of Metropolitan Church of Christ (MCC) and apologized for founding Exodus International, and  for the harm the movement had caused in countless lives, and announced that they were a couple (and no more “ex”).

From Wikipedia.org, on Michael Bussee and Gary Cooper:

Exodus International’s first incident occurred in 1979, when Michael Bussee (one of the five co-founding members who had helped organize the 1976 conference that led to Exodus International’s inception) left the group to be with Gary Cooper, a volunteer at the local Exodus International ministry where they both worked, who was also volunteering for the first Exodus International conference. Michael and Gary left their wives, and had a committed relationship until Gary’s death from complications due to AIDS in the early 1990s.  Their story is one of the foci of the documentary One Nation Under God (1993), directed by Teodoro Maniaci and Francine Rzeznik.

As acknowledged by Exodus International in 2006, Michael Bussee “has been a longtime critic of Exodus International and its leadership.” In June 2007, Michael issued an “apology” in conjunction with Jeremy Marks, former president of Exodus International Europe, and Darlene Bogle, the founder of Paraklete Ministries, an Exodus referral agency, which stated, in part, again quoted from Wikipedia.org: “Some who heard our message were compelled to try to change an integral part of themselves, bringing harm to themselves and their families.”

Let me continue with a recent email from my very learned and wise friend, Fr. Paul Breton of California:

Prophetic voices are raised in every time to meet the needs of the people.  In the 20th century, many voices were raised to speak to the injustices perpetrated upon various groups of people due to economics, social status, race, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation, et cetera.  We have heard the voices of Bonhoeffer, Gandhi, Pastor M.L. King Jr., Archbishop Oscar Romero, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Pope John Paul II, Dorothy Day, Thomas Merton, et cetera. In the last trimester of the 20th century, a new challenge: offering affirmation to the homosexual.

On October 6, 1968, 40 years ago, a movement was born and a prophet raised.

METROPOLITAN COMMUNITY CHURCH

The first major effort was that of Rev. Troy D. Perry. He found it necessary to tell a persecuted gay man that God cares. On this pastoral premise, he started the Metropolitan Community Church of Los Angeles with 12 people in his living room. The date was Sunday, October 6, 1968. Bishop Perry saw his effort grow into a more determined prophetic vision and an international Christian denomination.
The denomination was a decidedly Christian body, which required the restudy of classic pieces of scripture often used to cause injury to the homosexual. Theologians both within and without the denomination gave their studies and insights to MCC. The denomination also was challenged with other issues such as the enfranchisement of women in the ministry of the denomination; the appreciation of persons of gender dysphoria; the appreciation of the intersexed; questioning many issues pertaining to erotic expression, etc. And the vision is ongoing.

In the early days, common parlance stated that the Metropolitan Community Churches was the only denomination ever started to purposely go out of business. Once the vision became normative, there would no longer be a need for the denomination. That has in part taken place but is far from complete. (Meaning: Rev. Perry founded MCC with the idea that churches could be awakened to accept their gay and lesbian members, and then MCC would no longer be needed. But the prejudice continues, and MCC churches have spread worldwide, two of which are in the Philippines.)

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