Peterson Toscano's A Musing

Today I have witnessed and heard of extraordinary examples of people speaking out a message of sanity and hope. 1. Anthony Venn-Brown in Australia alerted me to a group of Christian ministers calling themselves 100Revs . They have decided to speak out during the sometimes raucous Mardi Gras festivities in their country, not to denounce the LGBT community like so many have done in the past, but rather to issue a public apology for the awful ways the Church has treated to LGBT people. In their official statement they say, As ministers of various churches and denominations we recognise that the churches we belong to, and the church in general, have not been places of welcome for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) people. Indeed the church has often been profoundly unloving toward the GLBT community. For these things we apologise, whatever the distinctive of our Christian position on human sexuality – to which we remain committed. We are deeply sorry and ask for the forgivene...

This story appeared on Australian's ABC radio program The World Today. Like most mainstream news they have some of the details wrong. The ex-gay movement is not just about trying to turn people straight. It is about reinforcing an anti-gay message that we find in the church and in much of society. In a large part it teaches that only the heterosexuals can be holy since, as they announce over and over again the very opposite of homosexuality is holiness. Those of us who have been in it know well enough how the message works. According to the report, ex-gay ministries may be coming into Australia like a foreign invasive species. The United States' controversial "ex-gay" movement has its eye on Australia. Ex-gays are homosexuals who say they've been "cured" or turned straight. They've been in conversion courses across the United States which work to reorient sexuality, mostly from a Christian perspective. The ex-gays now want to get their message into s...