Former Love in Action director John Smid dropped by our website today
and had this to say:
I have come across some awareness lately that has
been unsettling for me. When I found that my life was in a downward spiral and
that I needed help, I turned to the Ex-gay community. I thought that they,
thinking they were like me, would be able to help me. So when I went to them. I
thought they were peers and safe. So, they told me that they had been
“delivered” from homosexuality and that I could be too. Of course the word
“delivered” is a tremendously confusing concept.
So I followed them and began to bring others along
behind me. I discovered that in fact they had not been delivered from
homosexuality (my understanding of their words was that homosexuality was
eradicated from their lives) and that some of the most significant leaders in
fact still had all of the same sex attractions they had always had.
So, my awareness is this. I was led down a
deceptive path, drank the koolaid and began to live the same deception they had
been living and teaching. My own peers who should have been the safest ones to
trust actually led me astray.
Then they said to follow straight men! They told me
that I could be like them. So, I turned to straight men thinking they had the
answers for my new life! Straight men didn’t know anything about what it is
like to be gay. How could they possibly know how to help me find a life of
value and blessing????
I am sorting through the personal affects of living
through over two decades of being told I could find deliverance. I am also
sorting through the after affects of being an Ex-gay leader for over two
decades.
I walked alongside many of the foundational leaders
of the Exodus movement. One of the more significant leaders said over and over
that he had been delivered from homosexuality. While riding with him in his car
one day, many years ago, he said he was still very attracted to the younger men
he sees every day.
I should have listened to my heart then and ran
away. But instead I just stuffed this experience and continued to hope for my
own deliverance.
Today I am attempting to deconstruct the faulty
foundation and going through a very challenging time with it all.
The Restored Hope
Network will not succeed. Far too many truth tellers exist today. It is a
remnant alright, but one that will quickly sink. It may have worked in 1974,
but it will not work today. They do not have the goods, nor the truth.
Labels: apology, article, ex-gay, exodus, john smid, LGBT apology, unwanted same sex attraction