Brainwashed no more

The low point for Katie Frick was when a traveling evangelist had her stand up at the front of a church and had the faithful lay their hands on her, praying for the change. Jesus could do it, they assured her, if only she followed closely enough.

Frick, 18 at the time, was still fresh from a three-day Exodus International rally where emotions ran high and nightly altar calls forced gay teens on their knees. Maybe they could be shamed into repenting their sexuality.

Frick tried. She had been sent to the program by her parents after she came out at 17, a move that led to her two-year journey with guilt and God. “They are destroying people,” she says.

Yet Frick survived. She is now 21, completely out, and an active member at the Metropolitan Community Church in Sarasota, Fla. She hopes to become a minister in the gay-affirming denomination. “My current pastor has been with her partner for 26 years, and they are very happy,” Frick says. “[‘Ex-gay’ programs] don’t show you that. I wouldn’t take all the money in the world to go back.”

That world is only getting more chilling: While programs that promise to turn gay men and lesbians straight have existed for more than two decades, experts say that during the past few years the religious right has banded together like never before to spend millions on such programs. An article in the September/October 2004 issue of YouthWorker Journal, a magazine aimed at those who minister to young people, says sexuality will be a top issue to be addressed by ministries in the next 20 years.

“What makes these programs so effective is the large infrastructure that supports them, both directly and through their constant influence,” says Peterson Toscano, who unsuccessfully tried to “turn himself straight” in the Love in Action ex-gay ministry almost a decade ago. Today, he satirizes the experience in his one-man comedy routine Doin’ Time in the Homo No Mo Halfway House.

The issue reached a crescendo in June when 16-year-old Zach described on his blog at www.myspace.com/specialkid his unwilling enrollment—by his parents—in a restrictive program called Refuge, a youth organization near Memphis affiliated with Love in Action International. A firestorm of controversy, government inquiries, and protests by gay rights groups resulted. The Tennessee Department of Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities began looking into the program in July, wanting to know if it conducted improper counseling with unlicensed employees, and the state’s Department of Children’s Services investigated the group on a child abuse complaint, finding the claim unsubstantiated.

The effort to get teens to turn straight is being led by Focus on the Family and Exodus, an umbrella organization for more than 120 programs. Focus, with $136 million in annual revenue, in 2003 spent $10.2 million on antigay efforts including its ex-gay program, Love Won Out, and fighting marriage equality. The year before it reported only $4.9 million for “public policy awareness.”

Exodus officials say launching Exodus Youth, aimed at teens, was one of their major accomplishments of 2002, and the marketing is intensifying. The Exodus annual conference in Asheville, N.C., in July, specifically targeted both teens and parents who would do practically anything to make their kids straight.