The 14 Steps of Homosexuals Anonymous.

Some of our readers will already be aware of the activities, and the underlying beliefs, of an anti-gay organization called Homosexuals Anonymous (H.A.).

Ostensively formed as "a Christian fellowship of men and women who have chosen to help each other to live free from homosexuality" this organization claims to be both non-political and not a "crusade against 'gay' organizations or movements". H.A. also claims to be able to turn gay people into straight people - and all through the power of faith alone.

Nothing, of course, could be further from the truth.

The very fact that H.A. cannot write the word gay without also putting it in disparaging comment marks says much about what they believe and why they are - at their very heart - anti-gay in both attitude and action.

The comment marks are used in their literature because ultimately H.A. does not believe that gay men and women exist (as such). They do however believe that others should intervene to prevent those of us who are gay from having a sex life (as such) and to prevent those of us who are gay from pair-bonding with each other (as such).

Why one would need to intervene in a situation involving something that apparently doesn't really exist is just one of the many contradictions that underlie H.A.!

One also wonders - how else but anti-gay could one describe a group that claims the following beliefs? (from the H.A. website. Emphasis is ours):

"...freedom and recovery from the spiritual, psychological and relational distortions of homosexuality."
"H.A. does not... define the person's sexuality in terms of physical and emotional responses ... we see homosexuality as a symptom of a confused identity in relation to God, self and the world."
"...gradually modifies the person's sexual identity and compulsive drives, bringing a healing repentance of destructive behavior and introducing more positive attitudes towards the opposite sex and the possibility of choice."
"Homosexuals Anonymous, a Christian fellowship, holds the view that homosexual activity is not in harmony with the will of God and that the universal creation norm is heterosexuality."
"H.A. believes that there is no such thing as a homosexual, only men and women, created by God heterosexually, who because of the broken world we live in, are confused over their sexual identity."
"H.A. holds that the homosexual inclination may be healed and that all who desire it may realize their inborn, though fallen, heterosexuality, thus opening the way to heterosexual marriage and family."
"The H.A. Fellowship, rather than perpetuating the homosexual subculture, contributes to its decline."

The group also:

simplistically compares homosexuality to alcoholism and drug addiction (ignoring the obvious fact, for one, that few who drink are alcoholic - which begs the question why they regard all homosexuals as having some form of sexual addiction?)
promotes the false idea that poor parenting and molestation cause one to become homosexual (an insult to parents with gay children and a deliberate attempt to portray gay men and women as dangerous predators)
promotes the idea that homosexuality is form of mental illness - "Homosexual behavior is a mistaken attempt to meet a real need for non-sexual, same-sex, parent-child love." - in which immature individuals pathologically confuse sexual activity with affectional needs (that both could be found at the same time is not something H.A. appears able to consider possible).
promote the writings and beliefs of such notoriously anti-gay people as Joseph Nicolosi, Leanne Payne, Charles Socarides, Jeffrey Satinover, Elizabeth Moberly, Fr. John Harvey, Gerard van den Aardweg and, surprise surprise, James Dobson. Anyone who follows the activities of the U.S. religious right will already be more than familiar with all these names and this alone shows how neatly the work of the ex-gay groups and the anti-gay religious right fit together.
claims that anyone - with enough faith in Jesus - can stop being homosexual and become a happily married heterosexual with children. Despite the apparent conviction of their claim H.A. do not provide any proof. (Actually, they cannot because they do not keep such records to begin with!). All their program is taken on blind faith alone.
completely ignores the very real (and documented) psychological damage done on the majority of those people who under-go their programme - damage that often ends in suicide, drug abuse, alcoholism and unsafe sexual activity because the victims have had their self-esteem crushed.

Perhaps the greatest "howler" that leapt out from the H.A. website was included in a statement they made about their own history. It reads:

"Homosexuals Anonymous began in November of 1980 as a result of two men, Colin, a former minister, and Doug, a former school principal, pooling their ideas on how to pass on to others what they had experienced in recovery from homosexuality."

Who, you may wonder, is "Colin"?

"Colin" is Colin Cook, and as a minister he become 'former' after being exposed as a homosexual in the mid-1970's. After precipitously jumping into marriage with a woman in 1978, Cook founded H.A. and until 1995 was heavily promoted by conservative religious groups - particularly by those associated with the "Colorado for Family Values" (CFV) group that spearheaded a venomous campaign through the infamous "Amendment 2" referendum.

[Tactics employed by the CFV included distributing 500,000 slanderous flyers the day before the referendum that made such claims as "...homosexuals, who represent perhaps 2% of the population, perpetrate more than one-third of all child molestations!" and "on account of a 'gay rights law,' a Laguna Beach mother was unable to press charges against three men who were having sex in a public restroom when her three-year-old boy walked in". Delivered at a time designed to make it impossible to refute before the referendum, both claims are completely false, as this letter to the editor of the Colorado Daily states.]

H.A., along with it's fellow travellers on the religious right, was up to it's eye-balls in this 1992 Colorado campaign and this makes complete nonsense of it's claims to be both non-political and not anti-gay. What H.A. could possibly imagine these two terms to actually mean beggars the imagination.

What is more outrageous is that H.A. also neglects to mention one salient fact in it's claim that Colin Cook had successfully experienced recovery from homosexuality. One is indeed left not knowing the real identity of this person referred to merely as "Colin", and are also left with the impression that he actually succeeded in ceasing to be homosexual. There is good reason for such obfuscation.

What H.A. should perhaps have mentioned is that Colin Cook is in disgrace after it was revealed in 1995 by the Denver Post that he was not only having homosexual sex while married and claiming to be an former homosexual; but that he was doing so with the young men placed in his charge as an ex-gay counsellor! To make matters worse - Cook had once before had a H.A. associated gay-change group collapse around him in 1986 when it emerged that for years he had secretly been seducing young men from within his ministry, including at least one 16 year old.

One can read a summary about Colin Cook here (and, by the way, also find an interesting site written by some Christian parents who have gay children - the search by many of these parents to reconcile the difference between what their religion had always "told" them about homosexuals and the contradictory evidence from their own children's lives makes for fascinating reading).

Apparently, "recovered from homosexuality" means to H.A. something rather different to what the rest of us would understand it be.

And apparently taking sexual advantage of emotionally fragile and under-age young men while they under your care is not sufficient reason to have your irrational and ignorant ramblings removed from the H.A. reading list. That should give many ex-gay counsellors a sense of comfort, given that so many of them do in fact "fall" with their fellow ex-gays - even, it seems, 20 years after you can claim to have fully "recovered".

At least to those radical Christian groups who mounted the anti-gay campaign in Colorado, it would also appear that the definition of "family values" include protecting a man who molests under-age boys to save themselves public embarrassment while at the same time spreading slanderous tracts that deliberately play on the fear-causing myth that all gay men and women are child molesters.

Such people are beneath contempt, and concerned by the malevolent activities of H.A., all done in the name of "Christian Love", we have decided to form our own group to assist those who instead seek freedom from anti-homosexual thoughts and behaviour.

We have called our group "Anti-homosexuals Anonymous".

For those interested in following our programme - one may do this at home by simply following the 14 Steps below. At each step you will need to think about why the point is important and to adjust your thoughts and deeds to match the demands of the step.

This 14 Step programme has been inspired (actually, ripped off entirely!) by the 14 Steps programme promoted by H.A. We have also included the H.A. steps so that you may compare the two programmes and thereby see why this deceitful group should be avoided if you wish to gain freedom from an anti-gay lifestyle.

Good Luck!

Grant & Dale

We admitted that we were powerless over our homosexuality and that our emotional lives were unmanageable.

We accepted that sexual orientation - of all types - is an integral part of ourselves and of others. Sexuality is not separate to ourselves, but a core part of what we are and how we relate to others.

We accepted that our social, emotional, physical and spiritual lives are distinct from our sexuality even though our understanding of each of these is often influenced by it and that in term each of them exerts their own influences over our understanding of our sexuality or of the sexuality of others.

We came to believe the love of God, who forgave us and accepted us in spite of all that we are and have done.

[As a side-note: we were always told God loved us because of who we were, not in spite of who we were. A subtle divergence of wording, but one that says volumes about the difference in mindsets between them and us].

We accepted that some of us are people with a religious faith and that some are not. We respect spirituality as a deeply personal issue and humbly acknowledged that our own system of faith may in fact be

unsuitable for others
incorrect
a nonsense

For all these reasons we accepted that religous life must be permitted to be a personal journey done in the absence of coercion and self-righteousness.

We learned to see purpose in our suffering, that our failed lives were under God's control, who is able to bring good out of trouble.

We came to see there is no inherent purpose to suffering, although some may seek to control us by using it. We reject the advances of those who would use the suffering of others to further their own social, political or religious agendas.

We came to believe that God had already broken the power of homosexuality and that He could therefore restore our true personhood.

We came to see that homosexuality is core the the true personhood of some people. When we deny that person's sexuality we also deny the very humanity of that individual.

We came to perceive that we had accepted a lie about ourselves, an illusion that had trapped us in a false identity.

We came to perceive that people will often assume an identity because of social and religious pressures. We came to realize that many will adopt an outward appearance in order to please others or to escape persecution and that this appearance may differ markedly from what that person feels inside or how they behave in private.

We came to know that such a double-life comes at it's own cost and can only be maintained by lying and hiding.

We learned to claim our true reality that as humankind, we are part of God's heterosexual creation and that God calls us to rediscover that identity in Him through Jesus Christ, as our faith perceives Him.

We learned that homosexual men and woman are already an integral part of humankind and therefore deserve to be treated with the same respect, to hold the same rights and to be expected to take on the same responsibilities as we wish of any person. To hold any other position is both insulting and de-humanizing and results in the ill-treatment of homosexuals.

We learned that homosexual men and women are not confused or broken heterosexuals; rather, we learned that homosexuality and heterosexuality are merely benign aspects of human sexuality in it's entirety.

Both are capable of contributing to the welfare of individuals and of society, or of being used in an abusive and selfish manner.

We resolved to entrust our lives to our loving God and to live by faith, praising Him for our new unseen identity, confident that it would become visible to us in God's good time.

We accepted that some of us will chose to live by a system of religious faith and that some of us will not. We learned from history that unless this is left to the free choice of the individual concerned many destructive and anti-social forces are unleashed in the name of religious dogma.

As forgiven people free from condemnation, we made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves, determined to root out fear, hidden hostility, and contempt for the world.

Because of the negative personal and social consequences caused through fear, hostility and contempt we encourage each person to reflect on their lives, their attitudes and their treatment of others. We accepted personal responsibility for ending our own contributions to fear, hostility and contempt.

We admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs and humbly asked God to remove our defects of character.

We came to see that oftentimes what we see as the defects of others reflects more on ourselves than it does on the other person. We came to see that when we belittle or condemn others we often do this because of our own flaws rather than because the other person deserves to be so regarded.

We willingly made direct amends wherever wise and possible to all people we had harmed.

We committed ourselves to not harming others, to not allowing others to harm others if we could prevent the activity and to not allowing others to harm ourselves.

We accepted that harm may be caused by direct physical actions, emotional torment or through social ostracism.

We further committed ourselves to be ready to acknowledge and to make restitution should we cause harm to others, and we came to expect that others will behave likewise towards ourselves..

We determined to live no longer in fear of the world, believing that God's victorious control turns all that is against us into our favor, bringing advantage out of sorrow and order from disaster.

We determined we should not live in fear. We also determined others should not live in fear. We committed ourselves to taking whatever actions are needed to achieve both these outcomes.

We determined to mature in our relationships with men and women, learning the meaning of a partnership of equals, seeking neither dominance over people nor servile dependency on them.

We determined to mature in our relationships with others. We neither wish to dominate others or to be dominated by them. In order to do this we acknowledged that our own thoughts on what constitutes equality may differ from the views of others and we modestly accept our own limitations in experience, information and understanding.

We came to realize that there will be times when an issue is of greater personal importance for someone else than it is for us, and that at such times it is not a weakness for us to decide not to oppose them. We came to expect others to treat us in a similar fashion.

We sought thorough confident praying, and the wisdom of Scripture for an ongoing growth in our relationship with God and a humble acceptance of His guidance for our lives.

We accepted that we need to reflect on our lives in order to live them well. We committed ourselves to this reflection even while accepting that we will always be limited to some degree by our own lack of complete understanding.

Because of this we committed ourselves to open dialogue with others even while accepting that these others will likewise always be limited by their own lack of complete understanding.

Having had a spiritual awakening, we tried to carry this message to homosexual people with a love that demands nothing and to practice these steps in all our lives' activities, as far as lies within us.

Having come to an understanding about what abusive behaviour is, we will carry this message of freedom from abuse to all people. As we seek to live our lives according to these 14 Steps we shall encourage others to also make a personal committment to do the same. We take pleasure in the fact that every person shall make differing decisions and take differing paths in order to live by these principles.

Note:

Our 14 Steps and logo are not copywrite in anyway (although this page has the normal rights held for original published material). If you like our 14 Steps feel free to use them, and let us know how you get on!

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