In 1976, Exodus International was founded by Michael Bussee and Gary Cooper. They had been troubled by their homosexual feelings and became fervent Christians in 1971 while still in their teens. They had met and became friends while working for a counseling and referral line at the Melodyland Christian Center in Anaheim.
Bussee, who knew what kind of a struggle he'd had in dealing with his own feelings, was worried when he heard operators on the hotline telling gay and lesbian callers that they were "possessed by demons" (sounds familiar). He requested special training for the calls and learned that none existed. "I told them I was a Christian homosexual," Bussee says. They told him that there was no such thing, that all homosexual desires were replaced with heterosexual ones if you trust God.
Both Bussee and Cooper grew to believe this, and became specialists at Melodyland in the conversion of homosexuals. Then in 1976, they founded Exodus.
Ironically though, the more they worked together the more they found themselves falling in love with each other. In the late 70s, while on a road trip, they found themselves booked by chance in a hotel room with a single bed. They took this accident as a sign from God and left Exodus in 1979. In 1982, they were married. Cooper died of AIDS nine years later.
"The desires never go away," Bussee says, "the confrontations begin and the guilt gets worse and worse." Even though the organization glossed over cases to make it appear as though the program was a great success, Bussee recalled that some people who went through the program had breakdowns or committed suicide. "One man slashed his genitals with a razor and poured Drano on his wounds." Another man underwent an incomplete sex-change operation, operating under the assumption that his sexual desires would recieve divine approval were he biologically a woman.
Bussee claims that after dealing with hundreds of people he and his lover had not met one person who actually went from gay to straight. Even if you do manage to alter someone's sexual behavior, you cannot change their true orientation. As Episcopal priest Father Seller recently said on CNN regarding the ex-gay ministries, you cannot change a person, though you can force them to become asexual, that is, experience neutral sexual identity - neither heterosexual nor homosexual. That oftentimes can cause more psychological damage than before. Seller claims that all too often these ex-gay ministries tell gays and lesbians that God's love for them is an impossibility.
But there is conclusive proof that ex-gay ministries may only be able to "change" a small minority of people, and it is not known whether those individuals will stay heterosexual forever or not. Psychologists have said for a long time now that sexual orientation is too integral a part of your personality to be changed, and that trying to often hurts rather than helps that person.
Bussee claims "If you got them away from the Christian limelight, and asked them, 'Honestly now, are you saying that you are no longer homosexual and you are now heterosexually oriented?'...not one person said, 'Yes, I am actually now heterosexual.'"
Return to The Church and Homosexuality.
