'Ex Gay' App Fire Storm Rages On

Outrage and opposition to an iPhone application created by "ex gay" group Exodus International continues to grow, with critics lambasting the app, Exodus, and Apple, Inc., which lists the application as having a "4+" rating ("no objectionable material").

Online petition site Change.org has gathered over 90,000 signatures on an appeal to Apple to yank the app, reported Advocate.com on March 21. The number is only growing.

Moreover, opponents of the Exodus app say they are preparing to picket Apple, with Truth Wins Out founder Wayne Besen issuing a statement slamming the app as being "from an organization that promotes gay exorcisms, demonizes LGBT people, and is rejected by every respected mental health association in America."

"[W]e will take steps to ensure that Apple meets the victims of 'ex-gay' ministries and learns how their lives were destroyed," Besen's statement said.

Besen did not call for a boycott of Apple products. In a recent EDGE article, Besen noted that boycotting efforts must be highly organized and extremely well financed to be effective.

"Several years ago, he called for a boycott on Jamaica and its goods for an increasingly virulent homophobic climate and laws that persecuted LGBT individuals," the earlier EDGE article noted of Besen. "While he captured the media's attention for a moment, Besen ultimately describes the effort as 'the biggest failure of (his) entire career.' "

"This is a country that is run on money more than ever before," Besen told EDGE. "Money is speech, which of course means some people have a lot more speech than others. Money doesn't guarantee you'll win, but absence of money almost guarantees you'll lose."

Even so, the groundswell of anger and disdain generated by the app only grew in the days following its release.

"Over the course of time we have seen some apps that are highly offensive, but this one sinks to a new... low," declared a March 21 posting at blog Womanist Musings.

The posting was titled, "Really Apple? LGBT People Can't Be "Cured" With an APP," a heading that reflected the perception that the app purports to "cure" gays.

Elsewhere online, another news headline claimed, "App Approved By Apple To Make Gay People Straight."

Exodus International described the app as a resource rather than a "cure" for homosexuality in and of itself.

"It is our desire to create resources that are easily accessible and helpful for today's culture," text at the group's site said. "We hope to reach a broader demographic and readily provide information that is crucial for many seeking hope and encouragement."

The website said that the application would enable users to find a variety of content, including "Latest News... Real Stories... Real Answers... Podcasts... Event... [and] Responding to Bullying."

Among the "events" that the application lists are "Love Won Out" seminars in various cities. "Love Won Out" is an "ex gay" project run by anti-gay group Focus on the Family. Its seminars claim that with prayer and therapy, gays can "convert" to heterosexuality. "Love Won Out" has made the controversial assertion that "same-sex attraction is a preventable and treatable condition."

Critics of the application made themselves known even at the Exodus site.

"About all I can say for this app is that if someone feels the need to take the Pepsi Challenge for their gayness, this gives them a chance to put their toe in while deciding if they want to subject themselves to the full hard sell," wrote one individual.

"Wonder if we can we expect a followup app for heterosexuals interested in swinging the other way?" wrote another.

A third noted, "[It's] extremely misleading to say 'Receiving a 4+ rating from Apple'--Apple doesn't give this shit 4+ stars, your friends that are already like-minded have voted it as such. It is not Apple that is voting.

"The reason it got 4+ stars is because the people that would actually want and download this application have already made up their mind about it before they even downloaded it. If you're a homophobe and someone posts a homophobe app, of course it will get high rankings, its reaffirming your own beliefs."

Exodus: We Love Gays

Exodus spokesperson Jeff Buchanan told Christian news service CBN in an interview that his organization had nothing but "love" for the gays to whom it offered a "cure" for homosexuality.

"There are a lot of misconceptions about who we are and what our message is, and those misconceptions continue to be reiterated," Buchanan said. "What we're wanting is simply the right and the opportunity to be able to have a diverse voice or have equal representation on the iTunes platform within Apple, to represent our message of a Biblical worldview of sexuality."

Buchanan went on to say that "every one of those allegations and every one of those statements" made at Change.org about his group "are not true. We love those who struggle with same-sex attraction or who are gay, and we simply want to communicate the message of Jesus and the message of Christ to them, and help the church to become equipped in order to know how to redemptively respond to this issue."

However, text at the Exodus site characterized same-sex commitment as lying outside of "sexual integrity," telling readers, "No one is saying that the journey to sexual holiness and integrity is easy. It requires strong motivation, hard work, and perseverance.

"But hundreds of men and women have experienced a great degree of personal transformation-attaining abstinence from homosexual behaviors, lessening of homosexual temptations, strengthening their sense of masculine or feminine identity, correcting distorted styles of relating with members of the same and opposite gender," text at the site continued. "Some of these men and women marry and some don't, but marriage is not the measuring stick; spiritual growth and obedience are."

The site also claimed that "cures" for gays are cited in the Bible.

"In 1 Corinthians 6:9-11, Paul gives a list of all kinds of sinners that will not inherit the kingdom of God, including those that practice homosexuality. But he goes on to say, 'and that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.' Some Corinthian Christians had formerly been involved in homosexuality, but now were counted among the saints. Now, that's good news indeed!"

Scholars have noted that the roots of Old Testament condemnation of homosexuality lay in the need for ancient Semites to distinguish their religion from the beliefs and practices of other religions of the era. Some of those religions practiced animal sacrifice to their gods; others included rituals involving sexual conduct, including sexual contact between persons of the same gender. It is unclear whether the New Testament passage referenced by Exodus refers to the practices of other religions or to matters of human sexuality apart from such rites.

The Exodus site also claimed that human sexuality--which is known to be somewhat fluid within individually varying ranges, but which researchers nonetheless believe is fixed and inborn--can be shifted.

"[B]oth retrospective (looking backwards in time) and prospective (observation in real time) studies have discovered that shifts in desire, fantasy and behavior from same-sex toward opposite sex can occur, and that the attempt to make these changes is not inherently harmful," the text claimed.

Some individuals have exhibited success in shifting from one sexual identity to another. For many "ex gays," however, heterosexuality entails a daily "struggle" against recurring sexual desire for individuals of the same gender. Other "ex gays" have said that they have triumphed over their homosexuality, but only at the cost of any sexual response at all, becoming "asexual."

Unclear is whether individuals who report an actual shift in their sexual desires were ever gay or lesbian to begin with. Adolescents often pass through a phase of sexual experimentation that includes same-sex encounters. Other individuals may be bisexuals who choose to ignore feelings of attraction for members of the same gender.

Even so, the text at the Exodus site delivers an upbeat, unambiguous message. "Is there realistic hope that men and women who experience same-sex attraction can overcome those temptations and lead a life of sexual integrity? Can they reasonably expect a time when same-sex attraction will no longer dominate their existence, determine their behavior, or define their identity? The answer to those questions is yes!"

Others are far less certain. Mental health professionals warn that "reparative therapy" and other modalities claiming to "cure" gays can do more damage than good.

Two anti-gay iPhone apps generated outrage among sexual minorities and made headlines previous to this. One app, the co-called "Manhattan Declaration," generated such a backlash that Apple dropped it.

The Manhattan Declaration runs to 4,700 words, and was presented at a media conference on Nov. 20, 2009. The document purports to trace a Christian tradition of defending "the sanctity of life" and "traditional marriage" through the ages, and makes the claim that Christianity laid the groundwork for democracy and equality for all before the law. Anti-gay groups such as Focus on the Family embraced the manifesto and encouraged their adherents to put their names to it.

But the declaration also raised hackles. The text claims that the push for equal marriage rights for gay and lesbian families is nothing more than an attempt to "redefine" marriage to suit "fashionable ideologies," and says that the Declaration "affirm[s]... marriage as a conjugal union of man and woman, ordained by God from the creation, and historically understood by believers and non-believers alike, to be the most basic institution in society." That text and a quiz regarding moral issues around marriage were included in the app, which was initially cleared and made available by Apple.

Changing It Up

The online petition organized by Change.org in opposition to the Manhattan Declaration app gathered thousands of signatures within a week. Apple responded by reviewing the app, and then removing it.

GLAAD noted that the Manhattan Declaration app went beyond an implicit assumption that same-sex families were somehow undeserving of the "dignity" that the document claimed should be reserved solely for mixed-gender couples.

"The app features an electronic version of a declaration, through which users can pledge to make 'whatever sacrifices are required' to oppose marriage equality, even, presumably, if that means breaking the law" in asking users not to "bend to any rule purporting to force us to bless immoral sexual partnerships, treat them as marriages or the equivalent, or refrain from proclaiming the truth," a Dec. 15, 2010, GLAAD release said.

"The 'Manhattan Declaration' calls gay and lesbian couples 'immoral,' it calls the recognition of their relationships 'false and destructive,' and claims that allowing them to be married will lead to 'genuine social harms,' " the GLAAD release noted. "The original application also contained a quiz in which the 'right' answers were those that oppose equality for gay and lesbian people.

"This application fuels a climate in which gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people are put in harm's way," the GLAAD release went on. "Apple did the right thing in recognizing that this application violates the company's guidelines."

Noting that the quiz had been stripped out of the revised app that was re-submitted to Apple for approval, GLAAD went on to say that, "simply removing the quiz does nothing to address the underlying problem, which is that this application tells people to pledge to oppose equality for gay and lesbian couples."

The Mormon Church-affiliated anti-gay organization the National Organization for Marriage (NOM), which has spent massive amounts of money across the nation to oppose marriage parity for gay and lesbian families, lent its support to the app. The group produced an ad that accused Apple founder Steve Jobs of anti-Christian censorship.

Following the Manhattan Declaration imbroglio, an application aimed at Roman Catholics came in for similar criticism. The application, called Confession: A Roman Catholic App, set off GLBT advocates, who said that it was "promoting anti-gay spiritual abuse" by directing users to ask themselves, "Have I been guilty of any homosexual activity?"

LGBTQ Nation reported on Feb. 10 that the app was the product of three designers in Indiana who had worked with two socially conservative priests. Lawmakers in Indiana recently advanced a resolution to amend the state's constitution in a way that would ban both marriage equality and civil unions.

The notion of "guilt" and "sin" in connection with same-sex intimacy prompted Wayne Besen, head of the American anti-"ex-gay" group Truth Wins Out, to say that the app promoted not virtue, but rather "neurosis."

"This is cyber spiritual abuse that promotes backward ideas in a modern package," Besen charged. "Gay Catholics don't need to confess, they need to come out of the closet and challenge anti-gay dogma."

Saying that the application was "helping to create neurotic individuals who are ashamed of whom they are," Besen slammed the very notion of homosexuality as being inherently sinful. "The false idea that being gay is something to be ashamed of has destroyed too many lives," Besen asserted. "This iPhone app is facilitating and furthering the harm."