Friday, June 22, 2007

Open Invitation to Exodus Leaders

My very good friends, survivors of ex-gay therapy programs, Christine and Peterson, have organized a website featuring former ex-gays called "Beyond Ex-Gay." They are having their first national conference in Irvine, California at the end of this month and they have issued a personal invitation to the leaders of Exodus International to participate in a dinner and conversation.

Here is the open invitation.

Dear Exodus Leaders,

It is no coincidence that we scheduled the Ex-Gay Survivor Conference at the same time and in the same city as Exodus’ Freedom Conference. Although we do not wish to interrupt your gathering, we do long for the opportunity to connect with you. Many of us have spent months and years under your care in your ministries. We turned to you for help and received some good from our time under your care. Sadly our ex-gay experiences caused more harm than good, and for many of us we have needed years to recover.

We understand that this was not your intent. From knowing quite a few of you personally, we know that you have a heart to help people and to serve God. You meant to bless us.

Too often once we leave your programs, you never hear about our lives and what happens to us. Most ministries do not have aftercare programs or any formal means to follow-up on participants. Some stories you do not get to hear. If you do, our stories can be simplified by the press or infused with anger or hurt. In hopes of giving you the opportunity to hear about our experiences and the harm that we felt came to us as a result of our pursuit of an ex-gay life, we would like to invite you to join us for a private dinner on Friday, June 29, 2007.

The purpose of the dinner is to give you an opportunity to hear our stories. We do not wish to bash you, attack you or shame you. We simply desire to share our stories with you. No members of the press will be allowed into the dinner and it will not be recorded or filmed. We are hoping for a small gathering with a few ex-gay leaders and some ex-gay survivors. At the dinner a few of us will tell you our stories.

If you are interested in attending this dinner, please RSVP to bxg@beyondexgay.com.

Sincerely,

Peterson Toscano and Christine Bakke

6 comments:

Christine Bakke said...

Hey Steve - thanks for blogging about this. I'm just wishing you could be there, is all.

I'm so excited about the upcoming conference — it's a great collaboration between Soulforce, Beyond Ex-Gay and the UCI LGBT resource center.

I know you were involved in the original "sharing of the water" at Thomas Road in 1999, so in a way, it's like Soulforce will be coming full circle — perhaps you ought to cancel your trip? :D hee. A girl can hope...

Steve Schalchlin said...

Nothing would make me happier than to be there. But there's no way I can postpone my trip. I'm so sorry.

Anonymous said...

Hey Steve... Thanks for posting this!

(Tech note: Your link to the bXg site is missing its magic http:// prefix.)

We're also telling folks to watch the conference page at the site all week and during the conference, as updates will be posted there as continuously as I can manage!

Take care...

Steve Schalchlin said...

Tech? Oh! That would be me!!

Christine Bakke said...

Ha, I know Steve. I just couldn't resist. I once had an entire dream about meeting you....

sonia said...

Hi, Steve! May your upcoming trip fill your heart with music and the joy of collaborating with those dear to you. I think of you often!

Greetings to you too, Christine.