Earlier this month, John Paulk rebuked the ex-gay movement that he once championed as a spokesperson for Focus on the Family. Now he has issued a formal apology, clarifying that the therapy did not change his sexual orientation and admitting that he harmed people by suggesting otherwise. Here are some excerpts from his full apology:

For the better part of ten years, I was an advocate and spokesman for what’s known as the “ex-gay movement,” where we declared that sexual orientation could be changed through a close-knit relationship with God, intensive therapy and strong determination. At the time, I truly believed that it would happen. And while many things in my life did change as a Christian, my sexual orientation did not.

So in 2003, I left the public ministry and gave up my role as a spokesman for the “ex-gay movement.” I began a new journey. In the decade since, my beliefs have changed. Today, I do not consider myself “ex-gay” and I no longer support or promote the movement. Please allow me to be clear: I do not believe that reparative therapy changes sexual orientation; in fact, it does great harm to many people. [...]

Today, I see LGBT people for who they are — beloved, cherished children of God. I offer my most sincere and heartfelt apology to men, women, and especially children and teens who felt unlovable, unworthy, shamed or thrown away by God or the church.

Paulk asked for some privacy as he resolves some personal matters — namely, the demise of his 20-year marriage. His wife, Anne, still identifies as ex-gay and is among the founding members of the Restored Hope Network, an ex-gay advocacy organization that splintered off from Exodus International after that group stopped claiming that homosexuality could be cured.

At the end of his letter, Paulk also discouraged people from ever buying either of the two books he wrote about being ex-gay. Not only do they not represent who he is or what he believes, but he doesn’t receive royalties from their sale anyway.

This Friday (4/19) is the annual Day of Silence (DoS), when students across the country choose not speak in school in protest of the mistreatment of LGBT youth. While some conservative groups are once again encouraging parents to keep their kids home, Focus on the Family and the Alliance Defending Freedom are hosting their annual pre-buttal, the so-called “Day of Dialogue” (DoD) on Thursday (4/18). The blatant goal of this event is to encourage Christian students to condemn homosexuality and transgenderism to their peers, but under the facade of opposing bullying.

Most of the materials on the DoD page were written by Jeff Johnston, Focus on the Family’s resident ex-gay, who rejects transgender identities as disordered and healthy and who describes homosexuality as “sexual brokenness.” For the Day of Dialogue, he encourages young people to talk about homosexuality with their classmates by suggesting they pursue ex-gay therapy because being gay is the same as being a prostitute or an adulterer:

Without God, and without following His intentions for us, all the good of sexuality is distorted. The good news, in the midst of our sexual brokenness, is that God still loves us deeply. He longs to reconnect with each of us and to begin healing, restoring and transforming us. He invites each of us to respond to His love.

All throughout Scripture, we see that God has a special place in His heart for people who messed up sexually. Jesus’ ancestors included prostitutes and adulterers, and He brought forgiveness and restoration to many people who were caught in sexual brokenness.  In the same way, Jesus is standing with His arms open to each of us. We’ve all had our identity, relationships, sexuality and desires impacted by sin. He invites us to experience new life, forgiveness, true relational intimacy with Him and healthy relationships with others.

As Christians, children of God and followers of Jesus, we have a unique opportunity to offer this good news to our classmates and those around us. In a disordered and hurting world we can offer hope, healing and renewal.

Interestingly, the DoD site does not use the word “gay” or “homosexuality” except on its page, “Responding To Challenges.” Participants are not encouraged to use the words at all, but respond that “God has a plan for our sexuality” (and it’s not homosexuality). Here’s an example of how Focus on the Family encourages students to explain that being gay is a chosen identity:

The fact is that nobody knows how same-sex attractions develop—it appears to be a combination of factors (from biology to individual temperament to culture to environment). There is no proof that it is purely genetic. For more information, you can read Are People Really Born Gay? as well as other resources posted here.

You can explain that the real issue, for those who follow Jesus, is not about changing from “straight” to “gay”, or what kind of sexual identity a person has, but about having a relationship with God. And as our relationship with him grows, we learn to manage our feelings, desires and behavior according to His best plan for us.

The fact is that many people have experienced great changes in their lives and voluntarily chosen  to align their feelings to God’s best plan.

These are blatant falsehoods. The American Psychological Association has determined over decades of research that sexual orientation is innate and attempts to change it are ineffective and harmful. Moreover, the most recent research in a growing field known as epigenetics suggests that sexual orientation is at least partially determined by genes — just not directly. Rather than being coded into the DNA directly, certain sex-specific switches on the genes known as “epi-marks” can be triggered during fetal development, causing variations in hormone levels that determine how the genes will express gender and sexuality for the rest of the individual’s life. It’s still not a perfect explanation, but it’s a clear indicator that biology has a significant impact on determining sex and gender and that they cannot simply be changed by shame-based therapy.

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Focus on the Family President Jim Daly

On Friday, the New York Times ran a puff piece about Focus on the Family, claiming that under the leadership of its president Jim Daly, the organization is softening by becoming one that “invites civil dialogue” and “turns down the rhetorical temperature on the debate.” It goes on to claim that Daly is “attesting to the divine love and grace that he firmly believes saved his life.”

Jeremy Hooper and David Badash have already penned extensive retorts, outlining the many odious anti-LGBT positions that Focus on the Family still holds. As a simple test of whether Focus on the Family and its political arm CitizenLink are engaging in more “civil dialogue,” here’s a look at some of the rhetoric they’ve put out over just the past six months:

• Marriage equality will “shut down businesses” and is actually about “silencing Christian voices in the public square.”
• Marriage equality is a “pernicious lie of Satan.”
• Gender and sexuality are determined by procreation, not anybody’s own sense of their identities.
• Homosexuality isn’t a “super sin,” but it’s still a sin, just like adultery, lying, cheating, and gossiping.
• There’s no such thing as being gay; it’s just a “political statement.”
• Marriage equality passed in November because voters are “unchurched” and care more about themselves than about children.
• Transgender identities are unhealthy disorders that result from childhood trauma.
• Trans people should pursue ex-trans therapy to rectify their “confusion” with their “God given gender identity and destiny.”
• Gay people are in “pain” and at battle with God.
• Heterosexuality is society’s ideal because affirming homosexuality would be “normalizing brokenness.”
• “Satan roams the earth like a lion, using sexual and relational brokenness to destroy individuals, families, churches, groups, businesses.”
• Parents should be able to prevent their children from learning that gay people exist.
• There are “a variety of roads into homosexuality” including molestation, parents’ divorce, and trouble conforming to gender roles.

And that was just the rhetoric that ThinkProgress happened to cover since last September. Of course, Focus on the Family also sponsors the annual “Day of Dialogue,” which encourages Christian students to condemn their gay peers — a counterprotest to the “Day of Silence,” which is designed to bring visibility to that very kind of bullying.

The New York Times should better clarify that not a single position has changed at Focus on the Family. As the article inadvertently demonstrates, the organization has simply achieved better PR when individuals aren’t paying attention to what they actually believe.

Focus on the Family actively campaigns against equality for LGBT people, but a new video reveals just how much gall the organization has in defending discrimination. In a conversation between host Stuart Shepard and Focus’s resident ex-gay Jeff Johnston, the two suggest that “the real agenda” of the equality movement is to “marginalize” Christians for opposing same-sex marriage:

SHEPARD: This is no longer theoretical. I mean we’ve talked about it for years and a lot of people said, “Oh, don’t pay attention to them, they’re just making this up, there will be no impact. We’re just talking about fairness, equality, providing this for folks and it will have no impact on you whatsoever.” We’re seeing people want to shut down businesses and using the weight of government to do this. [...]

JOHNSTON: They’re not just pushing Christians into their churches, they’re reaching into their lives and saying, “Here’s what you should say and here’s what you can’t say.” So they’re attacking freedom of religion, freedom of association, and freedom of speech.

SHEPARD: So the effort to redefine marriage is not just about creating this new type of relationship out of thin air, it’s actually about silencing Christian voices in the public square.

Watch it:

Shepard and Johnston are categorically denying that discrimination is discrimination. They cite various cases of so called “marginalization” of Christians, but none of them even took place in states that have marriage equality. In each situation, it was a business refusing to provide a service to people because of their sexual orientation and then being challenged under state laws because that form of discrimination is illegal. A New Mexico photographer refused to document a same-sex couple’s commitment ceremony and lost in court. Bakers in Colorado and Oregon have been challenged for refusing to sell cakes to celebrating same-sex couples. A t-shirt company in Kentucky was found to be in the wrong for refusing to print t-shirts for a Pride festival. None of these states even have same-sex marriage; the business owners simply do not have legitimate standing to discriminate.

Focus on the Family feels that challenging these Christians constitutes an attack on their motives, and they’re right. They’re defending discrimination, and personal religious beliefs offer no justification for that second-class treatment in society.

Focus on the Family’s Glenn Stanton stopped by Truth in Action Ministries radio this week to discuss marriage equality. He didn’t provide any particular new arguments about why same-sex couples shouldn’t be allowed to receive the same governmental protections as other married couples, but he did offer some fiery new condemnations:

STANTON: This is a really pernicious lie of Satan to say that the gender part of humanity doesn’t really matter because the gender part of humanity is really denying the distinct God imaging in each of us as males and females. We need to understand that as Christians. That’s the biggest thing. [...]

These are not advocates of marriage; they’re advocates for redefining marriage. They know that making gender any irrelevant part of the equation really does redefine not only marriage but the family itself if not humanity completely.

Listen to it (via RightWingWatch):

It’s odd to think that all of the “family” groups claim to support marriage, but ignore that same-sex couples want to do the very same thing. Creating a stable home environment for raising a family is exactly why the LGBT community is advocating for full marriage equality. Somehow in Stanton’s mind, if same-sex couples act like everybody else it’ll “redefine humanity completely,” but maybe that’s not such a bad thing.

Jeff Johnston is Focus on the Family’s resident ex-gay, who regularly promotes harmful ex-gay therapy because he claims conforming to heteronormativity is ideal for society. He applies this to trans people too, rejecting transgender identities as disordered. In a new screed against LGBT equality today, he discounted any understanding of gender whatsoever, claiming the only determining factors in gender are what men and women contribute to human reproduction:

Despite years of brainwashing from academia, radical feminists, the media, and entertainment, most people know that men and women are different, unique and complementary. A society that attempts to erase male and female or to create new categories to stand next to male and female is living in unreality. Which of the supposed “other genders” being created by individuals or groups can reproduce or replicate itself? [...]

As Christians we also reject the reduction of humanity to groups defined by their sexual attractions and behaviors. Male and female are categories of existence – there is the biological reality of being male or female, and we live in the spiritual reality of a masculinity or femininity that reflects God’s image. It is de-humanizing to categorize individuals by the ever-proliferating alphabet of identities based on sexual attractions or behavior or “gender identity” – LGBBTTQQIAAFPPBDSM – however many letters are added. No. We stand with the truth that there are male and female. There is no recently discovered race of “homosexuals” or “gays” or “lesbians.” We don’t define people’s essence, their being, by their sexual appetites or by other desires.

Actually, there is a biological reality of being gay or straight too, and no sexual orientation compromises whether someone is male or female. And gender involves so much more than just whether you contribute sperm or eggs — it is the complex intersection of socially constructed roles, behaviors, expressions, activities, and attributes that might be associated with one’s sex and how they interact with society.

Johnston believes he successfully erased his own sexual identity so now he works to erase others’. His simple-minded view of the world ignores wide swaths of diversity within sex, gender, and sexual orientation to the detriment of all. He may claim that Christians “reject the reduction of humanity,” but his narrow categories for who people can be does just that.

Focus on the Family President Jim Daly

Focus on the Family President Jim Daly offered a new perspective on homosexuality this week responding to a question about how family members should respond to a gay child. He suggested that being gay is “not a super sin,” but he still advises parents and grandparents to condemn homosexual behaviors:

DALY: Well, first of all. I don’t mean this controversially but it may sound controversial. The one big thing is: homosexuality is not a super sin. It’s one of many, including adultery — other things — lying, cheating, gossiping; it’s right there in the list. So often I think in the Christian community, because of the political nature of it today, that we tend to raise it up as something worse than all the others.

I would say to that grandparent: make sure that tether of love stays attached to their grandchild who has come and said, “I’m gay.” They need you more than they realize, and really, that’s family.

And how do you do that? There’s going to be times when you may not be able to condone, obviously, what they’re doing. And you need to explain it in a heartfelt way — the difference.

Daly went on to absolve himself of responsibility for the message, blaming the Bible for its verses condemning homosexuality. Listen to it:

Daly’s comments have an ounce of hope. Family rejection has been shown to be incredibly detrimental to young people’s mental health, and his message of continuing to show love has some important validity. But loving condemnation is still problematic, and Focus on the Family promotes plenty of condemnation. The group endorses ex-gay therapy, rejects trans people as disordered and unhealthy, and claims that identifying as gay is just a “political statement.” Daly himself has suggested gays are in “pain” and at “battle… with the Creator.” It seems unlikely he would say the same of everyone who has lied, cheated, or gossiped.

Glenn Stanton of Focus on the Family.

Focus on the Family’s Glenn Stanton has made a lot of absurd claims in an attempt to condemn homosexuality, such as worrying that the children of same-sex couples are more likely to be open to same-sex encounters themselves. He also uses studies about single moms to draw conclusions about married lesbian moms.

This week, in an interview with conservative radio host Janet Mefferd, he tried to suggest that gay identities don’t even exist, that they’re just a “political statement” advanced by heterosexuals trying to normalize same-sex behavior:

STANTON: First of all, we need to understand that “gay” and “lesbian” really are — to use the language of feminist studies people — a cultural construct… “Gay” and “lesbian” are very new kinds of things. Yes, there’s always been homosexuality in human experience, but it was typically something that heterosexuals… did to another person.

“Gay” and “lesbian” are really sort of sociological or political statements or identifications… It’s the signing on to a political sexual sort of agenda… There are lots of people who have homosexual or same-sex orientations that just don’t identify themselves as “gay” or “lesbian” because again, “gay” or “lesbian” is a social political sort of identity…

Being “gay” or being “lesbian” is a thing that’s only been present in maybe the past 50 years or so.

Listen to it, via Jeremy Hooper:

Stanton seems to be subtly trying to drive a wedge into the gay community, as the National Organization for Marriage is intending to do. His distinction isn’t very meaningful; “gay” and “lesbian” are simply words to help people with same-sex orientations identify themselves. Though it may only have been in the past century that the LGBT community achieved visibility in society, that doesn’t mean that being gay is just a political identity. One need not conform to any cultural or social stereotypes of gay men or lesbians to identity as “gay” or “lesbian.”

If Stanton believes that people who have orientations toward the same-sex are still somehow heterosexual, he doesn’t understand the basic concepts of the issue he’s discussing. It makes perfect sense for gays and lesbians to openly identify so they can relate to each other and find partners for loving relationships. Given how organizations like Focus on the Family encourage bullying against LGBT teens, it’s particularly offensive that he would try to minimize the lived experience of those young people as a “political sexual sort of agenda.”

Joseph Backholm carrying one of the boxes of petitions that challenged Washington's marriage equality law.

Focus on the Family has posted a wound-licking round-up of its losses in last week’s election, highlighting the marriage equality fights in Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, and Washington. While regurgitating the National Organization for Marriage’s claim that they were simply outspent, Focus also claims that conservatives lost because liberal voters are “unchurched” and thus a threat to children:

In addition to the financial mismatch, those states are also among the most unchurched in the nation—reflecting a discrepancy in the way voters there regard marriage compared to other areas of the country.

“This debate does not end here, but it’s unfortunate that a majority of our state has concluded that the institution of marriage exists solely to ratify the emotional connection of adults,” said Joseph Backholm, executive director of the Family Policy Institute of Washington. “As is always the case when adults decide they’re the most important people in the world, it’s the kids that will lose.”

It’s true that the number of Americans who don’t identify with a religious affiliation is growing, and the narrow view of “churching” that conservative Christians dictate may just be one of the reasons why. The so-called “moral majority” is no longer the majority, and is hardly moral. What’s in the best interest of kids is ensuring that their families have the proper legal securities, not spreading fears that their gay parents are inherently abusive.

This weekend, the Vatican made it clear that it would never back down from its opposition to marriage equality because straight couples deserve “privileged legal recognition.” Responding to this announcement, the Catholic League’s Bill Donahue told Focus on the Family that the Church’s stance on same-sex marriage is as moral as its positions on slavery, racism, or genocide:

DONAHUE: The Catholic Church is not going to change its position on marriage any more than it’s going to change its position on slavery or racism or genocide. These are fixed principles that are there, and those people who are in the Catholic ranks who keep thinking that the Catholic Church may want to change now because the country seems toward gay marriage — really, they’re in the wrong religion. And I think it’s time that our society has to reset its moral compass and think these things through.

Listen to it (via Jeremy Hooper):

The comparison is obviously offensive. A distinction needs to be made between “morality” that can be explained by the social justice impact on real people’s lives and “morality” as simply decreed by the Church. Refusing to grant some families the same protections and security as others can hardly be justified as a “fixed principle.”