JONAH states that its purpose is to aid Jews of all backgrounds, ranging from Orthodox to Reform to unaffiliated. “For Jews who are unhappy with a homosexual identity or whose goal is to attain heterosexual marriage and start a family, JONAH provides support, counseling, referrals, and up-to-date information on the causes and treatment of the problem.”35 Arthur Goldberg is a Reform Jew, but he sends Orthodox Jews who call his hotline to Orthodox psychiatrists. His goal is to find a synagogue to sponsor the organization and increase JONAH's network of psychological counseling. While JONAH members do not believe that being gay and Jewish is acceptable, they also “reject conversion therapies that frighten or shame the patient.”36 Unlike Exodus's leaders, Goldberg is not interested in developing residential programs. The organization's counseling programs emphasize “self-acceptance and achievement of positive goals, involvement in the community, and Jewish religious identity. Our message is a life-affirming one that embraces traditional Torah views as a way of combating isolation and assimilation.”37
Increasingly the issue of sexuality and Judaism is becoming more widely debated. In 2002 the movie Trembling before God received wide distribution and publicity throughout the United States. It sensitively portrayed Orthodox Jewish men and women coping with their homosexuality in the face of a religious tradition that condemns it. JONAH was not mentioned in the film. In anger and disappointment, Arthur wrote a letter to the Jerusalem Post that the film perpetuated a “biased and faulty assumption that same-sex attraction and behavior is irreversible.”38 As a young man in the 1960s, Arthur traveled to the American South as part of the civil rights movement, and he employs the language of civil rights to argue that people should have the right to change their sexuality. Even though his ministry work is fueled largely out of personal pain with his son's homosexuality, he claims that he wants to “provide an option for those who want to change in this politically correct environment.” JONAH's affiliation with Exodus has created some problems for the group, including accusations from other Jewish people that it is part of the Christian Right. For now, it remains affiliated with NARTH and Exodus until it can form alliances with Jewish groups and psychiatrists.
The ex-gay movement is not only growing in various religious denominations, but Exodus has been expanding outside the United States since the late 1980s. Exodus International is now part of a global alliance that includes Exodus Asia-Pacific and Australia, Exodus Europe/Africa/ Middle East, Exodus Brazil, and Exodus Latinoamérica. Many of the international organizations consist of psychiatrists and therapists who use reparative therapy. Before Alan Chambers became Exodus president in 2001, Pat Allan Lawrence directed Exodus International out of Toronto, Canada, and she still coordinates ex-gay programs in the developing world. The international regions mentioned above are part of an Exodus network but function autonomously. Brazil was recently designated its own region because of its extensive network of ex-gay therapists who are not necessarily affiliated with Exodus. In 2001 Frank attended the international conference in Quito, Ecuador, and Exodus materials have been translated into multiple languages for use around the globe.
The ex-gay movement's ability to globalize its organization through the creation of locally run ministries depends upon the global marketing of the U.S.-specific discourses of family values and conversion to heterosexuality. Missionaries have long attempted to Christianize other parts of the globe, but the ex-gay movement is different in that it relies on the premise of sexual dysfunction to evangelize. Exodus representatives like Frank see themselves as sexual missionaries, emissaries fresh from experiences of living as gay men and women, ready to lead others out of what they call spiritual and sexual bondage. As a motivation to other ex-gays to open ministries abroad, Frank writes, “You are in the position of ministering life to a spiritually dead people. Let me challenge you to let your light shine so it can be seen across the channel.”39
Although Frank and Anita spent four years establishing Bagong Pag-Asa, when they returned in 2001, they found that the residential portion of the ministry had ceased and that there was no real local leadership to run the organization. Exodus Asia-Pacific consists entirely of ex-gay organizations based in Australia, and Exodus has had less success planting ministries that last once the missionaries from North America have returned home. International ministries also flounder because Exodus assumes that men and women everywhere have the resources and ability to commit to leaving their homes and families for up to one year to attend a residential program. The belief that healing from homosexuality emerges from a relationship with Jesus Christ, a commitment to godly relationships with other men, an identification as ex-gay, and a recognition of familial dysfunction presumes that family structure and sexual identification are the same throughout the world. The lack of ex-gay literature produced by local ministries in South America, or anywhere in the Exodus Asia-Pacific region, means that Exodus materials apply a universal conception of sexuality despite very different national contexts.
Despite these limitations, Exodus continues to grow. Even its setbacks and scandals end up generating more publicity for the ex-gay movement. In July 2005, a sixteen-year-old named Zack Stark posted on his Web blog that his Christian parents were forcibly sending him to Refuge, Love in Action's outpatient program for youth, after he admitted he was gay.40 Zack Stark's postings immediately instigated protests outside the LIA ministry, and the story was picked up by the mainstream press. The Tennessee Department of Children's Services investigated allegations of child abuse at LIA, but it found no misconduct on the part of the ministry. John Smid was interviewed by Paula Zahn on CNN in late July, and Alan Chambers appeared on ABC's The View to discuss Exodus's programs for youth. Although the negative publicity damaged LIA's credibility, the event propelled Exodus into the national media spotlight. Chambers and other Exodus leaders have realized that media attention provides an opportunity to promote Exodus's message and to expand the organization.
CHAPTER 2
New Creations
On New Year's Eve, 1999, thirteen men between the ages of twenty and forty-five arrived in San Rafael, California, from all over the country to begin the one-year residential program at New Hope Ministry. Although they were strangers to each other, they began the night by making dinner and finished by praying in the New Year together. The date is deliberately symbolic. In the past, these same men might have celebrated the New Year by engaging in drinking, drug use, and same-sex behavior. This New Year's Eve is a rite of passage, the beginning of what will be a year spent living in close proximity to others, delving into personal issues and problems, trying to conquer various sexual addictions, and hoping to eventually become sexually and religiously transformed. Some arrived believing that within a year their sexual attractions for members of the same sex will have diminished; others simply hoped to conquer debilitating addictions. Many were seeking the camaraderie and sense of community that were absent from their lives. They were joined by eight other men: four were continuing into their second year as leaders in training, and four had completed two years at New Hope and were now house leaders in the program.
At their initial New Year's meeting, Frank warned them, “The kind of miracle I want to discuss with you is not an instant kind of miracle, rather it is a long-term progressive miracle. Many would say it is not a miracle at all, but when God accomplishes something the world says is impossible, it is indeed a miracle.” During the evening, the men mingled.Each was required to speak to every other person in the room, writing down their names, hometowns, and any other facts about them in their workbook. Later, they carted their belongings into rooms shared with one to two other men, deliberating over which bunk would be theirs for the duration of the year. In a few days, they had covered the walls of the rooms with posters and whatever other personal mementos they had to demarcate the space as their own. Curtis's room, for example, was wallpapered with magazine clippings and snapshots