Month: August 2005

Here’s an example of “an expert is only someone who agrees with me” kind of thinking. This opinion piece mentions the book Destructive Trends in Mental Health edited by Rogers Wright and Nick Cummings but then seems to damn it because it was reviewed by Dean Byrd on the Narth website. Does this guy even know who Wright and Cummings are?

This look backwards is interesting to say the least.

For example, there are conflicting reports on the internet about when Jack McIntyre committed suicide. One source says 1975 and the best sources say 1977. I have found a death notice that places his death in early 1977 and can find nothing in 1975. This is relevant to the story for a variety of reasons, one of which is the frequent claim that John Evans left Love in Action after his friend Jack McIntyre’s suicide. A corollary to that claim is the one that Jack McIntyre spent 4 years in Love in Action and was driven to suicide by that group.

I continue to look for contact information for John Evans to get his perspective on these matters. Without that, there is reason to doubt these claims. According to a note by Rembert Truluck on his webpage, the first Evangelicals Concerned chapter was started in Marin county with Ralph Blair making a trip to see John Evans. This is consistent with Frank Worthen’s recollections that John Evans and Jack McIntyre and several other people left Love in Action about three months after the name Love in Action was adopted to join with Ralph Blair. This would have been late 1974 or early 1975, which is also given on the EC website as the founding year of EC. Since Jack McIntyre committed suicide in 1977, he would have been away from LIA and with EC for about two years. Also, John Evans would have left LIA before the suicide, not after as has been claimed. He may waited until after McIntyre’s death to denounce the ministry but he and McIntyre seem to have left LIA long before the suicide.

Most of these claims about LIA and Exodus seems to come from a common source but the claims are never sourced. I continue to explore and talk to people…

Strange as it may seem, my sincere effort to listen to those asking me to consider other views of the founders of ex-gay ministries has taken an interesting turn. I asked Wayne Besen for the contact information of John Evans who was involved in Love in Action early on and here is the response I received. Must have struck some kind of nerve.

Zach Stark has spoken out on a new blog (he took the old one down). He generally has good things to say about Love in Action and he now wants to be left alone. I am impressed with the generally mature responses he is giving to those posting on his blog.

No comment as yet from the Queer Action Coalition, the folks who broadcast Zach’s original blog to the world.

From Wayne Besen’s news release regarding John Evans:

Evans, a gay man, founded what may be the first modern ex-gay group in San Raphael, Calif. in 1973, along with a heterosexual preacher Kent Philpott. Evans left his life partner of ten years to start the gay conversion group. He later dropped out after he realized it didn’t work and his best friend committed suicide because he could not turn heterosexual.

I have had contact with Kent Philpott and Frank Worthen, both of whom convened the first meeting of Love in Action. Both deny these statements. Evans was being mentored by Philpott and came along to a joint meeting of Philpott’s mentoring group and Frank Worthen’s group. At that meeting, the approximately 15 people present decided together that Love in Action was a better name for the ministy than the previous name (Brother Frank’s Tape Ministry). With all due respect to Frank Worthen, I agree.

John Evans left the group several months after it started. He formed a pro-gay group. The suicide referred to in the Besen release occurred after Mr. Evans left Love in Action.

More to come…