Regardless of who said it or why, I truly believe times have changed. I know there are many people today wanting to give Exodus the right to be who they are, to preach their message – I think many more people have become accepting of the idea that anyone, straight or gay have the right to live the way they choose.

The real problem today, and I believe a real reason many people are critical of Exodus today, is because of who they are in bed with (Focus on the Family and James Dobson) and how deeply they are involved with politics. I’d stop speaking out against Exodus if they would stop their political games.

The other problem with politics goes deeper and has to do with their double standard. They want equal rights, they want respect and equal treatment, but they don’t want to give that to gay people.

All of these things are real problems – and why, I believe, Exodus will make no progress until they change their ways – They keep taking two steps forward, but also 3 back. Alan’s mixed comments of late are good examples of that.

I do hope the poster resurfaces because I’d like to have them defend their comment in the face of my very real memories. I was always extremely cautious about any political involvement; my ministry partner (an Exodus board member) and I discussed politics enough to know that 1) we had some serious issues with ‘right wing’ politics 2) we didn’t want our message muddied by connecting to groups who had high-levels of homophobia mixed in with their Christian agenda 3) we didn’t even agree with each other on every gay-related political issue. We lost or turned down support from a number of congregations because of our refusal to make political statements or support particular right-wing causes. Please believe me, we felt strongly enough about this issue that we would have separated from Exodus back in its infancy if it had been political.

One of the hotbed issues way back then was ‘returning prayer to schools’. On the surface, it looked like an issue that every conservative Christian should support but I saw (and see) it differently. I saw state enforcement of religion. “Prayer in school’ used to be a one minute meditation that came piped in from the principal’s office (think Ferris Buehler’s Day Off). It struck me even then that there were people in my school who were religious but not Christian. You can’t require Jews, Hindus, Muslims etc to attend your public schools and then force them to take part in a daily ‘Jesus lesson’. (I felt particularly cheated when Gore/Lieberman did not assume the presidency; I wanted to see how they were going to handle the typical ‘Billy Graham, hand on the (christian) Bible’ swearing in.) Anyway, a number of Exodus leaders had similarly diverse views that kept us a safe distance from the politically involved conservative Christians.

The first and only political statement of any nature that I can recall from our Exodus affiliate was “A Compassionate Response to Aids” where we actually distanced ourselves from the prevailing conservative responses at the time.

I’ve read so much on this site I don’t remember where I read it, but I promise you it was here. Alan had made a comment that for Exodus to get out of politics wouldn’t get most people off its back because Exodus didn’t used ot be political and people were trying to undermine them then, and another person countered that Exodus had never NOT been political. Hopefully someone will read this and say it again.

I don’t remember the discussion you referenced re some ex-Exodus people stating that there was never a time that Exodus wasn’t political. I don’t recall ANYONE blogging here that could speak to the early days of Exodus except Michael Bussee, myself and an occasional visit from my former ministry partner, Robbi Kenney. So, please help me to locate the discussion you referenced.

(We’re in a blog time-warp, by the way. This is actually a thread from May that reactivated. LOL! The ‘couple of discussions back’ could actually be in thread topics yet to come.)

It is one thing to secure protection for your own views, its another thing entirely to actively seek to prevent others from having those same rights – which is what Exodus does now, and it is very two-faced in its demands.

If you remember, a couple of discussions back, some ex-Exodus people stated that there was never a time when Exodus wasn’t political, and I believe that.

You are right – it is “Patently unfair”, and I’d go one further, UNJUST, to prevent gay people from having the benefits of marriage, which include, but are not limited to, those few protections you listed under your statement on domestic partnerships.

This isn’t a matter of marriage in the religious sense – gay people can already get married at a number of different Churches – its a matter of having the secular state recognize those relationships and bestow on them the benefits they give to other taxpayers.