Comments on: Exodus International to take over Day of Truth

By: Eddy

Eddy — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 00:06:37 +0000

LOL. And it’s a good thing I didn’t ask you about repentance in a public forum…just as you have your take on why Joe or others in Exodus don’t answer plainly and quickly, it would appear that you’ve purposely avoided the question because it either makes you uncomfortable or you know very little about it. I’m not saying that’s so…just demonstrating how very easy it is to read motives and then have other people blindly accept your interpretation.
I’ve said it before: We’ve got enough issues to contend with here without the addition of our personal spin to the facts.

By: Eddy

Eddy — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 23:29:01 +0000

Michael–
There you go again. I’m sure you felt that Bob’s question re how Gary might have acquired AIDS offended you. But just like I was sure he didn’t use the word ‘slut’; I’m also pretty sure that he didn’t mock your relationship. He asked a question that you felt mocked your relationship. The question was simply a question. If he did in fact mock your relationship, please provide the words and I’ll confront him myself on his attitude. But, if he did nothing more than the conversation you quoted in another thread, please be warned that I will continue to dog you for the slant that you are adding to the truth.
And if I introduced myself as an ex-Pennsylvanian (I still have friends and family there and I visit EVERY year) not one person would say I’m a ‘From Pennsylvanian’. It’s what it means but they don’t say it that way. Your point is lost on me. Stretching but never reaching.
LOL. It occurred to me on the bus ride home that you’d likely ‘respond’ to me but that you would totally ignore the issue of repentance. It was in my first paragraph of the post you responded to. Please tell me where (if anywhere) repentance fits in your theology. You seemed to be accusing us of the heresy of works vs grace; I’m thinking that might simply be because you don’t understand repentance as we do. In any event, your charge of heresy makes me think you do owe me an answer on this one. Always willing to be REAL with you!

By: Mary

Mary — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 16:24:43 +0000

Michael,
Why is it so important to you – what we call ourselves? I honestly don’t think your motives here are for the poor, poor people who you think we are all trying to trick with evasive language – since we have all described ourselves in public. We have all taken steps at length to define what ex gay means to us and yet you have refused ALL definitions except the one you want. Your motivations must be with what YOU want for yourself to convince yourself of something – but not really for others. Else you would have given up this chase posts and threads ago.
Everyone has explained several times in numerous posts that ex gay can mean a variety of experiences. As Carole pointed out in a well thought out post, coming up with something more is just not going to work. Everyone has taken the time to help you understand that leaving gay behind means leaving gay behind. We have all made that decision.
For you to demand that we have not left gay behind is like you telling us that we can never leave. Persoanlly, I don’t want to be gay or identified in that social or sexual group. I am not gay and living in denial, or struggling against my “natural” being, or doing what you say most ex gay people do. I am ex gay.
I really do feel for you. It is painfully obvious that you are in pain and struggle still with decisions you have made throughout your life. We all do. I struggle today with decisions I made decades ago and still grieve. Yet, they have nothing to do with gay or ex gay. So we are all human and have losses and decisions that have hurt ourselves the lives of others. But I cannot go back and convince myself or someone else that I did the right thing. Could this be what is happening for you?

By: Michael Bussee

Michael Bussee — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 14:48:38 +0000

Eddy: I did NOT say that Bob Davies called Gary a “slut”. I said he strongly implied it, mocking our relationship. His comments were mean-spirited and out of line.
Regarding Joe Dallas “hemming and hawing” about having both “temptations”, I can show you the tape of our joint appearance on TV where Joan Rivers directly asked Joe about his attractions, and he repilied (after having to be asked more than once): “I make it a point not to talk about my private life” — even though he had agreed to present the “ex-gay” side on national TV! Joan Rivers even brought out Joe’s printed testimony! Joe was frustrated and embarassed, then exaplained “we all have BOTH [attractions]”.– even though that is clearly not ture.
Joe wne ton to say that the “change” he was talking about was NOT a change “from one end of the spectrum [gay] to the other [straight} — asserting tht all people are bisexual in their attractions and that “ex-gays” having simply moved down the line a little. That’s not “ex” and in “no longer”. That’s bisexual — and Joe’s own testimony shows that he has had bisexual attractions all of his adult life.
I do “congratulate him for a job well done”. He did speak plainly enough to please even me. How come EXODUS is not consistently and freely up front about such things? How come they hide behind the hype and Christianese? Why “vex” and “provoke” the media? When you used those words, you gave it away.
“Ex-gay” is intended to be puzzling and unclear so that the media will give EXODUS the attention it wants.
Why do they have to be pressured to be honest by antogonists like me? Why not just say, “In terms of my attractions, they are still toward men, not women. In that sense, I am still gay”? Why not say, “My gay attractions are weaker and I choose not to act on them?”
I seriously doubt that if you ask someone on the street, “what does ex-gay mean” that you will find one person, excluding yourself, who will say, “Oh, that’s a FROM gay!”. Come on Eddy. Get real.

By: Mary

Mary — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 06:20:52 +0000

Michael,
Women are different and your last statment is false – at least about me.