by Karen

The “ex-gay” conference came to Alaska last Saturday, and the LGBT community held gay-positive events to counter the ‘pray away the gay’ message. MCC hosted “God Loves You Just As You Are” with five clergy members and a presentation by Truth Wins Out. On Saturday, PFLAG Anchorage and many supportive individuals held an all-day vigil outside the conference.

Meanwhile, Karen attended the ex-gay conference. This story was written by Karen for Bent Alaska:

I attended the Love Won Out conference in Anchorage last weekend, sponsored by Focus On the Family (FOTF), and it was interesting on many levels. I went with two straight women friends from my church in Palmer.

Most of the attendees were people like the three of us. Of the 250-300 attendees and volunteer hosts/ushers, the great majority were middle-class white folks in our 30’s, 40’s and older. I saw people who looked just like my fellow church-goers and neighbors. There were also a few goatee’d guys with nose rings from the Christian youth groups.

It was not the atmosphere of hate that I had been steeling myself to endure.

Admittedly, I’ve been out of the loop since the years I worked at gay newspapers in Minneapolis, but the message of conservative Christians has come a long way from the days of sign-wavers proclaiming God Hates Fags. There was a gentleness and kindness in what the speakers shared that was unexpected. The old commercial slogan, “This is not your father’s Oldsmobile,” kept going through my mind. They went to great lengths to make the environment current and pleasant, compared to anti-gay teachings or workshops even ten years ago which were more about guilt and shame.

In the first few sessions, I didn’t find much that I actually disagreed with. Yes, many lesbian women suffer abuse in their family backgrounds. Yes, many gay men are creative and sensitive. No breaking news there, and they noted that stereotyping didn’t serve anyone. Speaker Jeff Johnston, a self-identified ex-gay who is now married with children, quipped that no one was there to say boys shouldn’t be creative or sensitive. “No one says, ‘why can’t you be more a jerk like your father?'” said Johnston.

They’ve learned to come across as more reasonable and caring. That could well be by design. Perhaps the gay community has prompted these changes over the years, pointing out the contradictions of un-Christ-like behavior on the part of groups like this one. Since the foaming-at-the-mouth venom and harsh Fire and Brimstone sermons were probably not persuasive with everyday folk who have everyday questions about their gay family members or friends, they do seem to have moderated their messages.

FOTF founder James Dobson’s introduction in the program booklet does promote “freedom from homosexuality” and the conference schedule online seems oriented towards political action. But there was nary a call to arms in the sessions I attended (I had to leave in the afternoon for work) and no one mentioned what used to be a standard, assumed parallel between gayness and pedophilia.

To their credit, I found FOTF’s theological break-out sessions more complete and thought-out than arguments I’ve heard at both LGBT-inclusive churches and my current non-affirming church.

Another way this was “not your Father’s anti-gay crusade” was the essential divide between how different Christian groups see Father God. The speakers acknowledged that the Presbyterians, Episcopalians, and one branch of the Lutheran church have become accepting and affirming of LGBT folk. But that is not FOTF’s understanding of what God asks of us on our walk towards holiness. The position taken by FOTF hasn’t changed: that engaging in homosexual relationships is outside of God’s will for humankind.

It seems evident that the LGBT community members outside the conference hold a different view of the “Father” and what we’re called to as His people. One of the friends attending with me said she saw it as discussions happening on two different planes, with no intersecting points on the crucial questions, between the protesters and folks with the FOTF point of view.

A moment of hope came for me during a session presented by Nancy Heche, mother of actress Anne Heche. She asked audience members to raise their hands if they were gay or knew a gay family member or friend. Almost every hand went up. The next question she posed was, “How many here want to see the voice of their church change in regard to homosexuality?”

Given Alaska’s very conservative base of churches, I interpreted that to mean striving for a kinder, more compassionate dialogue. Nearly a dozen or so hands went up. Perhaps this will further the conversation locally and more broadly, as Christians of all stripes seek to live out their Christianity.