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On Conversion Therapy, Exodus President Says Sexuality is Complicated

BY Michelle Garcia

The leaders of Exodus International are dropping their previously held principle that most people homosexual attractions can be converted through prayer, and the president of Exodus disclosed Monday night that he still has same-sex attractions.

Alan Chambers has been one of the faces of reparative therapy and has appeared in ads for Exodus International with his wife, with whom he has two children. However, as of late, the organization has been distancing itself from saying so-called reparative therapy can work for any person with homosexual attractions.

“With regards to reparative therapy, so much of that type of technique and therapy is focused on changing attraction or changing temptation when I don’t find that there is a biblical reality that says people will necessarily change their temptations or change their struggles,” he said.

When pressed by Hardball host Michael Smerconish, filling in for Chris Matthews, Chambers said that while his attractions are specifically toward his wife, he does still feel attracted to other men. Chambers contends that saying someone can “pray the gay away,” is a lazy way of simplifying a person’s sexual orientation.

“I’m not telling someone that is happily gay identified, or gay, or lesbian that they should choose the life that I live, or that God will love them more or less depending on the decision they make,” Chambers said. “For me and for people of faith who want to choose to live through the filter of their faith and a strong biblical sexual ethic in that regard, that they have that right to do that.”

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