Hopeless Living & The Truth About Living Hope Ministries

Wayne Besen with TWO released an informative booklet about and exgay conversion ministry I ran before joining the Exodus staff

Here are some quotes from the excellent resource booklet “Hopeless Living” and my response to some of the quotes from Wayne’s opening note about my involvement.

Tragically, Living Hope Ministries peddles nothing but false hope. They seduce new clients with love bombing and dangle carrots of “community”, “support” and “acceptance”.

When I showed up there, I was a skeptic but turned into a true believer really quickly. The gay community was my first sense of community; however, I was not healthy and increased my substance abuse during my first time out of the closet. When I showed up, I had been through so much abuse that their abuse seemed like a vacation. You can’t really compare abuse, but in my case, where I had no clue about how to live a healthy gay life, it seemed like life-saving water in the desert.

Their offerings and blessings, however, are totally conditional, always coming with the cruelest strings attached. One must sell their soul and abandon who they truly are to receive Living Hope’s cheap facsimile of “love”. If a client fails to meet the unfair terms of their Devil’s bargain, Living Hope unceremoniously snatches away the church’s affection and support. The client is shunned by “friends” and callously cast out in the wilderness.

Unfortunately, I did that while I was in leadership there, and then I had it done to me even before coming out again in 2015. When I left for Exodus, one of the board members tried to sabotage my chances of getting that job, and they all talked trash about me, to others, behind my back (so I was told by more than a few people).

I guess they hated losing the three-year Executive Director running 4 groups a week, a monthly newsletter (writing all of it, printing, group mailing), speaking, creating resources for the ministry, doing intake interviews with new people, all for the cheap price of $600 a month. I wish I had just run and never taken that blood money. But, I didn’t know better and had been groomed to think that God had called me to do all of that because it was “loving.”

All lies that I was a victim of and victimized others with.

Living Hope gained notoriety in the late 1990’s, with then-director Randy Thomas carving out a national profile. He frequently appeared in the media and participated in Exodus’ infamous 1998 Truth in Love campaign, which ran ads in newspapers and television stations touting the alleged success of “ex-gay” programs.

In 2002 Thomas was promoted to Executive Vice President of Exodus where he brought his Living Hope-nurtured right-wing views. He also was Exodus’ chief lobbyist, who staunchly opposed hate crime laws. The Southern Poverty Law Center wrote about Thomas’ efforts during that time period.

All of the above statements about me are true, but I wanted to clarify one thing. When I first got to Exodus, I was the network’s Membership Director; meaning I was in charge of the process and approval or rejection of ministries/therapists/churches joining the ever-growing network of conversion therapy efforts in those three forms. I was eventually promoted to Executive Vice-President.

Fun fact, shortly after I came out of the church closet, the SPLC invited me and other former ex-gay leaders to meet with them in Montgomery, Alabama, to discuss ways to oppose conversion therapy efforts. I did a lot of bad things that they documented, so it was a full-circle moment to be invited even though I had been their enemy at one time. I have great respect (now :)) for what the SPLC does.

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What Are They Talking About? An Abridged List Of Conversion Therapy Speak

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Fortunately, Thomas saw the light and recognized the harm caused by Living Hope and the “ex-gay” industry. He came out of the closet after Exodus shut down and eventually married Dan Scobey—changing his own name to Randy Scobey. At the conclusion of this booklet, we provide a Truth Wins Out video interview with Randy Scobey. You can also find an in-depth print interview with Scobey in Truth Wins Out’s landmark publication, “To the Dark Side and Back”.

I don’t have a big response to this. It’s all true, but I wanted to include this quote because of the resource links in it.

And one last quote from the publication that I want to respond to. I might do more in the future, but after reading the publication, I don’t want to interrupt it too much and would prefer you read it for yourself.

Clearly, Living Hope Ministries imparts toxic, untrue messages. That is why Truth Wins Out sprang into action in 2018 after the “ex-gay” group launched an app targeting LGBTQ youth. We created a petition that successfully led to Apple, Microsoft, Google and Amazon deleting the Living Hope Ministries app from their stores.

During our campaign Randy Scobey wrote an op-ed in the Orlando Sentinel, explaining why the app was harmful.

“As the former Executive Director of Living Hope Ministries, prior to joining Exodus, I can attest to the harm such programs cause, particularly when they target vulnerable and desperate LGBT youth, who are bombarded with messages of guilt and shame. The Living Hope app falsely imparts that being gay is a ‘destructive Lifestyle’ and a disease like diabetes. The app claims that homosexuality is ‘physically and spiritually harmful’ and warns gay Christians that they are falling short of ‘God’s best for humanity.’”

I needed to speak out against conversion therapy and other harmful practices. It was important for my healing as an ex-gay survivor and for accountability to the public as a former leader.

To wrap up…

In the past, I made some really foolish and terrible decisions in the name of God’s love and will for our lives. I am a really weird version of the abused becoming the abuser. I’ve apologized to the LGBTQ+ community many times, both publicly and privately (with individuals), for the hurt my leadership and promotion of stigmatized theology caused. If you are reading this and want to contact me about any of this or issues that surround it, don’t hesitate. There is a link below to send me a private message or of course you can leave a comment.

By the way, there’s so much more in the booklet “Hopeless Living.” I highly recommend reading it. Thank you, Wayne, for writing it.

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If interested in learning more about my ping-pong ball in a dryer kind of life, check out my memoir:

Or contact me…

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