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Restoration Path, known as Love in Action (LIA) until March 2012, was an ex-gay Christian ministry founded in 1973.
The organization was founded in 1973 by Frank Worthen, John Evans, and Kent Philpott in Marin County, California, just north of San Francisco. [1] In 2010, Tommy Corman became the Executive Director of Love In Action. In March 2012, Love In Action changed its name to Restoration Path. [2] In October 2012, David Jones became the executive director of Restoration Path; as of August 2018, he remains the Executive Director.[ needs update ][ citation needed ]
On July 5, 2007, Love in Action announced the initiation of Family Freedom Intensive, a monthly four-day program for parents with teens "struggling with same-sex attraction, pornography, and/or promiscuity". Teenagers who they would like to join their parents may be considered for inclusion. [3] As of 2018, there is no mention of this program on the Restoration Path website.
As of October 2019, both the organization's website and Facebook page were offline. According to the California Secretary of State, the organization has been dissolved. [4]
After Jack McIntyre, a friend of co-founder John Evans, died by suicide because of his inability to change, Evans left Love in Action and denounced it as dangerous. He said: "They're destroying people's lives. If you don't do their thing, you're not of God, you'll go to hell. They're living in a fantasy world." [5]
John Smid recounts becoming a Christian in 1982. He found that his religious conviction was incompatible with his homosexuality. He entered into a relationship with a woman and married. In 1986 he joined the leadership of Love In Action, eventually becoming executive director. Smid left LIA in 2008. [6] In 2011, on his website, he stated that homosexuality is an intrinsic part of one's being, and that "change, repentance, reorientation and such" cannot occur, and noted that he had "never met a man who experienced a change from homosexual to heterosexual". [7] On November 16 2014, John Smid married his same-sex partner, Larry McQueen. [8]
In June 2005, a 16-year-old Tennessee boy, Zach Stark, posted a blog entry on his MySpace site, part of which includes:
Somewhat recently, as many of you know, I told my parents I was gay.... Well today, my mother, father, and I had a very long "talk" in my room where they let me know I am to apply for a fundamentalist christian program for gays. They tell me that there is something psychologically wrong with me, and they "raised me wrong." I'm a big screw up to them, who isn't on the path God wants me to be on. So I'm sitting here in tears, joing [ sic ] the rest of those kids who complain about their parents on blogs - and I can't help it. [9]
The program Stark noted is a Love In Action-run camp known as Refuge.
On August 14, Stark updated his blog, stating that LIA had not pressured him into doing anything and he got along well with most of the clients there. He said his parents no longer let him hang out with girls as friends because it was unhealthy and that his father had asked him to stop blogging. Stark has since accepted his homosexuality, and appears in the documentary from director Morgan Jon Fox, entitled This Is What Love In Action Looks Like , which features an exclusive interview with Stark about the controversy. [10]
A Tennessee investigation against the camp began shortly after Stark's story appeared online. As of June 28, 2005, the investigation was dropped, with Tennessee officials citing a lack of evidence of child abuse at the facilities. "Department of Children's Services dispatched its special investigations unit to the facility, and after conducting a full investigation, determined that the child abuse allegations were unfounded", Rob Johnson, an agency spokesman, told the Associated Press. [11] On September 12, 2005, the Tennessee-based Love in Action facility was determined by the Tennessee Department of Mental Health to have been operating two "unlicensed mental health supportive living facilities". [12] LIA stopped accepting the mentally ill and dispensing medications and, in February 2006, the state of Tennessee ceased legal action. [13]
In 2005, Tommy Corman, the spokesman for Love In Action, said the facility did not need to be licensed because it was "not doing anything therapeutic". [14]
Love in Action sued the state of Tennessee for discrimination against the facility. [15] The suit was settled on October 27, 2006. [16] Tennessee agreed that Love in Action would not need licensing as a mental health facility, and LIA agreed to make sure none of its employees administered or regulated the medication of its clients. The state of Tennessee was told to pay Love in Action's legal fees.
In June 2007, LIA discontinued the Refuge program.
The 2012 book The Miseducation of Cameron Post , the debut novel of American author Emily M. Danforth, was inspired by the Stark controversy. The book was adapted as a 2018 film with the same name. [17]
The program is described in the 2016 book Boy Erased: A Memoir by Garrard Conley. [5] The book was adapted in 2018 as Boy Erased , a film directed by Joel Edgerton starring Lucas Hedges. [5]
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) movements are social movements that advocate for LGBT people in society. Although there is not a primary or an overarching central organization that represents all LGBT people and their interests, numerous LGBT rights organizations are active worldwide. The first organization to promote LGBT rights was the Scientific-Humanitarian Committee, founded in 1897 in Berlin.
James Clayton Dobson Jr. (born April 21, 1936) is an American evangelical Christian author, psychologist, and founder of Focus on the Family (FotF), which he led from 1977 until 2010. In the 1980s, he was ranked as one of the most influential spokesmen for conservative social positions in American public life. Although never an ordained minister, he was called "the nation's most influential evangelical leader" by The New York Times while Slate portrayed him as a successor to evangelical leaders Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson.
Coming out of the closet, often shortened to coming out, is a metaphor used to describe LGBT people's self-disclosure of their sexual orientation, romantic orientation, or gender identity.
The field of psychology has extensively studied homosexuality as a human sexual orientation. The American Psychiatric Association listed homosexuality in the DSM-I in 1952 as a "sociopathic personality disturbance," but that classification came under scrutiny in research funded by the National Institute of Mental Health. That research and subsequent studies consistently failed to produce any empirical or scientific basis for regarding homosexuality as anything other than a natural and normal sexual orientation that is a healthy and positive expression of human sexuality. As a result of this scientific research, the American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from the DSM-II in 1973. Upon a thorough review of the scientific data, the American Psychological Association followed in 1975 and also called on all mental health professionals to take the lead in "removing the stigma of mental illness that has long been associated" with homosexuality. In 1993, the National Association of Social Workers adopted the same position as the American Psychiatric Association and the American Psychological Association, in recognition of scientific evidence. The World Health Organization, which listed homosexuality in the ICD-9 in 1977, removed homosexuality from the ICD-10 which was endorsed by the 43rd World Health Assembly on 17 May 1990.
The ex-gay movement consists of people and organizations that encourage people to refrain from entering or pursuing same-sex relationships, to eliminate homosexual desires and to develop heterosexual desires, or to enter into a heterosexual relationship. Beginning with the founding of Love In Action and Exodus International in the mid-1970s, the movement saw rapid growth in the 1980s and 1990s before declining in the 2000s.
The American Family Association (AFA) is a conservative and Christian fundamentalist 501(c)(3) organization based in the United States. It opposes LGBT rights and expression, pornography, and abortion. It also takes a position on a variety of other public policy goals. It was founded in 1977 by Donald Wildmon as the National Federation for Decency and is headquartered in Tupelo, Mississippi.
Exodus International was a non-profit, interdenominational ex-gay Christian umbrella organization connecting organizations that sought to "help people who wished to limit their homosexual desires". Founded in 1976, Exodus International originally asserted that conversion therapy, the reorientation of same-sex attraction, was possible. In 2006, Exodus International had over 250 local ministries in the United States and Canada and over 150 ministries in 17 other countries. Although Exodus was formally an interdenominational Christian entity, it was most closely associated with Protestant and evangelical denominations.
Peterson Toscano is a playwright, actor, Bible scholar, blogger, podcaster, advocate against global warming, and gay rights activist. Toscano spent nearly two decades undergoing ex-gay treatment and conversion therapy before accepting his sexual orientation and coming out as a gay man. He has since shared his experiences internationally through various media outlets, especially plays. His talks and performances use comedy and storytelling to explore LGBTQ issues, religion, and climate change.
Ex-ex-gay people are those who formerly participated in the ex-gay movement in an attempt to change their sexual orientation to heterosexual, but who then later went on to publicly state they had a non-heterosexual sexual orientation.
Courage International, also known as Courage Apostolate and Courage for short, is an approved apostolate of the Catholic Church that counsels "men and women with same-sex attractions in living chaste lives in fellowship, truth and love". Based on a treatment model for drug and alcohol addictions used in programs like Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), Courage runs a peer support program aimed at helping gay people remain abstinent from same-sex sexual activity.
Homosexuality is sexual attraction, romantic attraction, or sexual behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality is "an enduring pattern of emotional, romantic, and/or sexual attractions" exclusively to people of the same sex or gender. It "also refers to a person's sense of identity based on those attractions, related behaviors, and membership in a community of others who share those attractions."
Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays (PFOX) is a non-profit organization that promotes the ex-gay movement. PFOX advocates the view that homosexuality is not a product of biological determination. Past presidents of PFOX include Greg Quinlan and Richard Cohen.
Love Won Out was an ex-gay ministry launched in 1998 by Focus on the Family, an American conservative Christian organization. It was taken over by Exodus International in 2009 and then shut down at the same time Exodus International was disbanded, in 2013.
A mixed-orientation marriage is a marriage between partners of differing sexual orientations. The broader term is mixed-orientation relationship, sometimes shortened to MOR or MORE.
Morgan Jon Fox is an American film director and screenwriter from Memphis, Tennessee.
John J. Smid is the former director of the Memphis, Tennessee ex-gay ministry Love in Action, a group that claims to convert lesbians and gay men to heterosexuality.
Robin Reardon is an American novelist who writes stories about gay teens.
This Is What Love in Action Looks Like is a 2011 American documentary film directed by Morgan Jon Fox about a Memphis teenager who was sent to a controversial Christian program after telling his parents that he was gay. The film premiered in 2011, and is distributed by TLA Releasing.
Boy Erased is a 2018 American biographical drama film based on Garrard Conley's 2016 memoir of the same name. It was written and directed by Joel Edgerton, who also produced with Kerry Kohansky Roberts and Steve Golin. The film stars Lucas Hedges as Jared Eamons, a fictionalized version of Conley, the closeted gay son of Baptist parents, who is forced to take part in a conversion therapy program. Edgerton, Joe Alwyn, Xavier Dolan, Troye Sivan, Cherry Jones, and Flea also appear in supporting roles.
Garrard Conley is an American author and LGBTQ activist known for his autobiography Boy Erased: A Memoir, recounting his childhood as part of a fundamentalist family in Arkansas that enrolled him in conversion therapy. The book was adapted for the 2018 film, Boy Erased.
