Peterson Toscano posts about the blog of ‘J’, a gay man who was recently in Love In Action :

There is a power in sharing our stories and I hope we can learn more of J’s experience and others like J who have submitted to ex-gay treatment.

Peterson, himself a former Love In Action participant (like J, he voluntarily entered the program), knows whereof he speaks.  Their stories are wrenchingly powerful.  This passage from J’s blog struck me at a place too deep for words:

I just started a new job, and the first day was very interesting. I found out that my manager, who happens to be a pastor of some small Apostolic church, also "Hates Fags." Well, we are all familiar with Fred Phelps and "God hates fags." When I came out to my parents the first time at the age of 16, my father conveniently left pieces of paper around and the website(godhatesfags.com or something) as the homepage on my computer.

Some days I find myself trying to fathom the cruelty of some parents toward their children and I just can’t.  Nor could I imagine what it must be like to walk through life with that memory.

One interesting tidbit I learned from J’s blog, and in the comments on Peterson’s, is that LIA is apparently not telling prospective entrants (the voluntary ones) that their program does not promise a cure for their homosexuality, until after they’ve signed on the dotted line and coughed up their dough.  In comments on Peterson’s blog, one poster puts it this way:

I too went into LIA expecting to be cured–expecting to come out completely heterosexual. Imagine my disappointment when I learned during orientation that there was no promise of a cure. The disappointment that I felt learning that I would never be anything more than ex-gay was bitter. While some of us in that orientation class were disappointed, others were angry–even livid.

If you take someone’s money under false pretenses, isn’t that stealing?  Isn’t there a commandment or something about that…?