{"id":5166,"date":"2011-10-11T12:23:20","date_gmt":"2011-10-11T17:23:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/?p=5166"},"modified":"2011-10-11T12:25:16","modified_gmt":"2011-10-11T17:25:16","slug":"repentance-and-forgiveness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/5166","title":{"rendered":"Repentance and Forgiveness"},"content":{"rendered":"

From the man I once wanted to see locked up for what he was doing to gay kids…<\/p>\n

\n

Former Ex-Gay Head Now Says Change In Orientation Is Impossible And Change In Relationships Are Unnecessary<\/a><\/h3>\n

The former head of one of the nation’s most prominent ex-gay ministries now says that homosexuality is something that cannot be “repented,” because “repentance from something means it has to be something you can control, like actions.” John Smid, the former director of Memphis-based Love In Action, the country’s largest ex-gay residential program, now says that homosexuality is “an intrinsic part of their being or personally, my being. One cannot repent of something that is unchangeable.” He also says that in all of his years in ex-gay ministries, he never met a gay man who became heterosexual, and that he now considers himself homosexual “and yet in a marriage to a woman.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I don’t hate you anymore John Smid…not after I heard you speak in Morgan’s documentary. \u00a0 It isn’t my place to forgive you for what you did to others, but I don’t hate you anymore. \u00a0 And I could find it even less in my heart to hate you now that I read this. \u00a0 I had a conversation with A Happily Married Man<\/a> just the other day. \u00a0 I’d have to hate him too and I can’t. \u00a0 We have all been wounded by this lie, even those of us who never embraced it, but especially those of us who did.<\/p>\n

At least you also lived the life you preached once upon a time. \u00a0 You walked the walk, even if it didn’t lead you to where you though it would. \u00a0 You practiced what you preached. \u00a0 So many others simply wanted to make the gay kids suffer and bleed so they could be righteous, so they could pave their stepping stones to heaven with our hopes and dreams of love. \u00a0 The day you manage to forgive them for what they did to you, to all of us, maybe you could show the rest of us how that’s done.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From the man I once wanted to see locked up for what he was doing to gay kids… Former Ex-Gay Head Now Says Change In Orientation Is Impossible And Change In Relationships Are Unnecessary The former head of one of the nation’s most prominent ex-gay ministries now says that homosexuality is something that cannot be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[30,24,12],"class_list":["post-5166","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life","tag-ex-gays","tag-gods-and-monsters","tag-the-struggle-for-our-lives"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5166","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5166"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5166\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}