Exodus International, a reparative therapy business run by the para-church organization Focus on the Family have spoken up about a conference that is occurring during one of their conferences in California about a mile away during the same time period. 
The words in this Citizen’s Link piece are important. ‘activists, co-sponsored, counter-conference, claim they were, overcome.’

Just a mile down the road, gay activists, co-sponsored by the University of California - Irvine, have scheduled a counter-conference at which some people will claim they were hurt by ex-gay organizations.”We live in a great country where people can have freedom of assembly,” he said. Unfortunately, the organizers of the counter-conference will “try to project their experience onto all of us, when in fact thousands of people, myself included, have overcome homosexuality.”

Last week, leaders of the beyondexgay conference sent an open invitation to the leaders of Exodus to join them for a meal.  beyondexgay organizer Peterson Toscano unpacks the Focus on the Family reaction.

In casting us as protesters and minimizing the scope of the organizers to a local group in Irvine, CA, Exodus not only knowingly misinforms people, they also miss the point. Sponsored by Soulforce, BeyondExGay.com as well as the LGBT Resource Center at the University of California in Irvine (not the university itself), the Ex-Gay Survivor Conference serves as much more than a counter-conference.

Exodus admits that most people under their care cannot achieve the goals set before them. If say 3,000 people were to identify as successful ex-gays (success being an unclear descriptor) then according to Exodus 7,000 individuals were unable to live up to the standards set before them, even though most desperately tried and invested huge chunks of their lives, energies and financial resources, even sacrificing careers and relationships in order to reach those standards.

What about these folks? What’s more important, the politics of “change” or the people caught in the cross-fire?

One of the main goals of the Ex-Gay Survivor Conference is to give these folks–the majority of the people who passed through Exodus’ doors–a venue to unpack their experiences, to mourn the losses when necessary and to constructively look at ways to undo the damage and move on in life. The weight of our ex-gay lives have kept some of us from life for far too long.

That’s why at the Ex-Gay Survivor Conference we will not have any keynote speakers or lectures. Instead we will create spaces for people to talk to each other, talk about the good and the bad of ex-gay experiences and the costs involved. Survivors will share the expertise they have gained through their own recovery. This conference will help to address the needs of the majority of people who once submitted their lives and trust to Exodus ministries.

He has much more to say. 
His key response to the Citizen Link is this: “Our gathering next week is about people, not protest. It is about pastoral care, not propaganda.” 
Be interesting to see who is coming to dinner.

(beyondexgay conference costs $40.00, June 29th - July 1st.   Exodus International conference costs $395.00, June 26th-July 1st 2007)