Tonight on Global ’s Cross Currents - Cure for Love.

Good interview with Alberta based writer-film maker Christina Willings at NFB. (Cure for Love is co-produced by the National Film Board of Canada)

The level of engagement that some Christian communities are taking with their gay members is suprising. What were the roots of Christian ex-gay organizations like Exodus and New Direction?

Christian communities are actually not engaging much with gay people. They have engaged with the ‘threat’ of same sex marriage and other progressive legislation initiatives in the past 10 years and have felt increasingly forced to deal with homosexuality - motivated primarily by the desire to “defend their turf”. What this has meant for gay people within the church is that there is an opening of interest for them to stick their toe into and perhaps begin to engage people on a human level.

This actually mirrors the development of Exodus and New Direction [an ex-gay ministry] as both were originally organizations of a bunch of tortured gay people toiling away in obscurity before Focus on the Family identified the “homosexual agenda” as it’s next big campaign and began to pump money into Exodus.

On the “left of the Christian right” are people like Brian and Anna - they work in the Canadian context where the battle is largely seen as having been lost. 

The key is that they are welcome as long as they are still seeking healing from their orientation.

Filmmakers Willings and Pelletier spent 3 years making this film and spent time in the US. Peterson Tuscano sat down with Willings during a conference.

I sat with Christina and her crew for an interview during the Ex-Gay Survivor Conference and found her to be genuine, sensitive and well informed. I saw her moved to tears during the Chalk Talk (along with many others both survivors and allies). If anyone gets to see her film, please share your thoughts about it here in the comments.

Xtra:

While working on the project, Willings says she found it challenging to watch her subjects struggle. Indeed, through following their character development, Willings found herself unexpectedly introspective.

“I had thought that my hook for making this film was the complete injustice of the situation but I discovered that I wasn’t quite finished dealing with my own background. I grew up in an evangelical Christian family, and was familiar with some of the struggles that these people seemed to be dealing with. Even though my political rhetoric had largely protected me, underneath there was still some healing to be done.”

Looking at the bigger picture, Willings sees several trends with respect to the future of the ex-gay movement.

“I am concerned about the expansion of the movement recently in Canada. There is an organization called Exodus Global Alliance, whose specific mandate is to eradicate homosexuality worldwide, through a 19th century styled expansionist mission mostly to developing countries. They chose to launch this initiative from Canada as Canadians are seen as ‘global cooperators,’ in contrast to the US who are perceived to be ‘overbearing cowboys.’