While LGBT people in North America have been celebrating the shutdown of Exodus International, the moment of schadenfreude has perhaps resulted in overlooking something equally important that has been happening in parallel.
Alan Chambers has issued a heartfelt apology for the damage his organization did to the lives of so many over the decades of its existence. I will applaud him for that - although it is much easier to applaud his recent change of understanding than it will ever be to forgive what his organization did to so many.
However, at the same time that Exodus was collapsing, another organization was being created to take its place - Restored Hope Network. This is, to say the least, an evil little twist. One look at their advisory board is pretty much an index of the most extreme hardline cases in the anti-gay world. It contains Matt Barber, Dr. Michael Brown, Joseph Nicolosi and Mat Staver to name a few.
About the only crazy they don't have on their board are the discredited ones like Peter LaBarbera and Paul Cameron.
I expect that we will start seeing propaganda out of this group in the not too distant future.
The real question is whether this "ministry" (propaganda machine, more like) is actually able to draw in new membership, or is it simply going to be reflective of the increasing concentration of activity in a group that is increasingly isolated and dwindling in numbers? I don't have an immediate answer to this, it is the question that will only be answered by time.
Alan Chambers has issued a heartfelt apology for the damage his organization did to the lives of so many over the decades of its existence. I will applaud him for that - although it is much easier to applaud his recent change of understanding than it will ever be to forgive what his organization did to so many.
However, at the same time that Exodus was collapsing, another organization was being created to take its place - Restored Hope Network. This is, to say the least, an evil little twist. One look at their advisory board is pretty much an index of the most extreme hardline cases in the anti-gay world. It contains Matt Barber, Dr. Michael Brown, Joseph Nicolosi and Mat Staver to name a few.
About the only crazy they don't have on their board are the discredited ones like Peter LaBarbera and Paul Cameron.
I expect that we will start seeing propaganda out of this group in the not too distant future.
The real question is whether this "ministry" (propaganda machine, more like) is actually able to draw in new membership, or is it simply going to be reflective of the increasing concentration of activity in a group that is increasingly isolated and dwindling in numbers? I don't have an immediate answer to this, it is the question that will only be answered by time.
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