Lesbian's death, a "message from God"

A week or so ago over at Beyond Ex-Gay (bXg) we received a feedback comment on our website from Anthony Falzarano (an ex-gay leader and the founder of the anti-gay PFOX organization) addressed to Darlene Bogle. I forwarded the letter to Darlene.

Yesterday I received this email from Darlene (shared with permission). You can read her story at Beyond Ex-Gay in which she writes about her journey out of Exodus. Part of her story is that her partner of twelve years, Des, passed away from breast cancer in 2005.

Dear Christine!
Thank you for sending the feedback email from Anthony Fazarano addressed to me at the bXg website!

It reads:


I was appalled when I read his words, which on the surface seem so compassionate. It was such a strong reminder of why I left Exodus and could never consider going back under their "umbrella of faith." How arrogant of Anthony to send such a condemning statement as to ask if God was sending me a message! God sends me messages all the time to remind me of His love and acceptance of me as a lesbian daughter! He has brought a wonderful Christian woman into my life immediately after losing Des. We walk together in faith and love and serve those in our community as a blessed lesbian couple.

To say I am loved and missed (but not accepted) sounds great until he adds the judgmental statement that suggests that Des got breast cancer and was taken away as some sort of punishment for our lesbianism!

<snip>

http://rising-up.blogspot.com/2008/08/twisted-love.html

I am always faintly surprised when folks expect the hard right wing lunatic fringe (and Exodus International definitely falls in that category) act as anything other than the hard right wing lunatic fringe.

I got a message for you right here...

Typically, the fundies say that God doesn't make you gay- rather, it is the choice of the individual. Clearly, this response is alluding that God not only made this woman a lesbian, but also gave her a partner, then took said partner away. Ergo- God is in COMPLETE control. Therefore, God knows exactly what he's doing when he makes a person gay.

Moreover, what kind of sick God would call someone back in THAT way? If this is how the fundies view God, then it's no wonder that they're all effed in the head!

Fear god? Why?

I have no fear of god. If their god gave me free will, there is nothing to fear. Nothing. Nor can there be any fear of punishment. Consequences are consequences, independent of and separate from any god.

God doesn't 'test' us; life does. Life 'tests' everyone.

Why should I fear a being- assuming that being exists- that created a fabric of spacetime that is infinite in scope? Why should I fear a being that made a system of physics in which inert, unthinking chemicals could, after billions of years, rise to consciousness and proclaim their individual wonder toward all creation?

Stand in awe, oh, most definitely. But fear? Why? My own curiosity very effectively banishes all of my fear. Is that a "sin"?

Why should I fear a being that doesn't stop the Large Hadron Collider, or similar projects? I assure you, whatever being that is, it is not omnipotent- there is a hell of a lot of things wrong with the form our species takes! Why fear such obvious ambivalence? Why fear such apparent incompetence?

If god is "perfect", and we were created in that image (I personally think it was the other way around), our bodies should be perfect- free from disease, free from aging, free from death itself. We could regenerate, perhaps like The Doctor. Why is it, then, that at times, when we exercise our compassion and our empathy for one another, we truly seem little lower than angels, but at other times, we more closely resemble the base animals from which our form evolved?

Is their god schizophrenic, then?

Truly, I ask- what is there to fear?

is because you're THINKING in the first place.

They need something to blindly follow. They need someone to threaten punishment when they're bad. Because they're either not capable of or simply not willing to figure out their own moral code and follow it.

I'd even go so far as to call it evil.

Fortunately, until Jesus shows up in drag on a half shell shooting laser beams out of his ass, it's not any deities we need to worry about - just their followers.

Ant'ny is a peice 'a shit, needs to be beat with something splintery - by someone who is as much of a repressed little bitch queen as him, so's it'll last a long time.
"Hard to find love in such hateful times.." Pop Staples

How the Hell do those frauds continue to exist when they couldn't even "cure" themselves?

I hate quoting Wikipedia, but the entry was the first up in Google.

Michael Bussee and Gary Cooper

Exodus International's first incident occurred in 1979 when Michael Bussee (one of the five co-founding members who had helped organize the 1976 conference that led to Exodus' inception) left the group to be with Gary Cooper, a volunteer at the local Exodus ministry where they both worked, who was also volunteering for the first Exodus conference.<16> Michael and Gary left their wives, and had a committed relationship until Gary's death from complications due to AIDS in the early 1990s<17>. Their story is one of the foci of the documentary One Nation Under God (1993), directed by Teodoro Maniaci and Francine Rzeznik.

As acknowledged by Exodus International in 2006, Michael Bussee "has been a longtime critic of Exodus and its leadership" <18>. In June 2007, Michael issued an "apology" in conjunction with Jeremy Marks, former president of Exodus International Europe, and Darlene Bogle, the founder of Paraklete Ministries, an Exodus referral agency, which stated in part "Some who heard our message were compelled to try to change an integral part of themselves, bringing harm to themselves and their families." <19>

In an article regarding the history of Exodus International, Dr. Warren Throckmorton questioned whether Gary Cooper should be considered a "founder."<20>. However, Exodus International considers Michael Bussee and Gary Cooper as "co-founders" (among others) in an Exodus-released September 2006 article<21>.