James Stabile Update

In December 2007, we presented a few commentaries about the 700 Club testimony of James Stabile about his miraculous cure from homosexuality - and his subsequent flight from ex-gay resident group Pure Life Ministries.

Dallas Voice has a follow up article providing more detail and discussing what James is doing today.

Along with 45 other men, Stabile says he spent more than three “horrible” months in the conversion therapy program at Pure Life, until they finally kicked him out for being an “unteachable spirit.”

“They teach you to hate yourself,“ Stabile recounts, “and you think everyone else must hate you, too. … I had turned my back on who I was.”
…
Stabile says he felt trapped at Pure Life, and that they would not let him leave. He says in order to get expelled from the program, he and another young man staged a kiss in their support group.

“We couldn’t leave, so we made out in our therapy session to get kicked out,” he says. “They held you there by force … in the middle of nowhere.”

But he came out of the experience as a stronger person. “I am a straight camp survivor,” he says, “and I’m proud to be gay now.”

Currently, James seems in a much happier place. He has “found salvation and God’s love” through his participation at Cathedral of Hope, a UCC mega-church with a primary outreach to gays and lesbians. Stablile wants to take his experience of recovery from Pure Life and use it to help others who may be disoriented and feel out of place when they leave. He is starting a new ex-ex-gay organization called Love Actually.

http://www.boxturtlebulletin.com/2009/08/18/14098#comments

and good for James Stabile, I'm glad he's in a better space now.