As Alan Chambers, the president of the
“ex-gay” ministry Exodus International, continues his apology
tour, he says he won't back gay marriage.
Last year, Chambers began leading
Exodus away from supporting therapies aimed at “curing” gay men
and lesbians of their sexual orientation. Chambers, who at one point
starred in ads for the ministry touting “change is possible,”
reversed course, saying such therapies do not work and revealing that
his attractions to other men have not faded.
On Wednesday, Chambers apologized for
promoting such therapies and announced the shuttering of Exodus,
which bills itself as the world's oldest and largest “ex-gay”
ministry.
But other than the decision to end
Exodus, Chambers' rhetoric remains much the same: He still believes
that gay sex is a sin and that sex outside of a heterosexual marriage
is not Biblical.
Conveniently, Chambers' new outlook
gets him off the hook – he says he's not acting on his same-sex
attractions and has a happy marriage with his wife of 16 years –
and allows him to continue to criticize the relationships of gay and
lesbian couples.
In an appearance on CNN's Anderson
Cooper 360, Chambers said that he couldn't support marriage
equality, moments after saying, essentially, that it wasn't his place
to judge.
“Though I have a conviction about
sexual expression, that serves me, that isn't something that the
Bible commands me to wield over someone or to tell someone how they
should live their life,” Chambers told host Anderson Cooper.
“Biblically, that isn't something
that I can support,” he said of civil marriage for gay couples.
“Yet, we don't live in a Biblical society. We live in a civil
society. … It's not important for anyone to have me as a supporter
of any type of gay rights. I'm a supporter of human rights.” (The
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