When someone is depressed, we advocate prayer, but we also recommend getting the help of a professional therapist, and possibly a doctor to prescribe medication, because depression is a mental or emotional disorder, sometimes with physical causes.

Yet when someone is struggling with “same sex attraction,” we exclusively advocate Bible study and a program to pray away the gay.

Groups like these use “same-sex attraction” and “homosexual tendencies” because they sound like a disorder that can be cured. But, while science has yet to pinpoint a “cause” for homosexuality (though being born that way is a strong theory), enough is known by actual, credible scientists, that groups like the American Psychiatric Association and the American Psychological Association have removed homosexuality from their list of mental disorders, and officially stated that homosexuality cannot be cured — and more importantly, that to attempt to do so can inflict serious harm.

People become “ex-gay” because they are told by society, and especially Christians, that they are unnatural and sinful, and it leads to a self-loathing, rather than an acceptance of who they are. They hide their true selves and attempt to live as God supposedly wants them to. It works for some. Good for them. But to say they are no longer gay — I don’t believe it. And I imagine some are not as “at peace” with themselves as they appear to be.

People use the Bible to justify their own disgust at the thought of two men having sex, like that’s what being gay is exclusively about. In my experience the Bible can be used to justify anything. And it has. And in the process, it has become a weapon that hurts people.

[Editor's note: For background on the American Psychiatric Association's 1973 decision to remove homosexual attraction from its list of mental health disorders, see "From Mental Disorder to Civil-Rights Cause," WORLD, Feb. 19, 2005.]