Last weekend’s anti-gay Stand 4 Truth conference in Houston featured a Saturday evening “ex-gay” panel that included Janet Boynes, Anne Paulk, Greg Quinlan and Robin Goodspeed. The panel was mostly free from political rhetoric, focusing instead on answering questions about their own process of “coming out” of homosexuality; those who have tried to come out but have fallen back (like Paulk’s ex-husband John, who was not mentioned); and how people could help those who are struggling.

Anne Paulk said that one of the important steps she had to take was forgiving the man who had molested her when he was a teenager and she was a young girl. She said it is “demonic” that people are told “lies” about the ability for people to find “hope and healing” from homosexuality. “Our God is the God of the impossible,” she said.

“We are in a spiritual battle,” said Boynes, declaring that prayer is essential. She said it is painful that one of the young men she had taken under her wing to help out of homosexuality, someone who felt like a son to her, has “fallen away from the Lord” and is now “back in the life” of homosexuality. “What makes somebody want to serve God and all of a sudden go back into that life, knowing it was a life of hell?” she asked. She suggested that people who have returned to homosexuality were not doing the work they needed to do. “Don’t think God has not, and is not working on that loved one’s heart,” she said, but “as long as Satan is on planet Earth,” you’ve got to pray against “principalities and powers of darkness” and “pray the blood of Jesus” over your loved one.

Each of the panelists said that it is important for people who are struggling with their homosexuality to be in relationship with others who are similarly struggling, or with people who are supportive of their efforts and are willing to lovingly speak the truth when it’s needed. “Jesus is our source,” said Boynes, “but God puts people in our lives to assist us and help us.”

Quinlan warned that “when you’re born again and blood-washed, you aren’t brain-washed.” In other words, he said, “History is not erased.” The memories of what you have done are still there, he said, and “the enemy” knows how to bring those thoughts “right back to you.” Said Quinlan, “prayer is our best weapon.”