Jim Burroway

Blogger and activist Zinnia Jones got word of a Grindr profile belonging to Matt Moore. Who is Matt Moore, you say? He’s the latest ex-gay activist to have a smartphone. Or, more specifically, a particular smartphone app, one which he apparently uses for some rather distinctly non-ex-gay things:

After my last post about a profile on Grindr using ex-gay writer Matt Moore’s photo and personal details, I contacted Moore, who responded as follows: The grindr profile was really mine. I’ve been on it on and off for the last couple of weeks. Like I told the guy who sent you the picture, I am wrong in having been on grindr. I haven’t changed my views on homosexuality, the bible, etc. Creating a grindr profile and talking to guys on it was major disobedience on my part….disobedience to Christ. Disobedience to a loving and gracious God.

Thankfully, I believe that He forgives me for this disobedience. I believe the blood of Christ covers this disobedience. And I won’t be on grindr again….ever. The pastor of my church and the church body I am a part of were informed about me being on grindr (I told them) before all of this came out, publicly.

As a blogger for the Christian Post, Moore has said some pretty terrible things about the people he’s chasing on Grindr:

…If you don’t think homosexuality hurts anybody, just check out the statistics. Check out the number of murders among the gay community. Check out the addiction rate among homosexuals. Check out the average lifespan of a male homosexual. Seriously, just google it. You can see for yourself.

He chalks his own homosexuality up to inappropriate childhood sexual exposure, and claims that this is at the root of very nearly everyone else he has talked to:

Moore’s story of redemption is profound. Though he was never molested, he says he was “inappropriately exposed” to pornography and sexuality at a young age. “From my experience in talking now to people who are either confused about their sexuality or repenting of homosexuality, 99.9 percent of the ones that I’ve talked to were sexually violated, molested or exposed to pornography at the young age of four- to seven-years-old,” he said.

Returning to his testimony, he wrote about flunking out of school due to excessive drinking, partying and promiscuity. But instead of taking responsibility for his own choices and irresponsible behavior, he blames it on his sexuality. But after two years in the ex-gay movement, he wrote that he had progressed so far in his ex-gayism that his “stomach actually turns” at the sight of “homosexual ‘relations'”:

…I can, in truth, firmly say that the longer I keep turning away from my homosexual desires, the less in strength they become. My homosexual feelings have definitely diminished since the night God started drawing me to Himself in September of 2010. Are they completely gone? No, they are not. Will they ever be completely gone? I do not know. But I do know this, I trust my God. I trust that everything He is doing is for my good (Romans 8:28). And I know this as well, no matter what thorns I may suffer in my flesh in this life, they are nothing to be compared with the unceasing joy and pleasure that will flow in and through me in when I step into glory with Jesus Christ. I do not want to in any way insinuate that I have itD altogether and have completely overcome my struggle with sin, because I have not. A true Christian is in battle against sin every day of their entire life. The main thing that I struggle with the most still is pornography, but even that is changing. I don’t get the same satisfaction that I used to from it. My stomach actually turns at the site [sic] of homosexual “relations.” But I also know that if I continue to watch it and harden my heart toward the Holy Spirit’s conviction, I will start to see things again through the eyes of my sinful flesh rather than through the eyes of the Spirit.

The issue here is not that Matt Moore was caught on Grindr. The issue isn’t even that he was caught on Grindr while extolling the virtues of never being anywhere near something like Grindr. Nor is it that his stomach doesn’t really “turn” over what he says it does. It’s that he’s being promoted in a way to bring hope to other young people who are either being pressured into the ex-gay movement by their parents or peers, or who are desperately trying to deal with their “struggles” while looking to Moore as an example. As in this Christian Post article whose title says it all: Testimony of Gay Blogger Rescued From Lifestyle Inspires Others.