Fewer than 10 ‘ex-gays’ showed up at a scheduled event, which was promoted by American Family Radio as a press conference and “Ex-Gay Lobby Day on Capital Hill”. The event was being held in honor of “Ex-Gay Pride Month.”. According to Susan Rios, the press conference and lobby day was supposed to give voice to the voiceless masses, those ex-gays who live in hiding due to fear of “homo-fascists” and shame created by media indoctrination. The ex-gay pride press conference, which Rios said would include “thousands of ex-gays descending on Washington” was held Wednesday, July 31st, and attended by less a handful of people, including mostly the organizers of the event.

Is it any wonder the words ex-gay and pride aren’t working as PR for a fake movement, that gained popularity under the leadership of an ex-gay who recently turned gay again? In April, John Pualk, for spokeperson for debunked “ex-gay therapy” programs which claimed that gays could be “cured of their disease” personally apologized to the people he admittedly harmed. Reading Paulk’s apology, it seems apparent that the same feelings of shame and self-loathing that keep many people from openly admitting their sexual orientation, drove him to seek out ex-gay therapy, in a sincere desire to make himself “right with God.” In reality it also appears that this “therapy” really just drove him back into the closet, causing him to tell lie after lie about how he had been “cured” of his gayness. In his statement of apology, Paulk said:

For the better part of ten years, I was an advocate and spokesman for what’s known as the “ex-gay movement,” where we declared that sexual orientation could be changed through a close-knit relationship with God, intensive therapy and strong determination. At the time, I truly believed that it would happen. And while many things in my life did change as a Christian, my sexual orientation did not. So in 2003, I left the public ministry and gave up my role as a spokesman for the “ex-gay movement.” I began a new journey. In the decade since, my beliefs have changed. Today, I do not consider myself “ex-gay” and I no longer support or promote the movement. Please allow me to be clear: I do not believe that reparative therapy changes sexual orientation; in fact, it does great harm to many people.

Prior to Paulk’s confession, there was George Alan Rekers, spokesman for National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH), Baptist Minister and door to door salesman for the “reparative therapy, the “miracle cure for ungayness”. In 2010 Rekers, who co-founded the now infamous Family Research Council, was caught renting a male prostitute for a ten day vacation, through a website called Rentboy.com.

Or maybe it has something to do with the reports that surfaced this past April, which detailed the horrors of teens who were tortured, starved and eventually killed in a Southern African based “reparative therapy camp.” These kids were beaten with planks, chained to cots, forced to eat their own feces, three of the teens were tortured to death, while others who got out were finally able to tell the truth about what they experienced under the “leadership” of “General” Alex De Koker, a 49 year old man, and his younger employee, Michael Erasmus, age 20.

The right-wing in the U.S. has been directly involved in creating an atmosphere of fear and hatred of gays, which has sprung up in South Africa. Pat Robertson, Rick Warren and several other prominent American figures, along with Catholic and Mormon groups, have been pushing an anti-gay agenda upon the country for some time. Even as South Africa introduced legislation to execute the death penalty for persons convicted of being gay — legislation created at the urging of these United States based “Christian” hate groups — it seems unlikely any ex-gays would have much to feel proud of. If any existed, that is.