This is rather huge in my world. Exodus International, the lead religious right organization claiming that gays can be “cured” of their homosexuality, just closed up shop and issued an apology to the LGBT community.

I’m actually quite astounded.

The religious right hung its hate(e) on Exodus International a long time ago. For years, their lead anti-gay political groups used the false notion that gays can be “cured” to stymie efforts to win full civil rights for gay people.

And now Exodus International is gone, and issuing a public apology in the name of its past leader, Alan Chambers:

The apology goes on, a lot longer. And it’s not all good. There’s far too much mention of how only “some” members of Exodus International hurt gay people.

No, you all did.

Then there’s this:

The good that we have done at Exodus is overshadowed by all of this.

Really, and what “good” would that be exactly?

All you need do is turn to the page on Exodus International’s Web site announcing that it’s shutting down, in order to see how half-hearted this apology really is:

“We’re not negating the ways God used Exodus to positively affect thousands of people, but a new generation of Christians is looking for change – and they want to be heard,” Tony Moore, Board member of Exodus.

Tony Moore can kiss my ass.

These people have been spreading lies for decades, treating people for something that can’t be treated, using false “cures,” giving false hope, and helping to feed the stigma of being gay, and the pain many felt. I got news for you – there is no “good.” There are no thousands of people “positively affected,” unless you mean all the quack faux-scientists and religious right hate-mongers who have profited quite nicely from the climate of anti-gay hate that Exodus International helped buttress. Yes, they all did quite well, thank you. The rest of us, not so much.

Let me tell you about someone who wasn’t “positively affected.” My cousin was disowned by his parents because he’s gay. And what did his parents do when they first found out about their son? They sent him some brochures from their priest, for an ex-gay ministry to “cure” him. These people gave my cousins’ parents a false and hate-filled hope, they helped his parents hang on to a rationale for disowning their own son. Where is the good in that, Alan? Tell me, where?

So spare me the excuses about how only “some” people caused harm. And spare me the half-hearted apology about how a few bad apples overshadowed all of your “good ” work.

The only good that Exodus International ever did was shutting down.

And good riddance.

(H/t to Chris Geidner)