For a decade, Focus on the Family has delved into what it believes is the biblical truth about sexual behavior through its “Love Won Out” conferences.

Focus says the conferences started a national conversation on the origins of homosexuality and have nurtured thousands of troubled families and helped hundreds of former gays and lesbians “escape the lifestyle.”

But pro-gay activists and many psychology experts denounce attempts to change people’s sexual orientation through religious mediation or other so-called reparative therapies. They say it causes people great harm in an attempt to fix something that isn’t broken.

The conservative Christian media ministry’s 10th-anniversary conference is Saturday at its home base in Colorado Springs.

Although the program does not track the number of people who have made the decision to become ex-gays, Focus says more than 50,000 gay people and family members have attended 52 conferences around the country in the past decade.

“This is a struggle that can be overcome. A number of us have overcome,” said Melissa Fryrear, a self-identified ex-gay and director of Focus’ Gender Issues Department.

“God can radically change your life, whatever the issue is,” said Fryrear, 42. “We’re ministering to Christian families. They are devastated when a loved one is living homosexually. They can’t condone what falls outside biblical truth.”

But opponents say the conferences also cause harm.

“These programs give us the tools and weapons to go to war against ourselves,” said Peterson Toscano, founder of the support group Beyond Ex-Gay.

Failed attempts to change sexual orientation take a tremendous toll on people’s psychological, emotional, spiritual, financial and physical well-being, he said.

“I’ve talked to more than 1,000 ex- gay survivors whose lives have been devastated — their close relationships destroyed,” Toscano said. “Because of one of these conferences, my mother died feeling she had failed me.”

University of Minnesota researchers recently published a study in the Journal of Homosexuality showing that among homosexual men, the best predictor of poor mental and sexual health, including depression, drug use and sexually transmitted diseases, is a negative attitude toward homosexuality, not being a homosexual.

Focus on the Family founder and psychologist James Dobson has said that homosexuality is a disorder, despite the contrary opinion reached by the American Psychiatric Association in 1973.

Dobson also said there is no conclusive evidence that homosexuality is inherited, although he concedes there might be a biological predisposition.

Dobson said there are more than 800 known former gay and lesbian individuals who have found “wholeness in their newfound heterosexuality.”

As evidence mounts for biological underpinnings to human sexual behavior, Christian conservatives increasingly argue science doesn’t matter.

“Even if homosexuality is someday proven to be inborn, inborn does not necessarily mean normal, or divinely sanctioned,” “Love Won Out” conference speaker Joe Dallas wrote. “Surely we’re not going to say that obesity, violence, alcoholism and adultery are legitimate because they were inherited.”

Christine Bakke, a 37-year-old Denver artist, moved to Colorado 10 years ago for the state’s ex-gay programs and spent more than four years in two of them. She also underwent psychological counseling.

“I threw my whole heart and soul and life into changing,” she said. “There was a period of time when I actually believed I was changing. Then there would be reminders — oh, no, still gay.”

The whole time she suppressed her sexuality, her creativity disappeared.

She gave up transforming herself into a heterosexual, she said, after observing many gay people leading happy, healthy, vibrant lives.

“I still had to deal with a lot of feelings of shame, brokenness and failure that I had internalized from the ex-gay programs,” Bakke said.

She no longer considers herself a Christian.

Electa Draper: 303-954-1276 or edraper@denverpost.com

This article has been corrected in this online archive. Originally, due to a reporting error, it cited an incorrect date for Focus on the Family’s “Love Won Out” conference this weekend. It is Saturday.