The most important discovery I made in my research* and understanding of my recovery process from my ex-gay experience had to do with the way “ministries” like this function. Briefly put, it is nothing new. In fact, the movement is a microcosm of a larger, more rampant problem today — religious abuse.
I had a suspicion that the ex-gay movement might have some commonalities with religious abuse and dependency, but I had no idea just how similar they were. As I began to read about religious abuse, I would often blink my eyes and glance at the title of the book to make sure I wasn’t reading a book exclusively about the ex-gay movement. It seemed that what was described as a structured kind of power abuse within a given church, was describing point for point any number of ex-gay groups. Whole chapters of religious abuse books could apply perfectly to what has occurred in the ex-gay environment — really!
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