My name is Barb Chandler.  I live with my partner, Pat, our dogs, Sable and Holly, cat, Cleo, and parakeets, Peep and Silver in Sacramento.  I'm the co-convener and founder of Integrity Northern/California, and a Third Order Franciscan.

I think that gay rights has come a long ways since my coming out in the 60's, however, I believe that it has a ways to go.  I think "Bridges" is a step in the right direction. I think we need to look at what we have in common rather than how we are different, strive to listen and understand instead of being closed to other people's points of view.  We need to lay the groundwork and plant the seeds of dialogue, I believe that God will see to it that the seeds grow how He wants them to. 

It took me several months to arrive at this conclusion. I've based my conclusion on the personal stories I've heard from several ex-gay people. The pattern which I have seen emerge in these stories was based in personal choice, and not based on the mind controlling techniques I had imagined them to be. I was pleasantly surprised when I heard that many ex-gay people did not approve of some of the oppressive techniques employed by some ex-gay ministries, and would even speak out against them.

When I first joined the Bridges Project mailing lists several months ago I would have balked at the very idea of gay people and ex-gay people working together for peace and justice. I had heard a testimonial from an ex-gay woman who projected her own unhappiness and dysfunction as a gay woman onto all gay people, read stories about how the ministries would use various mind controlling techniques on their members, and heard the argument that "I should change because I am horribly unhappy and living a very dysfunctional life as a gay woman because countless other gay people have changed," coming from Pat Robinson himself.

I begin to think differently about ex-gay people when it dawned on me that the testimonial's of ex-gays may very well be being used by the Religious Right as a weapon to keep gay people oppressed and to promote their own political agenda. This change of attitude came about from reading the stories of ex-gays. The stories that I read told how the person felt they were not living up to their own potential spirituality or emotionally by being gay. There were no implications that all gay people are dysfunctional, unhappy, or should change, like we have heard. The stories were very straightforward and direct with no generalizations.

Ex-gay people can be, and from some of the statements that I have seen, are, strong allies for gay people. They have witnessed first hand the oppression/discrimination that gay people go through, and have developed a stronger sense of compassion and solidarity with gays because they once identified themselves as gay. Consequently, ex-gay people are in the position to be heard by their church and ministry representatives. They can speak out about discrimination/oppression of gay people.

Therefore I concluded that is ex-gay people can be strong allies for gay people.

-- Barb Chandler, TSSF barb@gvn.net