Pray The Gay Away

Oh how many times have we heard that?

It is because of their bigotry and prejudices that Christian evangelicals that they think that being gay or being trans is a choice, is a “lifestyle” they have now come out with a video about “Praying the Gay Away.”

Viral Video Claims People Can Stop Being Gay If They Pray Hard Enough
The evangelical Christian charity Anchored North is targeting teens with anti-queer messages.
Huffington Queer Voices
By Carol Kuruvilla
January 3, 2018

An evangelical Christian group is using social media to promote the scientifically discredited and flat-out lethal idea that gay, lesbian, or bisexual people can change their sexual orientation if they pray hard enough.

Anchored North, a conservative Christian charity, tells the story of a young woman named Emily Thomes in a video titled “Love is Love.” Thomes says that after studying the Bible and repenting of her sins, she was able to leave her “super wild” life as a lesbian and marry a man.

The video appears to be designed to attract the attention of young queer people or teens who are questioning their sexuality. “Love is Love” is a phrase often used to promote acceptance of LGBTQ relationships. Anchored North also used a rainbow flag in the video’s thumbnail, appropriating what has become a unifying symbol of the gay rights movement.

The first few moments of the video seem innocent enough ― with scenes of teens dancing to catchy party music and two girls laughing and holding hands while walking down a street. Thomes is presented as a relatable narrator, introducing herself as someone who fell in love with a girl when she was 15 and soon started proudly identifying as gay.

In Connecticut Conversion Therapy is ban for minors, any licensed practitioner can lose their license to treat people. There is an exception for religious officials; however, if they are also licensed healthcare provider they can lose their secular professional licenses.

Gay conversion therapy has been thoroughly discredited by all major mental health associations. The American Psychological Association states that efforts to change sexual orientation through therapy carry “serious potential to harm young people,” since the tactics used often “frame the inability to change one’s sexual orientation as a personal and moral failure.” Lesbian, gay, and bisexual youth are also almost five times more likely to have attempted suicide than their heterosexual peers.

I think what these “interventions” do is cause the person to deny who they really are, in other words they go back into the closet and put on a happy face. But that has consequences…

But the tide is turning. Surveys conducted by the Pew Research Center and the Public Religion Research Institute, or PRRI, show that evangelicals are slowly growing more accepting of queer sexuality ― and that this growth is largely driven by millennials. In 2016, PRRI found that a slim majority (51 percent) of young white evangelical Protestants supported same-sex marriage.

Amelia Markham, a queer Christian activist for The Reformation Project, told HuffPost that for an increasing number of Christians, affirming queer sexuality isn’t about “following our feelings” and dismissing the authority of the Bible.

My suggestion to her is seek another church, one that is affirming.

Many evangelical Christians  say that Christianity is under attack and I say it isn’t.it is going back to its roots, Jesus taught love and acceptance and more Christians are realizing it and are leaving religions based on hate and damnation.

As I like to point out; when we passed the gender inclusive non-discrimination bill there were hundreds of churches that signed on to the bill and only a hand full that tried to block the bill.