Ex-Gays Speak in CURE FOR LOVE, TV Premiere Saturday, April 12, 2008

Cure For Love is a new documentary about the "ex-gay" movement - a religious network whose goal is to help their members renounce homosexuality. The ex-gay movement now encompasses 120 ministries in the US and Canada and is active in 56 countries world wide.

The film follows two men who have experienced the ex-gay movement in different ways. One gets married, though he admits he is still attracted to men, and another struggles to embrace his homosexuality. The film premieres on Canada's Global Television, at 7pm Saturday April 12.

With startling honesty, the men tell their stories of struggle to reconcile their sexual orientation with their Christian values.

The film was written and co-directed by Christina Willings and Francine Pelletier. Christina is an Alberta-based writer and filmmaker and last week, Matt Forsythe of the National Film Board of Canada asked her a few questions about making the film.

It seemed painful for the Christian subjects to discuss their sexuality at times. What was the hardest part about interviewing these people?

I took myself outside between interviews and cried. Does that about cover it?

Seriously, the process was emotionally exhausting and wonderful at the same time. It was completely perfect that some of the subjects found the process of interviewing very healing.

This is the best possible scenario for me as a filmmaker. The hardest part was interviewing the 'practised Chrisitians' - it's very difficult to cut through the rehearsed testimonies and make authentic connections with people who are used to proselytising and/or defending their positions to people they are in the habit of mistrusting (non-Christians).

It was also difficult to see how little people value their own happiness, and their own right to sexual enjoyment/connection. Heartbreaking really. Evangelical Christianity seems to have as its underpinning, shame and chronic self-criticism - whether in the arena of sexual identity or not. After all...if we don't need redemption form our own sinful natures, then no one needs to die for us, and the bottom falls out of the whole thing.

The level of engagement that some Christian communities are taking with their gay members is suprising. What were the roots of Christian ex-gay organizations like Exodus and New Direction?

Christian communities are actually not engaging much with gay people. They have engaged with the 'threat' of same sex marriage and other progressive legislation initiatives in the past 10 years and have felt increasingly forced to deal with homosexuality - motivated primarily by the desire to "defend their turf". What this has meant for gay people within the church is that there is an opening of interest for them to stick their toe into and perhaps begin to engage people on a human level.

This actually mirrors the development of Exodus and New Direction [an ex-gay ministry] as both were originally organizations of a bunch of tortured gay people toiling away in obscurity before Focus on the Family identified the "homosexual agenda" as it's next big campaign and began to pump money into Exodus.

On the "left of the Christian right" are people like Brian and Anna - they work in the Canadian context where the battle is largely seen as having been lost. 

The key is that they are welcome as long as they are still seeking healing from their orientation.

The film shows two couples: one couple has “renounced” their sexuality and is apparently happily married and another couple has ceased questioning their gayness and accepted it. How did you find these subjects for your film?

Researcher Arlene Moskovitch found Brian and Ana through New Direction in Toronto. I found John and Darren and Ricky at Brian and Ana's wedding.

Are these religious therapy groups exclusive to Christianity or do we see these in other religions as well?

I have come across [similar] groups for Mormons and Orthodox Jews.
 

Cure for Love premieres on Global Television's "Global Currents," Saturday, April 12 at 7pm

The film will be released on DVDs and at festivals later this year. 

Cure For Love is produced by Earth to Sky Pictures Inc. in co-production with the National Film Board of Canada.

Comments

[pennyjane]

i guess i can't deny that one can become an "ex". by definition i am an ex-straight. curious huh? well, in my former legal incarnation as a male attracted to females i was considered straight; however now that i am legally female attracted to females i am gay. funny, i don't feel any different, i still like girls just like i always did.

am i an "ex-male"? no, i was never male, people just thought i was. how come we take such simple things and complicate them beyond any understanding? one can surely alter their behavior but the idea of intentionally altering one's orientation is just plain silly. for 50 some odd years i tried to alter my true gender to conform to what others thought it should be, an exercize in utter futility. i could no more make myself into a man then a beetle can turn itself into an elephant. if you are a woman, get over it, you're a woman. if you are gay, get over it, you are attracted to members of the same sex. God made beetles and God made elephants, just 'cause He made elephants big and powerful and pleasing to the mamal eye, and beetles small and creepy doesn't at all mean he loves one more then the other...to a beetle elephants are big and ugly, other beetles are cute and cuddly.

i'm reminded again today that apparently in the eyes of many, a gay transwoman can be easily acceptable to the christian eye. the presbytery of the ohio valley met in our town today. this openly gay transwoman was a part of the welcome party assembled by our church as sponsors of the event. i was out front, welcoming the members of all the other churches in our presbytery. not one...none...zero...notta, among the hundred or so participants treated me with any less love and affection then i saw each treating the other. the big wheels of the event, from our church, introduced me to all the other big wheels without a shread of shame or guilt.

this seems to be a far more effective way of bringing children of our loving God into His church then to try to make a man of me again. so when those basketcases who insist on altering what God has made to fit their definition of what God wants, it is they who are practicing idolatry. it is they who are assuming the place of God, it is they who just, frankly, aren't all that bright. i guess sometimes it just takes more humility then some possess to just go ahead and let God create His world as He sees fit without a bunch of shouting and intrusion from the peanut gallery. if you think of what a mess the world is in now, just think how it would be if we took God out of the equasion and let man do his own creating? sends shivers down your spine doesn't it? God bless us all, much love and hope, pj

[Buffy]

There is no "cure" for being gay as being gay isn't an illness. As it would happen, my SO and I joined a group of people including Wayne Besen of Truth Wins Out to protest the Love Won Out symposium that was held in our backyard yesterday. It was a rather interesting and, I dare say, productive event.

[weallwin]

i wasted an hour of my time watching this wretched 'documentary'. having been raised evengelical christian, and being gay, this film missed all marks. this issue has been beaten into the ground. how much money was wasted on this? i've seen infomercials produced better... and damn more artistic. i see adds in the paper for career changes. the director should check those out!

[poetryman69]

peace

[Proud Healthy Lesbian]

Agreed, this was a dreadful documentary. Perhaps the filmmaker was so sick of the subject/s at some point in the process that she lost heart and was desperate to just finish the film. Production values low and totally lacking in any artistic camera or post production techniques. Yikes, I feel for the producer, these subjects were painful to watch. What was the point of letting the subjects go on and on and on? As I said dreadful - would have preferred learning more about the how the far right has the ear of conservatives in Ottawa and Washington, stats on Focus on The Family here and the states, more interview subjects such as ex ex-gays, academics, members of clergy as well as current "ex- gays". The "happy" gay couple were for me a trial to watch as well - wanted to wretch - what drug/s or cult were they under the influence of? Yuck felt dirty afterwards.

[Proud Healthy Lesbian]

Agreed, this was a dreadful documentary. Perhaps the filmmaker was so sick of the subject/s at some point in the process that she lost heart and was desperate to just finish the film. Production values low and totally lacking in any artistic camera or post production techniques. Yikes, I feel for the producer, these subjects were painful to watch. What was the point of letting the subjects go on and on and on? As I said dreadful - would have preferred learning more about the how the far right has the ear of conservatives in Ottawa and Washington, stats on Focus on The Family here and the states, more interview subjects such as ex ex-gays, academics, members of clergy as well as current "ex- gays". The "happy" gay couple were for me a trial to watch as well - wanted to wretch - what drug/s or cult were they under the influence of? Yuck felt dirty afterwards.