Gay Liberation Network Press Release:

For Immediate Release: March 7, 2008

For More Information: Andy Thayer, Gay Liberation Network, LGBTliberation@aol.com

"Homosexuality Destroys Families" Speaker Draws Pro-Gay Protest

The Gay Liberation Network recently learned that one of the foremost promoters of the fiction that LGBT people can "change" their sexual orientation through fundamentalist Christianity will be lecturing in the Chicago area on Thursday, March 13.

Charlene Cothran, a new darling of the far right lecture circuit and alleged former lesbian, has titled her presentation "How Homosexuality Destroys Families, Not Just Values."

As a publisher of Venus magazine, a publication formerly oriented towards African American lesbians, about a year ago Cothran apparently decided that the grass (and money) was greener on the Republican right, and has since become a tool of their movement and a professional gay hater. Her presentation, which is advertised as "free and open to the public," will be at 7 PM, Thursday, March 13th at the Hoffman House, 7550 E. State Street in Rockford , IL

The Gay Liberation Network (www.GayLiberation.net) will be car-pooling from Chicago to counter her lies, with our protest beginning at 6:30 PM that night. GLN invites all LGBT people and our allies to join in countering Cochran's hate. For more information, email LGBTliberation@aol.com.

Given the facts about "ex-gay" ministries, it is amazing that they even exist. The two men who founded Exodus, the most infamous of them all, did something the Christian extremists don't want people to know. They fell in love; left the ministry; and had a commitment ceremony.

From talking to a former "ex-gay" who was involved in the sad thing for years, I learned two interesting things.

- The vast majority of people who get involved in those ministries leave very quickly.

- In the meetings, even the leaders admit that they still have same-sex desires. In other words, "ex-gay" ministries don't even change the sexual orientations of their leaders.

From a man who was in a relationship with a guy who went in and out of the "ex-gay" scams, I learned that "ex-gay" conventions are wild events with the "ex-gays" sneaking around and having sex with each other. Put a bunch of lonely, sexually frustrated people together and make sex even more forbidden than it already is in our culture, and you will get a sexual frenzy.