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Ex-gay tries to educate nation’s largest teacher’s union
http://www.christianexaminer.com ^ | Jul 24, 2009‎ | by Lori Arnold

Posted on 07/28/2009 6:42:39 PM PDT by Maelstorm

For years Greg Quinlan juggled a double life, going to church, entering Bible College, chasing gay sex.

The tension nearly killed him, he said.

“I was torn,” he said. “I had to either come out of the closet or commit suicide. I was more afraid of facing God.”

So he dropped his faith and lived as an openly gay man who learned to lobby on behalf of gay and lesbian issues through his volunteer work for the Human Rights Campaign (HRC). He was particularly enamored with the group’s black-tie fundraisers. The group, he said, was a refreshingly professional organization that seemed a world removed from the often-raucous scenes in gay bars.

“The women were in skirts and the men weren’t,” he said.

As a lobbyist, Quinlan said he liked to research “the enemy” and began to monitor evangelical television to keep abreast of their twisted moves to protect pro-family values. During one program, the host featured the testimonies of several former gays who had successfully left the lifestyle.

“I would have two wars raging inside of me,” he said. “I would wonder, ‘Oh, God, is it true? Can I get out of this?’”

Nearly two decades later, Quinlan is still campaigning, but his message is vastly different.

“The gay lifestyle is shallow, lust-filled and immature,” he said during a visit to San Diego for the National Education Association’s convention.

Now a member of the Ex-Gay Educators’ Caucus, Quinlan is pushing for access to teachers in an effort to balance the union’s push for pro-homosexual issues, including same-sex marriage and gay-friendly curriculum. He and other Ex-Gay caucus members did so by working a booth at the NEA’s exhibit hall, a right they had to sue for several years back.

“What the HRC taught me to do,” he said, “I’m now doing for the Lord.”

As an HRC volunteer in the late ’80s, Quinlan said group members focused on moving their agenda forward by concentrating on several key arenas including establishing gay-affirming curriculum, seeking to allow homosexuals to openly serve in the U.S. military, legalizing gay-marriage and re-educating education.

Quinlan said numerous initiatives—targeting sex-ed and science curriculum, while also implementing protections designed at preventing bullying—have made great inroads in the public schools.

“One area where they have won, have had tremendous success, is in education,” he said, adding that each generation of students becomes more and more accepting of homosexuality. “We are in a demographic nightmare.”

Understanding nightmares Growing up as a young man with an abusive “Archie Bunker-type” father, Quinlan first found solace in his faith, describing a strong spiritual conversion at age 9.

“It was the real deal,” he said. “I felt the weight lift off of my shoulders.”

Instead of life improving at home, the father’s abuse toward him worsened. Eventually he filled his desperate need for affection at the hands of a young teen boy who introduced him to sex. Quinlan said he became a willing molestation victim.

“I was getting something I wasn’t getting at home, I was getting something I wasn’t getting at school, and I was getting something I wasn’t getting at church,” he said. “I was getting attention, I was getting affirmation, I was getting affection. Someone was touching me without hitting me. Someone was talking to me without screaming.”

Through the help of Christian spiritual leaders, Quinlan returned to his faith and began working on the issues of bitterness and unforgiveness that perverted his relationship with his father.

“That’s when the same-sex attractions faded,” he said. “That was the enemy’s hook in me.”

It was not, he said, an overnight healing and he held to the promises of Romans 12 by trying to renew his mind.

“There is pleasure in sin, for a season,” he said. “I had spent a long time contaminating it.”

Today he works with Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays & Gays and is a consultant for the New Jersey Family Policy Council.

While he bemoans the closed platform of the NEA, Quinlan places much of the blame for homosexuality advances in the public school system right at the feet of believing Christians.

“We’ve allowed this to happen,” he said. “There are so many Secret Service Christians who need to come out of the closet, but we also need to know how to argue and debate persuasively. This conspiracy and its wheel have been around for decades.”


TOPICS: News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: bornagain; christians; ex; exgays; gay; homosexualagenda; urlisnotthesource
It is good to see this man speaking out. No one wants to get to the heart of this issue. They want to ignore that so many gay men are molested or shepherded into the lifestyle and that those who are at the greatest risk are those who live in abusive or broken homes. Instead of trying to help them they are being taught to embrace what can only be described as broken lives.

Greg Quinlan
1 posted on 07/28/2009 6:42:39 PM PDT by Maelstorm
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To: Maelstorm
“The gay lifestyle is shallow, lust-filled and immature.
2 posted on 07/28/2009 6:50:26 PM PDT by GSP.FAN (Only dead fish go with the flow...)
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To: Maelstorm

ping


3 posted on 07/28/2009 6:51:18 PM PDT by trailboss800
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To: Maelstorm
As a biblical counselor for 20 years, I've seen many leave the gay life with gladness and without regret. I have seen a 100% correlation to being sexual abused as children and the gay life style chosen. Healing must take place in these lives or their understanding of life will continue to be distorted.
4 posted on 07/28/2009 6:55:11 PM PDT by trailboss800
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To: Maelstorm
It's funny; but I can't help but noticed that stories like this never seem to make their way into the MSM.

I wonder; could there be some vast left wing conspiracy preventing such? (/Sarcasm)

5 posted on 07/28/2009 6:57:35 PM PDT by Hillarys nightmare (So Proud to be living in "Jesus Land" ! Don't you wish everyone did?)
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To: Maelstorm

God bless this man - and may he continue to help pull others out of this self-destructive behaviour. It is the most wonderful thing to see someone saved from a life of sin...ANY sin.


6 posted on 07/28/2009 6:58:36 PM PDT by JudyinCanada
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To: JudyinCanada

Yes any sin. This is not the worse by any means. What makes it so horrible is the wall of silence and the intimidation.


7 posted on 07/28/2009 7:01:18 PM PDT by Maelstorm (Why are those who claim to have open minds so afraid of open debate?)
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To: trailboss800

And thank you for your efforts. I’ve often wondered, how about the folks in the Exodus International ministry who walk the walk. Popular thought is “oh, you’re born that way”, “CELEBRATE your homosexuality”, etc., yet many have apparently left the homosexual lifestyle through their ministry.

Focus on the Family used to have a fairly regular interview with some of the people involved. Good work IMO.


8 posted on 07/28/2009 7:03:06 PM PDT by brushcop (SFC Sallie, CPL Long, LTHarris, SSG Brown, PVT Simmons KIA OIF lll&V, they died for you, honor them)
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To: Maelstorm

The homosexual activists are very powerful - extremely intimidating.

Just twenty years ago, most people my age would have scoffed at the notion of homosexuality being accepted as normal, let alone people marrying a member of the same sex.

It is stunning to see how political correctness completely molds minds. Goes to show how people who are not grounded in truth can easily be talked into anything.


9 posted on 07/28/2009 7:05:23 PM PDT by JudyinCanada
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To: Maelstorm
Quinlan places much of the blame for homosexuality advances in the public school system right at the feet of believing Christians.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Believing Christians have failed to set up alternative tuition-free Christian schools. Every child in the U.S. should have access to a tuition-free, private, and thoroughly Christian based K-12 education. If Harvard can have a 35 **BILLION** dollar endowment and universities across this nation can have similar endowments, Christian should be doing the same for Christian K-12 education.

Believing Christians have failed to organize to SHUT DOWN the government K-12 indoctrination centers. They are an abomination! Every one of these government K-12 “schools” completely conflicts with the First Amendment and freedom of conscience.

Believe Christians teach in government schools. They **willingly** ( for money) teach children a godless worldview. By their example and direct instruction they teach children that they can live without God. They teach children that Christians are hypocrites who will sell their principles for a paycheck.

Believing Christian teachers and their families sit in Christian churches and discourage their ministers from opening Christian schools. And...Believing Christian ministers are too timid to bite the hand that puts money in the collection plate.

Believing Christians send their children day after day into godless government schools, and then they wonder why the children learn to live without God.

Yep! That our nation is a cultural, political, and religious mess can be laid at the feet of Christians who cooperate with evil, and thousands upon thousands of Christian teachers cooperate with evil for a paycheck and pension.

10 posted on 07/28/2009 7:08:18 PM PDT by wintertime (People are not stupid! Good ideas win!)
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To: trailboss800

I know one individual who was molested by his openly gay uncle and did become gay. I went to school with him and I know that he expressed normal interest in girls up until that event. Their is a conspiracy of silence. There are a lot of hurting people and what the sexual activist agenda is doing is trapping them so they will never receive help so that they will always be encouraged to affirm the behavior of their attacker. Not all are victims of that sort, some are just lost, lonely, awkward, and some are imprisoned by fetishes that go far beyond just homosexuality.


11 posted on 07/28/2009 7:09:33 PM PDT by Maelstorm (Why are those who claim to have open minds so afraid of open debate?)
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To: Maelstorm
To me this is the money quote: “I was getting something I wasn’t getting at home, I was getting something I wasn’t getting at school, and I was getting something I wasn’t getting at church,” he said. “I was getting attention, I was getting affirmation, I was getting affection. Someone was touching me without hitting me. Someone was talking to me without screaming.”
12 posted on 07/28/2009 7:18:26 PM PDT by PrincessB
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To: Maelstorm

John 8:32 “Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

Great testimony showing the truth of God’s Word!


13 posted on 07/28/2009 7:18:44 PM PDT by presently no screen name
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To: wintertime
Believing Christians

What do these 'believing Christians' believe in?
14 posted on 07/28/2009 7:22:35 PM PDT by presently no screen name
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To: wintertime

These are very good observations, but they seem to imply a solution. That is, Christians should be endowing their schools to pay for true, biblical worldview education.

However, didn’t you just ping me a couple days ago that the Gutenberg College in Eugene OR was “too late”?

Just checking. Maybe it is never “too late”.


15 posted on 07/28/2009 7:31:21 PM PDT by Dutchboy88
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To: PrincessB

You have that right and what is happening in increasing numbers of places is these type of kids are being funneled not just to homosexuality but to early sex in general.


16 posted on 07/28/2009 7:36:53 PM PDT by Maelstorm (Why are those who claim to have open minds so afraid of open debate?)
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To: Maelstorm

Amen. It’s great to see such a success story of a sinner who has faced his sins and found the truth.


17 posted on 07/28/2009 8:04:14 PM PDT by freedomconservationist
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To: freedomconservationist

It is good to see because the message is ultimately about hope and change of a real fulfilling kind where as the Obamas of the world want us not to believe that we can be better instead they’d rather we made comfortable in our weaknesses.


18 posted on 07/28/2009 8:06:04 PM PDT by Maelstorm (Why are those who claim to have open minds so afraid of open debate?)
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To: Maelstorm

Yes; true wisdom.


19 posted on 07/28/2009 8:08:13 PM PDT by freedomconservationist
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To: Maelstorm

No matter what his experience is, it is his; it is not universal; not even universal among “gays”.

Not every boy/young man (majorities) with an absent, distant or abusive father, gets into same-sex intimate experience as a youth and becomes “gay” as an adult.

As real as those experiences were to him, they were not the totality of what “made” him gay; because majorities of males faced with the same parental experience do not become gay.

I feel for the young man and empathize with his early problems in life. My only point is that his parental problem should not be taken as a template for what “makes someone gay”.


20 posted on 07/28/2009 8:18:23 PM PDT by Wuli
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To: Wuli

Why do you wish not to acknowledge the fact that molestation and abuse do in many cases play a role in gender identity and homosexuality? Why such denial when there is so much evidence to the contrary?


21 posted on 07/28/2009 8:44:45 PM PDT by Maelstorm (Why are those who claim to have open minds so afraid of open debate?)
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To: Hillarys nightmare

Most certainly there is a conspiracy and it isn’t that they don’t make it into the mainstream media it is that they don’t make it into the mainstream conservative media that bothers me. I don’t expect the left to make our arguments for us but when the right isn’t even brave enough to debate any longer except on vacuous grounds in defense of marriage all the while allowing schools to be taken over with identity politics it makes me wonder who the real enemy is. Gay activism is no better than global warming. The premises behind both are just as flawed. The difference is that one doesn’t involve sex.


22 posted on 07/28/2009 8:48:42 PM PDT by Maelstorm (Why are those who claim to have open minds so afraid of open debate?)
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To: wintertime

Christians and conservatives who are silent is why the most vulnerable kids are being left to be taken in by a horrid lifestyle but it is to be expected because it isn’t just homosexuality, it is permissive sexuality in general, it is the idea of egotist wish fulfillment trumping all other values. It is a father who has great heterosexual sex with his wife and two wonderful boys but is indulged to believe that some how he isn’t complete till he can dress like a girl and have his penis reconstructed. It is crazy by even a secular standard but the silence continues. Just as the people remained cowardly in the face of the increasing slavery of a government grown too big. Will anyone stand up to slay the dragon?


23 posted on 07/28/2009 8:52:52 PM PDT by Maelstorm (Why are those who claim to have open minds so afraid of open debate?)
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To: Dutchboy88

I pray it isn’t too late.


24 posted on 07/28/2009 9:41:24 PM PDT by wintertime (People are not stupid! Good ideas win!)
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To: presently no screen name

What do these ‘believing Christians’ believe in?
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Money? Convenience? Who knows?

If you know of a “Christian” teacher who still has a job in the government schools, then they are cooperating with evil. If they had stood up against the godless evil, they would have been fired already.


25 posted on 07/28/2009 9:44:38 PM PDT by wintertime (People are not stupid! Good ideas win!)
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To: wintertime

It is never too late. We may or may not win but we can never surrender.


26 posted on 07/28/2009 9:45:13 PM PDT by Maelstorm (Why are those who claim to have open minds so afraid of open debate?)
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To: Maelstorm
Every gay male who has ever rendered an opinion to me about the subject admits to being molested or raped as a boy by an older man. My brother fits this mold.

“I was torn,” he said.

Hey, that's kinda funny.

27 posted on 07/29/2009 9:00:56 AM PDT by I Buried My Guns
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To: Maelstorm
"they don’t make it into the mainstream conservative media that bothers me."

So you've noticed it too? It's no wonder: The right has been made "Gun Shy", so to speak.

The left has beat them down on morality issues for so long, by labeling conservatives as "intolerant religious idiots", that we're afraid to say anything, lest we prove them correct.

I for one am not deterred no matter what they say.

28 posted on 07/29/2009 9:54:11 PM PDT by Hillarys nightmare (So Proud to be living in "Jesus Land" ! Don't you wish everyone did?)
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To: Maelstorm

I don’t deny that for some individuals, some pretty bad things, and their responses to them, played a role in their sexual life as adults and how they feel and believe about that life.

On the other hand, the preponderance of the majorities that went through similar experiences and did not obtain the same type of sexual life, says that there is more to it than just those experiences.


29 posted on 07/30/2009 1:17:43 PM PDT by Wuli
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