Just Love — A Statewide Challenge to the Ex-Gay Movement

Here is an updated list of speakers who will be addressing Just Love. The program will be hosted at St Paul’s Cathedral in San Diego this coming Saturday, 6 March 2010, from 9:00 am – 5:00 pm. The day-long event will challenge Exodus International’s Love Won Out “ex-gay” and conversion therapy conference that is being staged simultaneously at Pastor Jim Garlow’s Skyline Church in La Mesa, which will, by the way, be the site of anti-ex-gay demonstrations at various times during the course of the day (click here for details).

Just Love kicks off at 9:00 am with a welcome and opening remarks by Rev Canon Albert Ogle, Vice President for National and International Affairs, Integrity USA, who also serves as a Director of the California Council of Churches Impact Board, and The Very Rev. Scott Richardson, Dean of St Paul’s Episcopal and Anglican Cathedral.

Featured speakers will include:

Wayne Besen, is the Founder of Truth Wins Out, a non-profit organization that defends the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community against anti-gay misinformation, counters the so-called “ex-gay” industry and educates America about the lives of LGBT people, and author of Anything But Straight: Unmasking the Scandals and Lies Behind the Ex-Gay Myth and Bashing Back: Wayne Besen on GLBT People, Politics, and Culture. In 2006, Besen was named one of the Advocate Magazine’s “People of the Year” for his work with TWO.

Louise Brooks is a former Television Producer and is a consultant with California Faith for Equality and the Human Rights Campaign (HRC). Louise is also the Secretary to Integrity USA and coordinated the successful media campaign at the 2009 General Convention where the Episcopal Church passed legislation to open all employment and membership opportunities to LGBT people. Louise is also the media consultant for Rev. Mary Glasspool who was recently elected ad the first openly lesbian bishop of the Diocese of Los Angeles.

Jim Burroway, writer and Editor of Box Turtle Bulletin. Jim was the first to sound the alarm on the intensifying anti-LGBT climate in Uganda that has led to a bill before the Ugandan Parliament that has sparked international outrage. Read Burroway’s astonishing roundup of articles: Slouching Towards Kampala: Uganda’s Deadly Embrace of Hate.

Michael Bussee, after co-founding Exodus International in 1979, left the group and became an outspoken critic of the organization. Today Bussee is a licensed Marriage and Family therapist, a father, an evangelical Christian, and a proud gay man.

Dr Amity Pierce Buxton, author of The Other Side of the Closet: The Coming-Out Crisis for Straight Spouses and Families, founded the Straight Spouse Network (SSN) to support straight spouses whose partners came out as gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender partners and mixed-orientation or trans/nontrans couples.

The Rev Dr Paul Egertson, is Senior Lecturer in Religion at California Lutheran University, Thousand Oaks, CA. From 1995 through 2001 he served as Bishop of the Southwest California Synod, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. He is on the Board of Directors of Soulforce, Inc., and a member of the Covenant Circle for Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries. He has received a number of awards for over 25 years of activism within the Lutheran churches on behalf of equality for LGBTQ people and resigned one month before his term of office was completed following controversy over ordaining the first openly lesbian pastor in the Lutheran Church. He and his wife Shirley have been married for 54 years and are the parents of six sons (one gay, five straight). They enjoy over a dozen grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Susan Guinn is the lead partner in the Law Offices of Susan Guinn in San Diego and served on the Board of Directors of Equality California. She is married to Denice Feldhaus and they have two children, Gavin and Max.

Scott Long is the Director of the LGBT Rights Division of Human Rights Watch, the international non-governmental organization that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. Long holds a Ph.D. from Harvard University, and has taught at the University of Budapest, as well as holding a Fulbright lectureship at the University of Cluj-Napoca in Romania. Long has documented and advocated against human rights violations based on sexual orientation, gender identity, and HIV status.  For five years he lobbied the United Nations on sexual rights issues; his work led to U.N. human rights mechanisms agreeing publicly for the first time to take up gay and lesbian concerns.

Carlos Marquez is Director of Public Programs and Community Affairs at the San Diego LGBT Center.

Joshua Romero is the HRC Religious Liaison in San Diego. He was raised in Baptist, Assembly of God, Nazarene, and non-denominational churches. A few months after coming out to his family during his senior year at Point Loma Nazarene University, he attended a Love Won Out conference in St. Louis with his family, where he witnessed first-hand the emotional and psychological damage of the ex-gay movement on LGBT persons and their parents. His friends’ stories and faith challenges have inspired him to the create Solace, a peer support group for people of faith during the coming out process.

Andrea Shorter is the Deputy Director Marriage Equality, Equality California. She is a coalition building strategist for marriage equality and long term civil and human rights movement work. Andrea’s occupations have included Director, And Marriage For All; and Deputy Executive Director, Names Project Foundation/AIDS Memorial Quilt. She studied abroad in Denmark and traveled extensively ’round the world through Europe, Holland, Russia, Israel, Palestine, and South Africa. Andrea has been a proud Castro resident for nearly 20 years and is immersed in the fight for marriage equality, particularly with faith and minority communities.