Abstract: Around almost as long as the gay rights movement, the ex-gay movement moves alongside it like a shadow. As tolerance for gays and lesbians grows--as anti-discrimination laws are passed and partner benefits are extended at one Fortune 500 corporation after another-- so grows the ex-gay network, sprouting in places as far flung as Buenos Aires, Cape Town and Sydney.

At first glance, the gathering of mostly young men might look and sound like a gay support group. There's singing, praying, eating and conversation--with masculinity and same-sex relationships as the big topics.

“I'm still learning how to be with men,” says a fellow who calls himself Justin.

In fact, the group meeting for hymns and brownies at a North Side church is Overcomers, a Christian-based organization that reaches out to homosexuals who want to change their sexual orientation.

It's one of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of groups that meet regularly to work out their angst about same-sex desire and try to chart a course toward more conventional sexuality. When members of Overcomers talk about being with men, they mean sexless, platonic friendship.

Around almost as long as the gay rights movement, the ex-gay movement moves alongside it like a shadow. As tolerance for gays and lesbians grows--as anti-discrimination laws are passed and partner benefits are extended at one Fortune 500 corporation after another-- so grows the ex-gay network, sprouting in places as far flung as Buenos Aires, Cape Town and Sydney.

That the origins of sexuality remain a mystery to science and that the American Psychological Association has recommended against sexual conversion therapies seem to make no difference.

While thousands of gays and lesbians find acceptance in gay- affirming congregations such as the Metropolitan Community Church or various liberal branches of mainstream Christianity and Judaism, the men in Overcomers feel it is more important to address what they see as an irreconcilable conflict between their faith and their sexuality.

“I never looked for a gay-affirming church,” said Luke, a member of the Chicago group. “It wouldn't even occur to me. To do that would be to put myself first, to put myself before God, to say, `Serve me, serve my needs.' That would be putting things upside down. God is clear on homosexuality: It is a sin.”

Though made up of both religious and secular groups, the ex-gay movement is overwhelmingly a Protestant and evangelical phenomenon. But there are also groups for Roman Catholics (Courage), Mormons (Evergreen) and Jews (Jonah).

The largest of the ex-gay organizations is Exodus International, founded in 1976 and currently boasting more than 140 chapters worldwide. Loosely affiliated with various churches, Exodus will hold its annual convention Aug. 6-11 in Asheville, N.C., featuring workshops with titles such as “The Role of Faith in Overcoming Homosexuality,” “Anatomy of Temptation” and “Honesty and Integrity: Keys to Relapse Prevention.”

Most ex-gays appear to be male, white and raised in religious homes. Most ex-gay groups mix both religion and psychological arguments in their therapies. But for many, if not most, the bottom line is clear.

“Without God, it's just maintenance,” said David Kyle Foster, an ex-gay minister in Florida. “It's not a real change.”

The movement has its secular and even scientific supporters. The most prominent is probably NARTH–the National Association of Research and Therapy of Homosexuality--a group of mental health professionals who advocate what has been called reparative or gender- affirmative therapy.

But if being gay in the world still raises eyebrows, being an ex- gay does that and more: It raises suspicion. Can people really change their sexual orientation? And if yes, what are the implications?

Even David Elliott, spokesperson for the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, acknowledges the issue is not clear-cut.

“We would not rule out the possibility of change for every single individual,” he said. “Sexuality is complicated. And people have been known to do incredible things for religion--they walk barefoot on hot coals, sleep on a bed of nails. So why not change their sexuality? Religion can be an incredibly powerful motivator.”

Last May, the ex-gay movement got what it saw as a boost from a new study conducted by Robert L. Spitzer, the Columbia University doctor who had headed the 1973 campaign to have homosexuality removed as a mental disorder from the APA's diagnostic manual. Spitzer concluded that, in a few highly motivated cases, it might be possible to change not just behavior but actual sexual orientation.

But because nearly half of his subjects came from ex-gay ministries and a quarter from NARTH, and because the study relied on the subjects' self-reports as opposed to any kind of objective measurement or observation, many questioned its findings.

“If you can't find people not on the ex-gay payroll, then maybe you need to ask if these people even exist,” said Wayne Besen, a senior staffer for the Human Rights Campaign, the largest gay and lesbian lobbying group in the country.

A second study, presented by New York psychologists Ariel Shidlo and Michael Schroeder at the same May conference, disputed Spitzer's findings: Only about 3 percent of their gay and lesbian subjects were able to shift sexuality. Subjects for this study were recruited more broadly, but often with the expressed purpose of debunking sexual conversion therapy, making its results also somewhat suspect.

Spitzer contends his study was not designed or presented as conclusive.

“The fact is that some homosexuals are very dissatisfied for some reason--some have a religious conflict, some dislike what they perceive to be the homosexual lifestyle, some want to get married and have children,” he explained. “Those who go into programs and experience changes not just in behavior but in arousal and fantasy, they feel it's beneficial. The real question is how often this happens.”

Spitzer emphasizes that his study concludes it is “extremely rare.”

In most sexual conversion therapies, whether they're religious or secular, homosexuality is viewed as a dysfunction or pathology with roots in abnormal childhood development. Conversion proponents say men with homosexual tendencies usually had indifferent or violent fathers, and that many were also abused. Women who turn out to be lesbians are thought to have been sexually abused by men.

That the APA has discredited most of these theories doesn't much matter to the ex-gay groups.

“You go back to 9 or 10 years of age, when the damage happened, and then you understand why gay men are into classic, stereotypic male scenes,” said Foster. “All the dressing up as policemen and cowboys and all that, that's just trying to find their masculinity.”

Tracey St. Pierre, now a senior policy analyst for the Human Rights Campaign in Washington, D.C., went through more than a decade of therapy to try to change her sexual orientation. But she could never find sufficient conflict with her mother or other family members to justify her torment.

“I was fasting for days at a time, praying, searching, asking God for the answer, but I could never pinpoint it,” she said. Terrified of any kind of intimacy, St. Pierre was celibate for 15 years. “You're trying to prove X and anything will do. One chapter of a book says your mom was too distant, the next says too close. I was vulnerable; I believed everything I was told.”

The concern for abuse and distortion via conversion therapies has grown enough in the psychiatric community that, four years ago, the APA voted to discourage trying to change a person's orientation, although it didn't explicitly condemn the practice.

“[But] people have a right to explore their choices,” countered A. Dean Byrd, a NARTH board member and practicing psychiatrist. “Tolerance should extend to those who are unhappy and want to change. To say that to treat those people is unethical, well, that's offensive to me.”

Though both the ex-gay ministries and NARTH claim impressive successes, none of the groups keeps statistics. But among the ex-gay leadership, there have been several embarrassing returns to homosexuality. A dozen years ago, the two founders of Exodus resigned, denounced the group's rehabilitative practices, declared their own return to homosexuality--as a couple--and promptly dropped from sight.

In the last year, Wade Richards, a spokesperson for Americans for Truth about Homosexuality and an ex-gay role model for Christian youth groups, came out again as homosexual. In London, Jeremy Marks, who had run the flagship Exodus in Britain for 14 years, also publicly returned to gay life.

“They have a higher defection rate than the Cuban national baseball team,” said Besen, who argues that the ex-gay movement hasn't grown so much as gotten better organized.

“They have a lot more chapters,” he said, “but one person can be a chapter of Exodus. ... Just look at Chicago--10 years ago you had, what, 30, 50 people? Now you have less than 10.”

Perhaps as a result of the defections, the strategy of Exodus and other groups appears to have changed dramatically. Rather than emphasize heterosexuality as a goal, most ex-gay ministries now simply push a cessation of homosexual activity and, where possible, desire.

“The opposite of homosexuality is not heterosexuality; it's holiness,” said Lance Hastings, an ex-gay Assemblies of God missionary in Key West, Fla. “It's to be set apart by God so you become a man or woman of God.”

“Freedom from homosexuality is not necessarily marrying a person of the opposite sex, having 2.3 children and a dog in the back yard,” said Tim Wilkins, an ex-gay Southern Baptist minister and scheduled speaker at the upcoming Exodus conference. “We have this misunderstanding that people have to be able to physically function as heterosexual in marriage. That is not the end-all. Sexual activity is not the end-all.”

“Obviously, I have been with women,” said Sillman Davis, who coordinates Chicago's Overcomers and has a 16-year-old daughter. “But that's not the point. My healing process is a journey; it's a walk with Christ.”

Wilkins estimates that about 40 percent of those who seek to change their sexual orientation are successful enough to have heterosexual relationships. The others, he said, are celibate.