The claim is offered before corporate board meetings, state and national legislative committees, before conventions and conferences, in front of Joe and Jane America through their television sets, and through any means possible that there is proof, “tens of thousands examples” of this proof, that homosexuals can “walk away from their homosexual desires” and become heterosexual.
This claim is erroneous because their definition of “ex-gay” or “walking away from…” is based on the notion that simply refusing to self-identify as homosexual or gay is to not be homosexual. To deny one’s affectual and sexual inclination towards or attraction to the same-gender… to not engage in any type of same-gender romantic or sexual relationship… to deny that the continued longing for personal intimacy (and in this case with someone of the same gender)… to deny and not admit all these things means that the person is now “ex-gay” and not a homosexual. The person is now one of those “tens of thousands,” regardless of what is truly going on inside of the person!
It is not a change from homosexuality to heterosexuality, but for 99% of “ex-gay” homosexuals, it is a change from the reality of or possibility of a mutually loving and life-long same-gender relationship to asexuality. Of course, there are those who go all the way and enter into legally recognized marriages with someone of the opposite-gender… against their nature, as Paul writes in the first chapter of Romans. Most simply exchange the possibility of relationship for asexuality.