ANAHEIM — The believers shook their tambourines and reached for the heavens. A woman fell to her knees as tears and mascara raced into the neckline of her cardigan. It was, in many ways, an old-fashioned church revival. Indeed, many of the 300 worshipers were seeking salvation that night--from their homosexuality.
The Rev. Andrew Comisky, who had been gay as a teen and young adult, nuzzled his wife--the mother of his four children and his partner in Desert Stream Ministries, an outreach group dedicated to "healing" homosexuals. Then he took the stage.
"We all need holy rescue," Comisky told the crowd at Vineyard Christian Fellowship in Anaheim. "I've learned over the years that it's not a matter of whether you fall. It's just a matter of the direction in which you fall. I've just learned to fall forward."
The subtext is unspoken but clear: "Forward" is heterosexuality. "Back" would be a reversion to homosexuality.
In a significant strategy shift, many conservative Christians who once denounced gays now welcome them to church in an effort to turn them away from their homosexuality and "convert" them to a straight sex life.
So-called "change ministries" have existed in some form for more than two decades. Gay activists denounce them as fraudulent, and psychologists say the ministries are proceeding on a false premise that homosexuality is a disorder that can--or should--be reversed. The groups rarely claim conversion rates above 30%, and even those conversions are not independently verified.
Yet the groups are finding new acceptance, and drawing new vigor, from mainstream and conservative Christian denominations.
In the words of Moral Majority founder Jerry Falwell, homosexuality is "the last frontier for evangelical ministry."
Having lost several political battles on the abortion and school-prayer fronts, conservative Christians have focused on homosexuality as a crusade, theologians and religious leaders say.
The Rev. David Anderson, rector of St. James Episcopal Church in Newport Beach, said that many conservative Christians--like him--have grown "disillusioned with the political process" after a period of legislative logjam.
"A lot of people are devoting their energy to their church rather than the political arena. So it affects them daily--and every Sunday morning," said Anderson, who is backing a change ministries program called "God's Love Changed Me."
