Seminary's homosexuality conference protested

As a youth growing up in an evangelical household in North Carolina, Aaron Guldenschuh-Gatten said he got some firsthand experience with "conversion therapy" when, as an adolescent, he came out as gay.

His parents sent him to a religious counselor to try to eliminate "my sinful desires," an experience that left him depressed, isolated and, at times, suicidal.

"It's an experience I still have scars from," he said.

Monday, Guldenschuh-Gatten, 32,  joined about 40 others in front of Louisville's Southern Baptist Theological Seminary to protest a three-day conference of the Association of Certified Biblical Counselors on homosexuality and transgenderism.

Activists to protest 'anti-LGBT' conference

Organized by the Fairness Campaign, protesters prayed and held signs opposing what they call misguided efforts at counseling based on the belief homosexuality and transgenderism are wrong or sinful. It prompted horn honks and shouts of support  from drivers passing by the bucolic seminary grounds on Lexington Road.

"This is absolutely and utterly wrong," said the Rev. Maurice Blanchard,  a gay-rights activist in Louisville. "It's spiritual abuse, that's what it is."

The protest also prompted an unexpected press conference in which seminary President Albert Mohler and Heath Lambert, executive director of the counselors' association, sought to explain the purpose of the conference of some 2,300 church-based counselors.

Both Lambert and Mohler, who has emerged as a leading national figure on conservative Christian issues, denied the conference was to promote "conversion therapy," a controversial practice of persuading gay people to become straight, which they said the church does not support.

Rather, they said, it is aimed at helping the church counselors address people who identify as homosexual or transgender and seek counseling within the church.  Such counseling is based on biblical teachings that any sexual relationship outside marriage between a man and woman is sinful, they said.

People seeking counseling would be encouraged to repent a sinful lifestyle, seek forgiveness and avoid future sin, they said.

"We call people to embrace Christian faithfulness," Lambert said.

But protesters at yesterday's event said the practice is essentially the same as conversion therapy.

"They said they are not supporting conversion therapy but that's what it is," Blanchard said.

Conversion therapy is opposed by leading medical associations and has been banned in California, New Jersey, Oregon and Washington, D.C., according to the Fairness Campaign.

Fairness director Chris Hartman said at Monday's protest that conversion therapy and similar methods have common themes, that homosexuality is wrong and individuals can be "fixed" or cured of their sexual orientation.

"I'm sorry that this is happening here in Louisville, Ky.," Hartman said of the conference. "This is not our community."

Mohler, credited with the rightward turn of the seminary in recent years, acknowledged Southern Baptists are not in the mainstream when it comes to popular views on homosexuality and transgenderism.

"We understand the culture around us is operating in an increasingly different world view," Mohler said.

Monday's press conference was held in Carver Hall, once the site of the seminary's Carver School of Social Work, which shut down in 1997 under Mohler's leadership because of  his differences with social work education on issues including homosexuality and the role of women in the church.

The social work school has since reopened at Campbellsville University in Central Kentucky.

The Rev. Joe Phelps, pastor of Louisville's Highland Baptist Church, noted the irony of the event being held at Carver, where the seminary "kicked out" its school of social work.

Phelps, whose church broke with the Southern Baptist Convention over homosexuality and other issues, said he was disappointed that the conference was held at the seminary. Several members of his church, including Blanchard, were at the protest.

"Not only are we welcoming and affirming of the LGBT community, they are called on to be part of the church," Phelps said.

Phelps said his church and Crescent Hill Baptist, which also has split with the Baptist convention, planned a joint service at 7 p.m. Monday to offer "another voice" in the debate about the role of the LGBT community and religion.

Lambert, who also serves on the seminary faculty, said the three-day conference will focus on using the biblical message to counsel people about acceptable sexual behavior and how to move from what the church views as sinful.

But he insisted it is not "conversion" or "reparative" therapy, which he said is shaming and not productive.

And he, like Mohler, acknowledged the issue is far from settled outside the seminary walls.

"We're aware there is a cultural insistence that there is nothing wrong with homosexuality and transgenderism," he said. "We disagree."

Reporter Deborah Yetter can be reached at (502) 582-4228 or dyetter@courier-journal.com