I am happy and very grateful that I'm gay. I'm also happy and very grateful that Jesus loves me exactly as I am and MADE me exactly as I am. I would tend to support a movie like this, but it surprised me by leaving me completely flat.
All the people interviewed as victims of Love in Action seem to be quite articulate, healthy and remarkably well-adjusted, which leaves me asking, "What harm did LIA do these people?" If anything, they seem better adjusted than people I know who never even heard of LIA or Exodus or any other ex-gay ministry.
It's as if the LIA experience strengthened them and clarified for them that being gay really ISN'T something they can change. That's good, not bad. When a documentary that proposes to expose something bad ends up making it look not so bad at all, the documentary must be a failure, right?
There's no passion in this movie, no fire in its belly, no exposé of abuse or injustice, nothing to get stirred up and indignant about. The movie just shows a few mild-mannered, well-intentioned, respectful protesters protesting against a few mild-mannered, well-intentioned (misguided, certainly, but evidently harmless), respectful people running a silly but harmless sort of ministry.
There's a lot of talk in this movie about shame and fear and hatred, but there is not a single sign of anything like that anywhere in it. It's just very bland. A lot of talk, but no bite.
I'm not saying that the ex-gay movement is harmless by any means, but that's how this movie makes it look; so this movie fails in its mission.
The only truly disturbing element in this movie is the parents who are so blind and so screwed up themselves that they would force their child against his will into a program whose intention is to make the child into something the parents are not ashamed of. That is abominable and inexcusable abuse.
The kid in this movie is lucky that the program his horrible parents sent him to was so innocuous. If he has lasting emotional scars from this ordeal, they will be from what his cruel, selfish parents did to him, not from what the silly people at Love in Action did to him.
If the title of this movie had been This Is What Bad Parenting Looks Like, and if the parents had been the target of the exposé instead of the LIA program, the movie would have been more successful. But by focusing on a silly, harmless program rather than on the contempt parents show their children in forcing them INTO those programs, the movie missed its mark.
All the people interviewed as victims of Love in Action seem to be quite articulate, healthy and remarkably well-adjusted, which leaves me asking, "What harm did LIA do these people?" If anything, they seem better adjusted than people I know who never even heard of LIA or Exodus or any other ex-gay ministry.
It's as if the LIA experience strengthened them and clarified for them that being gay really ISN'T something they can change. That's good, not bad. When a documentary that proposes to expose something bad ends up making it look not so bad at all, the documentary must be a failure, right?
There's no passion in this movie, no fire in its belly, no exposé of abuse or injustice, nothing to get stirred up and indignant about. The movie just shows a few mild-mannered, well-intentioned, respectful protesters protesting against a few mild-mannered, well-intentioned (misguided, certainly, but evidently harmless), respectful people running a silly but harmless sort of ministry.
There's a lot of talk in this movie about shame and fear and hatred, but there is not a single sign of anything like that anywhere in it. It's just very bland. A lot of talk, but no bite.
I'm not saying that the ex-gay movement is harmless by any means, but that's how this movie makes it look; so this movie fails in its mission.
The only truly disturbing element in this movie is the parents who are so blind and so screwed up themselves that they would force their child against his will into a program whose intention is to make the child into something the parents are not ashamed of. That is abominable and inexcusable abuse.
The kid in this movie is lucky that the program his horrible parents sent him to was so innocuous. If he has lasting emotional scars from this ordeal, they will be from what his cruel, selfish parents did to him, not from what the silly people at Love in Action did to him.
If the title of this movie had been This Is What Bad Parenting Looks Like, and if the parents had been the target of the exposé instead of the LIA program, the movie would have been more successful. But by focusing on a silly, harmless program rather than on the contempt parents show their children in forcing them INTO those programs, the movie missed its mark.