Exodus International: Open forum

This week Exodus International is holding the annual conference at Ridgecrest, NC.
From time to time on various posts Exodus history comes up. I have been privileged to have numerous Exodus participants past and present comment here over the years, but the comments often go hither and yon.
So I am creating the post for that conversation to continue. I am going to talk to my weboverlord, Paul to see if we can get a link to it in the right column so we can find it easily. So spread the word, if you have ever been involved with Exodus International, feel free to comment here, good or bad. Feel free to cut and paste comments from other threads. I do not intend for this to become a praise or bashing session, rather a forum of sorts to discuss history and impressions, aspirations, positives, areas for improvement, etc. If you really like Exodus, I hope you might glean something from those who do not, read and learn if you will. And if you don’t like it, I hope you will recognize that some others have found much meaning and blessing in the relationships they have formed via Exodus.

Anti-violence group expresses concerns over APA abortion task force

Just over a year ago, I reported on the creation by the American Psychological Association of a task force to study the mental health issues related to abortion.
The task force is slated to report findings at the August, 2008 annual convention. I have obtained letters of concern regarding the timing and composition of the task from a group called Consistent Life. Their mission statement reads:

We are committed to the protection of life, which is threatened in today’s world by war, abortion, poverty, racism, capital punishment and euthanasia. We believe that these issues are linked under a ‘consistent ethic of life’. We challenge those working on all or some of these issues to maintain a cooperative spirit of peace, reconciliation, and respect in protecting the unprotected.

The first letter is here.
APA President Alan Kazdin replied here.
Consistent Life then wrote a follow up response.
The report is not available to the public as yet but will probably be made public during the APA convention. I will be surprised if the report provides reasonable guidelines for informing women of potential risks associated with abortion.

Insure.com in gay lifespan dispute

Boxturtlebulletin is reporting a Cameron citing of some interest. Insure.com has an article on the company website which accepts the lifespan estimates of the Camerons.
We have covered this matter here in depth (e.g. here). To make it easier to follow that nine-part series, I have put it into one article – “Only the gay die young? An exchange between Warren Throckmorton, Morten Frisch, Paul Cameron and Kirk Cameron regarding the lifespan of homosexuals.” All of the posts are included with commentary regarding the arguments presented in that exchange.
As I look at the Insure.com article and the CEO response, I am puzzled why the company has not removed it from the website. I do not believe the Camerons made their case in that article. Also, the one other team which reports a more traditional methodology, Hogg et al, later made it clear that their estimates would be much more positive if current data were used. The author, Joe White, omits that information from his article.
Mr. White quotes the Cameron’s Eastern Psychological Association presentation but does not link to it. It is no longer on the Christian Newswire website but is stored here on the Lifesitenews website. The Cameron’s EPA report is extensively critiqued in my article above by Danish epidemiologist, Morten Frisch and me.

Man sues Bible publishers over references to homosexuality

Actually, what I think he is saying is that the Bible doesn’t really mean homosexual when in I Corinthians 6, homosexual is listed. As I understand it, from this USA Today article, he is arguing that the publishers used the term homosexual in the translation with intent to harm him as a member of that class. I think Zondervan and Thomas Nelson will prevail…