“Apple made a wise and responsible decision to dump an offensive app that demonized gay and lesbian people…. The real winners today are LGBT youth who are safer and less at risk for receiving Exodus’ malice and misinformation.”
Statement released by Wayne Besen, Executive Director of Truth Wins Out, a pro-gay rights organization dedicated to exposing the lies put forth by “ex-gay” ministries and therapists. Here, Besen applauds the apparent decision by Apple to remove the Exodus International app from the iTunes app store. (Truth Wins Out)
Last Word relayed the news last week that Jeff Buchanan was telling a Christian news service “we fear that Apple will censor our ability to get the message out.”
Since then, over 140,000 people signed an online petition at Change.org asking Apple to remove the potentially harmful application from its store.
Exodus seemed particularly boastful of the fact that Apple initially had cleared the application for consumption by all audiences, including 4-year-old children:
”Receiving a 4+ rating from Apple (applications in this category contain no objectionable material), this application is designed to be a useful resource for men, women, parents, students, and ministry leaders.”
Besen rejected the notion yesterday that removing the application from iTunes would somehow prevent Exodus’ right to free speech (Falls Church News Press):
”Apple is a private company and not a government, meaning that they serve as the gatekeeper of who gets to use their technology to disseminate messages. Saying that nixing Exodus’ app is a violation of free speech is as absurd as saying that crooners booted off American Idol are having their free speech rights violated.”
Exodus International was founded by two married men, Michael Bussee and Gary Cooper, who tried to convince themselves that they could “pray the gay away.” The men fell in love while running the organization, and left it in 1979 after declaring the “reparative therapy” failed to work. As the surviving founder, Bussee has been speaking out since 1991 against the bogus aims of the organization he started.
