Radicalized by Human Decency

BREAKING: The man who ran America's most notorious “gay cure” ministry has been arrested in an UNDERAGE SEX STING.

Alan Chambers spent years telling gay people they were broken and needed to be fixed. On Tuesday, he was arrested in Winter Park, Florida, charged with soliciting sex from someone he believed was a 14-year-old boy.

Chambers, 54, was the longtime leader of Exodus International — the Orlando-based organization that was for decades the flagship of the American "conversion therapy" movement, claiming it could cure homosexuality through prayer and counseling. In 2013, he shut the organization down, publicly apologized to the LGBTQ community, and acknowledged that he had spent years masking his own attraction to men.

Now, according to an Orange County arrest affidavit, he spent months on Snapchat, text messages, and Telegram communicating with an undercover detective who identified himself as a 14-year-old boy living in Orlando. Chambers allegedly discussed meeting and engaging in sexual activity with the person he believed was a teenager — repeatedly — over several months beginning in February.

The affidavit says Chambers expressed concern multiple times about the age difference and getting caught. He deleted communications. He told the detective he didn't want anyone to find out. He asked the teenager to take an Uber to meet him near his office.

Investigators connected the accounts to Chambers through Google records, AT&T records, and his own confirmation when confronted.

He is charged with solicitation of a minor via computer, transmitting harmful material to a minor, and unlawful use of a two-way communication device. He was booked without bond.

The cruelty of Exodus International's legacy cannot be overstated. For decades, the organization told gay and lesbian people — including children — that their identity was sinful and changeable. LGBTQ leaders said at the time of the group's closure that people who went through the program experienced profound shame and lasting emotional harm.

Chambers personally inflicted that shame on untold numbers of people while, by his own admission, concealing his own sexuality.

The hypocrisy is breathtaking — but it is not new.

The Christian right has a long and documented history of this exact pattern. Josh Duggar, the former Family Research Council lobbyist who campaigned against LGBTQ rights, was convicted in 2021 of receiving and possessing child sexual abuse material.

Dennis Hastert, the Republican Speaker of the House who championed "family values" legislation, was revealed to have sexually abused multiple boys during his years as a wrestling coach.

Ted Haggard, the evangelical megachurch pastor and regular White House adviser who preached against homosexuality, was caught in a years-long relationship with a male sex worker.

Larry Craig, the Republican senator who voted against gay rights legislation, was arrested for soliciting sex in a Minneapolis airport men's room.

Bob Allen, a Florida Republican state representative who co-sponsored an anti-gay bill, was arrested for offering to pay an undercover officer for oral sex in a park bathroom.

There is a reason the loudest voices against LGBTQ equality so often turn out to have been hiding something. Projection is not a political strategy. It is a confession.

As of now, the charges against Chambers are allegations. He is presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. But the pattern speaks for itself.