FEEDBACK From: PietrzykM@aol.com

As many of you know, James Dobson of Focus on the Family has been complaining lately of the unfairness of linking the religious right's recent "ex-gay" ad campaign to the death of Matthew Shepard, arguing that the religious right has only love and compassion for the homosexual.

Today in the mail I received my copy of the October 1998 issue of Focus on the Family's magazine Citizen. In the issue is an article ("The Living Proof," pp. 18-21) about the latest Exodus ex-gay conference in Seattle. The article profiles Exodus member Tim Hysom and his father Glen Hysom. Six years ago Glen Hysom's wife revealed to Glen that son Tim had sent a letter to them while he (Tim) was away on missionary work, telling them he was gay. In the letter, Tim complained he didn't want to be gay and blamed his father's absence during his childhood for his subsequent sexual orientation.

The father, Glen Hysom, describes his reaction to the letter before an audience at the Exodus conference [here's a direct quote]:

"It was like a bomb went off right in my lap. One of my kids could not be homosexual. This is an impossibility. They weren't raised that way."

"My next reaction was that I'd just go blow my brains out. But I knew that there would be people hurt. So then I thought, Well I'll just go blow his brains out, so he doesn't have to be homosexual.' But I knew that would hurt all of us, too. So, I'll just go blow that guy's brain out that got [Tim] into the homosexual lifestyle. That'd solve it all.' Well, then I'd go to prison. So I couldn't do any of those things. That's when I decided that since I was part of the problem, I had to be part of the repair." (p. 19)