Last week, members of the Changed Movement gathered on the steps of the California State Capitol and rallied for gay people who want to find Christ and abandon the “LGBTQ lifestyle.”

The organization’s name is slippery, and that may be the point.

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Ex-gay group “Changed” is part of a bizarre faith-healing cult. Don’t fall for it.  
The group also tries to raise people from the dead and re-grow lost limbs through prayer.

The group of so-called ex-gays is a political successor to the infamous and disbanded Exodus International “ex-gay” ministry, which shut its doors in 2013 as its president admitted “conversion therapy” doesn’t work.

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Now, the same forces behind that failed movement are backing the amorphously titled Changed movement, a repackaged “religious freedom” version of the failed Exodus.

On Thursday, they ostensibly gathered in Sacramento to celebrate the June 12 anniversary of the failure of a 2018 California bill that would have labeled conversion therapy “fraud,” according to speakers at the event. But it was more about keeping their repackaged argument for “conversion therapy” in the news.

In March, the Supreme Court agreed to hear a case challenging local and state laws banning the debunked practice for LGBTQ+ youth, with a decision expected in 2026.

The challenge was filed by Alliance Defending Freedom, which shares ties with Changed Movement and its primary sponsor, the mega Bethel Church in Redding, California, just north of Sacramento.

The host church has 11,000 members and a $60 million annual budget. In 2020, Bethel was the fifth-largest employer in Shasta County, where Redding is the county seat. 

ADF is wielding unprecedented influence right now in its fights against marriage equality, reproductive rights, gender-affirming care, and other right-wing Christian causes, and within the presidential administration. They’re listed as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. 

The new argument justifying “conversion therapy” holds that banning the practice is an infringement on religious freedom and raises Christ to the level of primary “counselor” in the conversion.

The Catholic News Agency helped sell the rebrand in a story on the Sacramento news conference that focused on the group’s founder, Ken Williams.

“Through his relationship with God — and with the support of a good counselor — Williams recovered from the LGBTQ lifestyle after more than a decade of wrestling with same-sex attraction,” CNA wrote of Williams’ testimony from the State Capitol steps.

Williams “struggled with suicidal ideation because he was torn — he was a Christian, but he also had same-sex attraction.”

“My faith convictions were that God wanted me to live a life not including those letters [LGBTQ],” Williams said.

“When his church and family helped connect him with a Christian psychologist, Williams started his path to healing. He went on to meet with the counselor weekly for five years.

“I was never suicidal after that,” CNA quoted Williams in the new “conversion therapy” pitch. “I got to know God as the one who forgives and has grace for my struggles.”

Conversion therapy has been linked with anxiety, severe psychological distress, depression, alcohol abuse, and suicidal attempts.

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