The Daily Signal - A Journey Into - and Then Out of Homosexuality

Episode Date: November 4, 2019

Those struggling with same-sex attraction or hoping to walk away from a homosexual lifestyle may find some encouragement from Liz Flaherty and Elizabeth Woning, who both once lived a lesbian lifestyle. While leading their own organizations to help individuals transition out of homosexuality, Flaherty and Woning are also a part of a growing movement called CHANGED - a supportive and loving community of those who once identified as LGBTQ+. In today’s episode, we sit down with Flaherty and Woning to hear their stories and discuss some of the current legislation being advocated for that could have detrimental effects on organization that offer counseling services for those struggling with homosexuality.  Learn more about Elizabeth Woning’s organization, Equipped to Love, here: https://www.equippedtolove.com/. And learn more about Liz Flaherty's organization here: http://lizgflaherty.com/. You can also follow the CHANGED Movement at their website or on Instagram. Also on today’s show:  We read your letters to the editor. You can leave us a message at 202-608-6205 or write to us at [e-mail]. And we share a good news story about a police officer who went above and beyond to help a local family in need.  The Daily Signal podcast is available on Ricochet, Apple Podcasts, Google Play, or your favorite podcast app. All of our podcasts can be found at dailysignal.com/podcasts. Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Daily Signal podcast for Monday, November 4th. I'm Jared Stepman. And I'm Virginia Allen. Today, we share an interview with Liz Flaharty and Elizabeth Wanning, both of whom once lived a homosexual lifestyle, but now lead or co-lead organizations that work with individuals who want to leave the gay or lesbian lifestyle or who are struggling with same-sex attraction. We also share your letters to the editor and a good news story about a very generous police

officer who went out of his way to help a family in need. Before we get to today's show, Jared and I want to tell you about one of the best ways to keep up with the news and events that matter to conservatives. The agenda is a weekly email that breaks down the top issues you need to know about every week. It comes out on Monday morning and gives you the conservative perspective on important issues, along with television interviews from our experts and important events happening at the Heritage Foundation. You can sign up by visiting heritage.org and typing your email address to the subscribe to email updates section at the bottom of the page.

Now stay tuned for today's show. Coming up next. I am joined by Liz Flaherty and Elizabeth Waning. Liz and Elizabeth both lead or co-lead Christian organizations that work with people who are seeking to walk away from the homosexual lifestyle or who are struggling with same-sex attraction. Liz and Elizabeth, thank you both so much for. being here. Thank you. Thank you. So Elizabeth, you co-lead a ministry called Equip to Love in California with Ken Williams. And we actually interviewed Ken this podcast back in May and heard a bit about his journey from struggling with same-sex attraction to now being married, so a wonderful woman and having a family. But today I would love to hear a bit about your story. You lived as a proud lesbian for quite

some time and even as an openly homosexual pastor in the Presbyterian Church. So when did you first come out as a lesbian and how long did you live in that lifestyle? You know, it's a little bit hard for me to say when did I first come out because I first really started questioning my sexuality when I was 16 when I first got involved with a woman. But I still tried to make relationships with men work. I still dated men. I got married briefly after graduating from college. So in all of that time, I didn't come out, but here I was questioning. So I think it's important that people recognize that the point at which you come out is not the time when you begin your lesbian life. Like for most of us, starting as a very young child is when the confusion begins.

And so I had years and years and years of grappling with whether I was a lesbian before actually coming out. But I had a mental breakdown while I was married to. my first husband and after coming out of the hospital really I decided that I would come out and so I left my marriage and moved into a metropolitan gay community and started that new life and I lived in the community for about 10 years before going to seminary openly gay which was a really big deal now it would be a big deal today but that was 20 years ago when I did that and so 20 years ago it was a monumental deal. At the time, I was an elder in my local church. And when I decided that I would pursue a seminary degree, I remember telling my pastor, Chris, I had been talking to my pastor for about a

year as he was really ministering to me as I struggled with mental illness. I had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder with that first hospitalization. And so I was grappling with how to survive my life, and I felt that going the route of doing a seminary degree and pursuing theology was something that would give me really deep hope and purpose. And so I was going that route. But that meant coming out to my church, I was an elder in my church. And so coming out to my church, the first thing that happened was I was asked to resign my position as an elder. Even though I didn't have any intention of being in relationship with a woman, like back then, the phrase that we used,

was chastity and singleness. And so I was going this route of pursuing a seminary degree in a really nonsensical environment. You know, I was one of probably five or six students that they admitted who were gay, openly gay, and the Presbyterian Church was not ordaining gays and lesbians. So it was a big deal. And while I was in seminary,

we were grappling with how to understand our sexuality in the context of scriptural. So there was a great rewrite of the Bible that took place in that season for my life. And really it wasn't until I graduated from seminary and began trying to do ministry. Now I understand I couldn't be ordained, but I had a heart to do ministry. It was really in that first year after I graduated that I had an encounter with Jesus that caused me to begin questioning my theology, the doctrine that I had believed. I completely reread the Bible and took a close view.

at what did God say specifically about himself. In fact, I did this entire study, not questioning my sexuality, not questioning my identity, but questioning his. And it was in the context of that study that I began to see something entirely new and fresh that I'd never seen before

that I wanted to be a part of. And I began to question whether there was something in my life that had hindered me from experiencing that. And that's what caused me to question my sexuality. I thought, has my mind, my life, my dedication to this theological view driven me away from God? And when I began to unpack that,

I found perhaps that it had. And I began repenting. I just began following this walk of identifying what holiness was and righteousness was. And I recognized that God perhaps could give me life. So in the context of I had tried to commit suicide, I was, although I started my college career at 20-ish, really very hopeful for my life. By that point, I was in desperate need and he began to give me the thought that I had value and he was pursuing me. And so it became

the most important thing in my life to experience communion with God. And so with that, I was willing to question my sexuality, question my theology, question my lifestyle. So I mean, at that point in my life, I didn't own any women's clothes. I shaved my head. I had many piercings. I have several tattoos. and so, I mean, I was, I went through a very personal, internal, complete breakdown of everything that I had believed just for the sake of experiencing communion with God. Well, Elizabeth, thank you so much for sharing. That's just incredibly powerful to hear and just so significant, I think, to hear what you personally experienced.

And Liz, I want to take a minute to ask you a little bit about your story. So you're the executive director of a ministry based in Tennessee that also works with those coming out of the homosexual lifestyle or struggling with that same-sex attraction. So what was your journey into and then out of the lesbian lifestyle? Sure. So I grew up in Northern California. My parents were pastors, some of God pastors. And they had two high pain jobs at Hewlett-Packard in Silicon Valley. I was born in Silicon Valley and we moved up to this little town of 12th. hundred people when I was seven to pretty much become missionaries, is the way I put it. And I very much struggled with early on with feeling that I belonged and that I had a voice and that I was

received. I think growing up as a contrast like that in that environment, highly liberal environment, being one of the few Christians, although I dearly love that community. I value what we took from that time there. But in that, it was very much, we were just trying to survive financially, socially. My parents worked very hard at feeding the transants going through the town, the homeless, and dealing with a lot of mental illness that was coming to their door. The church was right next to the house. So with that, I struggled with a lot of anxiety and depression, and I told people,

It was probably agoraphobic, just not diagnosed because I had such bad anxiety, couldn't travel, I couldn't go on field trips. It was, they tried to homeschool me. I was in and out of the school system. And so there was a constant trying to just assimilate into the normal life of my peers. And to back up a little bit, I was, I was molested at the age of six by a family member. and that definitely set me on a projection of putting up barriers towards men to protect myself. And of course, you don't realize until later on that that's what was happening in your life. But the narrative of my life began to change from a beloved daughter of God to one who was scarred and renamed by that abuse.

So with that, I enter into sort of those formative years. I was being bullied. I just carried such a spirit of rejection. I was a super heavy kid, chunky girl in a small town. And so in this fish bowl of, so to speak. And so with that, I just found, even though I tried to intimately connect with men, just doing all I could to not feel abnormal because same-sex attractions started to enter in, like Elizabeth said, early on in my adolescence. And so that just looked like when I was with my friends, I could, I felt safe, I could connect, I could open up, I felt valued as when I was with any sort of male peers. There just was not a connection. And I, you know, I experimented. I lost my virginity at 17. I tried. I tried to press in and and be atypical. And so that wasn't, that wasn't happening. And I think I just, I agree.

tired of not being very open and transparent with where I was. I would go to church and my parents just love the Lord. They both had come out of a lot of sexual brokenness and had stories of the Lord redeeming them and they were, you know, amazing. At the same time, it just felt like there was no power of the gospel transforming our lives. We were just surviving, trying to keep our heads above water. So with that, I reasoned I'm, I'm a lesbian. This is why I can't connect. This is why, even though I knew the word said it was wrong, I knew that it was an error of our theology. I didn't see any way out of my pain. And so I came out my senior year and much to the confusion and pain of my parents. And I moved out. I went to college in Eureka, California,

which is a very interesting place to go to school. And just sort of tried to live my life out with my peers and be on my own way. And during that time, during my first semester of college, my mom passed away of cancer very suddenly. And so that left me very much spiraling. And so there came a point where I didn't really have a grid for grace. I didn't understand that I could move towards the Lord in my brokenness. It was very much a, okay, I would kind of sober up. And I was pretty addicted to pornography since the age of 12,

wherever I could have access. And now that I'm in college and I have full access, like I'm just deep in sexual sin and relationships. And although I say I was not very successful lesbian because I was not a very social person. So I was like some of these stories. I'm like, I had all these barters. No, it was on me.

was pretty much a loner. So, but with that, I had an encounter with the Lord midway through college and I was high in my living room and my roommates were gone and, and I just had this, and I know it was the looming of the Lord, this moment where I said, I don't think I'm supposed to talk to you right now. I'm high, but I have no way how to get out of this. I know this isn't this is life. And in that despair, I felt the Holy Spirit come in the room. And it was like this just bursting, fresh breath that I had been so longing for. And, you know, and I, I just knew in that moment, like, I had surrendered and he had responded in love. And I went on this, this journey through the next few years of having a grace to come out of pornography and lay down,

my relationships and or my few relationships and to allow him to guide me and a whole world opened up from that but I still went to school a school of ministry at Bethel. That's how Ken and I have known each other about 20 years from the changed movement. So with that, I still walked through a time of having same-sex attraction but surrendering to the Lord and being sober, I guess is what you would call it and it wasn't until I kind of hit another trauma in my life where my dad passed away. It was only three years after my mom and my brother had come to live with me and he was nine years younger. And so I reached this kind of place again of brokenness of, okay, I don't know how to manage my sexuality.

Longer I can't sustain on where I've been with you, Lord. and through some failures, moral failures, it led me to a ministry called Living Waters. And so it was there that I met with men and women who had walked the same struggle and who imparted that authority of like, here's how you walk with the Lord in your sexuality. And so since then, I mean, the Lord just is so kind and so generous. And just I'm amazed at what he's done, like that I get to go and share, you know, my deepest painful failures and what he has done and redeemed it. And I'm married.

I've been married for 14 years to my wonderful husband, Andy. And so it's just such a joy to walk others through that and see the Lord do the same transformation. And I don't struggle with same sex attraction anymore. As I healed from the trauma of abuse and things like that, those barriers came down and I understood my heart more and how the Lord had created me to welcome in the masculinity. Really, so.

Liz, thank you so much for sharing. So good. So good. And now you all are privileged to walk with other people who are walking a similar road or struggling with those same things that you all have walked through. So I know I've had these conversations with friends of mine

who've come to me and said, you know, that this is something that they're struggling with it. they're struggling with same-sex attraction. And it's honestly difficult in those moments to know how to respond and really how to love them well. So what would you say to friends, to family members who, you know, maybe have had these conversations, who will have these conversations with people that they love dearly? How do we walk with those that we love through this? I think what's really important is to start with our own narrative with the Lord and our own brokenness and not so much making it about the specific manifestation of that, but actually understanding our own walk with the

Lord and how it translates, you know, the power of the gospel translates to every need and covers every sin. And so I think when you disarm that like there's this pinnacle sin of almost sexuality. I'm not saying that there aren't different consequences to different sins, but when you bring it back to we're here, we're happy to be with you. We love you and we want to hear what's going on in your heart. Let us share about what the Lord did in our life. And you come in that posture of humility, that disarms a lot of fear. I think people have a tendency to hide when they think they're going to be persecuted and creating a space where like, We all come before the father in the same way.

I think most of us who have experienced same-sex attraction have a deep sense of rejection. I think it's first internalized rejection. I think you're rejecting yourself. There's an element of that there. And so then you tend to project that onto every person around you. And there's so much fear, you know, rejection is. so painful and there's so much fear that everyone will reject you and so then most christians grapple with okay how do i tell you not please don't embrace this life and so that creates actually this all right

i don't get to embrace this sense this thing that is feeding my need for intimacy um so it just perpetuates that that self-rejection so a very complex issue um it's very complex how to meet it and and so So one of the key things for me is making sure that there's a bridge where people can fully express themselves and feel fully seen and valued in the conversation. Like your first contact with someone when they come out is not to correct their behavior or it's to meet them right where they're at and to be available to walk with them through everything. And so it's to say, oh man, I'm so sorry. How is this impacting your life? and how can I, how do you want me to support you? And it might be, I want you to embrace my lesbian life.

And that, I think that's the dear and the headlight moment for a Christian, right? Where you say, no, I don't think I can embrace that in your life because I don't see that that will, that will bless you. God doesn't, God's not going to bless you in pursuing that lifestyle. But that doesn't, I'm still going to, I'm going to be with you in this as you grapple with this. and I want you to know that I will never sever our relationship on this issue. Because honestly, even our friends or our children who come out who want to go pursue that life, they're pursuing it because everyone has a deep-seated need for intimate connection with other people. And this is the way that they see most clearly will satisfy that need.

And if there isn't some superseding opportunity, like the love of Jesus, and the supportive parents and friends, if there's not something that can also meet or compete with that need for intimacy, then there's no help that can be given. Yeah. I mean, I think if I can just speak to parents, my father, when I came out my senior year,

you know, he did ask me if I, if he could find help for me, I wouldn't take it because I didn't really see how they weren't helping themselves. So that's a real key that I tell parents is make sure that you have, a really a lifestyle of going after wholeness in your own life, dealing with things that might be holding you back in intimacy in your relationship. Just asking the Holy Spirit, Lord, is there work here

that we could be doing with you, partnering with you, to demonstrate to our children, this is the path that you grow in the Lord. This is the path that you address things. And, you know, my father told me I can't I've gone to the Lord I've gone to the word I can't accept this as I've tried because he saw the years of of rejection and of how I grappled with this and so I think there was a part of him that actually wanted to support me in this that maybe this road would I'd find fulfillment but because he went to the Lord and he held to this boundary he it was a place I could come back to after I had sort of you know the Lord was winging me back and so I just would say don't be afraid to hold to your convictions in a way that leaves the door open to your children,

but your home is to be an atmosphere of the Lord. And I know that manifests in different ways, and that's, you can have a whole podcast on that, but just to say it will feel heart-wrenching because you want to draw your children close and sometimes they're choosing to leave with their inheritance. Yeah. Well, and of course, you know, this is an issue that increasingly we're seeing in America that the LGBTQ community is getting louder and it's it's you can you can't ignore it any longer um so you know with uh with legislation such as the equality act how are you all viewing that sort of thing i mean if that was past what kind of effect would that have on the work that you all are doing ministering and and working with those and counseling those that are um

maybe seeking to come out of this lifestyle? Well, first of all, I mean, HR5, the Equality Act and similar bills like that, I think the number one impact that that's going to have is the imposition of an ideology that all of us who've left the LGBTQ life. So anyone who has gone to the work of questioning their sexuality and found resolution like Liz and I have, we know that perpetuating the lifestyle, at least for women,

places this bondage essentially on a person, never opening the door for them to understand kind of repressed needs, repressed traumas. So we're imposing an ideology that would perpetch brokenness, emotional brokenness on a generation. And so I talk to so many people who might never entertain the possibility of being gay or lesbian, were it not for an obtrusive thought. Someone's bullying or someone's suggestion, oh, you're gay, you're a lesbian. Like you don't meet the stereotype for what a man or a woman is, and so therefore you're obviously a lesbian or gay.

and if just the mere suggestion would cause you to begin questioning your sexuality because for me for example until I met my first girlfriend and we began exploring lesbianism I had never heard of it I'd never entertained that idea and that was years ago but nevertheless it was a new thought for me and that thought then became oh this must explain why I am the way I am and there was not any other narrative offered. That's why we had changed. So Kit and I have formed this movement now that's become a movement called change of people who have this story of coming out so that there's this other narrative that's

offered. And it's not a rhetorical narrative, it's stories. So that people begin to say, oh, there's another way. So HR5 would put this blanket over that. and then stifle the opportunity to share those stories. Real censorship's happening now. What will happen when it becomes illegal to suggest there's another narrative,

which is what HR5 would do? It would stifle the voice of every Christian pastor to share the full gospel or to make restrictions on a church's ability to protect its leadership against an ideology. There's no, and no operational. for dissent. So that bill doesn't just impact us and how we how we help people who are realizing, hey, this could not be the ultimate truth of my life. But then it stifles any opposite

narrative in such a totalitarian way. It's so, it's such an, I can't, I can't hardly express how odd HR5 is. And I mean, it saddens me that America is willing to entertain a bill that would supersede the protections that the 1964 Civil Rights Act gives African Americans. So it's like America is willing to forget the current endeavors of the African American community that stand on the Civil Rights Act and divert its attention to the LGBT issue. I think that's a travesty, really. But then beyond that, the restrictions that this bill poses are really dramatic for American liberty.

And Elizabeth, you also mentioned a Senate bill that you're quite concerned with. Can you speak to that for a moment? Yeah, so there's a Senate bill 2008 and a matching House bill 3570. They are called the Therapeutic Fraud Prevention Act. And those center on the dialogue around, I'm going to say it, conversion therapy, which honestly, no one's quite sure what that is. Everyone has a different opinion of what that is, and there is actually no definitive understanding. And the LGBT community would say any sexual orientation change effort, that would be everything from an altar call asking you to repent to meeting with a license. psychotherapist would be conversion therapy.

But it would hinder anyone questioning their sexuality from pursuing restoration or resolution of conflict when they feel that there is an inner conviction that it's not the truth of their life. So basically it says, no, if you're questioning your sexuality, there's only one path for you, and that's to embrace lesbianism. and every other opportunity should be banned. And there's not any scientific evidence. There's not enough study really that indicates that it should be banned.

But it is definitely our politicians caving to what is politically correct in America. And I mean, I can go on at length for that. That's an entire podcast, really. at the lack, the significant lack of study and help for people who are questioning their sexuality because of political correctness. There's an entire history with the American psychiatric and psychological associations of really recusing themselves from real direct scientific study and pursuit of clinical help for people based on political activism from the LGBT community.

And that activism has created this vacuum where certain helps for people who are questioning their sexuality are simply they've never been offered, they've never been pursued in understanding by the APAs. And so what we presume today is impossible is really based on years of a great wall of never even pursuing understanding. And so there's a lack in America of professional care for people.

And so these therapeutic acts, they are actually perpetuating brokenness in our culture. And I really wish that the APAs would promote study that would help that they would actually raise up some adequate professional care for people who are questioning their sexual. particularly for women because scientifically what we see for women is that sexuality tends to be much more fluid. And then there's the added problem that many women who are sexually abused pursue a life of lesbianism because they don't feel safe with men. And so there's added complexity for women in this issue. And so now these bills would say, okay, even though you've been sexually abused, or molested. If you have same-sex desires, we're going to assume that they have nothing to do with that

abuse, and you don't have the right to any care other than affirming care for that new sexual orientation. And Liz and Elizabeth, you all are here in Washington, D.C. to talk to a number of different leaders about this, about this sort of legislation, how it would affect the work that you all are doing. Have you been receiving a positive response? from those on the hill? What maybe have been some of those interactions?

What are your hopes for some of those interactions? Well, our hope for, first of all, the reason, the main reason we've come to Washington is to share our stories. Really, the mandate for changed and the changed movement is just to share our stories because no one gets to hear from us.

And so most of what we're doing is just doing that. We've been received with curiosity. mostly. And people who might presume that we're anti-LGBT really don't know what we're doing or talking about. On the hill, we've mostly raised eyebrows, and I think that when people talk to us, they realize that we're coming in as low as we possibly can, trying to create an atmosphere of dialogue and conversation around this divisive issue so that there's a new way. I mean, we just need a new way to dialogue about this issue in America. And I think Americans are capable of embracing that. Well, listen, Elizabeth, I am so thankful for you all joining the Daily Signal podcast

and for your time today. We really, really appreciate it. Thank you so much. Can I just say that the changed movement can be found on Instagram at changed movement. Okay. hashtag changed movement. Same thing on Facebook. Or equipped to love.com, which is where Ken and I can be found at Bethel Church. And mine is Liz G-Flaherty.com. So L-I-Z-G-F-L-A-H-R-T-Y.

Okay, great. What the heck is trickle-down economics? Does the military really need a space force? What is the meaning of American exceptionalism? I'm Michelle Cordero. I'm Tim Desher. And every week on the Heritage Explains podcast, we break down a hot button policy issue in the news at a 101 level.

Through an entertaining mix of personal stories, media clips, music, and interviews, we help you actually understand the issues. So do this. Subscribe to Heritage Explains on iTunes, Google Play, or wherever you get your podcast today. Thanks for sending us your letters to the editor. Each Monday, we feature our favorites on the show and in our morning bell email newsletter. Virginia, who's up first? Well, a teacher named Brett Kiefer wrote in saying,

thank you very much for your insightful, thought-provoking analysis of current events. Your reports provide excellent guidance for class discussion and principled foundational philosophy of citizenship for my students. I appreciate the diligent effort of your staff. You're making a difference in America. And Joanne Kina of Pensacola, Florida, writes, I recently watched Heritage Foundation President Kay Coles James on C-SPAN and wanted to call right away to praise and encourage her for the fantastic job she is doing. I highly commend Mrs. James for her spirit.

Please continue to do the great job your organization is doing for such a great cause. Your letter could be featured on next week's show. Send an email to Letters at DailySignal.com or leave a voicemail message at 202-608-6205. We are going to leave it there for today. The Daily Signal podcast comes to you from the Robert H. Bruce Radio Studio at the Heritage Foundation. You can find it on the Rurcache Audio Network. All our shows can be found at daily signal.com slash podcasts. You can also subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, or your favorite podcast app.

And be sure to listen every weekday by adding the Daily Signal podcast as part of your Alexa Flash briefing. If you like what you hear, please. leave us a review and a five-star rating. It really means a lot to us and helps us spread the word to other listeners. Be sure to follow us on Twitter at DailySignal and Facebook.com slash the DailySignal News. Have a great week. The Daily Signal podcast is executive produced by Rob Bluey and Virginia Allen. Sound design by Lauren Evans and Thalia Rambersad. For more information, visitdailysignal.com.