Ex-gay ministry Exodus hires lobbyist as 'Director of Governmental Affairs'

Box Turtle Bulletin's Jim Burroway reports that pray-away-the-gay Exodus organization has denied having a political agenda in the past, saying it is only a ministry to save gay people who want to be "free" of homosexuality, but clearly, this move makes it clear that's not the case. It was only a matter of time before it jumped whole hog into political lobbying.

At the Exodus Freedom Conference, Amanda Banks, the new Director of Governmental Affairs gave a talk ("Revolutionizing the Public Square") which outlined this shift.

Playing on the "Revolution" theme of the conference, she talked about the unique role Exodus is playing in "bringing about a revolution, to affect a radical change in" the larger culture - more specifically, in public policy.

Take note of the wingnut welfare connections of these folks.

Unlike most employees at Exodus, Amanda Banks is not a "former homosexual," although she said she has a family member "affected by homosexuality.' She graduated with honors in public policy from Indiana University, and joined Focus on the Family to spend four years as Focus's chief liaison to Congress working as a federal policy analyst.

It just so happened that her cubicle at Focus's Colorado Springs headquarters was located next to Melissa Fryrear's, a prominent Love Won Out speaker. Through Banks's day-to-day association with Fryrear, she got to know Alan Chambers and Randy Thomas and their "growing desire to be relevant to the culture" -- in other words, to make Exodus a more explicitly political organization. She and her husband moved to back to their home state of Indiana and she was hired by Exodus last March. She works from her home in Indiana.

But Amanda Banks still retains extensive ties with Focus on the Family. In addition to her position with Exodus, she is also vice-president of The Wabash Group, a public affairs firm dedicated to conservative political candidates and causes. Her husband Jim Banks is President. He is also a former Focus on the Family organizer for their Family Policy Councils, and the Wabash Group list Focus on the Family at the very top of their list of clients and employers.

Banks also spewed the oft-repeated lies about hate crimes legislation and ENDA as talking points. She has even adopted the insane Lou Sheldon's (of the Traditional Values Coalition) ludicrous claims  that ENDA would require would require religious organizations to hire pedophiles and multiple "sexual orientations" such as:

apotemnophilia, asphyxophilia, autogeynphilia, bisexual, corprophilia, exhibitionism, fetishism/sexual fetishism, frotteurism, heterosexuality, homosexual, gender identity disorder, gerontosexuality, incest, kleptophilia, klismaphilia, necrophilia, partialism, pedophilia, prostitution, sexual masochism, sexual sadism, telephone scatalogia, toucherism, transgenderism, transsexual, transvestite, transvestic fetishism, urophilia, voyeurism, or zoophilia/bestiality

I'm not kidding.

Go read the rest.