Wednesday, August 12, 2009

$6 million budget shortfall forces Focus on the Family to drop Ex-Gay program - Lez Get Real

I am so sad to hear this!!!! you get back what you dish out!


$6 million budget shortfall forces Focus on the Family to drop Ex-Gay program - Lez Get Real

Citing a “serious budget shortfall” the conservative Christian group, Focus on the Family has been prompted to issue a special fundraising plea, and has also decided to hand over control of its contentious “Love Won Out” Ex-Gay program to another religious organization, a FotF spokesman said Tuesday.

Focus on the Family is looking at a $6 million short fall in its $138 million budget for this fiscal year- a budget larger than all national and regional gay-equality organizations combined.

Focus on the Family, was founded by James Dobson with funding from Edgar D. Prince, the father the Blackwater Worldwide president Erik Prince, in 1977. But last winter, Dobson officially announced he was stepping down as chairman of the Board of Directors, but would continue to serve as host of the Focus on the Family broadcasts and write a monthly column.

The Edgar and Elsa Prince Foundation, which Erick Prince serves as vice president, is also a major donor to FotF, but recent legal troubles for Prince and his mercenary company, both here and overseas, have some speculating that source of funding may be drying up.

Last fall, budget problems caused by big spending during the Proportion 8 fight in California, prompted Focus on the Family to eliminate more than 200 positions.

In total, Focus on the Family spent $727,250 on the campaign to ban gay marriage in California last November.

Jim Daly, president and CEO of the Colorado Springs, Colo. based organiation said in a letter to approximately 800,000 donors, “Right now we’re facing a serious budget shortfall that threatens our ability to reach out to parents, families and married couples who count on our help. Income is down nearly $6 million from what we expected and planned for this year. I want to assure you that we’re committed to good stewardship AND living within our means, just as so many families are today.”

Focus on the Family also announced yesterday it would no longer hold its “Love Won Out” conferences across the country that promised to “help men and women dissatisfied with living homosexually,” and they will now be presented by the Orlando, Fla.-based Exodus International, whose message is “Freedom from homosexuality through the power of Jesus Christ.” The last Love Won Out conference run by Focus on the Family will be held in Birmingham, Ala., in November.

Gay rights groups have long criticized such initiatives as harmful. The American Psychological Association last week said mental health professionals should not tell gay clients they can become straight through therapy or other treatments.

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