In what looks like a home office, Deb Kluttz, the executive pastor of Westview Community Church, sits behind her desk. Around the room are photos of her family, inspirational quotes and knickknacks that hint at a chocolate addiction. Surrounded by three bookshelves, bursting with counseling, wellness and religious texts, she leans forward to discuss the church’s view of homosexuality.
“Homosexuality — really we would call that sexual brokenness, particularly from a church’s perspective,” Kluttz said.
She defined the “sexually broken” as people who have been harmed through adverse sexual behaviors, particularly “sexual abuse, rape, molestation, even getting into sexual addiction.”
Unique among area churches, Westview Community Church has taken Kluttz’s views and used it to develop an outreach program for Manhattanites.
Westview offers a program called “Living Waters” for those who are conflicted about their sexuality. Living Waters is a 20-lesson program for people seeking healing in areas of “sexual and relational brokenness.” It is part of a worldwide initiative started by Desert Streams Ministries, which is headquartered in Kansas City, Mo.
“It’s important for people to go to therapy and do the one-on-one thing,” Kluttz said. “It still makes it very personal and private and I think that needs to be done too, but when you get into a support recovery group, there is another piece that can be very, very healing.”
Andy Comiskey, founder and director of Desert Stream Ministries, was a homosexual at one time but has since authored four books about avoiding homosexual relationships. He is now married with children. Desert Stream Ministries did not respond to an interview request.
Westview held its first local Living Waters program last year and has scheduled another session to begin in January 2010.
“We are the only one in Kansas that is doing it,” Kluttz said.
Due to the sensitive issues addressed in the counseling, the specific times and locations are withheld by the church to protect the identities of participants.
The program is part of Recovery Ministries offered at Westview. Recovery Ministries offer a variety of programs ranging from a women’s support group to pre-engagement and premarital counseling.
Jenine Reimer, a former Living Waters small group leader, said the idea to bring the program to Westview was presented to Kluttz by Anita Peterman, a member of the congregation and a former employee of Living Waters. Peterman did not respond to requests for an interview.
Homosexuality and sexual brokenness [being homosexual] are issues that are clear to the church, Kluttz said, adding that people who are homosexual would not be operating as their “true self, not the way God created them to function.”
Dusty Garner, senior in political science, said he believes he functions as he should and is not surprised Manhattan has a local “reparative therapy” counseling program. He is a leader in the local community for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning and intersex people.
Garner said he routinely hears of churches offering programs to “fix” those born with a same-sex orientation. He said LGBTQI issues are especially tough for young adults who are raised in a conservative or religious area like Kansas.
“I think that when you are young and impressionable, you’re raised in your religion generally because that is what your family has practiced,” Garner said. “If your family is telling you what you are doing is wrong, then you’re left with these deep inner conflicts that make you inherently feel like less of a person.”
Organized religion is not the only area of life that can make a member of the LGBTQI community feel inferior. The Kansas state government has also been slow to recognize the community in a political and legal sense.
Updated in July 2009, The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force lists Kansas as one of the states lacking nondiscrimination laws based on sexual orientation or gender identity. While Kansas does offer hate crime laws, it only protects against sexual orientation, failing to encompass crimes relating to gender identity.
Westview Church offers the Living Waters program as a ministry and makes it clear that no therapy is involved. Being a church, the mission of a ministry is to promote Biblical values versus the scientific and societal values addressed in clinical therapy environments. There are, however, parallels to therapy. The program focuses on dealing with highly charged issues and members are encouraged to process through their past traumas together. Also, while the program is facilitated by members of the church, at least two group leaders hold advanced degrees in the area of marriage and family therapy and social work.
Reimer, who is a licensed marriage and family therapist and a licensed social worker, said she was able to remove her therapist “hat” to work as a small group leader in the program. Reimer said just to be certain, she asked her former clinical supervisor at K-State to look over the program to ensure it was not violating any code of ethics she upholds as a marriage and family therapist.
“I respect people’s right to choose what they want, and as a therapist you’re really supposed to keep your personal feelings out of that,” Reimer said. “I don’t go into that program thinking I’m a marriage and family therapist, but I am very cognizant of anything that I do that it would reflect on me and my profession.”
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BTW, if you think that media have no social responsibility in their reporting, you are wrong. Take the issue of suicides. They are noteworthy in their own sense and they can drum up readership with a tale of tragedy and despair. However, suicides are downplayed and generally under reported where possible. There is a strong link between exposure of suicides and increases in the number of suicides.When the scientific evidence and appropriate professionals state that there is no clear evidence that sexual orientation can be changed and when their is evidence that such programs can be harmful to individuals, it IS the Collegian's social responsibility to make this known. This article carries no such warning. This would not be bias, this is called acting socially responsible.
Please stop hating on change-oriented churches and resource groups, and also stop hating on former homosexuals. Start today, it's okay.