The founder of an “ex-gay” group has confessed to having multiple sexual encounters with men since 2020.
Jeffrey McCall, who formed Freedom March that holds ex-gay rallies where they claim the “grace and power of Jesus Christ can free LGBT people,” made the confession on his Facebook page Nov. 6.
“In 2020 I met someone that I was trying to help … which led to me being unfaithful to Jesus and giving my heart away,” McCall wrote. “After denying what I wanted with him I then went on to fall sexually with a man when I felt wounded and lonely. This led to multiple falls with men over time.”
Truth Wins Out, an organization dedicated to fighting the anti-gay movement, called McCall a “hypocritical fraud” and demanded that Freedom March be “permanently shut down,” according to Metro Weekly.
McCall said that he had lived as a gay male sex worker and then as a transgender woman named Scarlett before renouncing his sexuality and gender identity and founding Freedom March, as Metro Weekly reported.
He claimed that after the sexual encounters he had “grown so much spiritually” and that moving on made his “relationship with the Lord … even stronger.”
“Jeffrey McCall is a self-serving con artist who runs a fraudulent organization that preys on vulnerable and desperate LGBTQ people who grow up in religious homes,” Truth Wins Out’s Executive Director Wayne Besen said, according to Metro Weekly.
Besen added: “It seems that the real message of the Freedom March is that copious amounts of closeted gay sex are okay, as you feel bad about it and pray after each encounter. This is a tragic, pathological, toxic group that spews dangerous lies into our society.”
Freedom March is the same group that visited Washington D.C. to oppose conversion therapy bans and LGBT rights, Metro Weekly reported.
Conversion therapy, which is a practice to change one's sexual orientation using extreme methods, has been found to be detrimental to the mental health of LGBT people subjected to it.
The United Nations urged a global ban on conversion therapy, labeling it “cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment,” Metro Weekly reported.
Transgender children are four times more likely to attempt suicide because of it, according to a study by Jama Network.
