LGBTQ activists applied additional pressure to Amazon following the removal of works of authors who once lived and identified as gay.
Books by Anne Paulk of the Restored Hope Network and Christian counselor Joe Dallas are among the latest works to be pulled from the giant online retailer.
Paulk is the ex-wife of John Paulk who ran a Christian catering business in Portland, Oregon, who from 1998 to 2003, was an advocate of the ex-gay movement and conversion therapy, before coming out of the closet In April 2013, John Paulk disavowed his belief in gay reparative therapy and issued a formal apology for his role as an advocate of the movement.
He founded and led the ministry Love Won Out, which was launched by the organization Focus on the Family. From 1998 to 2003, he was chairman of the board of Exodus International North America. His memoir Not Afraid To Change (1998) took on his attempts to change his same-sex desires. After Paulk was caught partying at a gay bar that same year, both organizations disciplined him, but he remained with the hate group Focus on the Family until 2003. He resigned as Exodus board chairman but continued his elected position until his term was completed.
Dallas is an “ex-gay” who wrote the charming book Desires in Conflict: Hope For Men Who Struggle with Sexual Identity and Paulk’s book is Restoring Sexual Identity: Hope For Women Who Struggle with Same-Sex Attraction; they were sold on Amazon until just a few days ago, but sadly, they are now no longer available for purchase.
In one of his books, Dallas distorts and misrepresents everything that LGBTQ Christians have accomplished in the past 30 years and promotes the methods and goals of the “ex-gay” movement, which Dallas helped to start. The statistics that Dallas uses in his book to equate homosexuality with child molesting and the destruction of family values.
Dallas said on Monday:
Amazon’s decision is no surprise since today’s culture is caving to the goals of the LGBTQ political movement, which have always included the silencing of any disapproval of homosexuality.
It would be awfully naive to think it will stop here. First, the LGBTQ movement will convince the culture that telling homosexuals they can change is dangerous. Then they’ll convince the culture that calling homosexuality a sin is dangerous. Then the government will tell the pastors of America what they can or cannot say on this subject, and the culture will approve.
Undeterred by Amazon’s move, Dallas added:
None of us will stop communicating the grace of God evidenced in our lives, and in the lives of those we serve. Peter and John said it so well: ‘Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you more than to God, you judge. For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard’.
Dallas’ other books are still available on Amazon.
In response, Voice of the Voiceless, a group of ex-LGBTQ people, launched petition Monday, demanding that Amazon reverse course. It has nearly 3,000 signatures so far, saying:
Amazon’s book ban puts radical LGBTQ ideology ahead of established science about how people leave homosexuality. It is anti-choice, anti-science, and anti-American.
The removal of the books comes after Amazon pulled books by Joseph Nicolosi, a Catholic psychologist who died in 2017. He wrote several books on therapeutic approaches for people with same-sex attraction. None of my research shows that any of these books are being adapted to film.
