Report on Jane Boyer: Female Homosexuality, a talk given at the Memphis Love Won Out Conference

by Maggie Heineman

Conference Bio:  After being freed from lesbianism, Jane represented Exodus International as a speaker and board member, and founded Amazing Grace Ministries, an Exodus referral agency  She is a registered nurse currently working on an advanced degree in medicine.  Jane has been a guest on Phil Donahue, Jerry Springer, Geraldo and the 700 Club and has been interviewed on numerous radio programs.  She is also a popular speaker in universities and churches.  Jane and her husband have been married for 20 years and have two children.  They live in Portland, Maine. 

Selected links:
Bangor Daily News: Gay lifestyle rejected for life with God
(article about Jane Boyer)
1998 Maine GayNet Archives
(articles about referendum battle in Maine)
Straight Talk: Transcript of FRC Broadcast
(Boyer, Michael Johnston, Gary Bauer, & Robert Knight)

Plenary: The causes of female homosexuality 

Boyer, who has been married for twenty years and has two adopted children from India, began her talk with her personal story, her testimony.  Her parents were alcoholics, her father was abusive and she was molested as a child.  Speaking at the speed of an automatic weapon, she fires out her earlier view of men, "You  just
line them up against the wall and I will shoot them all and let God sort them out thank you." 

She felt that if being a woman meant being a victim, helpless, vulnerable to abuse, a sex object, she wanted no part of it. "I hated the feminine and needed to bond with it." 

Boyer reports intense emotional attachments with women from an early age, usually with teachers. She was an unhappy, lonely teenagers who started using drugs and alcohol at 13.  Soon after her marriage she went to a gay bar, felt accepted for the first time in her life. A double life began.    She was ambivalent about the lesbian community, drawn to it and to the relationships she established, yet believing it to be wrong, she would vow to stay away.  Then she would break the vow and return.  This pattern continued for years. 

At the age of five Boyer had accepted God, whom she  understood to be like her father. "If you have an absent father, then on a heart level, you have an absent God."    "I could never do enough to earn my father’s love, or God’s love."

At this point, the talk moved from Boyer’s personal story to an exposition of conservative Christian theology, then it returned to the personal story. 

Boyer had consulted with Christian counselors  (not born again believers) who advised her to accept her homosexuality and leave her husband.  She had came to believe that there was no hope for change, no hope for her marriage.  Her double life ended when her husband found out.  She was faced with difficult decisions: a choice between her husband, "a fine Christian man for whom I had no desire at that time," and her lesbian relationship which she felt she could not live without. She had to choose between the two theological views. (Boyer's  talk was heavily laced with statements about how wrong pro-gay theology is.) She had to choose between the gay community, which gave her support and acceptance, and the church which she felt was cold and detached.  She turned to alcohol and considered suicide. 

Then she turned to Jesus.  She attended an Exodus conference.  She saw worship like she had never seen before. "I wanted the relationship with Jesus Christ which I  saw in those former homosexuals." That was 10 years ago. She did not want to give up her lesbian relationship, but she did. "It’s been a process, a painful process." 

Jane Boyer has had a mystical experience.  "When you have an encounter with the Glory of God you will never be the same." 

The rest of the talk was an exposition of the conservative Christian view of gender identity.  "Every empirical fact contains its beyond."  "When a soul needs healing there is an imbalance between the masculine and the feminine." "The feminine attributes of God are best seen in His Son, Jesus."  "When we submit before God, we are all feminine before God." "We all come from dysfunctional families"  "We first need to acknowledge we are broken before we can become whole." "The role of the opposite sex parent is to affirm the gender that was planted by the same-sex parent." "The violation of a little girl’s emotions, her physical body through physical or sexual abuse, will cause her to shut down in traumatic fear with any relationship involving men."  "We need to realize there are no yearnings, no wounds and no bondages too great for his love and healing. Jesus has the power, the patience and the compassion to give back abundantly." 

Breakout: The treatment  of female homosexuality 

Boyer's talk, "The Crucible of Christian Suffering," gives a conservative Christian view on suffering as a path toward healing. For example:

(reads Luke 24:26). "The key to suffering is to know that there is Another in you."If I were a secular therapist I would be very fearful to lead my clients into their suffering without Another in them because the suffering in the human soul can be so great that you can lose your mind. But when there is Another there, when there is Another in you, then you know that you will not lose your mind and you know that you are not alone and you know that you will get through it."  (reads John 15:4, Galatians 2:20)