Google Chrome featured the anti-bullying “It Gets Better Project” in its new ad, and now the ex-gay ministry Exodus International is outraged. Alan Chambers, the president of Exodus, is upset that Woody from Toy Story is featured in Google’s ad sending an anti-suicide message to bullied LGBT youth, with Woody saying, “you’ll be fine, partner.” Chambers condemns the ad, which also includes stories from celebrities, a police officer and gay parents, in The Christian Post, saying that the answer to anti-gay bullying is for gay youth to become “ex-gays” like him:
Children all over the world, including my two children are fans of ‘Toy Story’ and to see a character like that endorsing something that at this point children have no need to know about, it’s disappointing,” he told The Christian Post.
Chambers, who overcame homosexuality and is now a father of two, suspects that if the commercial airs while he and his children are watching a show and “if they happen to see that and ask questions and if they get the full understanding of what the commercial is actually about, we will have to have the conversation. It’s not something I plan to talk to my kids, 5 and 6, about.”
“For organizations like Exodus International, which has thousands of men and women like me who have lived a gay life, it obviously didn’t get better living a gay life for them. I would say that today it has become radically better,” he said.
“I think that we have to promote the stories of people who have found an alternative to homosexuality but I think that at the same time the church has to do a better job at addressing issues related to bullying and violence and how kids have been treated at public schools.”
