80,000 sign petition to Apple over ‘gay cure’ app
More than 80,000 people have signed a petition calling on Apple to remove a ‘gay cure’ app from its iTunes store.
The company is coming under increased pressure to remove the Exodus International app.
Apple has not commented but critics have pointed out that it routinely removes apps deemed offensive.
Banned apps include one mocking former US president George Bush and one called Me So Holy which allows users to paste pictures of themselves over the heads of religious leaders.
In November, Apple approved but then banned an app from the anti-gay Manhattan Declaration after 7,000 people signed a petition calling for it to be removed.
The Exodus app is “designed to be a useful resource for men, women, parents, students, and ministry leaders”.
It has received a 4+ rating from Apple, meaning it is deemed to have no objectionable content.
The group claims that people can find “freedom from homosexuality” through prayer and practises conversion therapy.
Truth Wins Out, which began the campaign to have the app removed, has accused the Christian group of using “scare tactics, misinformation, stereotypes and distortions of LGBT life to recruit clients”.
In October 2008, Apple donated $100,000 to the No on Prop 8 campaign, which called to preserve gay couples’ right to marry in California.
The company said it was speaking out publicly because “a person’s fundamental rights – including the right to marry – should not be affected by their sexual orientation”.
