Google and Amazon under pressure to ban ‘ex-gay app’ like Apple
An LGBT+ campaign group is calling on Google and Amazon to remove the anti-gay “Living Hope Ministries” app from their stores. (Google/Amazon)
An LGBT+ equality group is calling on tech giants Google and Amazon to remove an “ex-gay app,” after Apple took it off the App Store.
LGBT+ organisation Truth Wins Out, which campaigns against anti-gay religious extremism, had thanked Apple on Friday (December 21) for taking down the “pray the gay away” app.
However, the group is now urging Google and Amazon to follow Apple’s lead and ban the app.
“We demand that Google and Amazon immediately stop selling and promoting this app, which dehumanizes LGBT people.”
—Truth Wins Out executive director Wayne Besen
“We thank Apple for exemplifying corporate responsibility and taking swift action to remove a dangerous app that stigmatizes and demeans LGBT people,” said Truth Wins Out executive director Wayne Besen in a statement.
“Ex-gay programs are consumer fraud and cause significant harm to the people they purport to help.”
LGBT equality group call on Google and Amazon to remove “pray the gay away” app
Truth Wins Out had set up a petition to get Apple to remove the technology from its App Store, which received 356 signatures.
Besen continued: “Every minute this heinous product is available on these platforms, the potential exists for it to harm LGBT youth.
Apple appears to have removed the “ex-gay” app from its App Store. (Apple)
“We demand that Google and Amazon immediately stop selling and promoting this app, which dehumanizes LGBT people.”
Apple removes ex-gay app after pressure from Truth Wins Out
Truth Wins Out claimed in its petition that the app targeted young people who wanted to “change from gay-to-straight through prayer and therapy.”
They also claim that the app portrayed being gay as an “addiction”, a “sickness” and as a “sin.”
The religious app is owned by Arlington-based religious group Living Hope Ministries.
Ricky Chelette, executive director at Living Hope Ministries, said he would ask Apple to restore the app, according to DallasNews.com.
Living Hope Ministries exists to help people “seeking sexual and relational wholeness through a more intimate relationship with Jesus Christ,” according to DallasNews.com.
In 2011, Truth Wins Out set up a petition to get Apple to remove another anti-gay app, which received more than 150,000 signatures before the technology was taken down.
