Apple Pulls Controversial 'Gay Cure' App

Five weeks after it launched on iTunes, a controversial iPhone application that claims to help gay individuals become heterosexual through "biblical teaching" has been removed by Apple from its app store.

More than 150,000 signatures were added to an online petition to remove the app created by Exodus International, a ministry that defines its mission as promoting "freedom from homosexuality through the power of Jesus Christ."

An Apple spokesperson told the Huffington Post that Apple had removed the Exodus International app because it "[violated] our developer guidelines by being offensive to large groups of people."

The app had previously received a "4" rating from Apple, which indicates the company considered the app to contain "no objectionable material." Apple did not comment on how or why the application had initially been approved.

Exodus International accused Apple of suppressing diversity of opinion and ignoring the demands of its users by pulling its app, which the ministry said was downloaded nearly 16,000 times during the weeks it was available.

"I would hope in a perfect world that Apple would allow this diversity, that they would respect the diversity of their customers," Alan Chambers, president of Exodus International, told the Huffington Post. "It's alarming to see that people who are opposed to free thought and diversity are attacking and causing this type of trouble for organizations like ours."

Yet critics of Exodus International have praised Apple's decision, arguing that the application was offensive, harmful, and intolerant.

"Apple made a terrific business decision," said Wayne Desen, founder of Truth Wins Out, a non-profit gay-rights organization. "This was an offensive, obscene, scientifically-bankrupt app that had no [right] to be on the platform based on rules Apple set up."

The Change.org petition to ban the app warned Apple was instituting a potentially "devastating" double standard by banning racist and anti-Semitic apps from iTunes, while "giving the green light to an app targeting vulnerable LGBT youth with the message that their sexual orientation is a 'sin that will make your heart sick' and a 'counterfeit.'"

Users both condemned and defended the Exodus International application on Apple's app store. As of March 19, the app had received 85 five-star reviews-- the highest rating-- and nearly twice as many one-star reviews.

Chambers said there is a "possibility" that Exodus International may consider resubmitting the application.

"Everyone has right to their opinion," he said. "We hope Apple will reconsider."

Apple faced a similar controversy last year after it approved--then later removed--an application, the Manhattan Declaration, encouraging users to protest gay marriage.

Comments

[Dexter Reign]

02:49 PM on 05/02/2011

A pity that someone tries to help these confused and lost men and women who think that its ok to be gay, they let the devil win their hearts. Woe to those who can not overcome their lust and confusion!

[gay life coach]

04:33 AM on 03/31/2011

How sad that the issue of Exodus International's app has become yet more ball in the culture wars game of ping pong, with the liberals applauding Apple for pulling it, and the conservatives having their sense of victimhood reinforced.

Exodus International is well-meaning but misguided, in its interpretation of the Bible, and in its attempts to help gay Christians, sometimes through "curing" them of homosexuality. Although I think what the app is designed to do is flawed, I'm sad that Apple caved in to the pressure to ban this app. Free speech is too vital an asset to be trampled on in this way.

[iinherit]

09:15 PM on 03/28/2011

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[Atwill]

01:50 PM on 03/28/2011

Good. Hate should not be allowed to advertise. What's next? KKK ads on the Disney channel?

[ThirdSection]

12:41 AM on 03/26/2011

One of the pitfalls of a platform owner exercising editorial control over what sorts of apps are allowed on the platform is that everything that appears is reflective of the opinions of the platform owner, at least in the public perception.

[LennyR]

10:37 PM on 03/25/2011

iPods and pads also come with Safari. Since you can probably access the same information in the webbrowser, maybe apple should build in a blocker to make sure no un-kosher thoughts are ever presented in anyway on the sacred screen of an ipod.

[GinaCucina]

07:24 PM on 03/27/2011

But there's a difference. Apple would not be providing that information. They aren't blocking anyone from accessing it somewhere else.

[LennyR]

08:49 PM on 03/27/2011

While news organizations or any other format that actively works and uses resources to bring you something (there are only so many pages in a paper), can select in choose what they print, in general, I don't want corporations deciding what is okay for me and what is not. Things that are just platforms should just worry about being good platforms and leave content selection up to the user.

It's their product and their prerogative, but I hope people reject letting corporations do our thinking.

[CJI Manufacturing]

08:20 PM on 03/25/2011

I'm sure this has nothing to do with their CEO/COO being gay...

Why don't "the gays" just come out with an app that turns straight people gay?

[ThirdSection]

12:42 AM on 03/26/2011

It'll be called Fabulous International.

[GinaCucina]

07:25 PM on 03/27/2011

And you know this because....??? Oh yeah. He's never been married.

[NAMU2010]

11:14 AM on 03/25/2011

Apple made a smart business and ethical decision. I woiuld think their core demographic trend towards younger age customers and that generation just does not see homosexuality as a big issue. This app was offensive and contrary to their image as a progressive company. They did the right thing.

[Morgantheaxe]

01:51 AM on 03/25/2011

Every now and then the programming comes out different. When it comes to the programming governing sexual desire and intimacy there should be no more of a desire among straight people to limit their rights than if it was a deviation in the programming that tells people what to eat. There are people that consume metal and other harmful substances because their programming tells them to. You wouldn't tell those people they are second class citizens. Why would you tell a homosexual they are a second class citizen? They should have every right that any person in our society has. They should be allowed to marry, care for a spouse, and will property just like everyone else. I suspect most of the vitriol that comes from heteros about homosexuality comes from the persecution young men face as children. If you watch teenage boys interact they often insult each other by calling each other gay. I somehow that that sticks with men and they act out on it in fear when it comes to accepting homosexuality as part of life. But I don't know. It's just my guess.

[Brutus76]

12:10 AM on 03/25/2011

"Exodus International accused Apple of suppressing diversity of opinion and ignoring the demands of its users by pulling its app, which the ministry said was downloaded nearly 16,000 times during the weeks it was available." And how many of those downloads were from people who just wanted to rate the app 1 star and trash it in the reviews ...

[GinaCucina]

07:26 PM on 03/27/2011

My reaction, as well...

[wespenn56]

11:43 PM on 03/24/2011

This is the age old problem of balancing "free speech" with common human decency. However, if you don't agree with the policy that pulled the app, don't use Apple's products. Simple solution.

[daffey]

10:31 PM on 03/24/2011

In the old days, this was known as censorship. If a radio station wouldn't play a song, or a record store (that's how old) wouldn't carry an album, or a network pulled a commercial, or a store refuse to run a particular line because it was too risky, or too sexual, or too anything - it was ever and always labeled as censorship. Songs, TV shows, college lectures, news stories - they all made sure we understood that anyone who refused to run something simply because it was offensive to someone was in danger of rubbing shoulders with some Orwellian dream. It was nothing less than flirting with censorship, if not the real thing. That was pretty much from the 60s up to the early 90s. Not sure what happened then, but since that's how my culture raised me, I'll say yeah, it's censorship.

[angelcakesinc]

02:35 AM on 03/25/2011

Of course it's censorship. It's Apple. The problem isn't so much censorship as it is selective censorship. They wouldn't let overtly racist or sexist apps through their censorship, so why an anti-gay app? Apple isn't open source and puts a LOT into reviewing and approving apps before they're put on the market, so letting something like this through certainly says something incredibly unfavorable about the people behind the fruit.

[GinaCucina]

07:27 PM on 03/27/2011

This is not a case of government censorship. Private businesses can censor as they wish. It's totally legal.

[daffey]

11:27 PM on 03/27/2011

Sure it is. In the 1960s, if a radio station refused to play the Rolling Stones, it was called censorship. In the 1970s, if a record store refused to carry a Pink Floyd album, it was called censorship. In the 1980s, if a network refused to air a commercial because it was too suggestive, it was called censorship. If that were true, then it is still censorship today. Either it wasn't then, or it isn't now. It can't be one then and another now, no matter how much we may wish otherwise.

[NAMU2010]

11:17 AM on 03/25/2011

Now if they can just come up with an app to rid people of stereotypes they'll have something.

[LCdruid]

12:54 PM on 03/25/2011

Along with an app that helps tightasses enjoy humor.

[LCdruid]

05:14 PM on 03/25/2011

How about an app for the sensitive gay man, is that too stereotypical?

[PrairieGayCompanion]

06:33 PM on 03/24/2011

They forgot to include an app to test for allergic reaction. Now I'm gayer than ever. Who do I sue?

[repukessck]

08:43 PM on 03/24/2011

Sarah Palin? Why not, I can't stand her!

[arabbit]

05:59 PM on 03/24/2011

I'm so glad I have these samaritans and Apple to look out for me. Now I can sleep easier knowing they're willing to trample somebody else's freedom of speach.

[angelcakesinc]

02:37 AM on 03/25/2011

You don't get freedom of speech with apple. That's not what they're in to. That isn't, wasn't, and never will be the issue. It's because they censor things so highly already that it was so controversial that this one got through. If it was open source and anybody could put whatever they wanted up without oversight, the app might be protested but apple wouldn't be overly involved.

[Jason N]

10:21 AM on 03/25/2011

Yet another bagger unaware of what free speech means...