No longer want to be gay in the 21st century? There’s an app for that. While it’s hard to believe that anyone would buy this to be used seriously, it’s encouraging to see how many people were so quick to demand it’s removal. Over 90,000 people have already signed a petition against it. The Atlantic reports:
Gay rights activists are outaged — and rightfully so. More than 90,000 people have signed a petition hosted on Change.org demanding that Apple remove an application from the iTunes Store that promises to deliver “freedom from homosexuality through the power of Jesus Christ.”
Developed by Exodus International, an Orlando, Florida-based Christian organization, the application claims to be “a useful resource for men, women, parents, students, and ministry leaders.” But Truth Wins Out, a nonprofit organization that defends the LGBT community against anti-gay misinformation campaigns, finds the app offensive at best. “Exodus’ message is hateful and bigoted,” the petition states.
On its own website, Exodus celebrates the release of the app in a short, two-sentence blurb that appears at the top of the main homepage. One of those sentences is reserved for flaunting the fact that the app received a 4+ rating from Apple, a designation the company uses for applications like Angry Birds and Java Scoop, an app for determining how many scoops of coffee you need to make a mild cup of Joe. A 4+ rating means that, at some point in an approval process used in the past to weed out fart applications and an app that used an icon too similar to an iPhone, it was decided that Exodus International’s program contained “no objectionable material.”
[Continues at The Atlantic]
