Rabbi Says Apple Has Moral Responsibility to Pull "Gay Cure" App

Apple continues to face heat from consumers around the world, over the company's decision to host a "gay cure" app on the iTunes platform. More than 140,000 people have signed a petition urging Apple to drop this app, garnering press coverage all over the place, from Fox News to ABC, to the Wall Street Journal and the Guardian. Celebrities like George Takei and Nathan Fillion have asked Apple to drop the app. And now a prominent religious leader, Rabbi David Horowitz, has sent a letter to Apple, letting the company know that they have the moral responsibility to pull this "gay cure" app before it fosters any further violence toward the LGBT community.

Rabbi Horowitz, who is president of the group PFLAG (Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays), wrote in his letter that Apple has previously removed content that is inappropriate or violent in nature. This "gay cure" app from Exodus International falls into the same category.

"I am in full support of free speech – as a rabbi, much of my work depended on my ability to speak out from my heart. However, the right to express an opinion is sometimes rightly limited by the moral responsibility to do no harm," Rabbi Horowitz wrote. He then goes on to note how the practice and promotion of "ex-gay therapy" -- "treatment" meant to "cure" gay people of their sexual orientation -- is indeed morally reprehensible.

"There are LGBT children and young adults around the country who are hearing messages that they are inherently bad, or need to change who they are in order to be loved or accepted. These kids are confronted every day with teasing, bullying, and physical aggression," Rabbi Horowitz wrote. "These kids need to make a positive, affirming connection – social networking and technology can offer this in a way that sometimes no one in their community or family can.  But the Exodus app reinforces the message that to be 'good' they need to be something other than what they are. No child should have to hear this message."

And make no mistake, that's exactly the message that Exodus International wants to send. They recognize on their website that their future lies in their capacity to reach youth with the message that gay people can be "cured" and can "change" their sexual orientation. It's the reason they launched the iPhone app in the first place, to reach a tech-savvy younger generation with their message that people can be "freed from homosexuality."

But is that really a message that Apple wants available on their platform?

Let's keep the pressure up, and join with the more than 140,000 people calling for Apple to remove this "gay cure" app from the App Store. As Rabbi Horowitz writes, the message behind the Exodus International app is destructive, harmful, and damaging, particularly for young gay youth, and shouldn't fly under Apple's own editorial standards, which ban apps that "are defamatory, offensive, mean-spirited or likely to expose the targeted group to harm or violence."

Defamatory. Offensive. Mean-spirited. That about sums up this Exodus International app in every possible way.

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