in place, three "ex-gays'' said yesterday.

The three members of US-based Transformation Ex-Gay Ministries were invited here by a group of local pastors to help set up a similar ministry to "heal'' homosexuals on the Island.

While the men believed the homosexual lifestyle was "sinful'', they did not hate gay people and they did not think it was right to discriminate against them.

Mr. Anthony Falzarano, a former prostitute who is now a father and married to a woman whom he enjoys a "proper attraction towards'', said he turned heterosexual after having 400 male sexual partners.

He claimed there was psychological evidence to support his Ministry's theory that people were not born gay.

"We believe homosexuality is not predetermined, but a learned behaviour which is inflicted upon a child at a very early age, say from birth to age six,'' he said.

People can "learn'' homosexuality, he said, through not bonding with their same-sex parent or being sexually molested.

Mr. Falzarano said he had been repeatedly molested as a child by a schoolteacher, and raped at 16. And being rejected by his father made him want to be desired by men.

But he "was delivered'' out of the gay lifestyle 10 years ago and has been straight since.

"I do not believe homosexuals should be discriminated against when it comes to such things as jobs and renting an apartment,'' he said. "But I do believe (Bermuda's) gay sex laws should be kept intact.'' Rev. Conway Simmons of Vernon Temple AME compared homosexuality to drug addiction, saying it was a "sickness''.

He said the Family Policy Council, made up of several local pastors, had invited the three men here to "equip'' them to counsel gay people who want to become heterosexual.

The Rev. Vernon Lambe said the "time is right'' to involve the community in "transforming'' gay people.

"If Jesus was on Earth today, he would be in gay bars trying to help gay people out of bondage,'' Rev. Lambe said, adding he believed a lot of gays were "extremely unhappy'' with their lifestyles.

Mr. Jim Brown said he never actually entered the gay lifestyle -- he was "pulled'' towards it.

But Transformation Ex-Gay Ministries set him straight, along with more than 300 others since it was founded five years ago.

The third Ministry member, Mr. Nelson Lord, considered sex-change surgery, but with the Ministry's help, is now happily dating women.

The three men extended an invitation to everyone in Bermuda to attend their weekend conferences.

They did not want people to feel "marked'' by attending, pointing out a number of members of the churches involved would be in attendance.

A local Transformation Ex-Gay Ministry could be up and running in a central location within three months, they said.

Local churches involved in the project include the Salvation Army, AME Church, Evangelical Church, Pentecostal Assembly of Canada, Nazarene Church, New Testament Church of God, the Baptists and the United Holy Church of America.

The first conference takes place on Friday at 7 p.m. in St. Paul Centennial Hall.

Transformation Ex-Gay Ministries is headquartered in Washington DC and is part of Exodus, which has 111 chapters around the world.

SETTING THINGS STRAIGHT -- "Ex-gays'' Mr. Nelson Lord, Mr. Anthony Falzarano and Mr. Jim Brown tell how they were "healed'' with the help of US-based Transformation Ex-Gay Ministries, which does not believe people are born homosexual.