Online activists Change.org has posted an open letter to Apple CEO Steve Jobs which is accompanied by an online petition signature form that has currently garnered over 106,000 signatures.
The letter demands that Apple remove the dangerous Exodus International “ex-gay” iPhone app from the company’s iTunes App Store. Exodus International’s app endorses the use of “reparative therapy” to change the sexual orientation of their clients.
Change.org claims that the app “targets vulnerable, suicide-prone LGBT youth with the message that their sexual orientation is a ‘sin that will make your heart sick’ and a ‘counterfeit,’ contributing to and legitimizing the ostracism of these youth from their families.”
“Apple’s app guidelines released in September last year detailed rules on how the company decides what can and cannot be sold through its store: “Any app that is defamatory, offensive, mean-spirited, or likely to place the targeted individual or group in harms way will be rejected,” the company states,” Change.org writes. “Apple would never allow a racist or anti-Semitic app to be sold in the iTunes store, and for good reason. Apple’s approval of the anti-gay Exodus International app represents a double standard for the LGBT community with potentially devastating consequences for our youth.”
Currently, the Exodus App remains available for download from Apple’s iTunes App Store.
Related article:
Petition calls for Apple to pull ‘ex-gay’ app from iTunes App Store – March 18, 2011