The Magazine

Pam Spaulding Closes the Coffee House

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By on Jun 17th, 2013

pams_house_blendLGBT blogger Pam Spaulding has announced she’ll be putting down her pen and archiving her blog, Pam’s House Blend, as of July 1.

Pam and her team have been writing about politics, culture, and gay and transgender issues for almost a decade. In recent years, however, ill health has taken its toll.

PHB contributors Laurel Ramseyer, Alvin McEwen and Autumn Sandeen will launch a new blog, hosted on the progressive political website Firedoglake.com.

We wish you the best of health, Pam, and thank you for your contribution to the LGBT blogosphere over the past nine years.

XGW Digest: June 15, 2013

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By on Jun 15th, 2013

-The city of Pocatello, ID passes a non-discrimination ordinance.

-Canada celebrates ten years of marriage equality.

-Google commemorates the late Maurice Sendak’s 85th birthday.

-The Russian State Duma unanimously approves a law banning “homosexual propaganda.”

-Pope Francis acknowledges the existence of a “gay lobby” within the Vatican.

-A wave of anti-gay attacks hits Columbus, OH.

-Exodus International withdraws from the Exodus Global Alliance.

-The Southern Baptist Convention denounces the Boy Scouts.

-A Christian university expels a student for being gay and demands that she repay a scholarship.

-Andrew Muir becomes Northern Ireland’s first openly gay mayor.

Lesbian Falls in Love with Man, Realizes Importance of Same-sex Marriage

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By on Jun 12th, 2013

lesbian_marriageA British journalist says she finally realized the value of same-sex marriage after falling in love with a man – despite previously identifying as gay.

On The Guardian‘s Comment is free website, Helen Bell writes:

I’ve always wanted to end up with someone interesting, clever, funny, attractive, liberal-minded and, above all, kind. My partner is all of those things. Having been gay all my life, I just wasn’t expecting him to be male. … [Entirely by accident], I fell in love with a man. It took me a week and a half to ask him out for incredibly awkward coffee and bagels. His exact quote on the subject: “I liked you an awful lot, but as far as I was aware … you were a lesbian.” Good point, sir.

Ms Bell never cared much for the idea of marriage. But now “ridiculously happy” in love, she wants to marry – and in having this desire, she’s come to the conclusion that to deny gay men and women the same legal rights to marriage as straight couples is an injustice:

Now, I see the point [in marriage], because my partner and I want, eventually, to get married. It’s because we want to be partners, in law, and in public. We want the shared custody of any children we have. We want to be allowed to visit each other in hospital, and take joint responsibility of our finances. None of this is because we have a more inherently serious relationship than any I had with a woman. It’s because there’s already an institution which allows us to have these things. … I am still the same person I was when I went out with women. Why, then, am I a better class of citizen now that my partner is a man?

Perhaps Ms Bell could teach something to the many “ex-gays” who, claiming to have changed their sexual orientation through prayer or therapy, respond by actively – and often viciously – opposing equal rights for others?

Hardliners Pre-Emptively Spin Exposé of Survivors of Ex-Gay Abuse

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By on Jun 10th, 2013

Ex-gay activists are bracing for the June 20 episode of Our America with Lisa Ling, in which survivors of ex-gay ministry abuses share their experiences on the Oprah Winfrey Network.

Some ex-gay activists will acknowledge that these survivors and their families indeed suffered long-term medical, relational, and spiritual harm caused directly by the activists’ misguided counseling methods.

But not all activists are quite ready to confront this reality. Restored Hope Network, for example, has already sought to spin the episode as a tale of archetypal unreformed godless disobedient homosexual heathens telling lies about innocent Christian believers. RHN posted the following sanctimonious warning to Facebook tonight:

Restored Hope Network - Facebook post about Lisa Ling

“I wanted to let you all know that Lisa Ling’s America show will be airing what looks to be an expose on Exodus on June 20th. I don’t want you to be caught off guard, so I am letting you know. I am in prayer for them and those who will hear this program.

“In advance, I just want to say that our God in Jesus the Messiah has set apart people for himself, saving his people from all sorts of sins–including homosexuality–before any of us were here to talk about it. He is not powerless to transform surrendered individuals into alignment with His own clearly expressed will in the Bible.

“1 Corinthians 6:9-11 speaks to rejection of sin, cleansing FROM sin, sanctification and justification for men, women and children who are redeemed. That is better news than you can hear on any TV program!

“‘Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God. Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.’”

This sanctimony is a pious variation on that old last-resort conversational tactic of  shutting one’s ears and shouting — at God and everyone else — “I CAN’T HEAR YOU!”

I could provide any number of Bible verses against RHN here: verses that warn against deceit, hardening one’s heart, weighting the innocent with your own millstone, blackmailing God into performing a miracle, abusing people in God’s name, or projecting one’s own sins onto the person being judged.

But the Restored Hope Network is neither Biblical nor orthodox — except when it’s politically and financially convenient. So quoting the Bible to them here would be pointless.

While RHN continues to blackmail God with its threats of harm and banishment against anyone whom God doesn’t cure, it remains to be seen who among conservative Christians is willing to learn from past evangelical mistakes and avoid sinning against people going forward.

XGW Digest: June 8, 2013

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By on Jun 8th, 2013

-Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan extends the deadline for voting on marriage equality.

-Another gay man is murdered in Russia.

-The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America elects an openly gay bishop.

-A group of boy scouts marches in uniform in Salt Lake City’s Pride parade.

-The College Republican National Committee urges the GOP to drop its opposition to marriage equality.

-The British House of Lords votes in favor of equal marriage.

-Anti-gay author Scott Lively describes Uganda’s ‘Kill the Gays’ bill as “courageous.”

-A Christian mother opens up about losing her gay son.

-The Church of England concedes its fight against marriage equality.

-An Australian study finds that children raised by gay couples do just as well as children of straight couples.

-Hillsborough County in Florida repeals a ban on government recognition of gay pride events.

-A new survey finds that most Americans believe marriage equality is inevitable.

Is the End of Exodus International Near?

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By on Jun 7th, 2013

The organization needs to be shut down — shut down. Don’t tweak it, don’t try to improve it, shut it down.

– Michael Bussee

On June 20th, the OWN network will air the third and probably last of their reports on the idea of “curing gays” and how that has affected many lives.  This time it will be Exodus President Alan Chambers vs. a group of ex-gay survivors.  Viewed against the backdrop of the major disruptions at Exodus and the rest of the ex-gay world this past year, could we be looking at the end of Exodus International?

We have not been impressed with Lisa Ling’s handling of this subject in the past.  Hopefully in this one she will step 0ut of the way and let those involved speak.  I have heard that the session was powerful and m0ving.  If this is not destroyed in editing, this should be worth viewing.  We will revisit this after the airing.

In the mean time, what legitimate functions can Exodus now serve?  Assuming there are some, is their reputation too far gone to allow them to accomplish this?  As Michael Bussee above is quoted, is it time for Alan and the Exodus board to simply shut it down?

Tune in Thursday, June 20th at 10/9c for a special presentation of this powerful report, God and Gays.

Photo Gallery: Antigay activists stage press event at Human Rights Campaign

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By on Jun 4th, 2013

Photos by Mike Airhart/Ex-Gay Watch

A small coalition of antigay activists met outside the Human Rights Campaign in Washington, D.C., to declare that “homosexuality is nothing to be proud of.”

The press event coincides with Capital Pride in the District and national LGBT Pride Month. Speakers included Peter LaBarbera, founder and president of American for Truth About Homosexuality; Liberty Counsel attorney Matt Barber; Mission America founder Linda Harvey; American Family Association-Pennsylvania activist Diane Gramley, and antigay filmmaker Eric Holmberg.

Approximately a half-dozen people attended the event who were not obviously members of the local, LGBT, or Christian news media.

Related HRC blog post

Press release by the antigay coalition

Washington Blade story

Afterthought: The purpose of this press event was to create right-wing and LGBT media buzz, appease antigay donors who continue to prevent pride celebrations in conservative cities; and to aid the Republican Party at IRS hearings. The objective was not crowd turnout; otherwise, the event would have been scheduled for a weekend, in a location where a crowd could gather, and not on a steam grate on HRC’s front lawn.

In these respects, the press event achieved its objectives.

 

Journal Editor Calls Antigay Parenting Study ‘Deeply Flawed’ and ‘Disgraced’

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By on Jun 2nd, 2013

John M. Becker, managing editor of The Bilerico Project, follows up on a rigged study about the suitability of sexual-minority parents:

Darren Sherkat, Social Science ResearchIn an explosive interview published yesterday by the Southern Poverty Law Center, Darren Sherkat — a member of the editorial board of the journal Social Science Research, which published Mark Regnerus’s disgraced “study” claiming that gays and lesbians make inferior parents – once again eviscerated the study as “deeply flawed” and its author as “disgraced.” Sherkat, who is also a professor of sociology at Southern Illinois University, was appointed by Social Science Research editor James Wright to conduct an audit of the process by which Regnerus’s study was reviewed and approved for publication.

Speaking to the SPLC’s Evelyn Schlatter, he remarked,

When we talk about Regnerus, I completely dismiss the study. It’s over. He has been disgraced. All of the prominent people in the field know what he did and why he did it. And most of them know that he knew better. Some of them think that he’s also stupid and an ideologue. I know better. I know that he’s a smart guy and that he did this on purpose, and that it was bad, and that it was substandard.Additionally, Sherkat said that Regnerus’s “study” is part of a much larger and very alarming trend: the infiltration of mainstream academia, science, and research by conservative evangelicals, who then conduct and publish dubious studies bought and paid for by private foundations and think tanks with specific ideological agendas. In short, the right wing is hijacking science in a long-term effort to win the culture wars.

Read Sherkat’s extended remarks and learn more about Becker’s Freedom of Information Act suit against the journal’s host university at The Bilerico Project or the Southern Poverty Law Center.

 

Armed Antigay Conflict Not Out of the Question, FRC Leader Says

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By on Jun 2nd, 2013

FRC Allows for Armed Antigay Conflict

Video at GLAAD

Kenyn Cureton, vice president for church ministries at the Family Research Council (certified as an anti-gay hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center), spoke at a recent event sponsored by the FRC’s “Watchmen on the Walls” ministry.

After declaring that defenders of constitutional equality and nonviolence for sexual minorities are controlled by our ”malevolent master … the Devil,” the FRC representative said:

Some might ask, ‘Are you calling for armed conflict?’

No I’m not. Not yet.

If not now, then how soon, FRC?

Hat tip: GLAAD, John M. Becker

Ex-Gay Leader Decries Fairness and Good Health for Gay Youths, Scout Leaders

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By on Jun 2nd, 2013

Robert Gagnon on Boy ScoutsThe decision of the Boy Scouts of America to stop ostracizing and defaming gay Scouts has drawn support from a broad spectrum of scouting supporters, including the conservative National Catholic Commission on Scouting.

Mormons, Methodists, the National Jewish Committee on Scouting, the United Church of Christ, the Episcopal Church, and the Unitarian Universalist Association also have voiced support for the Scouts.

But leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention have responded by declaring war against gay youths, even as a body of scientific research and anecdotal evidence suggests that this war — and not sexual orientation per se — threatens the health of gay youths.

Enter Robert Gagnon, board member of the Restored Hope Network, who yesterday protested both the inclusion of gay Scouts and the state of California’s pre-existing lawsuit against the Boy Scouts of America over its refusal to employ gay scoutmasters.

Gagnon wrote on Facebook:  (more…)