Robert Gagnon, RHN board member

“Antinomianism” is a pejorative label that is used by legalists against people who contend that Christians are saved first by grace, not works. The label is especially popular among those who reduce the Bible into an antisex manual — rather than a collection of spiritual journeys, traditions, and moral codes regulating economic and social life — and who then gossip about the alleged sexual impurity of other people and promise to summon God’s power and rain eternal hellfire upon their victims.

Over the past year, Alan Chambers, president of Exodus International, has made two moderate assertions that have incited scandal among the self-righteous:

1. gay Christians are no more damned than other Christian sinners saved by grace, and
2. the sexual-orientation-change therapies being sold by RHN member “ministries” (some of which are for-profit) have never successfully “transformed” anyone from gay to straight, and sometimes have the opposite effect — reinforcing same-sex attraction while exacerbating dysfunctional attitudes and unhealthy behavior.

These two moderate Christian statements prompted RHN leaders — who in 2009 supported Exodus involvement in an evangelical campaign to execute Uganda’s sexual minorities, and who to this day show no regret for that support — to cry, “Heresy!”

RHN describes itself as a defender of partial Biblical sexual morality, not Biblical economic morality nor Biblical social morality. RHN’s members subscribe to economic and social policies — survival of the fittest, regressive taxation of the poor, unregulated pollution of the environment, detention-without-trial of selected sinners, and pre-emptive war against Muslims, to name a few policies — that most Christians around the world agree are immoral.

Even regarding RHN’s supposed specialty, sexual morality, RHN fails to adhere to its own standards. Why, for example, is RHN silent regarding the Bible’s assertions that:

• women are the property of their fathers until marriage
• fathers may exchange daughters to potential suitors in exchange for farm animals
• widows may become the involuntary property of the deceased man’s brother
• rape victims must marry the rapist, or be punished just as severely.

RHN is, in fact, both legalistic and antinomian:

Cheap grace: RHN peddles a cheapened Biblical morality and selective grace that transforms its own economic and social sins into supposed virtues. Obsessed with lust, RHN’s cheap grace excuses wrath, envy, pride, greed, gluttony, and deceit. It also ignores certain barbaric Biblical codes regarding marriage.

Legalism: RHN singles out one subject for pathological obsession. RHN butchers Bible verses as well as scientific fact in order to condemn gender-nonconforming and sexually nonconforming people under Biblical codes that RHN itself refuses to follow. RHN claims Biblical fidelity, yet lacks the courage (at least in the United States) to publicly support the Bible’s only “cure” for “effeminate” men and for independent women: Execution.

Un-Biblical counseling: Instead of providing a Biblical solution — or acknowledging that the Bible is an imperfect and sometimes-unethical document — RHN sees an opportunity in un-Biblical but profitable products: literature blaming parents, liberals, freedom of thought, heterosexual predators, moderate Christians, and other bogeymen for their own uncured bisexuality or homosexuality; expensive ex-gay boot camps that detain people (sometimes involuntarily) with counselors who seek to alienate counselees from their parents and friends; and political endorsements for ultraconservative politicians like Rep. Sally Kern (R-Okla.).

Who, again, are the real heretics of the ex-gay movement?

-A transgender woman in Hong Kong wins the right to marry her boyfriend.

-A gay couple is savagely attacked in Cyprus.

-Minnesota becomes state #12.

-Queer Rising plans a rally to protest recent anti-gay violence in New York City.

-Brazil’s National Council of Justice rules that government offices cannot refuse marriage licenses to gay couples.

-LGBT rights advance in Nevada.

-New polls find majority support for marriage equality in Michigan, Arizona and Virginia.

-ILGA-Europe releases its annual review of the state of LGBT rights throughout Europe.

-The Texas House votes to allow university student groups to discriminate against potential members.

-Uma Thurman signs on to play Anita Bryant in an upcoming biopic.

-Anti-gay protesters shut down a gay pride rally in Tbilisi, Georgia.

-Portugal expands adoption rights for gay couples.

God loves Uganda is an astonishingly courageous documentary by Academy Award-winning filmmaker Roger Ross Williams. This film takes an intense look at the hate-filled rhetoric that right-winged, Christian Evangelicals are spewing to the vulnerable citizens of Uganda which has become a dumping ground for baseless, homophobic, nonsense.

If you have a group that can do it, host a screening.  The more people who see the truth about what we are doing to cultures through the imposition of fear and hatred, the better we are able to stop it.

For more, watch this interview with Willams on HuffPostLive.

Anti-gay activist and “ex-gay” advocate, Michael Brown, had a little chat with, Arthur Goldberg — of the “ex-gay” conversion therapy group JONAH — “Jews Offering New Alternatives for Healing” — on Brown’s radio show, “Line of Fire.”

Goldberg asserted that the harm caused by ex-gay/reparative/conversion therapy is “greatly, greatly, greatly exaggerated.”

Brown then adds:

…you were involved with civil rights movement years ago. Did the leaders say, ‘Look, our kids, our black kids are killing themselves, hanging themselves because they’re being rejected by society, so you’d better accept them’?

Goldberg:

You know, the fact of the matter is, I’m a Jew. Okay, we were heavily discriminated against as Jews … You don’t see the Jews complaining about, ‘I’m a poor victim.’

Brown then finishes off this train wreak of thought with this:

Absolutely, and you didn’t hear about all the Jewish youth in the ghettos who were going to kill themselves because life was tough.

(The real question is, how many of those kids that did kill themselves were LGBT?)

–

Their blindness to the obvious difference between the hardship these youths faced, and those faced by LGBT youth is stupefying.

Unlike LGBT persons, of all ages, Blacks, Jews and other persecuted minorities are oppressed en-masse. No matter the prejudice they faced, due to skin color, ethnicity, religion, etc., so did their families, friends, religious and social groups. From birth, they shared a collective support structure.

Generally speaking, the racial qualities of same-sex orientation and the transgendered are unseen until exposed, openly expressed or self-identified as being so. By extension, the disproportionate number of gay youth suicide rate can also be invisible to those don’t take into consideration the WEALTH of prominent factors responsible for it.

Even under the best of circumstances LGBT youth are far more susceptible to social stigma, rejection from loved ones and friends, emotional and physical isolation, and in some cases, being kicked out of their homes, and too often, the feeling of no hope of ever reaching a place in life to where things get better.

Free from the threat of being kicked out of my home, I can personally attest to having experienced all of those things, including attempting suicide.

Perhaps a reminder, but a good one for those of you in dire straights who haven’t made it out on your own yet:

In other words, there is life after HELL.

–

Goldberg also says, in comparison with those who’ve undergone ex-gay therapy:

Well the fact of the matter is, the person who — the gay activists have a much greater suicide rate…

But, according to lamda.org:

A majority of suicide attempts by homosexuals occur during their youth, and gay youth are 2 to 3 times more likely to attempt suicide than other young people. [emphasis added]

The Suicide Prevention Resource Center (SPRC) reports similar findings (PDF), citing nine studies showing that on average, GLBT youth and young adults are 3 times more likely to attempt suicide than heterosexuals.

Further, according to the Centers for Disease control and Prevention (CDC):

A nationally representative study of adolescents in grades 7–12 found that lesbian, gay, and bisexual youth were more than twice as likely to have attempted suicide as their heterosexual peers. [emphasis added]

I think it’s logical to conclude that the proportion of successful suicides are in direct proportion to attempted suicides. That’s more than twice of those deaths coming from a fair extrapolation of an estimated 6-7% of the population.

Even without the devastating effects associated with “ex-gay” ”therapy,” that’s not “greatly, greatly, greatly exaggerated,” that’s genocide all on it’s own.

 ~~~The salient point~~~

ON TOP OF ALL THAT, Arthur Goldberg and Michael Brown are asserting that ex-gay / reparative / conversion therapy, are not contributing factors to the increased proportion of LGBT youth suicide, or that they are even harmful.

Among many, many others, there are a host of individuals at Beyond Ex-Gay who would beg to differ.

Much if not most of those who feel the need for, or are forced into ex-gay therapy are motivated by so-called “deeply held religious beliefs.”

So, to be fair, some parents and those that seek ex-gay therapy on their own, truly fear for the fate of their eternal soulsand/or simply long for the ease of the all-inclusive socially accepted lifestyle of having an opposite gender partner and children.

However, as the SPRC (link, above) puts it:

Most religious denominations continue to condemn homosexuality as sinful and provide a rationale for marginalizing LGB[T] people.

Or, as I put it:

Numerous religious organizations and their followers have an obsessive, almost demonic LUST to malign and smear the very humanity of LGBT persons — of all ages — with vindictive and malicious invectives consisting primarily of, often blatant, insinuations that LGBT persons are sexually-promiscuous disease-spreading perverts in order to convince us, those who support us, and the rest of society that we deserve all the rights and respect reserved for fecal matter, in the name of “Christianity” and “morality.”

And that it’s “God’s Will” that we either fully expunge our same-gender attraction and then fully import some ambiguous and unknown opposite-gender attraction, live a life of loneliness or settle for something inbetween — lest we be doomed to God’s ever-loving eternal lake of fire.

IMNSHO, Goldberg, Brown, and a host of other anti-gay / ex-gay activists are directly responsible for the additional influence that result in the psychological maiming that too often leads to LGBT persons attempting and completing suicide, especially youth.

–

Three Mormons speak of the horrors they went through in their youth:

Featuring:

Russ Gorringe, Kim Mack, Ben Jarvis, Evergreen therapy survivors; Gabriel Arana, writer and American Prospect Web Editor.
—
“Thousands of Mormons reportedly went through conversion therapy over the years. From electro-shock and aversion treatments to intense, repetitive meditation on spiritual re-orientation.”

To repeat:

…gay youth are 2 to 3 times more likely to attempt suicide than other young people.

Add to that, the harm caused by shame-based ex-gay therapy, and Arthur Goldberg’s assertion and Michael Brown’s agreement that it is “greatly, greatly, greatly exaggerated” becomes a denial of the ongoing genocide of gay youth — due specifically and directly to the anti-gay / ex-gay efforts perpetrated by them, and activists like them.

__________

H/T Miranda Blue at Right Wing Watch — Thank you.

Revised to include response from the Business Insider.

Until the latest nascent campaign against Abercrombie & Fitch took root, the retailer had suffered from a prolonged period of lousy sales (Bloomberg, Wall Street Journal) as youths flocked to hipper, fresher, and friendlier rivals such as H&M.

On May 3, however, Business Insider – a publication that includes sponsored news – reported on comments made by ANF CEO Mike Jeffries:

“In every school there are the cool and popular kids, and then there are the not-so-cool kids,” he told [Salon.com]. “Candidly, we go after the cool kids. We go after the attractive all-American kid with a great attitude and a lot of friends. A lot of people don’t belong [in our clothes], and they can’t belong. Are we exclusionary? Absolutely.

Business Insider quoted ANF critic and author Robin Lewis:

“He doesn’t want larger people shopping in his store, he wants thin and beautiful people,” Lewis told Business Insider. “He doesn’t want his core customers to see people who aren’t as hot as them wearing his clothing. People who wear his clothing should feel like they’re one of the ‘cool kids.’”

Word spread via social media, and boycott threats ensued, but a few important facts got lost:

• Jeffries made his remarks in 2006. Why such outrage seven years later?
• Business Insider’s story might have been sponsored — if so, by whom?

Abercrombie has staged controversies before. For well over a decade, ANF has released catalogs featuring scantily-clad youths, firing up opponents to the sexualization of youth. Similar youth-marketing tactics by Jordache Jeans and Calvin Klein scandalized parents and earned fortunes for those designers in the early 1980s.

So Abercrombie could have sponsored the Business Insider story or fed the idea through backchannels to easily agitated critics, in the hope of fanning a fresh controversy and boosting sales. Or, a rival such as H&M could have done the same thing with the opposite intent: further depress ANF’s sales.

We contacted the author of the Business Insider article via Twitter. Here is a transcript of our conversation:

Michael Airhart ‏@michaelairhart
@AshleyLutz Did anyone sponsor the A&F article of May 3 or suggest that it be written?
6:16 PM – 15 May 13

Ashley Lutz ‏@AshleyLutz
@michaelairhart what do you mean?

Ashley Lutz ‏@AshleyLutz
@michaelairhart It wasn’t pitched to me. Our editorial team came up with the idea when discussing the H&M news. I reached out to ANF.

Michael Airhart ‏@michaelairhart
@AshleyLutz Thanks. Did BI receive any sponsorship or compensation from ANF? Thanks again.

Ashley Lutz ‏@AshleyLutz
@michaelairhart no

Michael Airhart ‏@michaelairhart
@AshleyLutz Thanks for confirming, and so quickly too.

We didn’t ask whether an ANF “affiliate” (such as a PR firm) or a rival sponsored the story, or whether the author thinks a rival lurks behind any of the critics. Why didn’t we ask? Frankly, it’s not our job. (We’re an ex-gay watchdog, not a retail watchdog.) Whose job is it? That’s the responsibility of those who started the buzz over Abercrombie in the first place.

Social-media sharers, child advocates, and bloggers could have asked these questions on May 3. And they still can.

Before launching a boycott, it might be a good idea to know the identity and intentions of the source that inspired the plan.

Thanks!

• The Iowa Supreme Court rules that both of a child’s lesbian parents must be listed on the birth certificate.
• The Albanian government passes a hate crimes law.
• Frank Bruni challenges the religious right’s attempt to monopolize ‘moral values.’
• A gay couple is attacked outside Madison Square Gardens.
• Illinois Republican Party chairman Pat Brady is forced to resign over his support for gay rights.
• Delaware becomes the 11th state to legalize marriage equality.
• A father and son plan an 1,800-mile bike ride to protest the Boy Scouts’ anti-gay policies.
• Former Florida Gov. Charlie Crist endorses marriage equality.
• The Minnesota House of Representatives passes a marriage equality bill.
• The American Family Association’s Bryan Fischer dodges a question about his sexual attractions.
• Congressman Mark Pocan’s husband is issued a House Spouse ID.

It is worth reminding readers that RHN is, according to its own mission, supposed to share God’s love and heal broken people — not mangle Bible verses and vent defensive judgments upon everyone who has been cheated or injured by the advocacy of fraudulent and unbiblical treatments for homosexuality.

Responding to Exodus International president Alan Chambers and executive vice president Randy Thomas via email, Gagnon pontificated at length (italics are mine) about the contempt that he feels for his target audience:

It should occasion no surprise that I regard homosexual practice as perverse behavior, quite simply because this is a basic scriptural view. The verb “to pervert” is from the Latin meaning “to turn thoroughly,” i.e. away from the truth or right course of action. Applied to sexual practice, a perversion is “any of various means of obtaining sexual gratification that are generally regarded as being unnatural or abnormal.” Paul in Scripture makes a point of singling out homosexual practice as sexual behavior that is manifestly contrary to nature in that it is clear that a man and a woman are sexual complements or counterparts, not males with males or females with females. He also refers to such behavior as self-”dishonoring” (atimazo/atimia) and as “indecent/shameful behavior” (askhemosune). The Levitical prohibitions and some Deuteronomistic texts add the description of to’evah, something abominable or abhorrent to God. The latter (along with Revelation) adds the epithet of “dogs” to men who actively emasculate their appearance to attract male sex partners in a cultic context, treating themselves as “sacred” (hence the Hebrew name qedeshim). Bestiality is an even more unnatural form of sexual practice since it is cross-species. Adult-consensual incest is also a particularly perverse form of sexual practice since it involves sex with someone who is too much of a familial same. But Scripture treats homosexual practice as even more severely unnatural because the male-female requirement for sexual relations is foundational for all that follows (so Genesis and Jesus) and because sex or gender is a more constituent feature of sexual behavior than kinship.

This is a different way of looking at homosexual practice than Mr. Chambers does, who has frequently compared homosexual practice with gluttony (imagine comparing having sexual intercourse on a given evening with a person of the same sex on the one hand and eating an overly large meal on the other) and has repeatedly stated the manifestly absurd notion that no sin is more severe than any other in God’s eyes, in any respect, certainly not homosexual practice.  In Mr. Chambers’ own words, “there’s no place in the Bible that says this sin [of homosexual practice] is worse than any other. We’re guilty in the church of creating a hierarchy of sin, and that’s done tremendous damage.” Except that Jesus told us that the male-female requirement is foundational and Paul singled homosexual practice as “abhorrent” to God, etc. Now we see that not even Mr. Chambers believes the absurdity that all sin is equal in all respects. For if all behavior were equally bad, then Mr. Chambers should never have become so upset with things said on this thread, using such shock terms as “disgusting,” “horrific,” “shameful,” “anti-Christlike,” “evil,” “vile,” “awful,” “inhumane,” and “hypocrisy.” It is obvious that Mr. Chambers regards what he has heard on this thread as really bad, not just run-of-the-mill bad. But then Mr. Chambers has never been known for his logical consistency in theological thinking (he is a scriptural cherrypicker, pulling particular texts out of context and distorting their meaning to conform to his own particular agenda). He is, by his own public admission, just a “simple-minded Jesus follower,” a self-tag that has justified to himself his shoddy exegesis of the biblical text, notably his cheap grace philosophy. I wish it were not so but sadly it is so.

So, technically, those who willfully engage in unrepentant homosexual practice could be labelled “perverts” (note that I am not referring to persons who struggle to resist same-sex attractions but occasionally fall into temptation, much less to those who merely experience same-sex attractions but don’t act on or actively entertain such impulses). However, I generally steer clear of such a label, not because it does not accurately describe the self-affirming behavior (it does: the behavior is an extreme unnatural behavior in terms of attempting to unite two discordant bodies) but because it leads to an objectifying of persons that may promote hate for the person and not just for the behavior.

I do not believe that all or most active/self-affirming homosexual persons are pedophiles or rapists, not by a long stretch. I do believe that men are generally more perverse in their sexual expression as a group and that in the absence of a socializing influence of a woman in a sexual relationship men are even more given to perverse activity (including attractions to developed adolescents). Here the issue is not so much that they have homosexual attractions per se as the fact that they are males and males interacting sexually in the absence of a true sexual counterpart (a woman). I also believe (and this is just basic common sense) that having homosexual males as boy scout leaders is as stupid as having heterosexual males as girl scout leaders. It is a recipe for sexual abuse.

Now as for John Paulk. … Randy Thomas, your VP, posted an appalling write-up of John Paulk that was generally celebratory for John (no doubt because he spoke harshly against reparative therapy, even though he has never undergone reparative therapy; and this pleases Mr. Thomas and Mr. Chambers) rather than mourning John’s new state. You say: “As for my dear friend of 20 years, John Paulk. Get the story right. He isn’t perfect or without fault, but he didn’t seek divorce. He hasn’t “come out.” He is living a celibate life. He is involved in a wonderful Church in Portland and deserves better from all of you. Or were you just using him to promote his agenda? From most of what I have seen below, I will assume the worst.”

I think it is you, Mr. Chambers, who must get the story straight. John is being divorced because for years he refused to commit to monogamy and sexual faithfulness to his wife Anne Paulk. You say that he is “living a celibate life.” Perhaps he is, but if that is so it conflicts with his refusal to be commit (sic) to monogamy in relation to Anne. Why would someone for years refuse to commit to monogamy and fidelity to his wife and then, as the divorce process was under way, choose to live a celibate life? Why doesn’t he just go back to Anne and tell her that he repents and now will make that commitment? Makes no sense to me.

There is certainly nothing in John Paulk’s recent statement that would lead one to believe that he still regards homosexual practice as sin. He does nothing but apologize for the “ex-gay lie” and appears to speak of same-sex desires as a beautiful thing given by God and wants to do as much as he can to “give back to” the community of persons who want to promote homosexual activity. Even if he now wants to claim only that his sexual orientation never changed one would expect some clarification that he is not renouncing abstinence from homosexual practice. One searches in vain for such a statement. Instead he rejects everything he once said and did as a person who left behind a homosexual life. “I know there are still accounts of my ‘ex-gay’ testimony out there being publicized by various groups, including two books that I wrote about my journey. … I discourage anyone from purchasing and selling these books or promoting my ‘ex-gay’ story because they do not reflect who I am now or what I believe today.” That doesn’t sound like someone who has no intent of having a homosexual relationship.

Blessings,

Dr. Robert Gagnon

Upcoming posts will dissect Gagnon’s thoughts in greater detail. For now, it is sufficient to point out that Gagnon’s thoughts reflect the same wrongs that he condemns:

• Pervasive Biblical cherry-picking, with sloppy exegesis
• Graceless and highly selective legalism
• Sexual obsession
• Projection of bizarre and predatory lusts (his own?) onto all males who lack a woman

As Jeremy Hooper notes, “THIS. IS. WHO. NOM. IS. PAYING. TO. SPEAK. TO. YOUNG. CONSERVATIVES. ON. THE. SUBJECT. OF. MARRIAGE. Is there any lingering question on how NOM, senior staffer Jennifer Roback Morse, and the associated ‘protect marriage’ agenda truly sees us? I mean, how can NOM possibly deny animus when their FIVE-TIME STAR SPEAKER says this kind of thing about people like us?”

Indeed. Gagnon views sexually honest, moral, and authentic LGBT persons as repulsive, depraved, a threat to society, and worthy of harsh prosecution. His view of marriage as a sexual tool — virtually the only hope a man has to avoid pedophilia and bestiality — is contemptible. And the outcome of his half-logic about scouting — that gay men should lead the Girl Scouts and lesbians should lead the Boy Scouts — will come as a surprise to many of his peers.

RHN leadership convocation, 2012

Restored Hope Network is pleased to announce its Restored Hope Board of Reference comprised of strong, competent and fearless leaders who choose to stand with the new ministry and the truth that Jesus still transforms lives in conformity to God’s will.

They are Dr. Randy Alcorn, Eternal Perspectives Ministries; Dr. Matthew Barber, Liberty Counsel; Steve Berger, Grace Chapel Nashville; Dr. Michael L. Brown, Fire School of Ministry; Fr. Paul Check, Courage; Dr. Robert A. Gagnon, Pittsburg Theological Seminary; Rev. Jim Garlow, Skyline Wesleyan Church; Dr. June Hunt, Hope For The Heart; Dr. Juan Martinez, Fuller Theological Seminary; Dr. Joseph Nicolosi, NARTH; Dr. Ray Ortlund, Jr., The Gospel Coalition; Janet Parshall, host of Moody syndicated radio “In The Market;” Leanne Payne, Pastoral Care Ministries; Georgene Rice, The Georgene Rice Show; Mat Staver, Liberty Counsel; and Christopher West, Theology of the Body Institute.

This roster of endorsers constitutes a miniature Who’s Who, not of the Christian Right (which would include Focus on the Family and the ethics wing of the Southern Baptist Convention), but of a Dominionist wing of Christianity that seeks to imprison or execute sexual minorities, suppress religious minorities, and replace the U.S. Constitution with its own harsh interpretation of the Bible.

We’ll be reporting more on some of these individuals — some of whom received their degrees from fundamentalist diploma mills, and in 2009 steered Exodus International toward involvement in Uganda’s kill-the-gays legislation — in the near future.

The RHN press release admits that the organization’s objective is power and authoritarian obedience — not prayer or sexual and religious honesty.

We proclaim that Jesus Christ has life-changing power for all who submit to Christ as Lord; we also seek to equip His church to impart that transformation.

To RHN, Christian religion is a means to accumulate power and to force others to submit to its will — which it contends is the same as God’s will. We’ll be exploring RHN’s conflation of its own will with God’s will — in short, a form of blasphemy — in upcoming posts.

-Northern Ireland’s Assembly turns down a marriage equality bill.

-A “conversion therapy” ban is introduced in the New York legislature.

-The religious right pillories gay NBA player Jason Collins.

-Mariela Castro of Cuba is granted a visa to attend an LGBT conference in Philadelphia.

-A gay imam performs same-sex weddings in Washington, DC.

-Civil unions begin in Colorado.

-Rep. Paul Ryan drops his opposition to adoption by gay parents.

-Two more Brazilian states recognize marriage equality.

-A private school in South Africa tells a lesbian couple their son will be expelled if they don’t divorce.

-A new poll finds strong early support for a marriage referendum in Oregon.

-Rhode Island officially becomes the tenth US state to legalize same-sex marriage.