Ex-Gay Watch

Wherever CWFA’s Robert Knight treads, other religious right groups usually follow.

The Virginia-based Family Policy Network says it will “turn ‘Gay Days’ into ‘Hope Days.’”

Sponsors needed for Christian outreach to homosexuals

The press release certainly starts badly, assuming gays aren’t Christian, and implying that they’re going to hell. One also wonders, why does the religious right go out of its way to convey messages in inordinately costly and impersonal ways?

If prospective ex-gays are looking for hope in antigay religion, they will look to CBN or find an antigay church or religious book. People attend Gay Days looking for fun, not impersonal and overpriced ads for religious-right web sites.

Every year about this time, Christians and pro-family organizations
express their angst over so-called ‘pride parades’ and ‘gay day’
celebrations held in cities and theme parks across the country. In some
cases, there is frustration over companies like Disney embracing
celebrations of immorality with their blessing and assistance. In other
cases, the offense occurs when theme parks and city streets are overrun
with acts of perversion, against the wishes of the park operators and/or
local officials. In every case, Christians are heartbroken over the
celebration of sin, and the devastating effects of homosexual behavior on
people who engage in it.

I have yet to see antigay Christians “heartbroken” over Gay Days. Angry, perhaps. And it’s embarrassing to most people, Christians included, when the mere presence of couples kissing or holding hands is described by antigay Christians as “acts of perversion.”

With the help of supporters and pro-family activists in
several states, FPN has contracted pilots to fly airplane banners over
several such venues beginning in Orlando that will read, “JESUS CHRIST:
HOPE FOR HOMOSEXUALS.COM.”

The site includes
stirring testimonies from former homosexuals, a presentation of God’s plan
of salvation, articles that warn of the destructive nature of homosexual
behavior, and contact information for getting in touch with groups that
assist recovering homosexuals in finding hope and healing for their broken
lives.

This message, a bit presumptuous in its knowledge of “God’s plan” and its assurance that homosexuals’ lives are broken, clearly is not targeted at gays. It is targeted at likely donors to the religious right.

SPONSORS NEEDED:

FPN is planning to fly the “Hope” banner over as many Gay Day celebrations
for which it can raise the necessary funds, beginning in Orlando on June
7th. Hence, there is a direct correlation between contributions raised and
the number of people the “Hope” banner can reach. No gift is too small.
Yet, the larger the gift, the greater the impact.

Donors giving $250 or more will have the option of being listed on the
“Hope for Homosexuals” web site and in “Project Hope” news releases as
“Friends.” Local organizations and/or ministries giving $500 or more will
have the option of being listed as “Event Sponsors.” Donors of $1,000 or
more will have the option of being listed on all materials as “National
Sponsors.”

Time is short. Therefore, interested donors and prospective sponsors are
urged to get involved as soon as possible. Click here to give now, or call
FPN for more details.

In view of my comments about the less-than-generous TVC, I must admit here that at least one religious-right organization does put some money behind its verbal support of ex-gays. It is not apparent, however, that any financing will go to actual ex-gay groups. The money will be spent on FPN administrative costs and airplane fees, not interpersonal Christian ministry.

FPN’s page of principles for outreach to homosexuals, including opposition to violence and support for discrimination, is worth a careful read. I’ll comment on it later.

Audio recordings of past Gay Days commentaries are available here.

James Asal is an exceptional comic-strip artist. Adam and Andy finds light humor in ordinary gay life.

I’ve looked around, and I’ve yet to find an ex-gay comic-strip artist, someone who finds nonthreatening humor in ex-gay life.

Know of an ex-gay comic strip? Tell us about ‘em.

Submitted by an Ex-Gay Watch reader:

WorldNetDaily, a religious-right publication edited by Joseph Farah, and Robert Knight of Concerned Women for America are teaming up against the appearance on CBS of a gay couple that calls itself married.

Publicity for the CBS reality show “The Amazing Race 4″ does not say how the pair is married. But WorldNetDaily and Concerned Women want to know how — and they want to destroy this marriage, or at least hide it from public view.

If they can’t bury the marriage, they at least hope to punish the show’s sponsors, including American Express, Kodak, Royal Caribbean Cruises, and T-Mobile. They complain further that Kodak recently fired an antigay worker who allegedly misused corporate e-mail to protest Kodak’s support for diversity.

WorldNetDaily and Knight could have addressed the gay couple directly, diplomatically, with respectful disagreement. But why treat people decently when you can launch a culture war against them?

This is something that gays have never heard clearly from Exodus.

Exodus and its religious right allies declare, “You can change.” But in the presence of discriminatory laws, and the absence of any declaration of tolerance, what the public hears is, “You must change.”

If there are any ex-gays who believe change is possible but not required, they would be clearing up a tragic miscommunication if they came forward and said so publicly.

An Ex-Gay Watch reader sent me this item from The Washington Post. The article is about the upcoming gay-dating reality show, “Boy Meets Boy”:

Among those additional viewers are sure to be members of the Traditional Values Coalition, whose executive director was already alerting its 43,000
member churches about the series so that they could protest it, the
Associated Press reported.

“What’s next,” Andrea Lafferty asked, ” ‘Boy Meets Sheep’?”

TVC has, for many years, cited the existence of ex-gays as a reason to pass laws discriminating against gays — and to donate to TVC.

For all its statements, I have seen TVC offer little or no financial or staff support to ex-gay organizations. It seems satisfied to use the ex-gay movement in its own fundraising and political campaigns while providing little in return to ex-gays.

And the movement, for its part, seems content with having its work used at no charge by the political fringe. Over the years, I have seen no public evidence of ex-gay ministers holding TVC accountable for its indecent and hateful tirades. A Google search seems to confirm my observations.

Robert Knight of Concerned Women for America has added a new chapter to his string of arguments against conservative David Horowitz and other defenders of small government and family privacy.

Knight seems to redefine the term “Christians” to refer only to those who agree with Sen. Santorum and the antiprivacy movement. Jewish law is similarly redefined. Omitted from Knight’s portrayal of the Old and New Testaments are the books that distinguish among various Jewish moral codes and the more relaxed Gentile moral codes.

Item 3 on this week’s news release from Exodus seems remarkably balanced, both in its assessment of sexual minorities’ different attitudes toward the parades and in appropriate nonviolent reactions by exgays.

Item 2 from this week’s Exodus news release protests the Gus Van Sant film Elephant.

The film:

• comes from a gay filmmaker,
• dramatizes the chronic bullying endured by the eventual killers at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo.,
• plays out a “What if?” scenario involving the rumor (started by Matt Drudge and quickly fueled by the Family Research Council) that the killers were gay or bisexual.

In fact, the killers’ ties to the Trench Coat Mafia were weak; and the school bullies on the Today Show were the only Columbine students who believed that the TCM or the killers were gay.

Even though the film agrees in part with Exodus’ perspective against bullying, and even though he has not seen the film, Exodus spokesman Randy Thomas protests the movie’s receipt of the Palme D’Or award at Cannes.

Exodus accuses the film and festival of “exploiting” the religious right’s rumor. I suspect the film’s plot line would not qualify as “exploitation” if it had come from Exodus first.

Thomas calls the festival “morally bankrupt” and accuses the film of misusing the rumor to promote sympathy for gay victims of bullying. But what does Thomas do in the very next paragraph? Express sympathy for gay victims of bullying.

Exodus has, in fact, “exploited” a murder in a somewhat similar manner. A few years back, Exodus then-chairman John Paulk blamed the molestation and murder of Jesse Dirkhising on the homosexuality of the killers.

(Google search for John Paulk statements about Jesse Dirkhising.)

One difference between Van Sant and Paulk, of course, is that Van Sant does not actually blame homosexuality for driving the Columbine pair to commit mass murder.

Whatever Exodus’ concerns about Columbine and Dirkhising may be, they are obscure and confused. If someone else can explain Exodus’ discordant responses to the film and the Dirkhising murder, I’m all ears.

Thomas says bullying contributes to alienation and homosexuality, concluding:

No matter what our convictions are, the proverbial high road and the person of character defends the downtrodden, not bully them.

Yet Exodus and its allies NARTH and Focus on the Family have opposed numerous antibullying programs in schools across America, labeling them efforts to promote homosexuality and silence bullies.

(Google search of Exodus officials’ opposition to antibullying programs.)
(Google search of NARTH opposition to antibullying programs.)
(Google search of Focus/Family opposition to antibullying programs.)

In fact, Exodus has yet to support a single antibullying program or even draft one of its own, despite its creation of a substantial youth program.

Highlights from the response to my note to the ex-gay activist:

I was deemed to have a confused notion about genetics vs innate
characteristics because “They both mean the same thing.” The activist cited a dictionary definition but ignored the nongenetic meanings for “innate.” I pointed out
that, per OneLook, innate is often defined as “present at birth but not necessarily hereditary; acquired during fetal
development.”

On the suggestion of widely-accepted behavior change, the activist suggests
“you are off because there are many who believe they are born this way,”
ignoring the behavior/attraction distinction and implying gay Christians may also be “off” if they call themselves “God’s children.”

My use of the phrase “gay-tolerant” was described as “a waste of a word”
because ex-gay supporters are already tolerant and God will not tolerate
gays “bringing sin into heaven with them.” That comment, of course:

• assumes God is even less tolerant than ex-gays;
• prejudges anyone not adhering to the activist’s self-righteous interpretation of Christianity;
• assumes all Christian gays are unrepentant; and
• assumes that the activist is unrepentant of all sins. Which is not the case.

The activist uses an analogy which agrees with my suggestion that behavior,
not orientation, is often what changes, but then she dismisses the relevance of attraction.

Traditionally ill-conceived incriminations comprise the last couple hundred
words, referring to all gays and lesbians as liars and manipulators of the
public, linking homosexuality and pedophilia, dismissing all gay civil rights
activists (who are of different ethnicities) as demeaning all blacks and dismissing marriage seekers as destroyers of marriage.

I found this odd: “We are not homophobic, you are heterophobic because you
were born a male and try to come off as something else or your partner
does.”

And this mildly unsettling: “Homosexuality has discriminated against us long
enough, it is time to war.” So much for the writer’s claim to be tolerant.

I continue to believe in civil rights for all, including this person. Some
day perhaps I’ll understand my fascination with attempting to
dialogue with folks with limited ability to listen or think critically.