Ex-Gay Watch

BoiFromTroy reports:

Cable news channel CNN is refusing to air the new “Hopes not fears” ad by the Log Cabin Republicans because images in the ad, such as pictures of Jerry Falwell, Senator Rick Santorum and the Rev. Fred Phelps holding a sign that says “God Hates Fags” are “too controversial.”

“Liberal” has never been the word I’d use to describe CNN. “Bland,” “shallow,” and “spineless” are the adjectives that I had in mind. Superficial. Watching CNN is like watching The Today Show: Glamorous models stripping away the vital details and context of a story, leaving behind digestible bits of human emotion bracketed by advertising and makeup. Conservatives have Fox News; those who want to pretend they’re informed have CNN. I wouldn’t know what liberals watch these days; surely they can’t be reading books and blogs all the time.

On a separate note, I have updated the XGW entry on Focus on the Family’s criticism of Vice President Cheney. The New York Times reported today that FRC worked with Bush campaign staffers to repudiate Cheney and toughen the GOP platform’s opposition to any state’s recognition of gay civil unions.

I noted some time ago that the exgay network Exodus and some of its political allies periodically associate gay equality under the law with Nazism. I briefly connected this habit of the religious right with a web site by John Aravosis that compares religious-right speech with anti-Semitic speech. My own gut reaction was that while analysis of propaganda techniques is useful, Nazi-baiting tends be counterproductive for those who practice it.
Read more…

At the political organizations steered by James Dobson — Focus on the Family, Family Research Council, and Exodus, among others — insults seem to have become part of doing business.

The latest indication of this: FRC says it will distribute fortune cookies at the GOP convention. Among the “fortunes”:

Real Men Marry Women:
Support a Constitutional Amendment to Protect Marriage

So now FRC is insulting single men and priests as well as same-sex-attracted men.

Save the Constitution!
Impeach an Activist Judge

Non-activist judges, presumably, favor smashing gay persons’ equality under the law, mandating conservative-Christian prayers in public schools and government offices, and allowing churches to use taxpayer money to lobby for political candidates.

#1 Reason to Ban Human Cloning:
Hillary Clinton

One expects spitballs like these from loudmouths like James Carville and Rush Limbaugh — not from a Christian organization claiming to defend women and families.
Hat tip to John Aravosis.

Psychotherapist Joe Kort wrote “Queer Eye for the Straight Therapist for the May/June issue of Psychotherapy Networker. The article traces Kort’s winding road from struggling same-sex-attracted college student; through ex-gay therapy, which negatively impacted him and his parents; onward through a futile effort to re-closet himself; his initial struggles working with gay client-patients; and his efforts to overcome professionals’ opposition to gay-affirmative therapy.
Read more…

Updated Aug. 27 to include reaction by the ex-gay network Exodus.

John Aravosis first pulled together the news Aug. 26 that an antigay ideologue will provide entertainment at the GOP convention:

“I’m not in the mood to play with those who are trying to kill our children.” — Donnie McClurkin, GOP Convention entertainer speaking about gays.

Donnie McClurkin, one of the just-announced entertainers to be performing at the GOP Convention in NYC, thinks homosexuality is a “curse,” that it’s caused by men raping small children, that being gay is a choice, that it can be cured, and most explosively, that gays are trying to “kill our children.”

Aravosis provides quotations by and about McClurkin from numerous sources. They make McClurkin sound like a loose cannon ready to blow.

Keith Boykin’s analysis of McClurkin is excellent — thoughtful, sensitive, and fair. Go read it.

While Boykin’s appeals to a mix of compassion and skepticism over McClurkin’s troubled life and unsound ideology, exgay-activism expert Wayne Besen quickly cuts to political ramifications.

In his press release (copied below), Besen calls McClurkin’s accusations “patently false” and says the GOP’s selection of McClurkin places a man opposing “respect, fairness and inclusion” on the convention stage.

But in its own press release (also copied below), Exodus defends McClurkin’s rhetoric without daring to actually quote it. Exodus says simply that “Donnie is not shy about his testimony.” Finding no reason to place conditions on its praise of McClurkin, Exodus instead takes time to gratuitously wag a finger at “sexually permissive Hollywood elitists” — citing Ben Affleck, a former working-class Bostonian, as a prime example.

In apparent contrast to Affleck, Exodus says, “Donnie represents freedom of speech, freedom of religious expression, freedom to rise above adversity and the freedom of self-determination”; Exodus thanks the Republican Party for celebrating this “true freedom.”

McClurkin’s incendiary speeches are, presumably, constitutionally protected. McClurkin’s participation in the convention probably will not receive due media attention — neither political convention has received adequate coverage. If it does gain notice, then we shall see whether Exodus and their political allies equate criticism of McClurkin with “intolerance.”

Here are the press releases issued by Wayne Besen and by Exodus:
Read more…

By Dan Gonzales, www.modern.prosaic.nu
for Ex-Gay Watch

I was baffled by the Family News in Focus audio program (Windows Media, Real) even more than normal Aug. 26.

Rather than taking the moral high ground and criticizing Cheney’s remarks from a Jeffersonian (states rights) approach to gay marriage, the two guests quoted both dealt exclusively with Cheney’s “undermining and hurting the president.” Focus and the day’s guests also seemed unsure of how to react to Cheney’s statement, “freedom means freedom for everyone” and failed to formulate a rebuttal. Apparently we’re supposed to ignore this freedom statement and get all worked up that his greatest sin was not maintaining a consistent facade with Bush.

There was then a story on a custody case in Virginia and how it is being affected by the former couple’s now-dissolved Vermont civil union. One party involved, who Focus reports is now “ex-gay” (Washington Blade article) has ended the relationship and now wants sole custody of her biological child which was raised jointly by the couple. This obviously messy situation is only made messier by Virginia’s recently enacted oppressive legislation and Focus seems unsure of how to react here as well.

I couldn’t tell if the story was supposed to be about the evils of homosexuals, the evils of civil unions, or how states like Vermont are only “exporting marriage confusion.” Quote from the radio broadcast:

Victoria Cobb of The Family Foundation of Virginia calls for a sympathetic Christian perspective.

[Cobb:] It is cases like this that are the reason we passed in Virginia the marriage affirmation act, the sad part of this case is that a child is being used by the homosexual movement for their radical agenda.

Am I missing something here? I don’t see an ounce of sympathy in Cobb’s statement or for that matter anything the least bit constructive.

I can’t quite put my finger on either story but something just seemed “off” about Bob Ditmer and his guests’ rhetoric today.

–Dan Gonzales

Addendum, Aug. 31: In retaliation against Cheney, the New York Times reports that President Bush’s campaign staff worked with FRC and other religious-right leaders to toughen the GOP platform’s repudiation of gay civil unions.

At a news conference yesterday, Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, a group of social conservatives, said that the push to strengthen the platform’s opposition to same-sex civil unions was partly a response to Vice President Dick Cheney’s statement last week that he personally favored leaving the issue up to the states.

“We are obviously troubled by the vice president’s comments last week, which in ways led to the strengthening of the language in the platform,’ Mr. Perkins said.

The Deseret Morning News profiles Glenn Wyler, founder of People Can Change, an online ex-gay ministry. The article gives due attention to Wyler’s journey, his claim to be completely heterosexual, and his scheduled weekend retreat.

The article gives more-than-equal time, however, to psychology and psychiatry professionals that believe reparative therapy is sometimes or often harmful.

Salt Lake City psychologist Lee Beckstead is quoted at length discussing his own studies. He found that while ex-gay therapy harmed some study participants, it actually helped some people adapt to life as a mature same-sex-attracted (gay) individual. None of his Mormon study participants apparently reported an increase in heterosexual arousal. Beckstead is not gung-ho about gay-affirming therapy, however; he favors a balanced approach that allows people to form their own identities.

Apart from one factual glitch (“The APA ceased using the therapy in 1973.”), I am impressed by the article’s fairness and accuracy. In the article, People Can Change’s founder is outnumbered by professional skeptics — but that’s how things are in reality, and it would have been a bit misleading to divide the article 50/50 between amateur ex-gay activists and professional clinicians.

Nevertheless, I would have appreciated considerably more information about Wyler.

I’ve got bigger stories than this to report, but I’ve been busy. A couple folks gave me a gentle push about this item, though, so here it is.

Jon Rowe notes an interesting thing about ex-gay ex-tolerance activist Noe Gutierrez, who was mentioned by XGW a couple days ago.

The interesting thing here is that this fellow‘s “born-again” experience, which in turn lead to his “change” away from homosexuality, was facilitated or even wholly caused by a trip on magic mushrooms.

Rowe’s assessment of Gutierrez is a bit harsher than mine: I simply acknowledge that some people come to religion in strange ways that contradict a claim to moral purity or clarity of mind. I don’t have a problem with that.

But if someone continues to market and profit from stereotypes that were inspired by a drug trip — or by a rebellion to the opposite extreme — then credibility suffers.

XGW recently banned one antigay activist who disrupted the site.

She felt that threatening people, making false statements, refusing to substantiate her accusations, posting off-topic messages across multiple pages, shouting down people’s responses, and intentionally reposting the same identical message over and over were appropriate forms of online conduct and evangelism.

“Friend of Observer,” also someone with an evangelical spirit, responded by posting a much more civil message, but reposted the same identical message across several pages.

I tried to ask Friend via e-mail to refrain from cross-posting the same message, but the given e-mail address was invalid. I posted a message here asking people not to crosspost and to use valid e-mail addresses.

What followed, in this page’s comments section, is a debate among several people, on both sides, about whether and how it is appropriate for antigay people to evangelize gay people.

Addendum: Gay spirituality blogger Joe Perez discusses “How to Respond to Anti-Gay Moralizers.”

Some gay relationships are looked up to, with admiration, by gay and nongay peers alike.

And like heterosexual relationships, some gay pairs serve are fodder for tales about drama queens, bipolar disorder, f-buddies, cheaters and beaters.

Some pairs live in natural sync, others have to fight hard to make the relationship work.

With his usual sensitivity and insight, Dalai Banana reflects, from his own experience and those of his friends, on all these types of pairings.