Ex-Gay Watch

From the Cleveland Plain Dealer, July 30, via 365gay.com:

The Rev. James Jones is one of two organizers of a July 31 prayer and healing service for people with HIV/AIDS.

But in Jones’ mind, the “healing” may have been targeted at homosexuality, not AIDS.

Jones told a church publication that he is “ex-gay,” compared homosexuality to addictions, said gays needed to give up their lifestyle to get into heaven, and opposed gay marriage.

When a Cleveland HIV/AIDS service agency and the local gay and lesbian community center learned of Jones’ comments, they revoked their prominently advertised sponsorship of the service. Three other agencies — including a Baptist ministry — distanced themselves from the event or denied knowing that their names had been used to promote the event.

“We feel incredibly deceived and betrayed,” Tim Marshall, a spokesperson for the Lesbian/Gay community center told the Plain Dealer.

According to the Plain Dealer, the center had agreed to help print the flyers and promote the event after Jones approached gay rights groups two months ago hoping to be included in Black Gay and Proud Celebration Week.

Jones said that he was only expressing his personal views, and that the service — having already benefited from the agencies’ marketing support — would proceed.

Tell CNN to Cover The Facts About “Reparative Therapy”!
Joe Kort, MSW

This is from the PFLAG 7/28 e-newsletter. Please consider sending an email to the CNN folks listed at the bottom.

Last night CNN’s show Paula Zahn Now aired a story on “reparative therapy” organization Love in Action.

CNN completely ignored vital information on this issue. Here are some examples:

The story did NOT include statements by the American Medical Association and American Psychiatric Association denouncing “reparative therapy.”

The story did NOT talk about the virtually non- existent success rate of “ex-gay” programs.

The story did NOT discuss the serious emotional damage that “reparative therapy” can cause or the self-destructive behavior, including suicide, that “reparative therapy” can induce.

What did Paula Zahn’s story include? An interview of Love in Action director Reverend John Smid s trolling through a yard, extolling the virtues of his “ex- gay” program.

The story also included interviews with two young “Love in Action” graduates, one gay and one straight – making it appear to the viewer that the chances of success in reparative therapy are 50/50.

We at PFLAG know the chances of long-term emotional damage are very real for young men and women forced into “reparative therapy.”

We must tell the media to accurately and comprehensively report these facts!

Please send an email to the CNN employees listed below.

Tell them you expect them to report the facts and tell the truth about all issues, especially an issue like “reparative therapy” that endangers families across the country.

Please send your email to the following CNN employees and please send a copy of your email to tthompson@pflag.org:

Victor.Neufeld@cnn.com
Mark.Nelson@cnn.com
Debra.Goldschmidt@cnn.com
Deborah.Feyerick@cnn.com
Paula.Zahn@cnn.com

If you’d like to see the story, go to www.cnn.com and look for the video called Going Straight.

Warmly, Joe Kort

by Wayne Besen

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Saturday, July 30, 2005

CO-FOUNDER OF MINISTRY THAT RUNS TEEN ‘EX-GAY’ BOOT CAMP SAYS GROUP SHATTERS LIVES AND CAN CAUSE SUICIDE

Love In Action Co-Founder John Evans Unveils Powerful Letter Rebuking ‘Ex-Gay’ Ministries

NEW YORK — Author Wayne Besen released an explosive letter today by Love In Action’s co-founder and former ex-gay John Evans, which rebukes gay conversion groups saying that they “shattered lives”. The group he started has recently made headlines because it runs a boot camp for gay teens called “Refuge” that tries to turn adolescents heterosexual, often against their will.
Read more…

The NPR radio program On Point aired a one-hour discussion of exgay “therapy” on July 29.

According to the Making Gays Straight program description, the discussion participants were three exgay advocates, two critics of exgay therapies’ safety and effectiveness, and a reporter who has covered Love In Action’s exgay boot camp.

• Alex Williams, style reporter for The New York Times (Google search for Williams’ coverage of the LIA story)
• Christine Sneeringer, Director of Worthy Creations Ministry, which offers support groups for gay people who want to become straight
• Joseph Nicolosi, Director of the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality
• Jack Drescher, Chair of the American Psychiatric Association Committee on Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual issues
• Leah Deriel, recent graduate and engineer who has sought help to stop her strong feelings toward women
• Brandon Tidwell, a former client of “Love in Action,” a evangelical program in Memphis for gay men and women who want to become straight.

No doubt exgay pundits would call a 3-to-2 bias in favor of exgays “fair and balanced.” However, Dr. Robert Spitzer’s exhaustive 2001 search for successful exgays found barely 200, compared to a U.S. gay population of approximately 10 million (assuming 3 percent of Americans are predominantly same-sex-attracted). Also, “hundreds of thousands” of people have been tallied as exgays on the Exodus scorecard, but 30 percent or fewer of exgays (according to Exodus President Alan Chambers) remain so.

Which seems fairer and more accurate: A 200-to-10,000,000 ratio, Chambers’ 3-to-7 ratio, or a 3-to-2 ratio?

(A 200-to-10-million ratio, by the way, works out to 0.00002 exgays for each gay radio-show guest.)

This radio program was organized on short notice, and exgays appear to have been better organized and prepared than ex-exgays to advance their agenda within tight media deadlines. Ex-exgays were not so ready; there is currently no organized national network of ex-exgays, and some ex-exgays could not be reached on short notice.

On Point offers Windows Media and RealPlayer versions of the discussion.

The Houston Voice and New York Blade follow up earlier reporting with a new story today on Jerry Falwell’s July 21 appearance at the week-long Exodus International conference in Asheville, N.C.

Worthy of note:

1. During worship, Falwell summoned an altar call, promising a “miracle.”

2. The reporter was required to be accompanied and monitored by an Exodus representative at all times.

3. Exodus co-founder Frank Worthen coached a classroom of 60 people — many of whom already appeared to be married — on how to achieve and endure an exgay marriage.

Emphasis below is XGW’s:

“Men are ready for marriage when their desire to be protected becomes a desire to protect,” Worthen said. “A man should also have three years of celibacy,” he added, “and have been free of pornography and masturbation for some time.” …

Worthen said men need to become “hard and masculine” in order to be able to enjoy the soft, mushy feel of a woman. To become firmer, it is OK for a man to work out a little bit, he said, just not too much.

He also said that many wives wonder whether their ex-gay husbands will expect them to engage in the “unnatural” sex practices to which they imagine their husbands have become accustomed. Not so, Frank said, and he recommended that couples avoid oral sex, which could stimulate gay fantasies.

The Worthens said physical intimacy should proceed slowly, and it is best to wait until marriage to experiment with deep kissing. There should be no commitment to sexual performance on the wedding night, they said, and some prudent couples wait a year after marriage before even attempting sexual intercourse.

Frank Worthen also warned the crowd that gay friends are a one-way ticket back to “the lifestyle.”

Clearly, Worthen sees the prospect of exgays getting to know real gay people as a serious threat to exgay movement stereotypes.

Exodus president Alan Chambers gloats (as he frequently does) that he has, on some unidentified occasion, received feces in the mail from some unidentified gay activist.

Better to talk about excretory functions, one supposes, than to voice disagreement with Worthen — or with Falwell’s call for the forcible confinement of youths in exgay boot camps.

Received from Exodus International via e-mail just now:

Scott Davis, director of Exodus Youth, is scheduled to appear on ABC’s daytime talk show, The View, on Monday, August 1. Exodus says Davis will be joined by Mike Ensley, a “graduate” of an Exodus program located in Southern California.

Exodus does not say whether any opposing viewpoints will be aired. The program’s web site does not show the schedule for August 1 yet.

FYI, I’m on vacation through Sunday, August 7th. Have a good week, everyone!

The National Public Radio program On Point will discuss Love In Action and “conversion therapy” for a full hour tonight — 7 p.m. Eastern time.

On Point’s schedule lists local NPR stations that carry the program, as well as local air times.

For those who miss the show: The On Point web site also archives its programs — or portions of them.

In cased you missed the Jon Stewart Show’s hilarious Samantha Bee, in this week’s segment on the “gayification” of NASCAR, click here.

The segment includes an interview with an ex-gay NASCAR fan, and…well, it’s just too perfect. Enjoy.

The August issue of GQ still is not at my local newsstand, so I turn over the mike to southern gospel music blogger averyfineline.com for analysis of the magazine’s story about Kirk Talley:

Some of AVFL’s key points:

• Talley seems uncertain whether he is a victim of a backward religious culture or whether he is a spiritual masochist. Talley chooses neither to affirm same-gender relationships, nor to condemn “homosexuality.”
• The article title is misguided and false. Within the context Talley has chosen, there is no spiritual closet, nor has he come out of anything.
• Talley confuses temptation with the full scope of sexuality.
• Talley may prefer the known — the meanness and rejection he faces from evangelical and southern culture, which are familiar and predictable — over the unknown of starting over at age 47.

If you appreciate southern gospel music — or insightful analysis of the culture — go read AVFL.