Mr. Bennett points out there are no definitive studies proving sexuality is genetic. However Bennett deceives by omission. He repeatedly asserts sexuality is developmental but fails to cite any such study to back this up. Instead Bennett provides a pathetic string non-clinically supported claims of “broken father” type stereotypes.
Honestly I expected more salient (or at least original) arguments could be mustered for a debut episode.
Click image to enlarge
For documentation and notes click below.
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Exodus lobbyist Randy Thomas comments on the Oct. 28 Boston Globe interview of him at Focus on the Family’s Love Won Out road show.
I criticized the article here for its failure to confirm the accuracy of Thomas’s statements and for overlooking the very public antigay political activities of Exodus and Focus on the Family.
In other Randy Thomas news…
Earlier this week on his blog, Randy Thomas tried to evangelize an airplane seatmate with his exgay business card. Having already stereotyped the woman as a “nice new age priestess,” he then wonders why the woman becomes a “snarling sarcastic something-or-other.” Thomas feels the woman presumed too much about him; he concludes: “I, like my God, see all people as complex and priceless treasures…not junk.”
Question: So why does he stereotype people as if they were junk?
Observation: His elevation of his own opinion to be that of God seems just a wee bit blasphemous.
The Montgomery County, Maryland, Board of Education has identified the members of a sex-education curriculum development panel. This panel is is being recreated after the previous panel’s work was protested by an abstinence-only group and the antigay group PFOX, challenged in court by the religious-right Liberty Counsel, and subsequently discarded.
Among the new panel members is antigay activist Peter Sprigg of the Family Research Council. He will represent PFOX.
Other panel members include representatives from PFLAG and NARAL Pro-Choice Maryland. What abortion has to do with sex education is beyond me. (That’s an invitation to a food fight in the comments section, hint hint.)
Thoughts by former ex-gay Peterson Toscano:
Lots of “ex-gay” proponents claim that one of the causes of same-sex attraction is childhood sexual abuse. I don’t think they are lying; they truly believe it. In fact, I imagine that the majority of people who attend their programs have been sexually abused, so in their logic they have concluded that sexual abuse + other factors (family, gender confusion, etc) = GAY.
Instead of searching for the elusive root causes of same-sex attraction, I wish they would ask themselves, “Why do our programs attract same-gender loving people who have also been sexually abused?”
Read on.
Alas, A Blog casts a bit of doubt upon the widespread belief that suppressed sexual arousal prompts antigay bullies to act violently against persons assumed to be gay.
Citing a study that measured the penis response of homophobic and non-homophobic males to the sight of homosexual pornography, Alas points out that other things besides sexual arousal cause penis size to change. Things like anxiety and fear.
You know, the things that make someone phobic.
Washington state was subjected a little puff piece on the ex-gay movement from KOMO TV news website.
The ex-gay ministry, Groundswell, is quoted as saying
“Our message is that change is possible for anyone who wants out of homosexuality.”
We’ve discussed, ad nauseum, what that sentence means in English so I won’t go into it here.
The piece quoted Groundswell at length and the only rebuttal was clearly by people unfamiliar with Christian teaching or language.
This, once again, shows a real need on the part of our community for a strong vocal advocate that speaks “conservative Christian” and can be available to counter the lies told by the ex-gay advocates.
Warren Throckmorton has adopted an interesting take on scripture in Matthew in which Jesus refers to “eunuchs because they were born that way”. Throckmorton’s interpretation seems to be that some men are born without an attraction to women.
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I see below that Dan Gonzales disagrees strongly with one of Wayne Besen’s posts this week.
I hadn’t noticed that post, but there are at least two other posts by Besen that are worth a look:
The American Family Association is battling wholesome low-wage drugstore chain Walgreen’s because the retailer is one of the many corporate sponsors for the 2006 Gay Games, which promote health, fitness and fairness in athletics. It isn’t too surprising that AFA has chosen to smear professional health-and-fitness advocates and their commercial sponsors, given (as Besen notes) the AFA’s longtime support for antigay activist Michael Johnston, who spent the late 1990s trying to infect gay strangers with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, by way of unsafe-sex orgies.
Besen also draws attention to an apparent smear by the antigay New York Post — which was quickly quoted by both gay- and exgay-affiliated media, including XGW — against J. David Enright IV and against an alleged pedophile priest. Enright now says he never told the Post that the priest caused him to become same-sex-attracted. Enright also says he’s “proud” to be open about his same-gender sexual orientation. Besen has the details.
In his blog today, Wayne Besen attacks Brenna Simonds, leader of a small Boston exgay ministry, the name of which he does not give. That ministry’s name is is Alive In Christ and is unlucky enough to be based out of a church located a block from the capital building. In Besen’s eye by virtue of the fact Simonds ministers to exgays and is located near the capital she is surely involved in anti-gay politicking. Mr. Besen provides no substantiation of these accusations Simonds is politically involved. Googling “Brenna Simonds” turns up little more than mention of her ministerial work and a couple Amazon.com book reviews of rather benign Christian books. I question if Besen’s unsubstantiated accusations on Ms. Simonds and inflammatory commentary on Randy Thomas’ sex-life later in his post serve any constructive purpose.
P.S. Fun new infographic Monday! (But it’s on a different subject, not Wayne.)
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