Ex-Gay Watch

Street Prophets and United Church of Christ blogger Chuck Currie report on a TV ad unveiled March 27 by the United Church of Christ.

The ad’s title: Ejector Seat.

The theme: Jesus didn’t turn people away. Nor should Christian churches.

The ads have already been banned from the major U.S. broadcast networks; they will run on cable. In response to the ban, Accessibleairwaves.org calls for the mainstream media to stop silencing mainline and liberal religious perspectives in advertising and in news coverage. The networks are not impartially banning all advocacy ads; Talk To Action notes that at least one of the networks has aired ads for Focus on the Family.

Go to God Is Still Speaking to view the Ejector Seat ad and last year’s Bouncer ad, which also was rejected by TV networks. Another ad, “Ejection Pew,” will be released April 3.

Performance artist Peterson Toscano, who survived a long residency at exgay live-in program Love In Action, reports that another LIA survivor named J has begun blogging about his recovery from the program.

The Illinois Family Institute is a state-level family policy council that claims independence from, but closely coordinates its activities with, Focus on the Family.

Last month I noted that IFI executive director Peter LaBarbera has been building ties with the theocratic Constitution Party. The Party counts white supremacists among its candidates, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. (Links to the SPLC allegations are located in my earlier article.)

Blogger Pam Spaulding noted on March 25 that LaBarbera is escalating his rebellion against the state GOP because of its limited tolerance for gay Americans. He encourages religious conservatives to vote for the antigay Constitution Party — or not at all.
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While Focus on the Family and ideological allies such as Cal Thomas wage a cultural war against Christians and against other faiths, Christian Peacemaker Teams pursue their Biblical calling to risk their lives for peace and nonviolence in the world’s most dangerous places.

The Rev. David B. Miller, a Mennonite pastor and participant in the teams, responds to a recent tirade by Thomas.

Hat tip: Jesus Politics.

Back on March 8, They Get Letters (via Mike Ditto) found James Dobson misinforming recipients of a fundraising letter that advocates amending the Colorado constitution to prevent gay-tolerant churches from marrying gay couples.

Ditto analyzes each of the Focus fundraising letter’s factual errors.

(Sorry for my lateness, I’m catching up on old mail.)

Live Out Loud is a New York organization whose goal is to “create a safe space for LGBT youth to learn about powerful and passionate people who are leading extraordinary lives.” The organization has existed since early 2001.

It was not until the past few months that Exodus International, the exgay umbrella network, adopted “Live Out Loud” as the theme of its staff blogs and 2006 annual conference.

Did Exodus ask for permission to use the name of the New York gay youth-safety organization in its own antigay programs? How would Exodus react if Ex-Gay Watch were to borrow, say, the “Change Is Possible” slogan and make it the title of Ex-Gay Watch’s new blog and ad campaign?

Hat tip: Good As You

The Soulforce Equality Ride brought its nonviolent call for fairness for gay Christian students to Lee University in Cleveland, Tennessee, in mid-March. (Here are first-person Ride diaries for March 16, 17, 18)

The goal of the Ride has been for gay people of faith to engage conservative Christian students in voluntary and peaceful discussion — though Riders have also been arrested when they attempted to walk onto their former campuses to talk with students.

During the visit, a local mother and her son spray-painted “fags mobile” across the Equality Ride bus. Unlike Exodus and Focus on the Family, which blame any incident of vandalism on “gay activists,” Soulforce did not blame antigay activists. Soulforce blamed religious misinformation.

“It’s a religious misinformation that causes it. People fear or don’t understand what it means to be a gay or lesbian person, and this is how it acts out,” said Jacob Reitan, Soulforce Co-director.

Exodus responded not by welcoming civil dialogue as some campus Christians did, but by misquoting Soulforce.

On the Exodus: Live Out Loud blog last week, Exodus Youth staffer Mike Ensley inaccurately says Soulforce blamed “religion” for the vandalism, even as he links to the local news article that quoted Soulforce accurately.

Ensley also presumes to excommunicate the Equality Ride participants, most of whom are both Christian and former students of the schools being visited. Ensley says his “prayer is that the people on that bus will encounter the Savior on their journey.” Sounds like the Riders encountered the Savior in their own lives years ago.

I am left to wonder whether Ensley is projecting his own rejection of Christian faith and charity upon others.

In July 2005, Jerry Falwell was the keynote speaker at an Exodus conference. During his appearance, he approved of parents jailing their children at exgay boot camps such as Love In Action.

It was shocking enough at the time, that Exodus would permit a speech affirming the internment of teen-agers at camps that have developed reputations for abuse and maltreatment.

In late February, Falwell reminded the public that gay youths aren’t the only target of his hellbound self-righteousness: Falwell labels the choice of Judaism a sin and damns all Jews to hell, even though the Bible says otherwise.
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The Pew Research Center has released a new poll that seems to show a favorable shift in attitudes relating to the rights of gay people.
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In a suburb of Orlando, Florida, there is a small office building near the airport where six offices share 6,000 square feet of office space.

As of mid-2005, Exodus International was headquartered in one of the six offices, occupying perhaps 1,000 square feet. Please note that I am not disclosing the office address. (I’d disclose the source of this photo and real estate information, but in this case to do so would disclose the address.)

The office is a bit small for an organization of a dozen-or-so full-time employees, and by itself the office seems inadequate to support 400,000 inquiries per year — unless, of course, most of those inquiries are auto-responded and auto-filed by a forgotten PC sitting in a corner.

I’m not surprised by the size of the Exodus office — it has been clear to me for some years that much of the work publicly attributed directly or indirectly to Exodus International is actually done off-premises — and off-budget, too, by generous organizations such as Focus on the Family that can afford national newspaper-ad and billboard campaigns.