Ex-Gay Watch

WHO:

– Joe Saunders, Central Florida field organizer, Equality Florida
– Wayne Besen, executive director, Truth WinsOut
– Jim Merritt, ex-gay survivor
– Pat Padilla, Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG)

WHAT: A coalition will hold a press conference to challenge so-called “ex-gay” efforts to enter public schools with harmful and scientifically bankrupt programs.

WHEN: Friday, June 30 at 2:30 p.m.

WHERE: Orange County Convention Center (West Concourse), Orlando, Fla. (In Front of Sign at intersection of International Drive and Exhibit Drive)

Update: Here’s a follow up article in the Orlando Sentinel.

Richard Cohen is scheduled to appear on Jimmy Kimmel Live tonight.

Update: Just watched it here in the Pacific time zone and was laughing so hard I was afraid I’d wake up my roommate. Please, if anyone has screen shots of George Foreman looking aghast send them to me. Hopefully The Malcontent will have video posted soon.

Update 2: God bless The Malcontent, they’ve got video of it now.

Update 3: Poor George…

From the Marion Chronicle Tribune:

As the annual Exodus Freedom Conference began in the Phillippe Performing Arts Center auditorium, a group of about 12 people with the Gay Liberation Network stood at Indiana Wesleyan University’s main entrance in protest.

“We consider the Exodus network and other so called ‘ex-gay’ ministries dangerous, particularly to gay youths,” said Bob Schwartz, a member of the GLN coordination committee. “They’re taking the focus off of adults, where they’ve had one abysmal failure after another, and are moving toward youths, and we consider this child abuse.”

The article concludes:

“Our target is people who are unsatisfied; our target is not happily gay people,” [Executive Vice President Mike] Goeke said.

Apparently we’re not talking about the civil liberties of happy gay people or happy gay teenagers shipped off to Love In Action by their disgruntled parents.

So yeah, no targeting of happy gay people going on here.

Hat tip Mike of PageOneQ

A story I came across today began thus:

Former Lesbian Brings Ex-’Gay’ Message to 2006 NEA Annual Meeting

By Jim Brown
June 26, 2006

(AgapePress) – A former lesbian who now runs a Christian ministry in Minnesota will be holding the first ever ex-”gay” exhibit at the National Education Association Annual Meeting in Orlando, Florida.

I found it amusing to behold the mindset that questions the legitimacy (existence?) of homosexuality by placing the word “gay” in inverted commas, while apparently finding no reason to question the notion of an “ex-gay”.

Interested in D.C.-area restaurants? Check out the comments below….

The London Times is reporting that the Archbishop of Cantebury, Rowan Williams, is drawing up plans to remove the Episcopal Church – and other nonconforming liberal Anglican bodies – from full membership in the Communion. This is because the Episcopal Church, the American branch of the Anglicans, would not repent for electing an openly gay man as Bishop.

Dr Williams is proposing a two-track Anglican Communion, with orthodox churches being accorded full, “constituent” membership and the rebel, pro-gay liberals being consigned to “associate” membership.

All provinces will be offered the chance to sign up to a “covenant” which will set out the traditional, biblical standards on which all full members of the Anglican church can agree.

But it is highly unlikely that churches such as The Episcopal Church in the US, the Anglican churches in Canada and New Zealand and even the Scottish Episcopal Church would be able to commit themselves fully to such a document.

If this continues to move in the direction that it appears to be going, this would be the first evident schism in what I predict will become a worldwide multidenominational split in Christianity unlike anything seen since the institution of slavery challenged the church and it’s understanding of “the authority of scripture” and what it means to be a Christian.

You wouldn’t know it from the religious-right media but today is National HIV Testing Day. News sites which ignore this include:

FreeRepublic
Townhall
Family News In Focus
WorldNetDaily

And don’t count on the Agapepress to include it when they publish this afternoon.

MSNBC has a great article about the editor of POZ, a heterosexual woman who contracted HIV through serial monogamy. If XGW readers find more religious-right news sites ignoring National HIV Testing Day, feel free to mention it in a comment and I’ll update my list.

While researching the above post I came to learn the former Exodus board member who said:

“Today with God’s abundant grace and His miraculous power to heal, I walk totally free from the AIDS virus.”

Died in 2004. His name was Michael Steven Lumberger and his testimonial no longer appears on the recently redesigned Exodus website. Randy Thomas blogged about it and later deleted his post but that’s why we have google cache! Here’s the obit. No cause of death is given in either link.

Update 07/26/06: After this post was initially published I had several leaders within the exgay movement email me to tell me Lumberger’s cause of death was something unexpected and heart related. All the exgay leadlers’ said the same thing about the cause of death and since I’m not much of a conspiracy theorist I’m inclined to believe it was the truth. Some people who emailed me were all worked up in a tizzy that I had dared to write about Lumberger at all and others genuinely wanted to understand why many gay people (myself included) found his testimony so offensive and insulting.

First off, I’d like to make it clear I never said he died of AIDS. But, when you have a guy who’s well published testimony includes claims about “walking free from” HIV and then dies without a cause of death given, and blog posts about the matter are deleted, people are going to ask questions. If a public figure (Exodus board member) makes unnatural or bizarre claims, the public has a right to know the truth. That’s the purpose of Ex-Gay Watch.

Exodus leadership is well aquatinted with dancing around semantics and Lumberger’s choice of words is no exception. You’ll notice Lumberger said “I walk totally free from the AIDS virus” which is clearly designed to make people think God cured him of HIV. “Walking free” could technically mean other things but I believe that’s deceptive and HIV-uneducated Evangelical audiences read it as “cured.” I believe that is designed to be deceptive and wrong.

Now let’s say “free from” means something other than “cured.” Simply because one has a high T-cell count or an undectable viral load does not mean one is “free” from HIV. Once you’ve contracted the virus and know you’re positive, it’s a part of your daily life till the day you die. One can never go back to being “free of HIV.” For Exodus to say otherwise is phenomenally offensive to many gay people because of the gay community’s collective experience with the epidemic and to those people who live every day reminded of the fact they have HIV.

Predictably the aforementioned exgays who emailed me offered explanations of Lumberger’s claim along the lines of T-cell counts and viral loads. Even if Lumberger had a high T-cell count or an undetectable viral load, Exodus, the organization that paraded around his testimony never backed it up with a damn bit of scientific proof.

Ex-Gay Watch editor Mike Airhart had this to say:

Tales of miraculous healing require factual substantiation and, in the interest of public accountability, should not be accepted without thorough investigation and documentation. The Roman Catholic Church, for example, requires years of intensive investigation before it will accept a miraculous claim.

I don’t know what sort of fantasy world Exodus operates in but even when I got a simple HIV test I posted proof of my result online.

I was also accused of unnecessarily revisiting an old issue since Lumberger died in 2004. Might I remind you his testimony remained on Exodus’ website till at least October 2005 when I did a post about their collection of testimonies. It’s unclear exactly when Exodus removed his testimony. Lumberger’s testimony remains to this day (July 2006) on the website of the Exodus Global Alliance without explanation.

So in the end, Lumberger never publicly clarified his deceptive testimony or offered any form of proof. This didn’t seem to bother Exodus since they continued to publish his testimony for at least a year after his death and his testimony remains to this day on the Exodus Global Alliance website. Exodus has a history of ignoring inconvenient questions and clarifying the claims of Lumberger will likely fall victim to that.

The GOP governors just aren’t living up to the Hate the Gays promise that the right wing has in mind.

First, Maryland Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. dumped a Metro representative that was calling gays deviants. And then he had the gall to appoint an openly gay judge. Oh, the tragedy.

And now there’s California.

Randy Thomasson, director of Campaign for California Families, is all in a tizzy because California GOP Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is headlining a fund raising dinner for Log Cabin Republicans, an organization for gay and lesbian Republicans and their friends.

A few choice pieces of Thomasson’s invective:

On June 29, Schwarzenegger will take photos with transsexuals, bisexuals, and homosexuals for $5,000 a pop. Overall, Schwarzenegger’s goal is to help raise $300,000 for the “Log Cabin” Republicans so they can transform the California Republican Party into the party that supports homosexual “marriage” and the entire transsexual, bisexual, and homosexual legislative agenda.

Some who participate here will be amused to see that transsexuals now lead the agenda. Who would have thunk it?

And, of course, “Log Cabin” is in quotes because they aren’t really Log Cabin, they just call themselves that.

The Hollywood event is cosponsored by Equality California, the sponsor of every piece of transsexual, bisexual, and homosexual legislation at the State Capitol. Equality California attacks the institutions of marriage and parenthood, the Boy Scouts, religious freedom, and private property, at every opportunity.

Private property, you ask?

Well of course. Every good anti-gay activist knows that gays (especially those who go to Republican fundraisers) oppose the ownership of private property. Yikes!!

You should be very concerned that Arnold Schwarzenegger is teaming up with homosexual activists. In essence, he is spitting on the pro-family Republican Party platform.

I’ll be going to the dinner with the Governor on Thursday and I’ll be sure to report back if he spits on any platforms or abolishes private property rights.

AgapePress reports that the ex-gay movement will be trying to influence the NEA at their upcoming conference. Something called the NEA Ex-Gay Educators Caucus will be presenting Janet Boynes, ex-lesbian, at a display booth to promote her ministry.

The former lesbian, now a born-again believer, strongly refutes claims that homosexuals cannot change. “Is it easy to come out of homosexuality? No, it’s not,” she acknowledges. “You hear a lot of people say, ‘I prayed to God. I prayed to God, and I just couldn’t come out.’ Well, you know what? It’s not easy to come out, but God can’t do it alone. You have to make some steps.”

Boynes’ own path out of homosexuality involved at one point moving in with a Christian family. “Everybody can’t do that,” she says, “but now I surround myself with healthy people.” Other homosexuals seeking freedom must take the steps Christ leads them to take; but she insists that even those who claim to have prayerfully tried but given up “can come out if they want. They just choose not to.”

But what does that mean? Does Miss Boynes mean that someone can leave a “homosexual lifestyle” or does she mean they can cease being attracted to the same sex? She doesn’t say. But if we look at her testimony on her website we have to assume that she is talking about a “homosexual lifestyle”. Boynes discusses a change in her surroundings and a wish for a husband some day but makes no mention of a change in her own orientation.

And in that context her words make no sense. Maybe there is someone out there who prayed to leave a homosexuality – as a “lifestyle” – but I’ve never met them. I have however met many people that begged God to change their orientation.

Miss Boynes may be a nice woman, but her message is cruel. She made it clear that if you don’t “come out of homosexuality”, it’s your fault. You didn’t take the right steps. You just chose not to come out.

And while this sort of language plays well to those who seek justification for their mistreatment of gay people, this does amazing damage to those who struggle with their same-sex attractions and may not have seen change. Boynes’ message to many – including some who participate on this site – is that if you don’t find yourself “changing”, blame yourself. And we can only believe this means that any actions taken against you by the anti-gay activist, you deserve.