Ex-Gay Watch

I can’t wait for the religious right to make up their own explanations for this.

::cough:: Fryrear

In an article in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Alan Chambers discussed the motivation behind Exodus International’s focus on youth.

“There’s definitely an absolute push in Hollywood, in the sitcom world, to really normalize and legitimize homosexual relationships and homosexuality. Because it’s so prominent on television, we’re talking about it more and there’s more acceptance of it,” said Alan Chambers, president of Orlando-based Exodus International, an evangelical organization that tries to guide gay people toward heterosexuality. As a result, Exodus created a youth component six years ago.

“We thought, rather than wait until they were immersed in a homosexual identity and wanting help, let’s catch them before they have to make a decision,” said Chambers, who as a gay teenager, said he was “devastated” when a guidance counselor told him he could not change the fact that he was gay.

Even in this small quote we can deduce three things about Exodus:

1. Exodus’ intent is not to provide pastoral or counseling care to persons struggling with their same-sex attractions but rather to counter efforts to “normalize and legitimize homosexual relationships and homosexuality”.

2. Exodus assumes being unhappy (“wanting help”) naturally results from being gay (“immersed in a homosexual identity”). This demonstrates a willful ignorance of the lives and testimony of happy healthy gay individuals and couples.

3. Exodus’ strategy is in the form of entrapment and indoctrination of youth. Had any gay organization or representative said “let’s catch them before they have to make a decision” there would be great social outrage. And I’d join it. This idea of catching and imposing their sexual agenda on children is very disturbing.

EDITED: I’ve edited this posting to narrow my focus of criticism.

Addendum, July 7: CWFA has revoked intern Sarah Kuziomko’s original press release without explanation or apology; here is a copy of the original press release, obtained from Google cache. Here is CWFA’s revised press release.

Grove City College, where prominent ex-gay proponent Warren Throckmorton teaches, has contributed a new combatant in the Culture Wars. Sarah Kuziomko, an intern at Concerned Women for America, is a communications major at the school.

However, Ms. Kuziomko appears to be learning the lie, spin, and distort branch of communications. Her latest effort was to repeat the false story about the “mobbing” of the son of anti-gay activist David Parker.

A mob of schoolchildren seized and beat the 7-year-old son of pro-family activist David Parker behind his school, Estabrook Elementary, in Lexington, Massachusetts, recently, on the second anniversary of same-sex “marriage” in Massachusetts.

The victim, first-grader Jacob Parker, apparently is feeling the heat for his father’s opposition to forced pro-homosexual education.

The school became aware of the fight immediately and discussed it with all parties. The investigation determined that the scuffle was over who sat where in the cafeteria. When the Parkers issued a press release filled with paranoia, the school administration invited an investigation by the police. All of this is clearly explained on the website of the school.

We know that Kuziomko has seen either the site or read some of the refuting evidence because her story references the police involvement, which was not included on the original press release:

Recently the school superintendent asked three different government agencies to investigate the beatings. All three mysteriously declined.

There was nothing mysterious about their disinclination to become involved with a schoolyard fight over a chair. If the boys were so content with the resolution that they had a subsequent play date, surely this is not a police matter.

There is no question that Kuziomko knows that the story she’s spreading is false. It is clear in the way that she selects phrases like “apparently is feeling the heat”, “mysteriously declined”, and “many observers believe”. She’s walking the fine line between an outright lie and giving a false impression.

I am concerned that this behavior is evident in a student at a Christian school. It makes me wonder whether the Communications Department at Grove City College is adequately teaching an ethic that places emphasis on truth, fact, and honesty.

(thanks GoodAsYou)

The arts publication David Atlanta profiles thirtysomething Steven Fales, an excommunicated Latter Day father of two who, after a successful run in New York, opened his autobiographical one-man play “Confessions of a Mormon Boy” in Atlanta last week.

“Reparative therapy” failed to change Fales’ sexual orientation. After his divorce, excommunication and a separation from his children, Fales struggled for a time with prostitution, depression, and crystal meth abuse.

“When I was getting excommunicated, I found it so bizarre and fantastical, I could not believe what was happening,” Fales says after a recent rehearsal of “Mormon Boy” alongside his Tony-winning director Jack Hofsiss.

“Part of me as a man of the theater was like, ‘This is a good story,’“ he says. “And the budding activist in me, who was starting to get it, was like, ‘You know what? This is happening to all kinds of people—someone needs to write about this.’“

The theater also proved to be therapeutic, offering him a “soft place to land” after being excommunicated, which he calls “a medieval, barbaric practice.”

“What do you replace the church of your birth with? That’s how fragmenting it is to be no longer Mormon,” Fales says. “It’s a cult tactic used to control and suppress, and if you buy into that mind-fuck, then it can really do a number on you.”

Thankfully, theater offered Fales a new sense of communion.

According to Fales’ web site, his play refrains from disparaging commentary about his former religion.

Fales says he wrote his “valentine to Mormonism and hedonism” for his children so that they would some day be able to understand their gay father. “I kept thinking that if I were to die, there wasn’t anyone I could fully trust to tell my kids who their ‘wicked’ gay dad really was and how much I loved them.”

Fales’ former mother-in-law is celebrated Mormon poet Carol Lynn Pearson whose autobiography, Good-bye, I Love You (Random House, 1986), poignantly recounts her relationship with her gay ex-husband who died of AIDS in her home. Steven married their talented, oldest daughter Emily. “I guess you could say I’m the Peter Allen of Mormondom.” (Emily and Carol Lynn have both given their blessing to tell the story.)

The play has received critical and popular acclaim and is considered a cross-over sensation. Fales is uncharacteristically generous to Mormonism in his play, which also contains no swearing or nudity. Fales plays many colorful characters in his “comic/dramatic monologue mingled with scripture and song.”

Check out Steven Fales’ blog at www.mormonboy.com/blog.htm.

Eve Tushnet has posted a variety of reader reactions (along with her own responses) to her National Review Online article about Focus on the Family’s exgay-ideology road show.

Tushnet also links back to a spring debate on reparative therapy hosted by pro-exgay science pundit Prof. Warren Throckmorton.

Tushnet’s readers are generally thoughtful and conservative. The one truly annoying comment came from “L.,” who simultaneously acknowledges a lesbian orientation while rejecting lesbian behavior by marrying and having four children. There’s nothing necessarily wrong with that course of action; it’s the projection of her own prejudice that galls. Emphasis is mine:

My point, though, is that in today’s culture gays are depicted as having no control over their actions and as a lesbian, I know this to be untrue.

Perhaps I’m not meeting the right people, but the only folks I encounter who depict gays as consistently having no behavioral self-control are, frankly, the exgay and antigay ideologues.

Conservative delegates to two national denominational conventions lost battles to either hold the line against gay ministers or to move it back.

The Presbyterian Church (USA) voted to continue their official disapproval of ordination of gay ministers but to allow those who are supportive of an inclusive church to ignore the rule.

A measure approved 298-221 by a Presbyterian national assembly keeps in place a church law that says clergy and lay elders and deacons must limit sexual relations to man-woman marriage. But the new legislation says local congregations and regional presbyteries can exercise some flexibility when choosing clergy and lay officers of local congregations if sexual orientation or other issues arise.

Although this may not on the surface appear to be particularly supportive, it is being viewed as a significant loss for those within the PCUSA that wished to retain a restrictive view on homosexuality.

Also today, the Episcopal Church rejected efforts to put a temporary moratorium on the ordination of gay bishops. After Bishop Robinson was confirmed in 2003, many churches within the Anglican Communion (of which the Episcopal Church is a member) severed ties with the Episcopal Church. This moratorium was viewed as a possible way that the peace could be maintained and the church remain unified.

A proposal for the U.S. Episcopal Church to impose an unofficial moratorium on ordaining more openly gay bishops was rejected on Tuesday in a vote that could further roil relations with fellow Anglicans worldwide.

Although a day remains in which parliamentarian maneuvers could still allow for a vote, the action today suggests that this will not happen.

Those opposed to gay Episcopalians have determined that they cannot share fellowship and communion with fellow Anglicans who disagree with them on this issue. This rejection of the moratorium comes on the heels of the election of a woman as the head of the church. More conservative Anglicans oppose the ordination of women.

It is likely that the worldwide Anglican Communion will break apart with more liberal countries in the West splitting from African and Asian Anglicans. Alternately, the Archbishop of Canterbury may, in a last ditch effort, expel the Episcopalians in an effort to keep the other churches under one roof. This would be, in my opinion, a short lived effort as it would embolden the conservatives to make more demands on other chuches in the West.

Of more practical interest will be what will happen within the Episcopal Church itself. It is highly likely that those conservative Episcopalians who have been unhappy for the past three years will sever themselves from the body and appeal for recognition by the Archbishop as true Anglicans. We should also expect legal battles over the property of those dioceses.

This will be, in my opinion, just the first of the schisms that will arise out of the most divisive issue to affect Christianity since slavery, namely how the body of Christ should respond to those within it who are gay.

UPDATE

In an unexpected move, the presiding head of the Episcopal Church called a joint meeting of Bishops, clergy, and lay representatives and pleaded for some resolution that could be used to show the greater Anglican Communion that their concerns were taken seriously.

Yesterday, at the end of the Episcopal Church’s triennial convention in Columbus, Ohio, bishops and clergy and lay representatives voted overwhelmingly for a resolution calling upon bishops and diocesan standing committees, which are akin to boards of trustees, not to give their consent to the election “of any candidate to the episcopate whose manner of life presents a challenge to the wider church and will lead to further strains on communion.”

This nonbinding resolution served to please neither conservatives, who demanded that a moratorium be placed, nor liberals, who were offended that gay Episcopalians are being sacrificed on the alter of “unity”. This unhappy compromise may, however, allow the Anglican Communion a breather in which to come to terms with what fellowship can be maintained between branches that differ so greatly in their understanding of sin, redemption, sexuality, and the application of Levitical Law and cultural prohibitions to the modern understanding of sexual orientation.

A crisis may have been averted. But this issue will not go away and the Episcopal Church will not accept forever the exclusion of gay Christians from full inclusion in its body. We can anticipate further crises and a possible schism within the next few years.

The AgapePress is reporting that Dr. Warren Throckmorton has expressed concerns about Richard Cohen and his unorthodox reparative therapy practices.

Psychologist Dr. Warren Throckmorton, director of college counseling at Grove City College in Pennsylvania, maintains a blog on sexual identity change therapy and related information for interested individuals. He is not a reparative therapist, but he claims Cohen’s techniques as demonstrated on CNN are bizarre and are not based on solid research.

I agree that Cohen’s methods are extreme and are embarrasing to the ex-gay movement. I do question, however, the assumption that there are any techniques that are based on solid research. Unfortunately, there has not been solid research to determine whether, and to what extent, any techniques are effective.

Throckmorton has severed some ties with Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays (PFOX), an anti-gay advocacy organization, resulting from Cohen’s continued presidency of that organization.

Throckmorton has notified PFOX that, although he supports its mission and its belief that people are not born homosexual, he will not represent the group as long as Cohen remains its board president.

There may have been a simplification of Throckmorton’s position as I recall that Throckmorton has indicated that some people are born without a sexual attraction to the opposite sex and has recognized that some same sex attraction is “owed” to biological factors.

Nonetheless, I commend Warren on his decision. By removing his credibility from practitioners of strange methods like “holding therapy” and bioenergetics, Throckmorton brings the ex-gay movement one step closer to accountability.

I further wish Dr. Throckmorton well in his endeavor to establish guidelines for those few counselors who believe that reorientation yields results. I would also encourage the doctor to consider the determination of the goals and expectations of the participants – whether heterosexuality, celibacy, or “tools” for resisting temptation – and the tracking of the meeting of those goals and expectations as part of the protocol.

Click image see it on YouTube.com. The Malcontent also has a copy.

“Although a third of the subjects in my study reported having had serious thoughts of suicide related to their homosexuality, not one of them blamed the gay rights movement’s advocating a ‘born-gay’ theory of homosexuality as the cause of their suicidal thinking,” said Spitzer.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 20, 2006

Contact: Wayne Besen
Phone: 917-691-5118
E-Mail: wbesen@TruthWinsOut.org

FOCUS ON THE FAMILY TAKES RESEARCHER’S WORDS ‘OUT OF CONTEXT’ IN EFFORT TO DEFEND PREVIOUS DAY’S DISTORTIONS

Dr. Robert Spitzer Says Group Used His Work to Support Fight Against Gay Rights

Miami Beach, Fla. — For the second time in two days, Focus on the Family was accused of distorting research in their efforts to attack gay and lesbian equality. Today, Columbia University’s Dr. Robert Spitzer said in an e-mail statement to Wayne Besen, Executive Director of Truth Wins Out, that the conservative organization took his controversial 2001 study on sexual orientation “out of context.”

“Unfortunately Focus on the Family has once again reported findings of my study out of context to support their fight against gay rights,” said Dr. Robert Spitzer, a professor of psychiatry at Columbia University.
Read more…

As reported by the AP:

A Pentagon document classifies homosexuality as a mental disorder, decades after mental health experts abandoned that position.

The document outlines retirement or other discharge policies for service members with physical disabilities, and in a section on defects lists homosexuality alongside mental retardation and personality disorders.

[article continues]

“Based on scientific and medical evidence the APA declassified homosexuality as a mental disorder in 1973 _ a position shared by all other major health and mental health organizations based on their own review of the science,” James H. Scully Jr., head of the psychiatric association, said in a letter to the Defense Department’s top doctor earlier this month.

Here’s a copy of that letter: