Ex-Gay Watch

James Hartline is an ex-gay gadfly who lives in San Diego and spends his remaining days fighting against the “evils of homosexuality”. Hartline has a history of crime, drug use, and mental instability and it is clear that he suffers from delusions. However, he is occasionally quoted by religious media sources that are looking for a particularly venomous anti-gay quote.

In the past, Hartline has claimed that God was going to heal him from AIDS and this healing was going to be the start of a great revival. He also believes God spoke to him through a television, that there is a conspiracy to recruit people to homosexuality for the purpose of spreading AIDS, and that though he spent many years having unsafe sex and abusing drugs, he was deliberately infected with HIV while having a sex and drug binge at a bathhouse. Needless to say, these more sensational claims don’t make it on to the Christian media websites.

Now James Hartline is claiming a miracle occurred.

In addition to AIDS, Hartline has Hepatitis C. Recently he went into a government subsidized clinic for the results of a liver biopsy (after haranguing other sick patients in the lobby). His results showed that there was not scarring on his liver unlike what is often the case with Hepatitis C patients. In a blog entry entitled And The Gates Of Hell Did Not Prevail: Christian Activist James Hartline Receives Miraculous Healing Report!, Hartline (who writes about himself in the third person) says

Truly this medical report was a welcome miracle for James Hartline. And welcome news to the hundreds of Christians around America who regularly pray for this well known Christian activist.

As James Hartline, walked through the clinic, passing those very ill gay activists that were mocking him earlier, he just holds his head up, smiles and reminds himself that God is still in the business of defending His servant. And healing a sick body as well.

I am happy for Hartline. I’m glad that liver damage and a regimen of interferon will not be added to his many difficulties. And I also believe in the possibility of the miraculous and have lived long enough to not deny the impact of prayer.

But I suspect that this story is not one of God’s intervention into the medical conditions of James Hartline. I suspect, rather, that this claim of a divine miracle demonstrates that his mental health is continuing to deteriorate.

And it saddens me that the anti-gay activist community to which he has attached himself does not intervene. Instead they use James, quoting him and encouraging him and giving him a platform from which to speak while covering over and not reporting his more bizarre and peculiar proclamations.

But will they be there for James when he is no longer rational enough to periodically sound sane? Or will they find him no longer a useful tool in the demonization of gay persons and lives and just toss him aside?

The medical attention that was fought for by gay men and women, and frequently provided by the same, will continue to be there to do what can be done for Hartline’s ravaged body. But will his political allies continue to be there for him when dementia finally claims his rather fragile mind?

Normalizing the behavior has always been the crux of the gay agenda. Part of the process involves mainstreaming the lifestyle through entertainment.

–Unattributed quote, Transgender Plot Unfolds on Daytime TV, Focus On The Family News

For those who haven’t heard, the ABC Soap Opera All My Children (AMC) is adding a transitioning transgender/transsexual character. GLAAD and some New York based transpeople have done some consulting with the AMC producers with the goal of creating a realistic, transitioning character. That might be a little hard since they named the character “Zarf” and made hir a rock star, but hey — this is a soap opera we’re talking about.

Damon Romine, GLAAD’s entertainment media director, was one of the consultants and had this to say about the storyline:

“Telling the story of a character’s transition from male to female is groundbreaking television. All My Children has a track record of telling honest and important stories, and we applaud them for their commitment to sharing Zarf’s story with compassion and integrity.”

GLAAD is glad; others aren’t so happy. Janice Crouse, of the Concerned Women for America, says that:

… the show’s plot is no accident, but a carefully planned strategy by gay advocates.

“They will push as far as they can until the people say, ‘That’s far enough.’ You can be sure, unless we express our outrage, this will continue to heaven knows how far they will go.”

Bob Knight, director of the Culture and Media Institute at the Media Research Center has his reaction captured in an AgapePress article:

Knight says ABC “likes to think of itself as cutting edge,” and the network has already, along with countless others in the entertainment industry, embraced the homosexual agenda fully. Therefore, he suggests, ABC is now bringing a transgendered character onto All My Children, largely “to shock, to get headlines, and to try to get more people to watch one of their longtime soaps.”

Pro-homosexual ABC and Hollywood think Judeo-Christian standards are “just a holdover from a bigoted, superstitious era,” the culture and media analyst contends, and as self-described progressives, they need to attack those faith-based values. “They are dedicated to tear down every moral standard,” he says, “and they’re now using the transgender people to do it.”

Meanwhile, Knight asserts, transgender individuals themselves are among the homosexual agenda’s casualties. “I see these poor, sexually confused people as victims and pawns of a larger movement that wants to destroy Christianity and to turn America into a country we would no longer recognize,” he says.

Knight believes homosexual activists and their supporters realize that the homosexual lifestyle is so empty and devoid of meaning that the best they can do is to continue shocking people. (emphasis added.)

And, Exodus International’s Alan Chambers has a section devoted to his reaction to the AMC TG character in Focus On The Family News’ Transgender Plot Unfolds on Daytime TV. From the article:

Read more…

Once upon a time Lisa and Janet fell in love. They were so in love that they decided to get married and start a family. Since marriage wasn’t legal for two women, they went to Vermont and got a civil union instead. And then Lisa got pregnant and had a baby girl. Janet cut the umbilical cord.

Now Lisa and Janet wanted a happy life where they could raise their child in safety and comfort. Virginia was spewing out some pretty nasty anti-gay language and legislation so the brides took their baby and moved to Vermont.

But alas, as is sadly too often the case, Lisa and Janet fell out of love. And filed for divorce (well, actually to dissolve the civil union) in Vermont. A judge made a ruling that Janet was to be allowed generous visitation of their daughter.

Lisa wasn’t particularly happy about this. She took her daughter and fled back to Virginia.

Then the legislature of Virginia passed a law which they decided superseded any other law in the nation. They decided that any action taken by any other state in recognizing a same-sex couple was null and void in Virginia. Unlike other states in which a relationship might not be recognized, Virginia decided that it reversed any contracts entered by any gay people anywhere.

Now Lisa saw a way to block her daughter from having any access to her other mother. She could claim that since she lived in Virginia, the civil union never occurred. It was all just a big dream like that really awful season of Dallas when JR was shot.

But fighting this unique argument in court would require a pretty hefty legal team. After all, Federal law said that once custody proceedings were started in one state, that state had jurisdiction. Shopping for a better custody result simply wasn’t legal and if Lisa wanted to not be thrown out on her ear she’d need someone pretty scary to go to bat for her. That would be expensive and Lisa just didn’t have that kind of cash.

And then a miracle occurred. Lisa discovered the cure for lesbianism.

Like a bolt out of heaven, in just one month, Lisa was healed. And she since was now a former lesbian, then anti-gay religious groups would fund an all-out full-scale war against Janet. No longer was Lisa a bitter ex-spouse but now she was a Christian former-lesbian fighting against the Homosexual Agenda.

And until today it looked pretty successful. Although the Vermont Supreme Court upheld the state’s lower court decisions, a Virginia county judge named John Prosser decided that of course he could overturn the decisions of another state. And he could ignore federal law. After all, he’s a county judge from a good moral state, not some liberal jurist from Vermont.

He decided that Virginia’s Affirmation of Marriage Act revoked any rights granted to Janet by Vermont. Poof! Magic! It all never happened. Lisa never made vows or promises and Janet was, well, just a friend of the child’s and an ex-friend at that.

Today Prosser found out otherwise. The Court of Appeals in Virginia overturned his ruling.

Now far be it from me to suggest that Lisa’s newfound heterosexuality was based more in spite than in any change to her sexual orientation. And, of course, I’d never imply that Prosser was an activist judge trying to legislate from the bench; he is, after all, anti-gay and we know that “activist judges” tend to rule for equality.

And surely I’d never accuse the Center for American Cultural Renewal of taking the case solely in an effort to hurt a lesbian. I’m sure they get involved in thousands of custody cases… or plan to anyway… someday… maybe.

Lisa has one more chance. She can appeal to the Virginia Supreme Court. And it’s likely that she will; I mean it’s not like it costs her anything. Well, nothing other than her integrity. So it will be a while longer before this little girl gets to just be a child and not a pawn in the great culture war that has been declared on the lives of gay Americans by those pretending to be representatives of morality and faith.

Real World is a long running series on MTV in which seven young adults who don’t know each other are placed together in a house and video-taped 24 hours per day. The more dramatic moments are edited into a one-hour broadcast. MTV tries to match people who have differing backgrounds to heighten the drama and have a formula that generally includes at least one gay person.

This season the gay guy is Davis, a Southern Baptist frat boy from Marietta, GA who brings a strong sense of faith with him to Denver to live with strangers. In fact, the first person he meets is Steven with whom he discusses their shared beliefs in their Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Davis and Steven share a room and there is drama later in the episode when Davis comes out to the roommates and Steven isn’t happy about it. Incidentally, the other six all claim to be supportive; the southern belle of the group whines obsessively when she thinks there isn’t going to be a gay roommate. Previews suggest that Davis’ sexual orientation will continue to be significant in the interplay of the roommates.

The Advocate has an interview with Davis

I’m from a really strong Baptist family. My grandfather is a pastor. My dad and my mom met as youth group leaders. And my parents are both Sunday school teachers on the weekends. I used to work at a Christian bookstore in high school, as well as I went on choir tours and mission tours for spring break.

When he came out a year ago at his small Baptist college in Florida he was warmly accepted by his classmates, fraternity brothers, and friends back home.

And I got really great feedback from my Christian friends. The next thing you know, it was like, Wow, my Christian friends aren’t really responding the same way I thought they would. They were like, “I love you, Davis. This is an issue I’m starting to change my mind about, and maybe I don’t think that it’s a choice. Maybe I don’t think it’s condemnable to hell”.

But his mother has not been so accepting of Davis’s orientation.

In the first episode Davis tells us that when he first told his mother that he thought he was gay as an early teenager, her response was to send him to Christian counseling. After years of ex-gay therapy, Davis felt the need to become sexually involved with women in College. But he never found women to be attractive.

When he finally decided to come out, he became reacquainted with a boy he knew from high school and it is this first boyfriend that he dates during he season and (apparently) is still dating.

I will watch this season with interest to see if Davis further discusses his ex-gay counseling and to see if yet again the Real World’s token gay guy is far less promiscuous than his hyper-sexualized heterosexual roommates.

UPDATE

An interview with the student paper of Howard University suggests that Steven’s perspective grows and changes from his exposure to Davis.

Nichols is a conservative black male who was raised in a Baptist household, and the show previews portray a highly opinionated Nichols with specific views regarding homosexual Christians.

“A lot of my views have changed, and I think I’ve grown as a person. And if anything, I’m a little bit more accepting now. Actually, I’m a whole lot more accepting now of certain things that I wasn’t when I first got in there,” he said.

The Citizens For Responsible Curriculum (CRC) don’t like the newly proposed human sexuality curriculum for Maryland’s Montgomery County Public Schools, specifically as how it approaches sex education for eighth and tenth graders. The Washington Blade’s Joshua Lynsen reports that…

…Montgomery County Public Schools are poised to approve a gay-inclusive sex education curriculum.

Objection to the curriculum, especially regarding GLBT-related lesson plans in the curriculum, isn’t particularly surprising — this is the second go around for this curriculum fight. Montgomery County’s human sexuality curriculum includes material that many of the county’s parents could find objectionable. Per the CRC website, some of the objections include:

• Proactively teaches that the lifestyles of homosexuals, bisexuals and lesbians are to be embraced and celebrated:

- “Many people who are gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender celebrate their self-discovery and feel relief and a new sense of joy when they can be honest with themselves and their loved ones”

• Half a lesson is dedicated to students to reading undocumented “personal” stories of students who discovered they were lesbian, gay, bi-sexual, or transgender. After reading the stories, students break up into groups to analyze the stories and answer detailed questions.

• Includes a new focus on the concept of transgender and sex change operations, while not informing students that all reputable medical organizations classify transgender persons as mentally ill.

Read more…

After I was initially creeped out by camp spokesman cum organizer “Justin Lookadoo” I quickly noticed Exodus has their hands all over this series of youth summer camps across the southeast. Exodus leaders Alan Chambers and Scott Davis are two of the four speakers listed on the camp’s website. Davis’ bio makes Exodus’ intentions pretty clear:

Scott’s goal is to encourage the evangelical church to reach out to youth grappling with their sexual identity with God’s radical grace and unswerving truth. He educates and trains college and youth leaders on this issue and currently oversees the Groundswell Conference — nationwide training seminars that equip community leaders with a powerful, redemptive response to the growing crisis of pro-gay initiatives in America’s schools.

Chambers also provides a testimonial for Ignite Student Outreach, the organization running the camps, here.

(Via Wayne and Pam)

Update: An astute reader brought my attention to the camp’s “affiliates” page which had a single listing, Exodus Youth.

This is the third part of a multiple part series about the term gender. Conservative religious organizations and ex-gay organizations use the term gender — and variants on the term gender — to group together GLB & T people in a manner that GLB & T people don’t group themselves together. This series will explore groupings around the term gender, and the term’s variants.
–Autumn

Who identifies as ex-trans in ex-gay circles? Who could by their testimony — but doesn’t — identify as ex-trans?

Three testimonies associated with figures that have ex-trans identities are linked here and here. The three figures are ex-cross-dresser Randall Wayne, ex-transgender person Jerry Leach, and ex-transsexual Sy (or Synclair) Rogers.
Read more…

Last year the LoveWon Out traveling conference came to Boston to reassure anti-gay Bostonians that homosexuals could reorient to heterosexuality and that their efforts to deny their gay neighbor the same privileges they enjoy are morally justified.

Many gay Bostonians, and others who do not subscribe to a dogma of castigation, objected outside. Loudly.

Sam Gloyd took another approach. He went inside and listened. And what he heard was a “hateful message that’s masked in love”. He found it traumatizing.

So Gloyd organized an alternative. Last weekend a couple of hundred people came together for a Bible-based conference which was affirming of gay people. The forum was moderated by Jeff Miner and John Tyler Connoley, a former ex-gay, who jointly wrote the book The Children are Free: Reexamining the Biblical Evidence on Same-sex Relationships.

Most of the forum was devoted to passages that the authors say treat homosexuals and heterosexuals equally. In the Old Testament, claim the authors, Ruth’s covenant with Naomi, which includes the memorable phrase, “Wherever you go, I will go; wherever you live, I will live,” actually refers to a committed same-sex relationship. They also offered a different interpretation of a story that appears in both Matthew and Luke, in which a centurion asks Jesus to heal a man who is typically identified — misidentified, says Miner — as the centurion’s servant.

“That story’s often preached about in straight churches,” said Miner, but “nobody bothers to mention that the Greek word used to describe the sick man is the word used in the ancient world to describe your same-sex partner.”

Another forum is planned next year.

In yet another edition of the story that won’t go away, the Rocky Mountain News brings us James Dobson’s musings on the Ted Haggard scandal. Demonstrating the irresistable drive among the ex-gay industry to redefine words, Dobson has has decided that hypocrisy has a new definition.

James Dobson said Wednesday that disgraced evangelical Ted Haggard was not a hypocrite for preaching against homosexuality while engaging in “sexual immorality” with a gay escort, but was a man “at war with himself.”

[snip]

It was not hypocrisy. It was a struggle between behavior and a belief system.”

No. What it was, doctor, was a man doing in secret what he preached against in public. You need a new dictionary; the one you have seems to have the definitions scribbled over.

Some of you have graciously embedded on your own sites the recent video presentation Daniel created. We were uncertain about the licensing of the music he used for the background, so this morning we took down the original and Daniel has modified it with music we can confirm is appropriately licensed for such use.  The updated video has a different YouTube identifier so those of you who embedded it will need to grab the code from there once more.

This action wasn’t prompted, but we are aware of the need to be responsible about the materials we distribute and just wanted to make sure this was appropriate use for that creative work.

Thank you all for your support and for helping us raise these important issues for others to consider for themselves.