Ex-Gay Watch

Prior to the recent Love Won Out conference in Phoenix, Focus on the Family tried to purchase space on billboards owned by media communications company Clear Channel. The billboards were to bear the organization’s familiar drumbeat “I questioned homosexuality: Change is Possible, Discover How.” Clear Channel declined.

Speaking on behalf of Focus on the Family, Melissa Fryrear said “the advertising company had turned down the business, but as of Monday, its lawyers had not received an explanation for the decision.” Clear Channel is a publicly traded company, and while they do own TV and radio stations, the Focus ad request was for billboard space. Billboards do not involve publicly owned airwaves, nevertheless Focus has apparently involved their attorneys in the matter.

Read more…

There’s a two page article on ex-gay stuff in the current issue of People Magazine which hit newsstands today (Friday) and will arrive in mailboxes on Tuesday. I was interviewed for the article but they didn’t run any of that, instead deciding to go with a half page photo. Ex-gay survivor Peterson Toscano is also interviewed in the story.

I can be contacted at daniel@exgaywatch.com.

A video interview with Dr. Robert Spitzer was released today by Truth Wins Out. In it he explains in detail how groups such as Focus on the Family have distorted his research for their own purposes and his reaction to that. This comes at at time when Daniel Gonzales of Ex-Gay Watch has recently produced his own informational video on the subject and PFOX has included a highly edited clip of Dr. Spitzer on their newly redesigned site in which he appears to say something quite different. We suggest you view both and decide for yourself which reflects the truth.

We have long noted the fondness that Exodus President Alan Chambers has for claiming that “hundreds of thousands of us have found freedom from the isolation and emptiness we experienced in gay life through the power of Jesus Christ”.

This Sunday the New York Times ran an article about persons who are unhappy with their same-sex attractions. While the story provided a good synopsis of services available in the NYC area, there was not much new to us. Except this:

It is unclear how many people participate in these programs, but a leading Christian organization in the movement, Exodus International, estimated in 2003 it had 11,000 in its affiliated ministries.

Hundreds of Thousands v. 11,000

hmmmmmmmmm. I think it’s time for More Math Magic

Let’s see…. with about 125 ministries, that’s about 88 per ministry (though new reports tend to mention lower numbers of attendees)… and assuming 1/3 drop out, and that the average person who doesn’t drop out fairly soon lasts about 2 years (just a guess), oh that would be about 3,700 freedom finders per year. And if we assume that “hundreds of thousands” is, let’s see, at least 200,000 then we can see that Exodus reached its number after only

54 YEARS

Oh that can’t be right.

Sigh. Now it’s your turn.

The front page of a newly renovated PFOX web site features a video clip of ex-gay researcher Dr. Robert L. Spitzer that loads automatically, whether the user wishes to view the video or not.

The selectively edited, undated video features Dr. Spitzer saying:

I mean, the gay activists have taken the viewpoint that from a political/strategic point of view they do better if they can convince society at large that once you’re homosexual you can never change. Now, I can appreciate that that helps them politically, and I’m sympathetic towards their political goals, but I think it’s just not true.

There’s a significant factual distortion in that quotation: “Gay activists” such as Ex-Gay Watch don’t say that once someone is homosexual, one can never change; we say that “change” has been poorly defined by ex-gay activists, and we note that permanent change in predominant sexual attraction is exceedingly rare, may not be possible for most same-sex-attracted persons (who are neither abused nor badly parented), and should not be politically or spiritually coerced.

That isn’t the only factual omission by PFOX on its new front page…. Read more…

A new video by Truth Wins Out demonstrates that ex-gay activists’ efforts to coerce ex-gays into heterosexual marriage erode family values and lead to divorce.

TWO’s subtitle: “Ex-gay groups love to spotlight the wedding photos, but they never show the divorce papers.”

Recently, I wrote a piece on Mike Ensley’s take on gender fluidity. He responded in his personal blog with an article entitled What do I know about gender? In the article he states:

…I can see how in a different circumstance (different city, family, influences) I might have gone down the road of transgenderism. A lot of people have backgrounds similar to mine, but didn’t end up struggling with same-sex attractions like I have. We’re all different and broken in different ways–but we can still understand one another.

Furthermore, transgenderism represents to me one of the biggest loopholes in the new sexual ethic of our society. We’re told gays can’t and/or shouldn’t change because people are supposedly born gay, but then the T segment of the LGBT community is encouraged to do everything–therapy, drugs, surgery–to change the way they truly were born.

Anywho; I could get into the whole why-I-believe-in-male-and-female thing, but that’s a whole new post.

The piece as a whole is an outpouring of how he believes he could of ended up transgender — it reads as another Argument from Spurious Similarity. But beyond that, he seems to indicate a belief in sex dichotomy determined by biological forces.

Ensley’s faith in a two-sex dichotomy is shared with other religious conservatives. As a recent example, Sonja Dalton on the Americans For Truth about Homosexuals website responded to the San Francisco Chronicle’s Shaking up transgender assumptions with her piece Shaking Up Gender Assumptions — Destroying Teenagers.

Read more…

I was interviewed Thursday night (before flying to Phoenix) for American Public Media’s “Weekend America” which was broadcast on many NPR stations across the nation today. Full audio of the segment here.

Every local news station in Phoenix came to the press conference today in opposition to Love Won Out. Video of the entire press conference will be posted soon.

Update: And here’s the video.

And the Q&A.

Charlene Cothran, the publisher of Venus, a magazine targeting black same-gender-loving people, recently determined that she was no longer a lesbian and has changed the message of her magazine. While Cothran wants to target the same audience (people of African descent In The Life), her new theme is how God can deliver you from being gay. This has left some of her readers – and former writers – somewhat perplexed.

Amy Wooten of The Windy City Times discussed Cothran’s conversion and the new direction of her publication as well as Cothran’s intention to continue targeting a gay audience. She quotes Cothran as saying,

“… I know that there is a connection in the African-American and gay community at large. … The responsibility that I now have is that those people that are connected to it receive a different message. I will not change the name. I have not changed the distribution points. I have not changed the subscribers who have paid for it in the past but are still getting it. We built this business over 13 years to target Black, gay households and communities and outlets. That is still where we are going, but with a new message.”

Cothran became rather unhappy with Wooten’s article, especially with Wooten suggesting that Venus had now become a voice for the ex-gay movement. Cothan rebutted on her website:

Reporter Amy Wooten and others try to have VENUS shut down by attempting, in this article, to define VENUS as a magazine re-established by and ‘now a voice for the ‘Ex-Gay’ movement,’ then using the article as reference in a letter to VENUS advertisers. I personally have nothing against the work of Exodus and other organizations like them, but VENUS clearly DOES NOT REPRESENT THEM. Wooten’s opening statements are clearly meant to harm VENUS. I have no control over the ‘Ex-Gay’ movement’s celebrating my new life, if indeed they are, I don’t know.

Yet Venus’ latest issue includes a cover article about former lesbian Carla Thomas Royster and a reprint of the article Redeemed: 10 Ways to Get Out of the Gay Life, If You Want Out.

Wooten did a follow-up story about the attitudes and opinions resulting from Cothran’s conversion and the new purpose of Venus.

Two things impressed me in looking at Wooten’s article and the feedback on the Venus blogsite. First, though in some cases dismayed, many gay people expressed support for Cothran’s right to her personal choices and decisions. The other was this within this comment:

Affinity, a non-profit organization that provides programs and services for Chicago’s Black lesbian community, is also upset by the direction the publication has taken. “This isn’t a part of why we connected ourselves to that publication,” Chris Smith of Affinity told Windy City Times.

Smith said that for years, Affinity only received one copy of Venus each quarter. But just last week, 200 copies of the most recent issue were sent to the organization.
…
Smith said they intend to send back all 200 copies, along with a letter of response. “We cannot support the direction of the publication,” Smith said.

It struck me as odd that a gay organization that had previously received only a single copy now received 200. I am curious whether this is simply a shifting of distribution points (something Cothran has said she did not do) or whether this is the result of a ramping up of production.

For a magazine of Venus’ size, the largest expenditure – by far – is printing cost. If there was an increase in production in proportion to the increase of magazines received by Affinity, this clearly would have required a huge investment of funds.

Another item of note is that on the Venus blogsite a person identified as “Editor” is DL Foster, an ex-gay activist best known for his hostile hateful attitude (some here may recall the meep-meep comments) and his stirring up of anti-gay attitudes in the Carribean. Foster is also listed as one of Cothran’s spiritual mentors.

Should Wooten follow up further on this story, she might want to inquire whether Cothran has received new funding as a result of her new-found ex-gay identity and also inquire as to her relationship with this speaker for Exodus Global. It is possible that such questioning may expose a conflict with her claim not to be a voice of the ex-gay movement.