A quick search of NARTH’s web site reveals that they have been just as willing to promote Cameron’s so-called “research.”
For our first example, NARTH member Ross Olson sent a letter to the Pediatric Annals, a letter that was published on NARTH’s web site (I don’t know if that letter was ever published by Pediatric Annals). In that letter, Olson criticizes an article that described a thirteen-year-old transgender MTF. Because the original article described the teen’s sexual activities, Olson jumped to the conclusion that the teen was being sexually abused, and that allowed him to bring up the familiar charge that ties homosexuality to pedophilia. For support, he cited Cameron’s “research” as though it has been presented in a professional journal. Here’s the screen-shot of that paragraph:
This citation is one of the more amazing ones I’ve ever seen. The Journal of the Family Research Institute? It doesn’t exist, at least not as Olsen implies. The link actually goes to a quasi-monthly newsletter that Cameron published for several years called the Family Research Report (hence the “FRR” in the URL). It’s not a journal by any stretch of the term, let alone a peer-reviewed one. Maybe Dr. Olson aspires to be the Dr. Cameron of pediatrics.
I’ve been encouraged to share personal narratives about what I’ve learned from ex-gay therapy/ministry. While I’ve never experienced being ex-gay personally, my unique perspective affords me a great deal of “inside” anecdotal information that could be valuable to folks on any side of the issues surrounding ex-gay therapy/ministry.
I hope that folks who read XGW will take this series as an opportunity to better understand the language and position of those in the ex-gay movement. I understand (not fully, of course) how offensive the very idea of ex-gay therapy/ministry is to so many of you who may read this. And yet, I know beyond all doubt that we ALL have things to learn from one another and that by at least attempting to understand a different perspective we are each able to more effectively communicate our own. The one and only path I’d like to steer all of us towards is that of love and understanding. I don’t mind adding that I personally believe the heavier burden of understanding lies with those on the ex-gay side of the issue.
Part One
If you’re reading this post, you’re on a computer. Your computer is loaded with an operating system. Most of the things that happen on your computer happen because of default settings. Default is the way computers are set up so that every amoeba and their pet parasite are able to browse the Internet.
If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a video must be priceless. If only the damaged lives were equally humorous. Here’s to a future where ex-gay organizations stop hawking cures, making empty promises and lobbying Congress, and actually help those who feel their faith is incongruous with their sexual orientation while respecting those who don’t. Then maybe a video like this wouldn’t seem so real.
Amid recent warnings about the integrity of data used by antigay activists, Exodus International continues to air the distorted statistics and false health claims of antigay activists Paul and Kirk Cameron — laundered through third parties.
On its recently redesigned web site, Exodus continues to host at least four articles, written by two longtime Exodus activists, that rely upon Cameron’s false claims about the health and longevity of same-sex-attracted persons.
The Exodus FAQ “Is there a connection between life expectancy and homosexuality?,” written by Exodus blogger and member-activist Nancy Brown, is blatant in its re-use of classic Cameron propaganda. And Exodus is apparently aware that the information in this FAQ is false: The document is riddled with internal staff annotations requesting “more information on citation” — something that isn’t possible to achieve, given that Cameron’s claims are scientifically unsupportable.
Instead of removing false information from the FAQ, though, Exodus clings to the FAQ’s antigay health claims as a matter of faith. Read more…
That was the juicy little email sent out by Mission America this evening, a conservative Christian political outfit operated by Linda Harvey of Columbus, OH. Ex-gay activist Stephen Bennett sent one out to his members as well. On the other end is what appears to be pirated video from the 8 year old documentaryIt’s Elementary, along with hardcore racist and Nazi propaganda.
The video in the links above is of a sample classroom where teachers speak intelligently about gay people to help demonstrate how to help prevent stereotypes and prejudice later in life. This is ironic, considering the fact that the owner of the YouTube account has tagged it with the word “faggots” and has surrounded it with other videos entitled Hitler and Keep America White.
With the other titles so obvious, and the epithets right next to the videos in the links, one is left to wonder if Bennett and Mission America are so entrenched in hate that they didn’t even notice what they were promoting.
It should be noted that Mission America is one of the organizations who supported a boycott of the Day of Silence, calling it a day “in which students and some supportive faculty intentionally remain silent throughout the school day to protest alleged oppression of homosexuals.” [emphasis added]
Since criticizing Drs. Paul and Kirk Cameron’s “Scandinavian Gay Lifespan” study, Dr. Warren Throckmorton has participated in an email exchange over his comments, first with Paul Cameron and then his son, Kirk. That study, you may remember, was presented in a poster session at the Eastern Psychological Association’s convention in Philadelphia last March. Cameron’s subsequent press releases quickly drew a sharp condemnation in an official statement from the EPA’s president, Dr. Phil Hineline.
Dr. Warren Throckmorton has remained on the case. He contacted Danish epidemiologist Dr. Morten Frisch, who responded with a strong rebuke of the Camerons’ methods and conclusion two weeks ago. This prompted Dr. Kirk Cameron, Paul’s son, to mount an unusual defense via a letter he e-mailed to Dr. Throckmorton. (This is, as far as I know, the first time we’ve heard from Kirk directly. His father typically handles such communications.) In that letter, Cameron the younger has the audacity to conclude:
[C]areful examination of our work and of the charges against us reveals that — while no one is perfect, including us — we have performed our work with scientific integrity and honesty.
Today Dr. Throckmorton responded to Cameron’s letter with a thorough analysis of the Camerons’ paper. In it, he highlights a long stream of unsubstantiated assumptions and glaring weakness, all of which builds toward an unproven conclusion (that registered-partnered gays in Scandinavia die some twenty years younger than their heterosexual counterparts), which Cameron used as the basis for a decidedly unscientific publicity campaign. You can read Dr. Throckmorton’s splendid analysis here.
Dr. Cameron had no sooner posted his analysis when he received a follow-up message from Dr. Frisch, who described Cameron’s work this way:
Although the Camerons’ report has no objective scientific value, the authors should be acknowledged for providing teachers with a humorous example of agenda-driven, pseudo-scientific gobbledygook that will make lessons in elementary study design and scientific inference much more amusing for future epidemiology students.
Unlike most who have written books on this subject, Martin (Professor of Religious Studies at Yale University) focuses much of his attention on how we interpret the Bible. As he likes to point out, the Bible, being an inanimate object, doesn’t say anything; it’s the reader that brings meaning to the text based on his or her experiences, preconceptions and cultural baggage. The historical-critical method of interpretation favored by most modern theologians, though useful when regarded as one tool among many, falls far short of being able to pinpoint the one “right” interpretation of any given text that so many turn to it for, and can in fact produce contradictory results even when used correctly.
Martin does spend two chapters addressing the New Testament “clobber passages,” exposing the bias that colors the “traditional” interpretations of those verses, and another chapter examining Paul’s view of human sexuality and how vastly it (and the majority of historical Christian opinion) differs from the modern Christian perspective. He also provides compelling evidence that suggests that neither Jesus nor Paul would have been cheerleaders for the “traditional” family so highly revered by the religious right, and demonstrates how Jesus’ prohibition against divorce was far more radical than anything any modern Christian would be willing to accept. Martin closes by proposing a more holistic method for reading and interpreting the Bible.
Some of the essays included in Sex and the Single Savior have appeared elsewhere, but the whole book provides a lot to consider and reflect on for Christians of all stripes. He puts forward his most direct challenge at the end of his chapter on the meanings of malakoi and arsenokoitai:
…I take my stand with a quotation from an impeccably traditional witness, Augustine, who wrote, “Whoever, therefore, thinks that he understands the divine Scriptures or any part of them so that it does not build the double love of God and of our neighbor does not understand it at all” (Christian Doctrine 1.35.40). Read more…
Christine Bakke, co-founder of Beyond Exgay and recently featured in Glamour Magazine, is scheduled to appear live on ABC-TV’s Good Morning America. Good Morning America airs from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. EDT.
Hat tip: Peterson Toscano
Update: For those who missed it, you can view the segment here. (Thanks Steve)
Open Forums are where authors and commenters can talk about anything. Nothing is off-topic, but standard rules of civility and decorum still apply.
Twice every day, my Windows Vista for Business computer suffers a Blue Screen of Death. It’s a pretty blue, full of bits of fascinating knowledge about my PC that I never knew existed. But the B.S.O.D. wipes out whatever I had been working on. And now I have discovered the problem.
It happens because I shout profanities such as #!@$*{@! at my computer. The computer senses my sin and executes immediate punishment. I kinda like that. My computer has acted as a morality check for me.
Ann Phillips, who is a former Exodus local group leader and former women’s program director at the Exodus flagship live-in program Love In Action, will speak at the gay-friendly Evangelicals Concerned women’s retreat July 25-27, 2007 in Orange, Calif.
For 10 years, Phillips spoke and led workshops on behalf of the ex-gay movement, claiming to teach the causes of homosexuality and offering claims of change.
However, after ten years of having “all the answers,” Ann realized that God had not placed a period at the end of her now well-known testimony nor her life. Thus, she began the journey of trying to live the questions.
Despite the change in her life, Phillips is still advertised as a “former lesbian” by the conservative Christian website Leadership University. Her ex-gay testimony – written when she was on staff at LIA – is still on this website. The site’s ex-gay content appears to have been written mostly in 1998 and has not been updated significantly since 2002. (LeadershipU is an offshoot of Campus Crusade for Christ.)
Evangelicals Concerned (EC) describes itself as a nationwide ministry which encourages and affirms lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered Christians in their faith. It organizes small groups, bible studies, social activities and other events in many North American cities.
I’ve been encouraged to share personal narratives about what I’ve learned from ex-gay therapy/ministry. While I’ve never experienced being ex-gay personally, my unique perspective affords me a great deal of “inside” anecdotal information that could be valuable to folks on any side of the issues surrounding ex-gay therapy/ministry.
Unlike most who have written books on this subject, Martin (Professor of Religious Studies at Yale University) focuses much of his attention on how we interpret the Bible. As he likes to point out, the Bible, being an inanimate object, doesn’t say anything; it’s the reader that brings meaning to the text based on his or her experiences, preconceptions and cultural baggage. The historical-critical method of interpretation favored by most modern theologians, though useful when regarded as one tool among many, falls far short of being able to pinpoint the one “right” interpretation of any given text that so many turn to it for, and can in fact produce contradictory results even when used correctly.
Christine Bakke, co-founder of 
Twice every day, my Windows Vista for Business computer suffers a Blue Screen of Death. It’s a pretty blue, full of bits of fascinating knowledge about my PC that I never knew existed. But the B.S.O.D. wipes out whatever I had been working on. And now I have discovered the problem.
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