Ex-Gay Watch

As our readers may be aware, it was recently reported that the popular online insurance portal Insure.com has posted disturbing and completely inaccurate information about the lifespan of gay people.  Worse, the source for their claims is the discredited and largely avoided Dr. Paul Cameron and his Family Research Institute.

Insure.com CEO Robert Bland defended the use of Cameron’s data in the articles, the core claim of which is that “a gay lifestyle takes away 8-20 years from the average lifespan.” Further, insurance companies don’t charge higher premiums for gay clients (supposedly because of some sort of political correctness) so gays “save money on life insurance at the same rate they die young.”

This is compared to smokers, who do pay higher premiums. This entire argument comes directly from Cameron and his bizarre obituary studies, which have been discredited by numerous researchers for serious methodological flaws.

This is not the first time Bland has mixed a divisive personal platform with his openly traded corporation. He is also the chairman of the Illinois Right to Life Committee.  As far back as 1999, financial forums contained  chatter of concern over his poor judgment for combining that work with Insure.com.

As recently as two weeks ago, the resource page (cached, archived) of the Illinois Right to Life Committee listed Cameron’s Family Research Institute along with Peter Labarbera Americans for Truth About Homosexuality and similar groups.  Today, the entry for FRI is missing.  We have written Bland to ask if he had something to do with this — he is their chairman after all.  His reply, should there be one, will be appended.

What do we make of this change?  At least one of the original articles remains on Insure.com.  Bland has used Cameron’s research while staunchly defending their claims about gay lifespan, yet Cameron’s group has been removed from the resource list of an organization for which Bland is chair.

Is this a slow retreat?

Story here. Updates here and here.

I’ve been fortunate. I don’t live in the most gay-friendly community in the world, but I’ve never personally been subject to a homophobic assault in my area. My family is well-known round here, and it’s no secret that I’m gay. I’ve had schoolkids ask me about my partner, and for the most part their reaction has been: “Cool.”

But I am not oblivious to the fact that I live in an area where there is homophobia. I have friends down the road who, although they’ve never been physically attacked, have experienced vandalism borne out of gay-hate. And mine’s a fairly traditional working class neighbourhood, where the laissez-faire attitude of city life towards issues of sexuality has yet to fully take hold. Being gay is the sort of thing you could tell the neighbours, but you would likely be in trouble – or at least get some very interesting glances – if you walked down the street hand-in-hand with your boyfriend.

This week I discovered that homophobic violence has come close to home. Michael Causer, a 19-year-old who lives just a couple streets away from me, was attacked on a busy road at 11am on Friday July 25, in a crime rooted in homophobic hate. He was viciously beaten, and now he lays in critical condition in hospital, having faced emergency brain surgery on the weekend.

I am grateful for never having had to endure the worst homophobia. But stories like this one remind me I’m only ever a few steps away.

________________

A few more details from Pink News here.

Two ex-gay ministries have complained that gay groups are being given preferential treatment at the Lambeth Conference, the 10-yearly gathering of Anglican bishops.

The Lambeth Marketplace makes room for booths representing dozens of Anglican organizations during the three-week-long gathering, but representatives of Zaccheus and Redeemed Lives say they have been given “low visibility” compared to pro-gay groups such as Integrity, Changing Attitude and the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement.

According to VirtueOnline, Zaccheus, a Canadian support group for “same-sex attracted” Anglican Christians, were unexpectedly moved from a prime location to a booth at the rear of the marketplace. They said they were also given permission to distribute ex-gay literature to every Anglican bishop as part of a conference pack, but were later told they could only hand out the booklets through their stall to save paper, due to the University of Kent’s environmental policy.

Zaccheus representative Reverend Don Alcock seemed unfazed, saying that he had received “positive comments even from folks who were firmly for [same-sex] blessings, who are surprised by our gentle approach. We provided them with food for thought.”

It is VirtueOnline’s Hans Zeiger who seems a little more upset at the supposed sidelining. But what does he expect? By its own admission, Zaccheus is “currently a small and fairly informal group.” One might deplore their media presence (and certain conservative Anglican commentators certainly do), but groups such as LGCM, Integrity USA and Changing Attitude are large and prominent.

David Virtue is incensed: Read more…

In his celebration of having “left the gay identity” sixteen years ago, Exodus International Vice President Randy Thomas attempts to define on his blog what that even means. In the comments section, he was challenged by a commenter known as “College Jay” to define what he called the “gay ideology,” which supposedly held him back from achieving a relationship with the Christian God. Here are his comments, uncut:

When I refer to gay ideology… I am not talking about bar culture (even though that is a part of it.) In fact your seeming need to make sure the non-sensational are represented is a non-verbalized expectation of gay ideology to “balance” what is assumed as negative.

I don’t mean gay ideology in purely a negative manner even though I found it to be legalistic and limiting as a whole. I mean I believe it is an ideology that comes with a general worldview of what it means to be “gay.”

There are many lifestyles represented within gay ideology. I do believe there are core beliefs and worldviews associated with the modern context of being “gay.” That would be the basis and reason I use the phrase “gay ideology.”

Upon being challenged further, he provides Webster’s definition:

1. the body of doctrine, myth, belief, etc., that guides an individual, social movement, institution, class, or large group

And then proceeds to make this claim, negating any positive steps he might have made toward true understanding of the gay community:

If there wasn’t a gay ideology, “coming out” would have no meaning as being a shared experience. That’s just one example. There also wouldn’t be any national organizations to represent those who identify as gay. You would have millions of gay individuals and no gay community if there wasn’t an underlying gay ideology at some level.

Randy’s claim that the “need to make sure the non-sensational are represented is a non-verbalized expectation of gay ideology to ‘balance’ what is assumed as negative” ignores the fact that any concerned individual of any background would protest someone who paints their “lifestyle” with a single broad, negative stroke. Many Jews might be rich financiers, but I’m a poor artist. Many Mexican residents in this country are illegal, but there are also many Mexican citizens. Prisons are loaded with African Americans, but one of their own is also running for President, endorsed by another who earned a substantial sum and huge public influence in part thanks to millions of adoring fans. Read more…

• Paige Schilt of Soulforce shares about her experiences on the American Family Outing.
• The Asheville chapter of PFLAG hosts the Real Families Picnic in response to Exodus’ conference.
• Cartoonist Jack T. Chick, known for his infamous “Chick Tracts,” has aligned himself with Nazi-admiring anti-gay “researcher” Paul Cameron.
• Residents of the Greek island of Lesbos have unsuccessfully tried to make it illegal for anyone to identify as “lesbian” if they do not originate from the island. They claim that gay women who use the term “lesbian” to describe themselves are damaging the islanders’ cultural heritage.
• YouTuber “Planet Narth” gives us a “great thought” from Joseph Nicolosi.
• From “Good As You:” Peter LaBarbera, known in many circles as “Porno Pete” for his tireless “investigation” of gay pornography of all kinds, has posted an obscure image to his website that lives up to that nickname. Its purpose? To illustrate his opposition to gays and lesbians serving openly in the military.

Gay actor John Barrowman met with an ex-gay during the filming of a BBC documentary about the origins of homosexuality.

The British-American entertainer, best-known to international audiences as Captain Jack Harkness in the the sci-fi serial Doctor Who (and its spin-off, Torchwood), met with Ron Woolsey, aka Victor J Adamson, a Seventh Day Adventist pastor from Arkansas.

Woolsey’s part in the broadcast was surprisingly brief. He reiterated the common ex-gay claim that being gay was a destructive lifestyle:

My life was hurting people. I saw my parents weeping, so I looked at my situation and I was under great conviction that if I wanted to be a Christian I would need to set that aside. I could choose to chart a different course for myself and it was a matter of retraining my mind.

Barrowman asked him whether being gay could simply be a matter of wiring in the brain. Woolsey’s reply confirms what most of us have experienced for ourselves, that being ex-gay does not change underlying orientation, but simply denies it: Read more…

We recently noticed that David Kyle Foster’s Mastering Life Ministries no longer appears on the Exodus affiliate page for Tennessee.  When asked, Exodus President Alan Chambers confirmed to XGW that Foster chose not to renew his membership for 2008, and “left the Exodus Network late last year.”  Interestingly, Myra Noyes is no longer listed as an Exodus regional representative,either.  She was responsible for the Florida region and has been associated with Foster’s ministry for some time (she is still listed on the Mastering Life Ministries website).  Whatever led to the split between Foster and Exodus, Noyes’ concurrent departure may indicate a deep-seated difference of opinion.

Mastering Life Ministries has long been part of Exodus, and Chambers worked with Foster on the latter’s Pure Passion television program a couple of years ago.  From his writings and participation in that show, Foster appears to be a rather rigid, controlling person.  As illustrated in this earlier XGW post, he speaks with the finality of a prophet, and finds it easy to disregard that which is not found in his reading of the Bible, including the findings of science.  As in the clip below, he does use generic references to science when he needs to add legitimacy to his own, sometimes bizarre statements.  Here, for instance, he debates the kinds of sex a husband and wife may have without sinning.

In what must be the current winner of the “how far can I exaggerate the number of ex-gays in the world contest,” Foster claims there are “millions” of them. Responding to a letter from someone “who struggles with homosexual inclinations,” he writes:

As God heals those things that made you seek other men for sexual pleasure, your natural heterosexuality (which has been there all along, suppressed) will naturally begin to emerge, and like millions of other ex-gays, you will likely marry and have children and praise God for the rest of your life for the incredible miracle that He has done in you.

In the Pure Passion program mentioned above, Foster makes a statement which illustrates the depth of his dogma, claiming that “homosexuals do not exist.”

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Millions of ex-gays but no homosexuals — how curious.

Another major, longtime Exodus ministry, Where Grace Abounds, left the network in April of this year.  A line from their website could be a hint as to why they left.

We also see the sin of self-righteousness as equally heinous in the eyes of God and those who condemn others as equally in need of redemption as any of the people they accuse.

Why don’t we find deeply honest statements like that on the Exodus website? And one wonders how long Wendy Gritter and New Direction can hope to maintain their membership.

While Randy Thomas claimed during an interview in Asheville, NC last week that Exodus has a membership of over 200 ministries, the listing on their website does not reflect this.  We will keep track and follow up as necessary.

A scientist has accused Parents and Friends of ExGays and Gays (PFOX) of distorting his research by claiming that high school gay-straight alliances increase risk of suicide for teens.

PFOX President Regina Griggs said that “the risk of suicide decreases by 20% each year that a person delays homosexual or bisexual self-labeling,” and criticized schools for affirming teens who self-labeled.

However,  Dr Gary Remafedi, a pediatrician at the University of Minnesota, whose research Griggs cited, told Wayne Besen that the claims did not line up with his study:

My work has been cited by PFOX in response to a Washington Post article on gay-straight alliances (GSA). … PFOX misuses one of my studies on suicide attempts in gay youth to argue that people should not identify their sexual orientation at young ages. Our findings do not support the contention that young people choose their identity or the timing of events in identity formation. Nor is there any evidence that the availability of GSAs influences those developmental processes.

Misrepresenting scholarship in order to cast suspicion on LGBT persons is nothing new to anti-gay groups. In 2006, University of BC professor Elizabeth Saewyc accused James Dobson’s Focus on the Family of twisting her findings to claim that embracing lesbianism led to suicide. Dr Robert Spitzer has made the same complaint towards FotF. Robert Hogg is another researcher whose studies have been manipulated by the Religious Right to give credence to myths about the “gay lifestyle.”

Truth Wins Out has been keeping an archive of Focus on the Family’s unscholarly distortions, including statements from scholars whose own work has been misrepresented by James Dobson et al, at www.respectmyresearch.org.

The late Mike Yaconelli spent much of his life worried that he wasn’t spiritual enough.  Despite his many efforts to be a better Christian, the best he ever seemed to manage was “a stumbling, bumbling, clumsy kind of following.”  Spirituality remained an eternally elusive state of being that was always just out of grasp.

Most churches reinforce this perfectionistic line of thinking, setting high standards for how their members should look and act and offering countless formulas for “godly” living that never quite work as well as advertised.  The end result is pews full of people with smiles permanently in place who know all the right things to say to hide the disarray and dysfunction that lie just below the surface.

Yaconelli’s epiphany came when he realized that spirituality wasn’t a matter of having one’s life perfectly sorted out or of fitting into the mold of what a “good Christian” is supposed to look like.

Spirituality is not a formula; it is not a test. It is a relationship. Spirituality is not about competency; it is about intimacy. Spirituality is not about perfection; it is about connection. The way of the spiritual life begins where we are now in the mess of our lives. Accepting the reality of our broken, flawed lives is the beginning of spirituality not because the spiritual life will remove our flaws but because we let go of seeking perfection and, instead, seek God, the one who is present in the tangledness of our lives. Spirituality is not about being fixed; it is about God’s being present in the mess of our unfixedness.

Messy Spirituality (recently re-released by Zondervan Publishing) is Yaconelli’s challenge to a church that values conformity over authenticity, perfection over compassion and formula over relationship.  Most evangelical churches would argue that they uphold a vision similar to Yaconelli’s, yet in practice few allow people the freedom to be where they’re at without pushing them to strive toward some fixed standard of perfection.  Uniqueness is sometimes praised but more often condemned.

Similarly, many ex-gay ministries teach what appears to be a grace-filled message that encourages participants to share openly about their struggles while growing at their own pace according to God’s timing.  In practice, however, only a handful of these ministries genuinely leave room for individuals to engage directly with God; the end result of that engagement has been predetermined according to a particular interpretation of a select set of biblical passages, and anyone who reaches different conclusions is automatically deemed unworthy of membership in the body of Christ.

Yaconelli (perhaps wisely) does not address the issue of homosexuality in his book, aside from including GLBT individuals in a list of various groups that churches commonly ostracize (to his credit he uses the term “gay or lesbian” rather than the various euphemisms that evangelicals typically substitute).  As a result, readers will bring their own conclusions with them as to how homosexuality should be addressed by the church.

Yaconelli’s vision of “messy spirituality” does, nonetheless, suggest a framework that we can use to live with fellow Christians who disagree with us on this (or any other) issue.  Having been granted the freedom to be where we’re at as individuals, we can in turn extend that same grace to others, encouraging them to pursue God (and to be pursued by him) without the need to dictate to them what that must look like, or what conclusions they have to reach.

It’s an imperfect solution, but then again, it’s an imperfect world.

Northern Irish MP Iris Robinson is in trouble again after comparing homosexuality to child sex abuse.

The Member of UK Parliament, who stood by a slew of homophobic remarks last month, told the House of Commons on June 18 that there could be “no viler act, apart from homosexuality and sodomy, than sexually abusing innocent children.”

Although a Hansard official later checked recordings and confirmed that her comments were transcribed correctly, Mrs Robinson denied she had made the remarks. “I clearly intended to say that child abuse was worse than even homosexuality and sodomy,” she said. “At no point have I set out to suggest homosexuality was worse than child sex abuse.”

Despite the denial, in what by now is typical fashion, Robinson launched into a self-defense that only revealed more contempt for gays and lesbians:

Let’s look at it. Can you think of anything more vile than man and man or woman and woman and sexually abusing children? What I say I base on biblical pronouncements, based on God’s word. I am amazed that people are surprised when I quote from scriptures. It shows the churches either aren’t preaching God’s word or are watering it down. … I cannot think of anything more sickening than a child being abused. It is comparable to the act of homosexuality. I think they are all comparable. I feel totally repulsed by both.

So at best, homosexuality is merely as bad as raping children – not necessarily worse. Slanderous and pathetic. I wonder if her supporters still agree she is the target of a witch hunt for simply repeating Scripture?

Brace yourself for the final irony:

I am trying to reach out to people. I try to reach out and love them. That is what Christ teaches us. He wants us to help all people and give them an opportunity. We all have the opportunity to come to know the Lord Jesus Christ. Anything I say is out of love. I am not hate-mongering. I cannot leave my Christian values hanging at the door when I go into politics.