Ex-Gay Watch

Christian musician Ray Boltz comes out of the closet.

Ex-gay Gregory Quinlan responds to Boltz by distorting the work of geneticist Francis Collins.

British Christian superstar Cliff Richard speaks out in favor of gay marriage.

Psychologist Jesse Bering examines some of the theories about the origins of homosexuality.

Peter LaBarbera comments on the Folsom Street Fair, inventing a “conversation” between two gay parents to prove some kind of point. No definitive answer on whether he’ll make a cameo appearance.

A local Christian reports on Love Won Out’s Anchorage show.

Educational film producer Sid Davis released countless “cautionary tales” over the span of the 1950′s and ’60′s, one of the most notorious being the film Boys Beware (1961). XGW mentioned the film in a brief posting in 2006 when Davis died. It shows predatory men targeting young boys for sexual gratification, warning the audience that homosexuals are on the loose. The film includes such quotable gems as:

What Jimmy didn’t know was that Ralph was sick. A sickness that was not visible like smallpox, but no less dangerous and contagious — a sickness of the mind. You see, Ralph was a homosexual: a person who demands an intimate relationship with members of their own sex.

One never knows when the homosexual is about. He may appear normal and it may be too late when you discover he is mentally ill.

The entire film is a fallacy, in that it equates homosexuality with pedophilia – the condition in which a person, male or female, seeks out sexual relationships with prepubescents. Homosexuals seek out relationships in the same manner as heterosexuals, with sexually mature people, engaging in romantic courtship and often seeking mutual lifetime commitment. The film also equates homosexuality with an obsession with sex. But perhaps the biggest shortcoming of the film itself is that it ignores the fact that female pedophiles and child molesters exist, failing to warn young boys of this very real danger.

Watching the movie, it’s easy to dismiss it as old-fashioned and a testament to the ignorance of the time. But today anti-gay groups have diverged little from the basic themes: That homosexuals are dangerous to children, obsessed with sex, and are sick (and therefor need to be cured) – providing a need for ex-gay groups. In addition, ex-gay and anti-gay groups are focused especially on male homosexuality, despite the existence of homosexual women.

September is the release month for several items that may be of interest to the XGW community:

 -Peterson Toscano’s recently retired stage show, Doin’ Time in the Homo No Mo’ Halfway House, is now available on DVD.

-Save Me, the ex-gay-themed movie starring Chad Allen, is being screened in selected cities over the next two months. The release schedule is posted here.

-Regular XGW readers will remember Patrick Chapman from his critique of the Jones-Yarhouse study last year.  Dr. Chapman’s new book, Thou Shalt Not Love: What Evangelicals Really Say to Gays, is being released by Haiduk Press later this month.

-Candace Chellew-Hodge, editor of Whosoever magazine, has also written a book.  Bulletproof Faith: A Spiritual Survival Guide for Gay and Lesbian Christians is now available through Amazon.com.

As a child I was atypical. I didn’t begin speaking until months after other kids my age had said their first words – but when I did finally talk, it was in complete sentences. What no doubt appeared at first to be a developmental problem turned out to simply be a different way of doing things. It’s a pattern that has followed me into adulthood; I tend to hold back, watching and learning, and then leap in at hit the ground running once I understand how to do something.

I try to temper this characteristic when the situation dictates, since there are times when something is better learned through the trial and error of doing, but it’s an instinct that has to be consciously overridden at the cost of significant discomfort; it’s simply what comes naturally for me, and no amount of behavioral conditioning can genuinely eliminate the underlying trait.

How did I turn out this way? Some thinkers (as far back as Aristotle) have argued that personality is entirely learned, and that we are all born as blank slates. Research in modern times has demonstrated that some personality traits are in fact innate (whether genetic or otherwise established before birth), and as such the blank slate is a notion that few take seriously anymore. Of course, even the most thoroughly discredited ideas have a way of persisting long after their credibility has been undermined.
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Click here for a vintage homophobic hate tract from 1986. The comic book, by Dick Hafer, is titled Homosexuality: Legitimate, Alternative Deathstyle, and promises “the facts behind today’s headlines,” declaring that “what consenting adults do in the privacy of their own home can hurt you!”

The back cover bears endorsements by evangelical superstar Beverley LaHaye (founder and then-President of Concerned Women for America) and the late Reverend D James Kennedy, a leading light of the Christian Right, who hails the book as “a very accurate portrayal of homosexuality and the problem which it poses to our nation and civilization.”

I wonder how many “respectable” anti-gay and ex-gay organizations would still publish stuff this bad if they thought they could get away with it?

Hat-tip to BoingBoing.

It is no surprise to discover that the church attended by McCain VP candidate Sarah Palin is a supporter of anti-gay groups and ex-gay programs.

A Time Magazine article about the Wasilla Bible Church this week revealed:

The only sign of culture warring in the whole [service] is an insert in the day’s program advertising an upcoming Focus on the Family conference on homosexuality in Anchorage called Love Won Out. The group promises to teach attendees how to “respond to misinformation in our culture” and help them “overcome” homosexuality.

Last time Ex-Gay Watch checked, Love Won Out was still in the business of doublespeak on the issue of orientation change.

XGW has covered the strange story of David Pickup from several angles, but perhaps none so bizarre as this parody from our friends on Planet Narth.  Apparently the sky is rather pink there.