I have — unpleasant as it is — gone back and read a good number of these comments again, mine and others’. It was a painfully useful exercise. It’s sometimes hard to keep a straight train of thought or to really hear what’s being said in these kinds of discussions. Too easy to talk past each other. And far too easy to let old wounds surface and carry away sanity. I’ve been guilty of that.

First, as regards that older commentary of mine I’d honestly forgotten about, but needed to be reminded of: Grantdale, if you say someone from Uganda actually quoted that back to you (a very troubling thing to me), then I will have to take a hit for that. That means I do have some culpability. I have to be responsible for every word I have written, like it or not. That piece ought to have been removed before now — it will be ASAP. That is not the tone with which I write these days, and I have learned lots more since then. It was wrong of me to get defensive instead of pausing and looking at the bigger picture. I do wish you had been less cryptic in the way you approached that, though. And I’d also like to know who in Uganda may have used that as any kind of justification so I can be in contact with them and ameliorate that, for what it’s worth.

And Mike, would you do me the kindness of realizing that the way you characterized me in your statement regarding my views on Uganda (implying that I really supported the bill, etc.) was, indeed, incorrect? It seems as if you cobbled together a perspective without having all the facts.

Dave, forgive me for going off on you. It had felt to me as if I’d been in some way almost lured here and then ambushed. But that was a knee-jerk reaction on my part. Sorry.

I am well aware that my opposition to the bill in Uganda just looks like some kind of political posturing (for lack of a better term) to some folks here. I assure you I am genuinely appalled at Uganda’s push for this bill, and I did not feel when I learned of it that I could keep silent. It seems my help is neither appreciated nor wanted by some. But I will lend it nevertheless as it’s the right thing to do.

If I refuse to drag myself out into the light and allow God to examine me, woe is me. He uses tools we don’t always recognize at first for that very thing. Hurts good. I can’t change my core beliefs, but I can certainly be willing in the future to refuse to take offense so readily and speak with more kindness. The test for me is what I do with this. I intend to take it to heart and be the better for it.

By the way, Regan, psychologically speaking, I don’t think there remains much of anything deep within me needing special validation, but I’ll stay open to the possibility. Not that I haven’t had to deal with my share of junk in life. I’ll let God work on that one. Happy to be a work in progress ’till I die.

I mean I was outright called vicious names, my profession and how I went about it was derided, the ridicule was constant no matter what I said, even if I agree on some points, and eventually I my real name was used and I was accused of committing acts that were against my professional oath (a crime) and accused of saying things I didn’t to rationalize the whole business.

All that for being honest and letting the group know that I had my facts straight, in part because of participating in law enforcement.

I realized that I had a thicker skin than those who joined the mob. I know what is required of me, and although I might be brutally frank, being characterized a hysterical, angry and so on…is almost laughable in comparison to the opposition.
There is, after all, far more urgency for gays and lesbians and more justification for losing patience with the debate style we’re confronted with.

When I compare comment threads here and PHB and even Joe. My. God. and BTB, there is a great deal more civility and bravery than I have witnessed there at Townhall. I toughed it all out for over a year. They don’t visit here or the other threads, even though I directed them that way.

I’m back at work now after a year off for medical reasons. I simply don’t have the time to comment so much at TH.
But nothing has changed.
I’ve read articles in WaPo, NYTimes and several women’s magazines that I subscribe to regarding the violence, illiteracy and poverty of females in America and globally.

Child brides are still a problem in Third World countries as is the sex trafficking especially of young girls. In America this traffick is especially troubling because you would think there would be more resources or parents held accountable for this outrage. Not so.

Yet, the preoccupation, in particular with gay men, is at the exclusion of what I know happens to sexual victims, male or female. Talk about homosexuality, they’ll invoke NAMBLA, but can’t name ONE of the many thousands of equivalent hetero male groups who have put themselves online actually attacking little girls. Some of whom are their own daughters.

The latest famous person (other than Mackenzie Phillips) to talk about it is Tyler Perry.
He was abused by both a man and a woman.
Women abusers still fall under the radar, but when I try to direct the conversation about the real criminal statistics, incarceration and my ability to know this information from firsthand experience and databases, I was accused of doing something criminal myself, instead of any of those people ASKING me where they could get more information, help the problem or what my concerns were.

I have never seen anyone so PATHOLOGICALLY invested in damaging gays, that there can be no allied front to address and change the problem of sexual abuse.
Or anything else that hurts both gay AND straight people.

This IS very much like the pathological paranoia of black sexuality SO GREAT, that a casual encounter between a black man and the assumed target of his lust, would result in a street death sentence of that black male.
Even black little boys got put in jail.

There isn’t a thing different about the pathologies of preoccupation with gay male sexuality, the target is different, that’s all. And their response is Jim Crow like laws, same as against blacks.

I consider ALL of these people, ex gays, anti gay straight people and some Christians, the weakest link to combating society’s greater problems. They keep the paranoia fires burning and the expectations unrealistic about gay lives.
Yet, to hear THEM tell it, they are strong, they are such soldiers, they are SO good at what their Lord tells them to do.

There is nothing worse than a person who thinks of themselves as very good and good at what they do, while in reality, they completely fu*k up everything.

Even honesty is impossible and the first casualty.

The most vital thing: cooperation, and allied front, is completely impossible and for ridiculous reasons.
Debbie IS very weak, and although not everyone who seeks counsel in faith would be, it’s no surprise that someone would need that communion to at least FEEL stronger, more in control and less vulnerable.

But she is absolutely worthless up against the viciousness and commitment to lies and deceit and stereotyping that gay people are up against.
She doesn’t care to be an advocate, so what?
She wouldn’t be an effective one, for obvious reasons.

It saddened me that I couldn’t engage the people at TownHall, for example, in joining those brave gay men and women in the uniforms of peace officers everywhere in combating the terrible crimes out there.
Know what they said?
That it didn’t matter, those officers were doing it for sinister reasons, and I was abetting evil out there for supporting them!

What can you do with people this insane? They are exhausting. Our friend Swampfox can attest.
I tried. I just had no idea people would be THAT irrational.
I really didn’t.

I had a sweet little aunt that had been damaged by religious people and she wasn’t interested in participating in the civil rights movement. She didn’t have the strength, and she admitted that.
But she didn’t tear down and criticize those advocates out there, nor put down any loss of patience or stoic responses to whatever pain.
And I consider that more than fair. She’d paid her dues.

I know I’m going on about this, but I wanted to get it said.
Bishop Jackson is now angry that the gay folks are making the Catholic Charities withhold help from the needy. His spin on this is breathtaking, but the last line of his article is most telling.
“If you want our help, you have to accept in on our terms.”

So, doing justice for someone is conditional? There’s a caveat on kindness and caring?

I’m glad I wasn’t taught that. I hadn’t always known what to expect if I advocate for gay folks. It’s been interesting and it has been very difficult and sometimes threatening and painful.
But I’m doing it, not for anything in return, on no condition.
But I HAVE gotten something in return…

And I’ve wondered if those spectacular epiphanies I’ve experienced are part of what you get when you truly love those who don’t have it in the world.
Perhaps my amazing friends, so studied in faith here can tell me?

Thanks for letting me vent.
Off to work.

I believe we can safely say that Debbie was never a honest lesbian.

I’m not sure what you mean by “honest” lesbian (open?), but generally I tend to take people at their word on something like that unless there is significant reason to doubt it (and there are a few). Referring to “the lifestyle” and similar ex-gay speak can’t really be the litmus test, something to which many ex-ex-gays could attest.

Also, now thanks to GrantDale, it is confirmed that she is just one of those people making claims of homo-cure just to get some mileage in their sorry bigoted lives. God Bless Debbie.

Et tu, Brutus.

You still cannot see yourself in all this.

We don’t mind that David has now given the link to some of your writings, but we’d left them out for one particular reason. This was less about informing others, and more about holding a mirror up to yourself. Uncomfortable as that may be.

Whatever you may do, or at least try to do, at this point in time; we had hoped to see some contrition from you. We chose those quotes because they covered three topics:

1) gays are a threat because they ungodly and are at war with us,
2) gays are a threat because they cause of AIDS, and
3) gays are a threat because they are after the children.

I would like you to now consider what are the three driving themes behind the abuse in Uganda. What are the three core reasons behind that legislation? Now read above, again.

Of course you didn’t invent that sort of behaviour towards gay people. You’ve inherited and/or adopted the attitudes. But you did chose to go beyond holding an opinion, and have a history of launching into tirades against all gay men and women.

You know Debbie, if I seriously thought any group of people were attacking me personally and my society more broadly, were the cause of a hideous disease they appear to be deliberately spreading, and were a direct threat to children: I do have to pause and wonder how I would react. What would I demand be done to them, I wonder. What sympathy would I have for human rights if I thought a group had ceased to have any right to them?

Honestly, I don’t know. I’ve never been in such a place, about any group.

I do know I have a visceral response when I see injustice, and a tendency to treat people as individuals… but I also know I’m only human. What sort of abuse could I condone if I were to be surrounded by a different society, and imagined that we were facing a serious threat? I honestly don’t know, and not for want of asking myself.

Does that give you any indication that we do in fact think of such matters? I suspect what you term as a ‘pure heart’ is more a matter of religious conformity than the way we see it, but we need no lectures from you on self reflection.

So I’ll ask you: do you understand that a person cannot be holding up human rights if what they are actively opposing is, in fact, a human right? It’s a contradiction in terms, and all too easily rationalised away. (You do recognise a person’s intimate family life as a core human right, do you? Do you always act as if it is?).

In watching the efforts made by Warren Throckmorton over the past months, it has been unavoidable but notice a recurrent attitude from some on his blog (as but one example of where it’s occurring). The question keeps getting asked about what compromise could be made; as if this were simply a question about the harshness and form of punishment, and about who should organise the sanctions against homosexuality.

It’s not.

Debbie I cannot invalidate what you’ve said and done in recent weeks. But I suspect that others will read the words that we quoted, now knowing they are in fact yours, and now knowing what you have said and done in the past, and find your hypocrisy, rationalisation and defensiveness to be invalidation enough. (That, btw, is why we didn’t directly link to those pieces of yours). The question we always had for you is ultimately whether you know why the situation in Uganda exists in the first place.

There is no need to incite fear, be the cause of hate, heap abuse on, gaol or execute people like me. Gay people — including me — are not waging war on society, deliberately spreading disease nor destroying the lives of children. I’m not a threat.

Yet if I go to Uganda, or out my door, I can be treated as if I am. Not just misunderstanding or antipathy or inequity, but to the point of malice and violence.

Am I to blame for that, even partly or indirectly?

Are you?

ps: your incredulity about whether someone has read what you deliberately published online is an outstanding piece of performance, even for little ol’ you. Good grief.

I don’t appreciate Debbie behaving as if the ‘two sides’ she keeps talking about have an even chance of being considered fairly or rightly.

Gay people are at the worst disadvantage by lesser numbers alone.
And the chronic libel that they threaten people even by being discussed.

Debbie is unfair in her own assessment of how ANYONE can possibly respond to that without being angry, or expressing hurt.

I have been at TownHall
http://www.townhall.com up until a month ago, but for over a year.

The latest article by Matt Barber is called “The Gay Jihad” he claims there are threats from ‘homosexual activists’ on his colleagues compare to the attack on Ft. Hood.

I have participated in the comment threads for over a year.

And the few gay people and allies like me are spoken to like children. Debbie has also expressed such sentiment as if gay people have responded like children to what are libel and slander and incredible ironies and threats to their access to full self reliance.

When adults are not treated like adults, regardless of what they do, even by people who never met them, and don’t want to, it’s an impossible indictment and impossible to fight or argue against.

This is typical of abusive relationships. And I wouldn’t be exaggerating if I called the gay/straight conflict exactly that. With gay people in the unfortunately weaker position, and the dominant culture knowing that.

Debbie and just about every ex gay I ever spoke to doesn’t seem to know how weak they are, and docile.
And unusually needful of WAY too much validation that they are otherwise.

They might unburden themselves to God and Jesus, but burden gay people in other ways they obviously won’t admit to.

And I really HATE that.

We’ve got darkness, hypocrisy and hate in both camps. Hear that or be deaf to it. It’s not my responsibility to make anyone hear.

As much as you continually try to portray this false dichotomy, there are more than two “camps” here. There are many different points of view, and thankfully yours is not the view of the entire Church. But it’s nice to know that, in yours, doing wrong is ok as long as you think others are doing so.

I’ve been commenting, then posting for XGW since about 2004. In that time, I can’t remember a single instance when grantdale gave false information or showed deception. They may push the bounds of civility from time to time, but they do not lie. Quite the opposite, they frustrate many with their uncanny accuracy. If they say that your writings were used in Uganda, believe it. Speaking of things for which one will be held accountable one day…

My original appreciation for your speaking out against the bill in Uganda was genuine. There are very few people with whom I will not carry on a civil conversation, and my faith does not allow me to hate someone (though I must work hard on that at times). However, your response to my appreciation does seem hypocritical, as do (now) your protests against the bill in Uganda.

When one speaks out of both sides of ones mouth, the message is canceled out. I think this may be what Regan was getting at by saying you were of no help. When confronted honestly about this, you have rationalized and countered with “goose and gander” tripe.

I again suggest you step back and decide what kind of person you want to be.

Alan, the Church has always been under attack. But Christ said the gates of hell would not prevail against it. It’s not my Church. It’s Christ’s.

But Debbie, God will take care of that. Christ told us what to do, and he never mentioned denying a group of people their right to life, or to deny a group of people their freedom. If God doesn’t do it, who do your type of Christianity think you are to go beyond God?