Ex-Gay Watch

-The Southern Poverty Law Center adds five organizations to its list of anti-gay hate groups.

-Students and administrators at Del City High School dispute the claim that two lesbian students were expelled for being gay.

-The New Jersey legislature overwhelmingly passes an anti-bullying measure.

-The number of violent hate crimes based on sexual orientation increases even as the overall total decreases.

-The Salvation Army threatens to cease providing services in New York City if forced to begin providing benefits to the partners of gay employees.

-The Family Research Council unveils its latest anti-gay “study.”

-The National Organization for Marriage campaigns against civil unions in Illinois.

-The Orange County, Florida government approves an anti-discrimination law.

-The religious right groups added to SPLC’s list of hate groups protest their inclusion.

Aaaaaaand it turns out to be more of the same. Literally.

2011 = Simplify, Amplify and Intensify — Letter from Alan Chambers for November 2011
Nov 17, 2010

First, we are reminded of the mission of Exodus:

Mobilizing the body of Christ to minister grace and truth to a world impacted by homosexuality.

Implication: Homosexuality is a negative impact.
—
The agenda…

He [God] has impressed on our entire team the need to do 3 things with what we already have: simplify, amplify and intensify.

~Simplify:

We want to be clear about what we do and don’t do at Exodus. [emphasis added]

Clear:
definition: understandable, apparent
antonyms: ambiguous, indistinct, mysterious, obscure, unintelligible, vague

To use it in a sentence: Clearly, “change” is possible, “temptation” may last a lifetime and “the opposite of homosexuality isn’t heterosexuality, it’s holiness.”

Everybody clear on the meaning of clear now?

~Amplify:

[T]he greatest area of need in our culture is outreach to young people. We will be changing the name of Exodus Youth to Exodus Student Ministries in order to encompass middle school thru [sic] college age students. [em orig]

As the article says, that means a messaging that’s more internet savvy, as well as “short to the point booklets.”

We also want to amplify the specialties that our member ministries provide

["We now have a variety of ways that parents can help their homosexual children decide which indoctrination service ministry is best."]

~Intensify:

We also want to strengthen our communication about the true point of this ministry … Staggering numbers of young people are abandoning their faith because they cannot reconcile their homosexuality with their Christianity.

And who better to intensify that increasing faithlessness than an organization that promises — by calculated implication — heterosexuality.
—
This is a scene from a movie called Disgrace. I watched it months ago and didn’t really care for it, but I had to rent it again so I could write this part down. It nails it.

Dad: When you were small, our next door neighbor had a dog. A golden retriever, remember?

Daughter: Jimby.

Dad: It was a male, and whenever a bitch went passed, it got excited, unmanageable, and with Pavlovian regularity, its owner would beat it so that at the mere smell of a bitch the dog would run around the garden with it’s ears flat and it’s tail between it’s legs, whining and trying to hide.

Daughter: I don’t see the point.

Dad: Well, you can punish a dog for chewing the slipper. The dog can accept that, but it’s desires are another thing.

Daughter: Is that the moral, that males should be allowed to follow their instincts unchecked?

Dad: No, that’s not the moral. What was ignoble about the spectacle was that the poor dog had begun to hate it’s own nature. It no longer needed to be beaten, it punished itself. At that point it would have been better to shoot it.

Fortunately the dog didn’t have a gun, or fingers to tie a noose. So the dog’s mother didn’t have to experience the HORROR of walking in on the sight of her son’s dangling or beheaded body.
—
So, it would seem that Exodus’ 2011 agenda is, in effect, a finessing of the message that one’s nature is something to be rejected — for life — in order to escape the eternal clutches of God’s loving wrath.

Sammy Davis Jr. “I Gotta Be Me”

___
patrick.fitzgerald@exgaywatch.com

-An Oklahoma high school refuses to let two lesbian students graduate.

-Former Congressman Bob Barr declares his full support for marriage equality.

-Cindy McCain backpedals on her previous support for a repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.

-Newsweek runs a puff piece on Brian Brown and the National Organization for Marriage.

-A group of Arab and African countries block a UN resolution condemning the execution of gays.

-The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals announces that the Prop 8 hearings will be televised on C-SPAN.

-The Human Rights Campaign highlights the less civil side of the National Organization for Marriage.

-Sen. Joe Lieberman announces that he has enough votes to ensure a debate on the proposed repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.

-Wayne Besen and the Gill Foundation’s Bill Smith talk strategy for advancing LGBT rights in the coming years.

-Bishop Gene Robinson announces his retirement.

-Another teenager commits suicide due to anti-gay bullying.

-Rob Tisiniai questions another anti-gay claim.

-A Christian mom identifies the root cause of bullying in schools.

-Marriage equality bills are introduced in the Australian states of Tasmania and Victoria.

-GLAD and the ACLU file separate suits challenging the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act.

-The US Supreme Court declines to hear an appeal by ex-gay mother and kidnapper Lisa Miller.

-A Catholic university fires a lesbian employee after her wedding announcement appears in a local newspaper.

-A newly released study finds no incidences of child abuse by lesbian parents.

-The Supreme Court rejects the Log Cabin Republicans’ request to reinstate the suspension of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.

Focus on the Family has taken the helm of the Day of Truth, which was spawned by the Alliance Defense Fund to oppose GLSEN’s Day of Silence. It was adopted by Exodus International this past year. Exodus relinquished custody of the DOT not long after several kids committed suicide as a result of anti-gay bullying.

Focus has decided to rename DOT the “Day of Dialogue:”

“We’re trying to raise awareness that more than one side needs to be heard on the issue of homosexuality, and we’re helping to ensure Christian students have the chance to express their viewpoint,” said Candi Cushman, a Focus on the Family education analyst, in the release. “What is freedom of speech, after all, but a guarantee of the right to have dialogue?”

Their website is still a shell, but DOD clearly misses the mark as much as DOT did, and completely misses the point of the DOS. The DOS doesn’t exist to further the acceptance of homosexuality by every person, it exists to make people aware of a specific type of bullying suffered by certain individuals. Not every victim of anti-gay bullying is indeed gay. By focusing on “God’s design for sexuality” and “sharing faith-based viewpoints” concerning homosexuality, not only is the topic of bullying avoided, it fosters the silence endured by people shamed into thinking they are outside of the correct “godly” design.

From the Washington Post:

A Pentagon study group has concluded that the military can lift the ban on gays serving openly in uniform with only minimal and isolated incidents of risk to the current war efforts, according to two people familiar with a draft of the report, which is due to President Obama on Dec. 1.

More than 70 percent of respondents to a survey sent to active-duty and reserve troops over the summer said the effect of repealing the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy would be positive, mixed or nonexistent, said two sources familiar with the document. The survey results led the report’s authors to conclude that objections to openly gay colleagues would drop once troops were able to live and serve alongside them.

Mr. President?  Congress?  Courts?  Anyone?

If this ban is finally lifted soon, the United States will be the 26th major military power to do so.  Our allies did this years ago, including Israel (nearly 20 years ago!).  No one can seriously challenge their military prowess.  None of these countries reported any problems with the move.

That we are so far behind on this, the chief champions of human rights for so many years, attests to the enormous fear certain groups have been able to instill for nothing more than the extension of their own petty prejudices.

Please America, stop being afraid.

Case in point:

“fairness and equality, those are ok to talk about in the abstract… but this is real life here”

Edit: added video (Hat Tip: Towle)

Direct link here. (JiM is second segment, about 6:30 in)

Patterned after the equally bizarre Mankind Project, Journey into Manhood is nothing new to those who keep up with pseudo-therapies which make wildly unscientific claims of success in changing people from gay to straight.  JiM’s founder, Richard Wyler, doesn’t even try to claim a professional background that would qualify him as a therapist or a researcher.  Claims made by the organization have as much factual weight as those made on behalf of “male enhancement” pills on late night cable — anyone can claim anything.

Yet in spite of all this, and the dearth of any credible evidence that sexual orientation can be changed as an act of will, gay men still pay the $650 to spend a weekend with the boys, chanting about manhood, elevating males to mythical positions, hugging and holding each other (while naked en masse according to former attendees).

Since JiM invited Nightline cameras into the normally secretive reunion weekend, things were probably less intense.  Also, this was a reunion, not an actual weekend — JiM refused entry to those.  Even so, it gets rather strange.  And inevitably the question arises, as it does with many of these groups, are these people — leaders included — simply fulfilling their needs for male intimacy through the activities created to drench the weekend in maleness?  Is this really a wink wink, nudge nudge farce, where most everyone knows what’s really going on, but uses the pretext because it is a safe way to experience the intimacy without guilt?

If so, not everyone plays along.  Nightline also talks to a couple of men, Ben Unger and Chaim Levin, who were steered to JiM through JONAH, the group known mostly now for the criminal record of it’s founder, Arthur Abba Goldberg.  These two men expected some semblance of professionalism, and instead found themselves asked to do things they were unprepared for and unwilling to do.

And what of the “successes?”  The wife of the person they highlighted and who seemed most positive about his “change”  later said that they often look at men together, but his type is different than hers.

Update: The ABC piece isn’t really investigative journalism, as they took whatever JiM spooned out to them.  Check out a more thorough undercover piece here.

Edit 11/10: Replaced expired promo video with full version from Hulu.

Wendy Gritter, of Ontario-based Christian ministry New Direction, tells bullied kids, “It gets better“:

Alan Chambers just doesn’t get it. The Exodus International President expects gays and lesbians to be moved by his words of compassion, but any gay or lesbian who knows their worth will hear only patronizing and insulting condescension in his words.

Here is Chambers speaking at the Third International Congress on World Evangelization (the Lausanne Conference), held in Cape Town, South Africa, last month:

Here is Chambers castigating Christians for what he believes is their greatest sin towards homosexuals:

We, as the Church, have not viewed homosexual people, gay and lesbian men and women, as starving, hurting, broken, lost people in need of compassion.

-Taiwan LGBT Pride hosts the largest pride parade ever held in Asia.

-University of Michigan student Chris Armstrong files an ethics complaint against his anti-gay stalker, MI Assistant Attorney General Andrew Shirvell.

-The Family Research Council campaigns against a pro-life but gay-supportive Republican congressman.

-An aggressive street preacher gets a taste of his own medicine.

-Lexington, KY elects an openly gay mayor.

-US Voters elect a record number of LGBT candidates.

-David Cicilline becomes the fourth openly gay member of the House of Representatives.

-Iowa Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal pledges to block any attempts to vote on a same-sex marriage ban.

-A mother defends her five-year-old son’s right to dress up as a female character for Halloween.

-Two Christian groups in Connecticut speak out against anti-gay bullying.

-The Association of Professional Chaplains concludes that repealing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell would not negatively impact the ability of chaplains to perform their duties.

-George Takei has a message for former Arkansas School Board member Clint McCance.

-The Log Cabin Republicans ask the US Supreme Court to overturn the Ninth Circuit Court’s decision that suspended the overturning of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.

-Truth Wins Out organizes a protest outside NARTH’s 2010 conference.

-Israeli journalist Yoav Sivan recounts the Israeli Defense Force’s decision to allow gays to serve openly.