Ex-Gay Watch

A British psychotherapist was “reckless,” “disrespectful,” “dogmatic” and “unprofessional” in trying to turn a homosexual patient heterosexual, a hearing has concluded.

Last week, the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy found Christian counselor Lesley Pilkington guilty of professional malpractice. after she let her “personal preconceived views about gay lifestyle and sexual orientation … affect her professional relationship in a way that was prejudicial.”

The saga entered the public eye in February, 2010, with an investigative report in The Independent (London), in which gay journalist Patrick Strudwick went undercover to research the world of gay-to-straight therapy. In the article, Strudwick described his visits, in 2009, to two accredited UK counselors to receive reparative treatment.

According to Strudwick’s account, Mrs Pilkington suggested low self-esteem, a family history of Freemasonry and unacknowledged sexual abuse were to blame for his “same-sex attraction,” or “SSA.” He denied any of the three existed, but Pilkington was insistent, he said.

Strudwick has come under fire for deceiving Mrs Pilkington into believing he was an unhappy gay man who wanted to be cured of his homosexuality. Yet even those who support reparative therapy — a practice supported by little scientific evidence — are hard-pressed to justify such dubious practices as linking homosexual orientation to the spiritual influence of Freemasonry and insisting on the presence of sexual abuse. Strudwick’s pretence pales next to this pseudo-scientific charlatanry.

As a result of the hearing, the BACP suspended Pilkington’s licence, and she will have to undergo extensive retraining or risk losing it altogether. With the support of the Christian Legal Centre, however, she is expected to appeal the verdict.

The other psychiatrist in Patrick Strudwick’s investigation was Belfast-based therapist Dr Paul Miller, an associate of Richard Cohen. According to Strudwick, the General Medical Council dismissed his call for a hearing against Miller.

Chaz Bono, formerly Chastity, currently stars in a show, “Becoming Chaz,” that takes a close look at his life as a female-to-male transperson. This show has received some buzz, as it is currently being broadcast on Oprah’s “OWN” network. It’s been too much buzz for Exodus International blogger Randy Thomas to ignore. His latest post retreads an argument he previously made which calls the gay community “hypocritical” for welcoming transpeople into their ranks while shunning ex-gays like himself. And, in the process, he makes a statement which is a complete fabrication.

Let me state right out of the gate that there is no proven genetic link to homosexuality.

This is a bold statement, literally and figuratively. This is not the ambiguous argument that “there is no gay gene,” a statement that is technically true, but infers the lie that there is no genetic component to sexual orientation. There is, in fact, a proven genetic link. This complete fabrication that there is zero genetic component has been stated by Exodus before, by Alan Chambers in an audio interview. Evidence of a biological/genetic connection continues to mount as time progresses, with studies that demonstrate this link in multiple ways.

That aside, Randy continues with his tired argument about the “hypocrisy” of his “gay activist friends:”

That said, It’s always confounded me that my gay activist friends will vehemently defend people who identify as transgendered as having a “right” to go against their biology to “become who they truly are.”  Yet that same activist will vehemently say that for people like myself, homosexuality is genetic and there is no way to escape that reality.  That I should just accept being gay and stop the self-loathing they seem to think I live in.

If you take that thinking to its logical conclusion, genetics has a tyrannical hold on my life, identity and self-determination but does NOT hold that same power over the transgendered.

That, my friends, is hypocrisy.

Transwoman Yuki Choe explained the flaws in this argument in a previous XGW article:

[Randy's] belief that transgenders are ignoring their “genetic destiny” is completely inaccurate. He takes for granted the biological, chromosomnal and psychological state of transgenders, as the whole article failed to address sexual ambiguities that may face children even before puberty. The genetic destiny of transgenders actually lies in these various factors, something which Thomas did not seem to be well informed of.

Indeed, both transgendered people and homosexual people are embracing “genetic destiny:” by coming out of the closet; by embracing their true gender identity despite their physical biological state. The difference between ex-gays like Randy and transgendered individuals like Chaz Bono? Transsexuals, many of whom spend thousands of dollars on multiple surgeries to harmonize their physical appearance with their gender identity, do not need to bring themselves to their knees and pray for the daily strength to “deny what comes naturally to them.” They know who they are and embrace it. Ex-gays like Randy and Alan are in a perpetual battle, fighting their “natural sinful nature,” which they conflate with their sexual orientation.

The final part of Randy’s article delves into Christian theology having nothing to do with Chaz’s life, since his conversion was biological and not religious. Randy seems to think that Chaz’s gender transition is a blind maneuver; a gamble that “might” give Chaz a secure identity. The implication is that Chaz will remain confused and searching because his transition was not one to an “identity in Christ.” Quite the contrary, Chaz has made a long thought-out decision, one that will ultimately give him the liberation Randy is so earnestly “praying” that Chaz “will find someday.”

-Focus on the Family president Jim Daly concedes that they are losing the battle against marriage equality.

-ABC’s What Would You Do? stages the harassment of a pair of lesbian mothers in a Texas restaurant.

-The Minnesota House approves a marriage amendment for the 2012 ballot.

-The Church of Scotland votes to allow the ordination of gay ministers.

-Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton symbolically vetoes the marriage amendment scheduled for next year’s ballot.

-Comedian Lisa Lampanelli donates $50,000 to an AIDS charity on behalf of Westboro Baptist Church.

-Ex-NOM supporter Louis Marinelli plans another summer bus tour – this time in support of marriage equality.

-Bishop Eddie Long settles with the four young men who sued him for sexual misconduct.

-A Maine high school elects a gay couple prom king and queen.

“She’s My Man” – Scissor Sisters (2007)

Scissor Sisters front man, Jake Shears – It Get’s Better

Amanda Booker (Image: Georgia Department of Corrections)

A lesbian is suing a police department she says sent her to an evangelist for ex-gay therapy.

In April, 2010, the family of Amanda Booker requested she be given therapy for her drug addiction. A court order commanded Bartow County Sheriff’s Department to take her to Northwest Georgia Regional Hospital in Rome, GA.

She suffered seizures on the way, however, and was taken instead to Cartersville Medical Center. It was there, Booker alleges, that police officers prevented her from contacting her female partner and made “numerous threats concerning her lesbian relationship.”

From there, Booker was taken to stay in a private home for a week and then to the home of evangelists Chris and Donna McDowell, who allegedly tried to “convert Ms Booker from being a lesbian” for a fee of $600, paid by the county.

Booker was arrested a few days later after she “escaped” and returned to her mother’s house.

A lawsuit filed by Booker’s attorney, Anthony Perrotta, on May 13 claims that the Bartow County Sheriff’s Department considered it “normal procedure … to punish homosexuals and persons holding different religious beliefs.” The lawsuit continues:

At all times relevant to this action, it was the normal procedure, practice and custom of Defendants Bartow County, [County Commissioner Clarence] Brown, and [Sheriff] Clark Milsap to harass homosexuals taken into custody, to mandate that homosexuals taken into custody refrain from living as homosexuals, and to forbid them from maintaining any homosexual relationships.

Sheriff Milsap told the GA Voice the charges were “the most absurd thing I’ve ever heard in my life,” while Brown declined to comment.

Perrotta says his priority is to get Amanda Booker out of Pulaski State Prison, GA, where she has been held since October, 2010, on charges that include damaging a police vehicle — an incident that occurred during her arrest, which the lawsuit portrays as aggressive, humiliating and without warrant.

Update: Thanks, Bene Diction, for notifying us of this website for Mercy House, the ministry run by Chris and Donna McDowell, the couple alleged in the lawsuit to have held Booker and subjected her to “ex-gay” treatment.

Second Update: The Mercy House website is now disabled. There is no Google cache.

Gay teens share their stories this week in the New York Times. The interactive series, which touches on issues of oppression, anti-gay bullying and the challenges of coming out in school, began this morning with 19-year-old John Albuquerque of the Bronx, and Thomas Miller, 17, of Mandeville, Louisiana.

A group of wealthy Republicans lend their financial support to the push for marriage equality in New York.

-Rick Welts, president of the Phoenix Suns, comes out of the closet.

-…and so does CNN anchor Don Lemon.

-Anti-gay demonstrators disrupt a march for marriage equality in Adelaide, Australia.

-A gay rights parade is held in Havana, Cuba.

-The United Belize Advocacy Movement challenges Belize’s sodomy law.

-Officials in Moscow, Russia ban another gay pride rally.

-A Kentucky politician belatedly goes public about his support for marriage equality.

-A new study finds that gay Catholic priests are no more likely to abuse minors than straight priests.

-New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg lobbies for marriage equality in New York.

-Missionary Timothy Miller is indicted in the Miller-Jenkins child abduction case.

-Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker takes a step toward stripping same-sex couples of hospital visitation rights.

-The Rhode Island House votes in favor of civil unions.

We’ve met Dr Michael L Brown before. In The Fighting Words of Michael Brown, I analyzed the revolution- and battle-based rhetoric he uses to call evangelical Christians to rise up against gays and lesbians, and their rights. In Pedophilia, Hedonism & Impending Confusion, I revisited Brown’s anti-gay rhetoric and demonstrated how he misrepresented LGBT people with a classic “slippery slope” argument.

Now Brown is in the spotlight again with a book that claims to chronicle the rise of gay rights and, with the support of “massive research and extensive interaction with the GLBT community,” debunk the so-called homosexual agenda. A Queer Thing Happened to America: And What a Long, Strange Trip It’s Been is, according to its author, a 700-page representation and demolition of the gay agenda, of which 100 pages are supporting footnotes.

Brown couldn’t find anyone to publish his book, a fact he puts down to fear. Read it and “find out why the publishing world was afraid to touch it,” he says. “Family values” apologist Bill Muehlenberg props up Brown’s theory in his enthusiastic review: Read more…

-The National Organization for Marriage pulls out the stops in its campaign against marriage equality in New York.

-University City, MO passes a domestic partnership ordinance.

-Chaz Bono’s story debuts on the Oprah Winfrey Network.

-Progressive Christian organization Sojourners rejects an LGBT-welcoming advertisement.

-Delaware Gov. Jack Markell signs civil unions into law.

-The House Armed Services Committee approves an amendment that would hinder the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”

-The US Navy succumbs to pressure to cancel plans to allow same-sex marriages in naval chapels.

-A new poll finds that 55% of Minnesotans oppose the marriage amendment currently being pushed through the state legislature.

A BC Conservative Party leadership candidate has said in a radio interview that gays should not have “special rights” because homosexuality is a choice.

John Cummins, who recently stepped down as Conservative Member of Parliament for Delta-Richmond East to run as leader of the BCCP, told Victoria’s CFAX Radio that he’s “not a scientist, [but] some of the research tells me that there’s more of an indication that that’s a choice issue.”

According to the Times Colonist (Victoria), Cummins later told reporters, “I’m pro-life, I’m protraditional marriage, that’s my view, I’m not a scientist.” He refused to defend his views, saying they were “personal issues, private issues.”

In 1996, as an MP, Cummins voted against introducing sexual orientation under the Canadian Human Rights Act, which lists “prohibited grounds of discrimination,” including religion, race and gender.

In the run-up to the recent election, many of us here in Canada were concerned that a majority Conservative government would put power in the hands of social conservatives who want to curb the rights of gays and lesbians. In 2006, 110 out of 124 Conservative MPs (and a minority of Liberals) voted unsuccessfully to turn back the clock on same-sex marriage and “restore traditional marriage,” in a free vote called for by Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

Harper, who returned to parliament with his first majority government last week, said during the election campaign he would not reopen the same-sex marriage debate. Cummins’s comments are a reminder that social conservatives — holding unscientific, religiously motivated views that can and will be used to discriminate against LGBT persons — are still a presence in Canadian politics.

Meanwhile, a new study finds that two out of three non-heterosexual kids in Canada don’t feel safe in their schools.

[This story has been updated to make a factual correction.]