Ex-Gay Watch

-Same-sex couples begin marrying in New York.

-Disney’s Weddings & Honeymoons blog highlights a gay wedding.

-Anti-gay activist Bradlee Dean sues Rachel Maddow for quoting him.

-A lesbian couple helps save several dozen campers during the Norway massacre.

-Colombia’s Constitutional Court orders the legislature to pass a same-sex marriage bill within the next two years.

-Anti-gay activists bring donkeys to protest Jerusalem’s Pride event.

-Television personality Mo Rocca comes out of the closet.

-All but one member of the Massachusetts congressional delegation participate in an “It Gets Better” video.

-The California Supreme Court sets a September date to hear Perry vs. Brown.

Some lady who’ll say anything to get a bit of attention thinks some people can pray away the gay:

In the interview, with The View host Joy Behar, Coulter points to a Michael Glatze story in the New York Times as evidence that gays can change. “[Glatze] used to run a big gay magazine in San Francisco, and then he found God, and he’s not gay any more,” she said, adding that “the most important part of the story … was that he’s a huge Ann Coulter fan.” Read more…

The National Association for the Research and Therapy of Homosexuality has congratulated gay-to-straight conversion therapist Marcus Bachmann for “sticking to the science.”

Bachmann, husband of Republican presidential runner Michele Bachmann, runs a clinic in Minnesota offering ex-gay therapy. His description of gays as “barbarians [that] need to be educated [and] disciplined” made headlines, prompting his embarrassing attempt to deny ever having made the remarks, claiming the recordings were doctored. (They weren’t.)

Defending Bachmann in its July 26 bulletin, NARTH said that

change therapies have been offered for the past century and have been found to be successful. In fact, over the past 125 years, change of sexual orientation has been documented via case studies, clinical reports, and research studies (NARTH, 2009). It is clear that change of both behavior and attractions is indeed possible.

This is false. For an idea just how poor some of these case studies have been, familiarize yourself with the tragic story of Kirk Murphy, aka “Kraig,” the subject of experiments by disgraced change therapist Dr George Rekers, who claimed to have cured him of his “sissy boy” tendencies.

More recent studies, such as those by Robert Spitzer, and Jones and Yarhouse have fared badly in proving the ex-gay mantra that “change is possible.” Dr Jack Drescher recently summed up the reality of orientation change by likening success to a winning lottery ticket: “Planning your financial future on a lottery ticket is like planning your sexual future on a conversion therapy.”

Undeterred by the absence of scientific evidence, NARTH continues to manipulate the data to support its belief that sexual orientation can be made to change through psychiatric therapy. Unfortunately for NARTH, at a time when such claims are under increasing scrutiny, its support is dwindling rapidly, as its message regarding Bachmann acknowledges:

Those candidates in the public spotlight, and it will get far more intense as we get closer to election-day, are to be congratulated for sticking to the science and supporting client rights no matter how politically incorrect it is to defend truth and freedom regarding homosexuality.

Knowing it’s an uphill battle, however, NARTH makes sure to trumpet its most pressing concern loud and clear before getting to its defense of Bachmann: Money.

Screenshot from NARTH

The National Association for the Research and Therapy of Homosexual is no longer offering continuing education to therapists in the state of California, according to SFGate blogger Susan Davis.

Although some activists had tried to have NARTH‘s rights to provide continuing education revoked on the basis of its homophobic, pseudoscientific beliefs and practices, Davis reports the actual reason is unpaid fees to the California Board for Behavioral Science. In the article, she reveals, surprisingly, that the CBBS doesn’t have the ability to remove an organization from membership for erroneous scientific claims:

As it stands now, the BBS can’t reject a continuing education provider due to its philosophy or even the validity of its scientific claims, executive officer Kim Madsen says, and “that’s been a challenge.” Instead, as long as the provider “meets the requirements as set forth in current law, we have to accept them.” (Those requirements include providing direct or indirect patient care, having qualified instructors and submitting the appropriate applications and fees.)

At its September meeting, however, the BBS will be reviewing those laws and requirements and having a discussion about what Madsen describes as “long-identified deficiencies in the continuing education model.”

In case you missed the news a month or two back, Ex-Gay Watch is now on Facebook.

Stop by, click “Like,” and say hey!

In the Wavertree district of Liverpool, England, Frontline Church has a ministry to gays and lesbians. It’s an ex-gay ministry, LIFE Liverpool, that they say helps people work through childhood pain to overcome their homosexuality.

It was founded in 2000 with the help of Joanne Highley, head of LIFE New York City, whose unusual teachings and practices include exorcizing demons out of bodily cavities such as the anus, the mouth and the uterus. She says that the homosexual orientation is itself sinful and can be overcome by a combination of counseling and prayer. Writing for The Guardian‘s Comment is free last week, I described LIFE Liverpool’s relationship to Highley:

I spoke to Frontline about the Life connection. They said they were “relationally connected” rather than “formally affiliated” to the New York ministry, which had no official authority over the Liverpool ministry. They have a “positive, ongoing friendship” with Highley’s organisation, and they adapt Life materials, combining them with their own resources, to reflect Frontline’s own beliefs.

Questioned about specific statements by Highley, Frontline said as they were not aware of everything Life publishes, they couldn’t say for sure they agreed with all the teaching. Demonic influence can play a part in homosexuality, but not always, and Frontline discourages members and leaders from identifying themselves as “gay”, preferring the descriptor “Christian who struggles with homosexual feelings”.

But let’s be clear that concern over the Life connection is not a simple matter of guilt by association. Joanne Highley, a woman who teaches that homosexual orientation is a sin that can be cured by a combination of psychological therapy and prayer, personally visited Frontline multiple times to help establish an ex-gay ministry based explicitly on her teachings and methods. The church runs that ministry to this day, although it says very little about it publicly.

An Ex-Gay Marriage Machine?

I first encountered LIFE Liverpool in 2006, when I was researching an article for Third Way magazine about ex-gay ministries in the UK. I’d heard about it from someone else involved in another type of ex-gay ministry in the area, who told me of its existence in a raised-eyebrow sort of way. So I phoned Frontline Centre myself to find out more. Pastor Dan was startling in his boldness. Read more…

-Several hundred active duty servicemembers march in San Diego’s pride parade.

-An openly gay man is selected to chair Utah’s Democratic Party.

-A gay man and transgender woman in Cuba announce plans to marry on Fidel Castro’s birthday.

-President Obama endorses the Respect for Marriage Act.

-Andrew Sullivan reiterates his case for marriage equality.

-The US Senate confirms an openly gay man as a federal judge.

-A regional minister in Ghana calls for the arrest of all gays.

-The Senate Judiciary Committee holds hearings on the proposed repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act.

-An Orthodox rabbi blames the murder of an eight-year-old child on same-sex marriage.

-Two US Senators challenge Focus on the Family’s Tom Minnery on his misuse of research.

-The Alliance Defense Fund tries to expand religious liberty to allow government employees to discriminate against those they disapprove of.

-A Colorado state board approves the wording of a proposed ballot measure to repeal the state’s marriage ban.

The ex-gay LIFE ministry, in New York City, teaches gays and lesbians that their sexual orientation is sinful and must be changed.

Homosexuality is a psychological, emotional and spiritual disorder that can be overcome with prayer, deliverance and counselling, it says. It often comes with demons attached, according to leader Joanne Highley; if you’ve had any form of immoral sex, evil spirits have infected any cavity that has received an ungodly deposit of semen, whether it’s the mouth, the anus or another orifice. Once you’ve confessed the sin of homosexuality, your repentance is a process that ends with complete healing of all your gay desires. The journey involves breaking off all contact with gay friends, as they were never true friends in the first place.

LIFE is not the kind of ministry you get involved with, as a church, without some knowledge of just how extreme its message and its ministry really are.

In the Guardian‘s Comment is free today, I shed light on a major Liverpool church whose ex-gay ministry has its origins in LIFE. Joanne Highley visited the city multiple times to help establish it — and the connection is troubling.

Read: How Liverpool’s Frontline Church ‘Struggles’ with Homosexuality

Last month, we reported that Willow Creek Community Church, the Chicago evangelical megachurch, had cut ties with ex-gay organization Exodus International. Today, Christianity Today reported the story with reaction from Exodus President Alan Chambers.

Predictably, Chambers makes the break all about Exodus, revealing an attitude we’ve seen before:

The choice to end our partnership is definitely something that shines a light on a disappointing trend within parts of the Christian community, which is that there are Christians who believe like one another who aren’t willing to stand with one another, simply because they’re afraid of the backlash people will direct their way if they are seen with somebody who might not be politically correct. … I really do think decisions like this, ultimately, highlight a reticence in the church to stand up for biblical truth, and they’re coming at a time when we’re going to have to stand up for what we believe.

As far as Exodus is concerned, if you reject the organization, its message and its methods, you’ve rejected God’s truth. Chambers added:

Biblical truth is unpopular, and when you’re supporting unpopular truth, you are unpopular too; which means, some days, getting upwards of 10,000 phone calls and emails, and it can be overwhelming.

(We found the 10,000-a-day claim as risible as Truth Wins Out did, by the way.)

Willow Creek’s response indicates it may be indeed be pursuing a softer approach to the issue of homosexuality:

Willow Creek has a whole host of ministries for people dealing with these issues, and we would never intend for them to feel sidelined. All we’ve changed is how we’ve gone about inviting them into the church, which is the primary issue here.

CT notes that the church’s founder and senior pastor, Bill Hybels, met with pro-gay Christian activist group Soulforce a few years ago.

Mark Yarhouse, however, a conservative Christian social scientist whose revealing research into ex-gay marriages we reported on earlier this week, also chimed in on news of the split. CT writes:

Mark Yarhouse, executive director of the Institute for the Study of Sexual Identity at Regent University, agrees that the primary issue in the split is not abandonment of the gay community but simply a shift in tone toward gays.

“Churches are realizing that while there is a small contingent of the gay community responding to language like ‘freedom from homosexuality’ or ‘freedom is possible,’ the vast majority strongly disagree. They’re angry and they believe it’s impossible to change, and to hear this is so offensive that they will have nothing to do with Christians. So I think churches, in response to that vast majority who say, ‘We’re not interested,’ have decided to look at other approaches in an attempt to connect with the gay community on at least some level. That doesn’t mean that churches disagree with the language of ‘freedom from homosexuality’ doctrinally; they’ve just found that it doesn’t work on a social level.”

Exodus International’s Julie Neils, in 2010:

As for those mysterious gay-to-straight “boot camps,” they don’t exist.

Ex-gay survivor Kyle Luebke, in 2011:

Realizing that [being gay] was not just a “phase” that I was going through, [my parents] decided that more drastic action needed to be taken. They proceeded to contact Mr. Phillips, and took his advice to send me to the “Refuge” program, a program run by the ex-gay ministry Love In Action in Memphis, Tennessee. My parents told me that I had no option but to go, considering that I was underage and still under their authority. Thus, we packed our bags and moved to Memphis for two months, and on October 28, 2006 I was enrolled at Love In Action.

I was to go back to Love In Action on my eighteenth birthday, on May 5, 2007. But once again, I was not given much of a “choice” in the matter. They informed me that I would either go into the Love In Action program, or be kicked out of the house, because they could not have an unrepentant homosexual living under their roof. But this time there was a twist in their threat — they told all of my extended family, from my grandparents to my aunts and uncles — to not take me in if I decided against going into the program.

Love In Action is, in its own words, “the oldest established member ministry of Exodus International … [and] a referral ministry of Focus on the Family and the American Family Association.”

LIA’s Refuge was discontinued in 2007, following the public outcry over the treatment of Zach Stark, a gay Memphis teenager forced into the program in 2006. It was replaced by the similar Family Freedom Intensive. Neither was residential, though, contrary to Exodus’s denial, Refuge had all the worst characteristics of a bootcamp.

Read about Kyle’s experience in five parts, beginning with The Pain of Reparative Therapy: My Story — Part One. Links to the other parts can be found at the bottom of Part Five.

Hat-tip: Bene Diction.