Ex-Gay Watch

This is well worth watching in it’s entirety.  LGBT rights are of course human rights, as Secretary Clinton so eloquently illustrates to the United Nations in Geneva.  There are times when we manage to get it right, and this looks like one of those times.  This speech follows the release of a memorandum by President Barack Obama “to ensure that U.S. diplomacy and foreign assistance promote and protect the human rights of LGBT persons.”

Full transcript from the State Department below:

CLINTON: Good evening, and let me express my deep honor and pleasure at being here. I want to thank Director General Tokayev and Ms. Wyden along with other ministers, ambassadors, excellencies, and UN partners. This weekend, we will celebrate Human Rights Day, the anniversary of one of the great accomplishments of the last century.

Beginning in 1947, delegates from six continents devoted themselves to drafting a declaration that would enshrine the fundamental rights and freedoms of people everywhere. In the aftermath of World War II, many nations pressed for a statement of this kind to help ensure that we would prevent future atrocities and protect the inherent humanity and dignity of all people. And so the delegates went to work. They discussed, they wrote, they revisited, revised, rewrote, for thousands of hours. And they incorporated suggestions and revisions from governments, organizations, and individuals around the world.

At three o’clock in the morning on December 10th, 1948, after nearly two years of drafting and one last long night of debate, the president of the UN General Assembly called for a vote on the final text. Forty-eight nations voted in favor; eight abstained; none dissented. And the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted. It proclaims a simple, powerful idea: All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. And with the declaration, it was made clear that rights are not conferred by government; they are the birthright of all people. It does not matter what country we live in, who our leaders are, or even who we are. Because we are human, we therefore have rights. And because we have rights, governments are bound to protect them. Read more…

Colorado GOP Senate candidate Ken Buck on “Meet the Press”:

From the same interview:

MR. GREGORY: …

And Mr. Buck I want to start with you. The issue of gays in our country, in a debate last month you expressed your support for “don’t ask, don’t tell,” which we talked about with Mr. Gibbs, and you alluded to lifestyle choices. Do you believe that being gay is a choice?

MR. BUCK: I do.

MR. GREGORY: Based on what?

MR. BUCK: Based on what?

MR. GREGORY: Yeah.

MR. BUCK: Well…

MR. GREGORY: Why do you believe that?

MR. BUCK: Well, I guess you can, you can choose who your partner is.

MR. GREGORY: You don’t think it’s something that’s determined at birth?

MR. BUCK: I, I, I think that birth has an influence over like alcoholism and some other things, but I think that basically you, you have a choice.

Ken Buck wants to be the republican senator from Colorado.  If he makes it he will be part of the most influential lawmaking body in the US, arguably the world.  And yet his response to the question above does not come from any respected, authoritative medical or psychological organization.  It comes from the collective dogma and pseudo-science of ex-gay and anti-gay ministries and their supporting organizations.

For years now such groups have lobbied lawmakers with such false information in an attempt, not to gain any rights for themselves, but to curtail or deny the rights of gay and lesbian citizens.  Ex-gays, those who have allegedly changed from homosexual to heterosexual, are presented as proof without any explanation of how the change they represent doesn’t really mean change.

The next time someone says that that ex-gays don’t involve themselves in politics or are not interested in denying civil rights, remember how it works.  We cannot allow personal beliefs to encroach on civil rights; our lawmakers must not be allowed to draw on lies when crafting laws that affect our lives.

Hat Tip: Good As You

Like many, I accepted the invitation to participate in a blogging experiment started by Wendy Gritter and New Direction, a ministry in Canada and a former member of the Exodus network.  The idea, as I understand it, is to elevate the conversation concerning bridge-building between those who are accepting of GLBT people and those who are not, the latter particularly for religious reasons.

I fought to think of what I would say that could help.  After just having finished some exhaustive work on yet another one of the reasons that XGW exists (Matthew C. Manning), I’m not in a very good mood.

Then I noticed that Exodus VP Randy Thomas had also participated in this experiment.  Randy is another reason this blog exists, so I read his post with some trepidation.  The vast majority of it is a copy/paste from material he contributed to Exodus president Alan Chamber’s last book, God’s Grace and the Homosexual Next Door.

Reading this, a flood of hurt and yes, anger, came back from the first time I read those words.  I realized that there was no way I could write and follow Wendy’s rules of staying upbeat, positive, etc.

Since I did agree to write, I feel I owe some explanation, and I have decided to put that here for whatever it may add to the discussion, positive or negative — it is at least sincere.  I apologize to Wendy for not being able to offer something more constructive and understand if she does not wish to link to this.

The entire post by Randy was painful for me to read, but near the beginning is an example which might serve as a microcosm of most everything he says publicly concerning GLBTs.  He starts by offering up the idea that the classic phrase “hate the sin but love the sinner” is not helpful.  In explaining why, however, he turns what one might think is a welcome  moment of understanding into a hammer of condescension.

The biggest example of this is the “love the sinner, hate the sin.” Among our Christian brethren, we all know what this means because we know that God does not view people by their actions but for who they are as a soul. We do not see homosexuality as the inherent identity of someone struggling with homosexuality and so it is easy for us to “hate the sin but love the sinner.” But let’s take this to a personal level what if your gay identified neighbor said “hate the Christ but love the Christian?

Now that I have your attention, remember, you are dealing with another sub culture who identifies as “gay.” … To say that you hate homosexuality but love homosexuals does not make sense to those whose primary identity lies within their sexuality. At the very least you sound out of touch and speaking a completely different language.

This does what I believe is the primary, fundamental, absolutely most arrogant thing one can do if one cares about GLBTs, especially for those of faith.  He makes the assumption that, if one is gay (he never says gay, he injects his own belief that one only “identifies” as gay), one is not a Christian.  This is clearly not the case. Read more…

In case you are one of the people who didn’t email me for an explanation, XGW went off-line last Friday morning, May 15.  While stories of “being hacked” would be more intriguing and perhaps increase polarization, that didn’t happen.  The truth is actually boring — a total disruption of services at the data center we use for our server.  We outgrew an individual hosting account long ago and instead lease a server from a place that manages many of them.  After a notice of about 9 hours, they attempted a massive move from one location to another which they thought could be accomplished in 7 hours overnight.  It turns out, that isn’t possible.

During the down time we moved to a better location and restored from various backups which we keep for just such a scenario.   This is the real message you should take from this.  While this is true of everyone who uses a computer, we want to send this message specifically to those who are doing important work on the web.  Many of our readers have their own sites and, even if they don’t realize it, they add important, sometimes irreplaceable information to various efforts.  Work to illustrate the truth of ex-gay issues and organizations, factual analysis of junk science used against equality, hypocrisy by those who wish to make the lives of others harder to live, and personal experience and views from people who live through many of these issues, this and more is held in web sites which are more fragile than one might think.

Take this seriously!  You need to have all your information backed up in a format that can be restored from scratch.  That doesn’t mean just using the data backup in WordPress or similar.  That is important and will back up your words and comments, but none of the images and documents you have uploaded to accompany your posts.  Most standard hosting accounts have a control panel, most of them use one called “cPanel” and it has a great backup wizard.  You can backup your entire site by using the “Home Directory” backup.  This will place all your files from your entire account in a compressed archive and allow you do download it to your own computer.  Do it often and keep it safe.

This type of backup will give you everything except the data from your database, the stuff that the WordPress backup saves for example.  If you have cPanel, you can also save that information separately by using the same backup process but selecting your database from the MySQL section.  Both should be downloaded so you have possession of them yourself.

This is not meant to give you detailed instructions — many systems are different.  We simply want to illustrate the issue by saying that, if we had not done this ahead of time and on a regular basis, XGW would be gone.  The same could happen for any other site.  Do not assume that your host can restore your information.  And do not wait another day.  Get a backup plan in action and be ready for what will inevitably happen.

This post deals more heavily with issues of the Christian faith than most.  There is some “insider” language as a result.  Most readers should be used to the fact that dealing with Exodus intensely means that one will be dealing with this topic, but for those who are new and may not share this faith, please bear with us.

Wendy Gritter, leader of New Direction, a former Exodus member ministry, has posted in interview format a conversation she had recently with Alan Chambers.  The discussion came about after Gritter approached Chambers concerning an article he authored in Charisma which she felt caused a conflict between them.  This is explained in Gritters post, Dealing with Conflict, on the New Direction blog, Bridging the Gap.  In his response, Chambers made some statements which we find troubling.

I do not believe that the sin of homosexuality is just sexual. I think there is something far more troubling to the Lord when someone chooses an identity—regardless of sexual behavior—that is less than God intends for His creation.

This statement is supported by an earlier Charisma article by Chambers, and others in his first book, God’s Grace and the Homosexual Next Door, three years ago. The wild card here is the phrase, “less than God intends for His creation.” What on earth does one do with such a statement? One could easily ask Mr. Chambers if he is certain he might not have come closer to God’s best by actually procreating, instead of adopting. After all, that is a major part of marriage according to his interpretation.  Did he miss God’s best by not waiting for his wife to become pregnant?  Should they both have had more faith that God would provide a child the way, well, He intended? Read more…

Source: AP

An anonymous official has told the Associated Press that the Obama administration will sign a U.N. declaration calling for the world-wide decriminalization of homosexuality.

“The United States is an outspoken defender of human rights and critic of human rights abuses around the world,” said one official.

“As such, we join with the other supporters of this statement and we will continue to remind countries of the importance of respecting the human rights of all people in all appropriate international fora,” the official said.

The official added that the United States was concerned about “violence and human rights abuses against gay, lesbian, transsexual and bisexual individuals” and was also “troubled by the criminalization of sexual orientation in many countries.”

“In the words of the United States Supreme Court, the right to be free from criminalization on the basis of sexual orientation ‘has been accepted as an integral part of human freedom’,” the official said.

With the recent, horrendous anti-gay conference in Uganda as a backdrop, this is indeed good news. The declaration may not have any legal teeth, but it is a strong first step internationally, and one that the US was unwilling to take just a few months ago.

This also places official US policy at odds with Holocaust revisionist Scott Lively, who agrees with criminalization of homosexuality, which he says will preserve a “family-centered” society.

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has posted an excellent, detailed report on the state of the ex-gay, or “sexual reorientation therapy” movement. It touches on most of the important issues of concern, and should be a catalyst for more debate.

Let’s take the following as a foundation for our view of sexual reorientation therapy:

Reparative or sexual reorientation therapy, the pseudo-scientific foundation of the ex-gay movement, has been discredited by virtually all major American medical, psychiatric, psychological and professional counseling organizations. The American Psychological Association, for instance, declared in 2006: “There is simply no sufficiently scientifically sound evidence that sexual orientation can be changed. Our further concern is that the positions espoused by NARTH [the National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuality] and Focus on the Family create an environment in which prejudice and discrimination can flourish.” [emphasis added]

They correctly recognize that ex-gay ministries paint only a grim, distorted view of anyone who might be gay. This tactic has been used in the past to discredit the lives of others and it was no more accurate then than now — though unfortunately it can be quite effective.

About the only time the word “gay” appears in the ex-gay lexicon is in the phrase “gay lifestyle,” which is largely seen as describing a hedonistic mix of one-night stands and sexually transmitted diseases that culminates in early death or abandonment when youthful beauty fades. The ex-gay movement has little language to describe the real world in which lesbians and gays hold elected office, appear on TV shows and raise families.

As “homosexuality as a disorder” becomes less credible to the average person, ex-gay groups are moving farther into the extreme. Just as with racism, those advocating discrimination, both legal and social, against gays are becoming more shrill. As Jim Burroway has well documented, Watchmen on the Walls is a prime example. The SPLC recognizes this as well and points out their connection with Exodus. Read more…

Recently, we received a copy of a letter sent by Exodus president Alan Chambers to members of a parents group earlier this year. While the source wishes to remain anonymous, we have verified it as authentic.

In the letter, Chambers describes the first and last time ex-gay guru Richard Cohen was invited to participate in an Exodus Annual Freedom Conference in 2000. During that conference, Cohen taught a workshop on holding therapy.

During that class, which I attended, he asked for a volunteer to demonstrate on. His volunteer was a seasoned Exodus leader. This leader was instructed by Mr. Cohen to lay on the floor and spread his legs wide open. Dr. Cohen then laid down on top of this other man face to face and embraced him.

Mr. Cohen made the comment, “This might cause some stimulation. However, what goes up must come down, I always say.” He made other vulgar comments of this nature.

Apparently the volunteer was so affected that he was uncertain he could continue as a ministry leader. Chambers goes on to explain how Exodus banned the use of holding therapy by member ministries, and removed Cohen’s books and other materials from sale. Cohen was told he would not be invited to another conference and Exodus refused to endorse his work.

Below is the full text of the letter:

Dear Parents Group,

Many of us within Exodus initially read Coming Out Straight, as we do most new books on the topic of overcoming homosexuality. Those of us who read the book began to talk amongst ourselves about the legitimacy of holding therapy, a practice Richard both uses and endorses.

At the time this discussion began (2000) I was not the President of Exodus nor was I even a board member. However, as the leader of an Exodus Member Ministry, I was deeply concerned about the implications this would have on Exodus as a whole if we endorsed such a controversial technique. Too, I worried about the possibility of leaders exposing themselves to temptation via the practice of “holding” a client.

That year (2000) at the Exodus Annual Freedom Conference Richard Cohen was invited by the Leadership at the time to teach a workshop on holding therapy. During that class, which I attended, he asked for a volunteer to demonstrate on.

****PLEASE NOTE THE FOLLOWING IS SOMEWHAT GRAPHIC****

His volunteer was a seasoned Exodus leader. This leader was instructed by Mr. Cohen to lay on the floor and spread his legs wide open. Dr. Cohen then laid down on top of this other man face to face and embraced him.

Mr. Cohen made the comment, “This might cause some stimulation. However, what goes up must come down, I always say.” He made other vulgar comments of this nature.

Mr. Cohen came out of homosexuality as did the leader that he violated. This leader was so taken back and embarrassed by the event that he wondered if his ministry status was at stake.

I joined the board of directors of Exodus that year and I made it very clear that I wanted to ensure that Dr. Cohen was taken to task for this breach of trust. A letter was sent to him and to my knowledge he had some conversations with Bob Davies, my predecessor. The tapes of his workshop
were pulled and he was told that he could not teach at any future conferences.

However, his book continued to be sold by the Exodus office until I was hired and I stopped that, as well.

It is because of all that I have shared and more that Exodus International does not and will not endorse or work with Mr. Cohen. His recent lack of judgment in the area of media interviews has only served to reinforce my belief that he is not someone Exodus should highlight as a valuable resource to the people that look to us.

As for the practice of holding therapy, under my leadership we decided to adopt the NARTH (www.narth.com) position banning our ministries from practicing this technique. Regardless of any benefits that this therapy is purported to have, I firmly believe that it is a stumbling block for all parties involved.

I appreciate each one of you and as someone who battled homosexuality myself, I believe it is my obligation to only promote the ministries and resources that will bring forth life long term and not simply every resource out there.

God bless each and every one of you,

Alan

Alan Chambers
President
Exodus International

–

Since that conference in 2000, Cohen has appeared on several news and comedy shows, cuddling, screaming and whacking pillows with his trademark tennis racket. Perhaps the most bizarre was his performance on The Daily Show, after which many organizations quietly removed any reference to him (though later some were replaced). He also appeared on The Howard Stern Show, where he posed next to male members of the crew, some of whom were sporting naked genitals.

Yet through it all there are some groups who hold tenaciously to Cohen and his teachings. Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays (PFOX) removed him as President, but they still recommend his books. Jews Offering Alternatives to Homosexuality (JONAH) has a close relationship with him, while the National Association for the Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH) still carries his material on their website. Even InterVarsity Press, a prestigous Christian publisher recently released Cohen’s book, Gay Children, Straight Parents, even after an apparent period of reflection over the matter.

And now we have new revelations about Cohen’s support of a strangely homo-erotic “therapeutic group” called New Warriors. One wonders if there will ever be enough writing on the wall to discourage the confused from trusting a Richard Cohen.

The person in this video goes by the nickname RevolutionaryHorizon on YouTube. I don’t think this is a joke – he seems to be serious about what he is saying. I’m posting this in an open forum because in just a few minutes, he touches on all kinds of issues we discuss here.

A lot has been made lately of how best to provide therapy to those struggling with issues of sexual orientation. Here is your chance; you are the therapist and he is your patient. How would you honestly address some of the things he is saying? What is your advice?

We received this today from Alan Chambers, with a promise that it will be placed on their website by tomorrow.

Exodus Position Statement on Bullying and Violence

“Exodus International affirms that gay-identified individuals and those who struggle with same-sex attraction are persons for whom Jesus Christ died and loves equally. Therefore, we strongly oppose bullying, name calling and acts of aggression against any individual or group of individuals for any reason. These actions have no place in our society and we must, instead, affirm behavior that validates the personal worth and dignity God bestows upon every human being.

“In addition, every individual deserves equal protection and every offender should receive equal punishment. We call upon other organizations concerned with preserving the essential equality of all individuals to exhibit impartiality in their policies, rather than singling out some for special treatment.”

In spite of the “gay-identified” descriptor, this would seem to be an important statement. At least they have finally made a statement. I wonder if Peter LaBarbera, Stephen Bennett, Linda Harvey, et al, will agree?

Update: Alan Chambers gives some explanation of this in his blog.