Ex-Gay Watch

“It Gets Better” is a realistic message for gay and lesbian people living in the western world, where society is increasingly accepting of sexual diversity. But in some non-western parts of the globe, survival as an LGBT person is all but impossible.

Wendy Gritter of New Direction, Canada, has filmed a message for those gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and questioning young people for whom the message of the It Gets Better campaign isn’t realistic or helpful. That’s not to denigrate the campaign, which Wendy has supported. It is to say this:

We want to say to those who are coming to [freetobeme.com] from areas which are not gay-positive — in fact, that are in very anti-gay contexts, where this is not a conversation, where there is much discrimination and prejudice, and perhaps violence, and perhaps danger — what we want to say to you is: Be wise, be careful, but know inside your own self who you really are, and that you are cherished, you are valuable and you are loved. And know that your voice matters. There are LGBT advocates all through the world, who are working very hard for the human rights of all people, including those who are sexual minorities. Maybe someday you can add your voice to that community saying, “If we diminish anyone’s rights, we are all diminished.”

Watch the video below:

The message comes via New Direction’s Free to Be Me website, which Wendy says has experienced increased traffic from non-western countries.

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.

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.]

The US government has announced that it is no longer prepared to defend the Defense of Marriage Act in court.

The act enshrined in US federal law the definition of marriage as exclusively between a man and a woman. DOMA has been one of the chief weapons of anti-marriage-equality campaigners.

Associated Press says the policy reversal “could have major implications for the rights and benefits of gay couples and reignite an emotional debate for the 2012 presidential campaign.”

Tip of the hat to Box Turtle Bulletin.

An abstinence group based in Jacksonville, Florida, has ties to the anti-gay Ugandan activist Martin Ssempa, according to a report in the Florida Independent.

Project SOS founder Pam Mullarkey is quoted on Ssempa’s website as saying that Ssempa is “the most powerful voice for abstinence in the world and his passion, charisma and character make his vital message irresistible.”

Mullarkey refused to decry Ssempa when contacted for comment; instead she praised him. Other US evangelicals have disassociated themselves from Ssempa when pressed.

The Ugandan pastor is notorious for promoting misconceptions about gays in Uganda, including the myth that eating one another’s “poo-poo” is a defining homosexual practice. He has been the most vocal Christian supporter of Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill, which would result in the death penalty for gays.

Many XGW readers will be familiar with the painful, anti-gay efforts in Uganda, highlighted over the past couple of years by this and other blogs.  The reporting has been at times very detailed, and devastating to take in.  This was all punctuated by the recent murder of Ugandan gay rights advocate David Kato, and signs that the dastardly Anti-Homosexuality Bill may move forward after President Museveni’s recent re-election.

In spite of all the excellent writing on this issue, only the posts of GayUganda have come close to giving this writer the same human connection as this excellent BBC effort.  The degree and scope to which harsh, unyielding anti-gay sentiment has been whipped into the Ugandan population leaves one dumbstruck.  And one begins to realize what a fertile ground the various Western “evangelists” have found when traveling there to plant their own anti-gay doctrines.

Whether one be a pastor, preacher, evangelist, social worker or politician, the only responsible and ethical message you could put forth in Uganda — regardless of personal beliefs — is one of tolerance at the very least.  Ant it is obvious now that the messages of all three from the original meeting — Scott Lively, Caleb Brudidge and Don Schmierer — even if they said what they claim to, acted as match to gasoline.

Please watch the video — Scott Mills does a great job.  There are four parts due to Youtube’s upload limitations, but the playlist will advance automatically to the next segment.

In an historic vote, the United States Senate has passed an act repealing the ban on openly gay soldiers serving in the armed forces, 65-33. Eight Republicans sided with the mostly Democratic call for repeal. The ban, called “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” or “DADT,” has been in effect since 1993. President Barack Obama has expressed opposition to the ban since his presidential campaign.

“As commander in chief, I am also absolutely convinced that making this change will only underscore the professionalism of our troops as the best led and best trained fighting force the world has ever known,” said the President, after the vote.

Organized opposition to allowing openly gay people to serve in the military has mostly been limited to those on the farthest fringe of the right wing, among groups recently classified by the SPLC as “hate groups,” like the American Family Association and Peter LaBarbera’s Americans for Truth About Homosexuality. Poll after poll and study after study showed the public, politicians, and veterans support its end. Even the National Organization for Marriage supports lifting the ban.

In a pathetic and somewhat unexpected lurch to the fringe right, Vietnam War veteran and once-dubbed “maverick” Sen. John McCain (AZ-R) fought repeal all the way, calling today’s vote “a sad day in history.”

Another historic aspect of the repeal is the fact that it is a stand-alone bill, and not one attached to a “can’t-lose” measure. The previous attempt to repeal DADT was attached to a bill that bitterly divided Congress along party lines, causing many would-be supporters to vote “no.” Politicians voting for repeal of DADT this time around so voted based on whether or not they supported equality. History will not be kind to those who voted “no.”

Subtitle: A Biblical and Compassionate Response to Same-Sex Attraction
General Editors: Joe Dallas and Nancy Heche
—
Introduction (Part 1) here.

I wanted to start Part 2 with the beginning chapters that put the rest of the book in perspective, but this issue seems timely enough to skip to.
—
Chapter 21: Gays in the Military, by Joe Dallas, co-editor and main author of the book.

It should first be observed that while Scripture condemns homosexual behavior, it says nothing of the general characteristics of homosexual people. [p378, emph mine]

Except when Scripture actually does speak to the characteristics of homosexuality:

Romans 1:26-32: Paraphrased: Furthermore [re the example of homosexuality], since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done.

They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless…

But wait, he clarifies:
Read more…

The California Senate approved a bill to end a law passed in 1950 that classifies gays as sexual deviants and potential child molesters. The 60-year-old piece of legislation requires the Department of Mental Health to research the causes and potential cures for homosexuality. The bill, AB2199, was carried by Sen. Roy Ashburn, a Republican from Bakersfield. Ashburn came out as gay earlier this year after he was cited for driving drunk while leaving a gay bar.

The measure passed 36-0 without debate.

PFOX (Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays) objected to the bill, and reportedly called the repeal effort “offensive.”

American evangelical leader Lou Engle has confirmed his support for the leaders who drafted Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill 2009.

Engle, whose TheCall conference in Uganda promoted the bill that would spell execution for gays and their supporters, told Sarah Posner of Religion Dispatches that he was in favor of “the principle of a nation … restraining [homosexuality] from coming into their nation.”

He said he supported “a legal restraint and punishment” to keep out the “homosexual agenda,” but was evasive about what type of punishment he favored. He denied supporting the death penalty for gays, but said there were biblical grounds for execution in the case of a person transmitting HIV to a minor.

Engle downplayed his association with David Bahati, the Ugandan MP who drafted the bill, and said he did not even remember meeting Bahati and his right-hand man, Bishop Julius Oyet. He did, however, say that he “appreciated the two guys whose hearts were to bring forth a principled bill.”

In May this year, Engle praised Ugandans for “showing courage to take a stand for righteousness in the earth.”

More analysis from Dr Warren Throckmorton can be found here.