Ex-Gay Watch

Lisa Miller has missed the deadline to hand over custody of Isabella, her daughter with ex-partner Janet Jenkins. A judge had ordered her to do so by 1 pm EST today. Miller and Isabella have both been missing for weeks.

[Vermont Family Court Judge William] Cohen awarded custody to Jenkins on Nov. 20 after finding Miller in contempt of court for denying Jenkins access to the girl. The judge said the only way to ensure equal access to the child was to switch custody.

But Cohen also noted that it appeared Miller had stopped speaking to her attorneys and “disappeared” with the child.

Miller’s last known address is in Forest, Va. A telephone number listed for her at that address rang unanswered Friday.

Jenkins has asked for anybody who spots Isabella to please contact the authorities.

An ex-gay Christian woman is missing with her seven-year-old daughter after a judge ruled her former partner should be given custody.

Lisa Miller gave birth to Isabella in 2002, by artificial insemination, two years into a civil union with lesbian partner Janet Jenkins. In 2003, Miller ended the partnership, taking her child with her. She became an evangelical Christian and renounced lesbianism, refusing Jenkins visitation rights. She demanded child support payments, however.

Due to Miller’s ongoing refusals, which constituted contempt of court, a Vermont Family Court judge granted Jenkins full custody (PDF link) of Isabella in November 2009. Jenkins says she intends to allow Miller “as liberal contact as possible” with her daughter. She was to be handed over on January 1st, 2010.

Now, however, Miller and her daughter have not been seen in a month, prompting fears that the handover will not occur.

Miller has claimed that there is a “homosexual agenda” at work, and her daughter “is a pawn in their game.” She said Isabella was “saved” at the age of four and she denies hating Janet, saying she prays “for her soul and her salvation.”

In a 2008 interview with right-wing Christian website LifeSiteNews, Miller made a number of claims about Jenkins, accusing her of verbal and physical abuse towards her and neglect of the child. There were also none-too-subtle insinuations of sexual abuse, since Jenkins reportedly took a naked bath with the child, and Isabella had started “openly masturbating.”

Evidently Judge William Cohen saw nothing in the charges, since he ruled in favor of custody. But with Miller and her daughter having disappeared, will it ever happen?

Danish researchers are to publish a study whose findings will challenge the claims of anti-gay propagandists Paul (pictured) and Kirk Cameron.

Epidemiologists Morten Frisch and Henrik Brønnum-Hansen will publish “Mortality Among Men and Women in Same-Sex Marriage: A National Cohort Study of 8333 Danes” in the January 2009 issue of the American Journal of Public Health. The study finds that since 1996 the mortality rate among gay men in same-sex marriages has been virtually equivalent to that of heterosexuals.

Their conclusions directly contradict the Camerons, whose notoriously flawed study claimed that gay males had an average lifespan of 42 years. True to the Camerons’ intentions, the results have been used to bolster the arguments of anti-gay groups eager to portray homosexuality as a destructive “lifestyle.”

Evidently not one to mince his words, Frisch earlier told ex-gay-supportive Warren Throckmorton that Cameron’s report was “agenda-driven, pseudo-scientific gobbledygook,” and that its “methodological flaws are of such a grave nature that no decent peer-reviewed scientific journal should let it pass for publication.”

Politics makes strange bedfellows, and here is another shining example.

Anti-gay activists have hit the trifecta of racism, antisemitism, and homophobia with newly recognized allies David Duke, Rev. Ted Pike, and Peter LaBarbera.

Rev. Ted Pike makes claims against Jews on his website in the name of Jesus, while Duke not only pushes “white civil rights” and caters to white supremacists, but has published his own “bestselling” take on what he calls “Jewish Supremacism.” Peter LaBarbera aligns himself with this man while claiming to know the truth about what happened when a gay young man called out another young man for making a homophobic remark.

Here’s how they’re all connected: David Duke’s website features a retelling of the incident by Rev. Pike, who encourages people to take up his cause and protest the prosecution of the perpetrator. LaBarbera takes him up on this cause on his own website, encouraging others to do the same, all the while benignly referring to Pike as a “pro-family activist.”

World Net Daily reports their own view of the incident, quoting LaBarbera’s qualms:

“The true danger of hate-crimes laws is selective prosecution and unequal protection under the law. If a homosexual were to push an obnoxious Christian onto the ground, or things got out of control after a verbal spat, would he be facing a felony hate-crime conviction and possible jail time in Champaign, Ill., right now?” LaBarbera asked.

The answer is “yes,” because religion is protected under hate crimes laws. If a gay person were to assault a Christian because they saw them praying on the street or because they saw them wearing a crucifix, this would count as anti-Christian violence and therefore be a hate crime. The same thing would count if a gay person assaulted a Jew for wearing a skullcap or a Muslim exiting a Mosque.

There exists here a practical conflict for evangelical Christians seeking to convert Jews out of “love”, especially Christian Zionists: it does their cause no good when their own kind end up aligning themselves with anti-Semites.

UPDATE:

Peter LaBarbera has responded to Box Turtle Bulletin, Pam’s House Blend, and XGW for our coverage of this issue:

I cited Ted Pike in my original article on this case because, as one who has crusaded against “hate crimes” laws, Pike was the first to bring the VanAsdlen story to national attention (in a mass email) — not because I agree with the thrust of his website (or Duke’s). Like most evangelicals, I abhor anti-Semitism and in fact am quite the hawk on defending Israel. I also decry racism and, of course, white nationalism, “white pride,” etc. [emphasis mine]

As if to prove how un-racist he is, Peter then goes on to talk of what a tragedy it is that gays have “hijacked” the civil rights movement, which in his mind, belongs to African Americans ONLY.

It’s good to see that Peter “abhors” anti-Semitism, but I also hope he understands is that his evangelical support of Israel (or, “Christian Zionism”) is not the same thing as supporting Judaism.

Right Wing Watch is monitoring a growing rift between James Dobson, co-founder of Focus on the Family, and a faction of evangelical Christians over the U.S. presidential candidacy of Fred Thompson.

Thompson supports a constitutional amendment to allow states not to recognize other states’ gay marriages. In an e-mail to religious-right leaders that was leaked to the media, Dobson accused Thompson of being “opposed to a Constitutional amendment to protect marriage.”

In other words, Thompson’s antigay position wasn’t vicious enough for Dobson. Or, seen yet another way, those who differ in small ways from Dobson are somehow guilty of failing to “protect marriage.”

But Thompson already had the support of Richard Land, head of the public-policy section of the Southern Baptist Convention. Land called Dobson’s rant a “gross mischaracterization” of Thompson’s position and a “harsh and unwarranted” smear against a person of faith.

Dobson and his followers regularly mischaracterize gay people’s calls for justice and mercy, and they issue harsh and unwarranted smears against gay-tolerant people of faith as a proven method of religious-right fund-raising. Are some evangelicals finally waking up to Dobson’s greed and selfishness?

While a handful of evangelicals line up behind Thompson, Newt Gingrich hopes for Dobson’s blessing.

Addendum: According to People for the American Way, Gary Bauer has joined Land in corralling support for Thompson while quietly encouraging the unelectable Sam Brownback and Mike Huckabee to withdraw.

Not long ago, the White House issued a picture of Vice President Dick Cheney and his wife holding their new grandchild, Samuel David Cheney. Samuel is the child of the Cheney’s daughter Mary, and her partner, Heather Poe.

As we reported, ex-gay Stephen Bennett was so incensed that the White House would refer to the Cheney’s daughter and her partner as the parents that he issued a press release which stated emphatically that only biological parents were “REAL” parents. [emphasis in original] This prompted a principled rebuke from Exodus president Alan Chambers, the adoptive father of two children, and a less than adult counter comment by Bennett here on XGW.

For his part, Bennett wrote an after the fact post on his blog trying to explain that only same-sex parents were a sinful charade, saying this exonerated him from Chamber’s (and our) claims. He never did explain why this clarification was in an obscure section of his website and not in the press release itself.

Now it appears that Bennett isn’t so convinced of the worth of adoptive parents after all. He has made a similar statement in yesterday’s entry of his blog, the subject of which is the recent same-sex marriage vote in Massachusetts.

The Goodridge lesbians – plantiffs [sic] who started this “gay” marriage mess – broke up an left one another only two years after saying, “I do.”

Obviously — they didn’t and a ten year old girl was left in the wake of these self-centered lesbians’ destruction, while she has a REAL father somewhere, out there.

Just because the government is pandering to the P-Town crowd mentality, real marriage has been degraded and devalued and “playing house” has been elevated to “legal” status.

Again, emphasis on the “REAL” father, i.e. the biological father. Certainly after the ordeal two weeks ago Bennett should be aware of how callous it is for him to keep emphasizing the idea that biological parents are the only “REAL” parents — regardless of his opinion of same-sex relationships.

Bennett also makes sport of the fact that the couple’s relationship ended after two years, calling them “self-centered lesbians” and cracking a sarcastic joke about their vows. No one should have to point out the fact that same-sex couples are not behind the overwhelming popularity of no-fault divorce in this country. Marriages can and do fail, sometimes after only a brief time. It’s unfortunate to say the least, but it is not a gay or lesbian issue.

eHarmony advertises that they want to “move beyond traditional online dating.” For some reason, that phrase strikes me as a bit ironic. It doesn’t get much more “traditional” than the process one goes through at eHarmony. However, if you’re gay you can forget about it.

Linda Carlson is suing the relationship site for discrimination. Her lawsuit was filed in Los Angeles Superior Court based on the fact that she was denied access because she is gay. Carlson’s lawyers believe the suit to be the first of it’s kind against the internet’s largest dating site of 12 million members. The company issued this statement in response to the suit.

“The research that eHarmony has developed, through years of research, to match couples has been based on traits and personality patterns of successful heterosexual marriages.”

The founder of eHarmony, Dr. Neil Clark Warren is a psychologist with a divinity degree. He was initially affiliated with Focus on the Family, and the site was promoted as being “based on the Christian principles of Focus on the Family author Dr. Neil Clark Warren.” However, Dr. Warren began to distance himself from FOTF and Dr. Dobson back in 2005, claiming among other things that they were becoming too narrowly political for the dating site. He stopped radio appearances with them and bought back the rights to the books he’d written for them.

Read more…

Source: wthrockmorton.com

According to an email reproduced on Warren Throckmorton’s blog, Exodus has dropped it’s membership in PATH, a coalition of ex-gay organizations, effective today.

Just recently, Exodus president Alan Chambers was asked by longtime XGW commenter grantdale if he might consider taking Exodus out of PATH. At that time, Chambers had just announced his resignation from the board of PFOX, at least in part due to their continuing association with the unlicensed, self described “psychotherapist and educator,” Richard Cohen.

According to his web site, Cohen co-founded PATH and remains a member. Exodus is not the only ex-gay organization to disassociate themselves from Cohen of late. Since his recent bizarre appearance on the Daily Show, Exodus, PFOX and NARTH have all put distance between themselves and the embarrassing ex-gay guru.

It’s worth noting that the webmaster for PATH, Gabriel Espinosa of Furryllama Web Consulting, appears to be the same PFOX webmaster who posted disgusting, disparaging remarks to a YouTube video of the Montel Williams episode concerning ex-gays.

It’s understandable why Exodus might want to be removed from such an organization, though one might ask what took so long.

In 1993, Paul Cameron, of the Family Research Institute, began touting a paper he said he presented at the Eastern Psychological Association entitled, “The lifespan of homosexuals.” In this study, he drew on obituaries placed in gay newspapers around the country to claim that the average lifespan for gay men was a mere 42 years. For lesbians, the average was 44. While that study was roundly criticized for its ridiculous methodology, those statistics have persisted among some anti-gay activists.

Well, Cameron’s at it again. Returning to the scene of the original crime, he’s hijacked the Eastern Psychological Association’s reputation once again, this time to claim that gays and lesbians in registered partnerships in Denmark and Norway experience a lifespan up to 24 years shorter than their heterosexual counterparts. His latest claims are already being picked up by anti-gay activists, conservative news organizations, blogs, and pundits.

Cameron’s paper, “Federal Distortion of Homosexual Footprint,” is filled with all the strange and bogus statistics we’ve come to expect from him. I examined his methods and in my latest report, “Paul Cameron’s Footprint,” I show you why the claims he makes based on data from Denmark and Norway are completely worthless. My conclusions:

Yes, Cameron is up to his same old tricks again. You can bet that this won’t be the last time we hear from him. And no matter how ridiculous his methodologies may be, he will continue to provide statistical fodder for the anti-gay lobby. But with his latest paper on the “Homosexual Footprint,” he doesn’t have a leg to stand on. This time, as always, his “footprint” is planted firmly in his mouth.

You can read the whole report at Box Turtle Bulletin.

A new video by Truth Wins Out demonstrates that ex-gay activists’ efforts to coerce ex-gays into heterosexual marriage erode family values and lead to divorce.

TWO’s subtitle: “Ex-gay groups love to spotlight the wedding photos, but they never show the divorce papers.”