Ex-Gay Watch

(Note: The relevant texts to this episode can be found here (adb/pdf)), and/or you can view the whole thing here.)

With that, we begin.

Dr. David Kyle Foster is the producer and co-host of a show called “Pure Passion.”:

David founded Mastering Life Ministries in 1987 and has been its director ever since. He is also the producer and host of “Pure Passion” – a televised outreach designed to equip the church to redemptively minister to those who are trapped in sexual sin and brokenness. … The goal of the program is to tell the world of God’s grace and love through Jesus Christ and His power to set anyone free from any sin or bondage.

Foster has a series of articles on homosexuality, rife with all the stale yet vicious antigay talking points:

Kyle Foster, 2008: The reality [of homosexuality] is a dramatically reduced life expectancy and the likelihood of contracting hepatitis, AIDS, or one of a host of diseases and infections, as a result of the unnatural perversity of homosexual activity.

Suicide among homosexuals is epidemic, not because society disapproves, as many would have you believe, but because these dear people feel trapped and condemned into a lifestyle and orientation that they know is out of whack.
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And the faithfully monogamous gay couple myth – not even close. Such relationships are statistically nonexistent in the gay community.

On December 21st, 2009, the host of the show was Jayson Graves, a board member of Exodus International:

Welcome to Pure Passion. I’m Jayson Graves, and I’m your host for today’s program.

Today we have a man who has lived with the HIV virus for almost 30 years. His name is Jonathan Hunter, and since 1985 he’s been the director of a ministry to those with the AIDS virus, called “Embracing Life.”

After overdosing on drugs, he also had an after-death experience which utterly changed his life.

In my opinion, this episode exploited Jonathan Hunter’s near-death experience (NDE) in an attempt to convince their audience that there is now eye-witness testimony—proving once and for all—that Jesus Christ Himself is anti-gay.
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Building on David Robert’s post on the Richard Cohen portion of The Rachel Maddow Show, Randy Thomas, Vice President of Exodus International, had some things to say about the exchange.

Randy Thomas: I am going to share a review of the actual interview and then move into how I believe she, and some other militant gay activists, are missing the point with regard to Uganda’s anti-homosexuality bill.

Transcript, edited for brevity, emphases mine:

MADDOW: But you have told them, particularly in your book, “Coming Out Straight,” which I understand you donated multiple copies of to this organization that‘s promoting this bill. You‘re telling them exactly what they need to hear in order to justify the kill-the-gays bill. I mean, your book portrays gay people as predators who must be stopped to protect the innocent.

COHEN: Oh, no, no, no.

MADDOW: Let me ask – I‘ll just read from your book, OK? Page 49, “Homosexuals are at least 12 times more likely to molest children than heterosexuals. Homosexual teachers are at least seven times more likely to molest a pupil. Homosexual teachers are estimated to have committed at least 25 percent of pupil molestation; 40 percent of molestation assaults were made by those who engage in homosexuality.”

This is the claim that you make in your book that exactly feeds these folks who want to execute people for being gay, what they need in order to justify that. Do you stand by what you said in your book?

COHEN: Actually, you know, that one particular quote, when I do republish it, reprint it, we will extract that from it, because we don‘t want such things to be used against homosexual persons.

MADDOW: That quote is cited – you cite somebody named Paul Cameron as the source of that book.

COHEN: I see that they‘re using it, but you took that one little quote out of a 300-page book.

“you took that one little quote out of a 300-page book”

That “one little quote” may be edited out of Cohen’s next revision, but it’s a paltry excision in light of the other “little” quotes in his book.
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Randy Thomas, Vice President of Exodus International:

Freedom of speech which expresses a difference of opinion on morality and spirituality is not a crime.

The following is a case of one of the hackneyed headless monsters that the anti-gay industry loves to trot out, especially in regard to hate crime legislation that includes protections for minorities on the basis of sexual-orientation and gender identity.

In an article on the EI blog called “Canadian Decision Protects Freedom of Speech For Religious Views,” Mr. Thomas links to another article titling “Alberta judge rules anti-gay letter not hate speech, overturns ruling”:

A Court of Queen’s Bench judge has ruled an anti-gay letter written by a former Alberta pastor in 2002 was not a hate crime and is allowed under freedom of speech.

Justice E.C. Wilson overturned a 2008 ruling by the Alberta [Canada] Human Rights Commission that the letter by Stephen Boissoin that was published in the Red Deer Advocate broke provincial law.

Mr. Thomas then had this to say:

The step backwards came when freedom of speech was taken away by the oppressive will of the government through the Alberta Human Rights Commission.

Alberta Human Rights Commission:

Discrimination re: publications, notices
3 (1) No person shall publish, issue or display or cause to be published, issued or displayed before the public any statement, publication, notice, sign, symbol, emblem or other representation that:

(a) indicates discrimination or an intention to discriminate against a person or a class of persons, or

(b) is likely to expose a person or a class of persons to hatred or contempt…

The reasoning goes; since it happened in Canada, it will can happen here. Except for the fact that Canada does not have the First Amendment which protects religious hate-speech from interference by the U.S. government. (Westboro Baptist Church, anyone?)

Despite the absence of this protection in Canada, their judicial system sided in favor of Mr. Boissoin. Ergo, even their system worked in favor of free-speech.

One of the things Mr. Thomas, et al, neglects to mention, is that Egale Canada (Equality for Gays and Lesbians Everywhere) refused to take up the case against Reverend Boissoin:

We believe that sunshine is the best disinfectant.

I concur. The suppression of hate-speech does not solve the root of the problem—the climate that allows for hate-speech to flourish.

But let’s take a look at the example Mr. Thomas chooses to defend free-speech with on a moral level.

Here is the full text of Stephen Boissoin’s letter to the Red Deer Advocate that Mr. Thomas describes as  ”provocative”:
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At the same meeting in Uganda described here, Family Life Network (FLN) leader Stephen Langa continues his discussion with the group on the evil, clever “gay agenda.”  In doing so, he turns to Richard Cohen’s book, Coming Out Straight : Understanding and Healing Homosexuality.

Cohen has been a bombastic embarrassment for ex-gay groups over the years, appearing about anywhere that would have him.  His demonstration of “bioenergetics” on CNN has him beating a pillow with a tennis racket while yelling at the top of his lungs.  The same appearance includes a session of “holding” or “touch” therapy where Cohen cradles his client in his arms while on a sofa.  He has repeated this and other stunts in multiple venues.

An XGW exclusive in 2007 revealed another account of Cohen’s bizarre behavior at an Exodus Annual Freedom Conference in 2000.  Cohen had been invited to speak and also demonstrated one of his therapy techniques.  As Exodus president Alan Chambers later recounted in an email to their parents group:

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.

To our knowledge, Cohen has no license to practice any sort of therapy. The licensing authorities in his state, Maryland, told XGW that a license is not required there to offer services as a “psychotherapist” as long as one does not diagnose and treat from the DSM-IV.  They added that the term is essentially meaningless and did not reflect any official designation.  Also in 2007, Cohen claimed to stop counseling clients.

Of note here is the fact that, in this book, Cohen uses the seriously flawed data provided by discredited  researcher Paul Cameron.  One would be hard pressed to find a source with less credibility on this subject, except perhaps another Langa source, Scott Lively.  Langa has truly scraped the bottom of the barrel for information with which to mangle the lives of GLBTs in Uganda.

Yet to such “noted authorities,” we can add Exodus board member Don Schmierer, who traveled halfway around the world to be in such esteemed company while talking to the people of Uganda.

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.”

Timothy Kincaid and Jim Burroway of Box Turtle Bulletin have done a sterling job of exposing Insure.com for using research from the notorious anti-gay propagandist Paul Cameron.

The controversy started when Insure.com, an online provider of insurance advice, published an article entitled Top five ways to kill yourself and get away with it, of which the number one recommendation for certain self-destruction was “Being gay.” Author Joe White claimed that eight to 20 years’ reduction in life span was a “conservative estimate.”

It was not the first time White had made the claim. An earlier article was boldly named Gay men die 20 years younger. In support of his argument, he cited Hogg’s much-misused Vancouver study and the long-since-debunked, pseudo-scientific “research” of Paul Cameron.

Kincaid persevered with Insurance.com, notifying them of Cameron’s incredibly poor reputation and providing them with sound evidence to discredit his findings. Insure.com stood by what they published, and White continued to deny his article was anti-gay.

Box Turtle Bulletin has now presented Insure.com with the “Certified Cameronite award, for citing the discredited research of holocaust revisionist Paul Cameron.” Burroway summarizes:

[The] only people who rely on Cameron anymore are those who occupy the most radical fringes of anti-gay extremists. Insure.com, CEO Robert Bland, and author Joseph White are now officially in their company.

Hear, hear.

Discredited anti-gay researcher Paul Cameron was guest speaker at a meeting of the Christian Council of Britain last month. Cameron used the opportunity to claim that homosexuals are responsible for 29 percent of child rapes and murders.

It is hard to say which is worse: Paul Cameron aligning himself with the far-right, nationalist Christian Council of Britain, or the Christian Council of Britain aligning itself with the virulently homophobic Paul Cameron. We know all about Cameron, but here’s a sample of where the CCB is at:

The Christian Council of Great Britain and Northern Ireland resolved that it recognises that all men are of one blood (or proto-race) in Adam through to Noah; and that from that one race divergent sub-races have historically devolved – Russian doll-like – (Genesis 11:1-9) so that we are now different, though related, races and nations of men, all of whom God has made (Psalms 86:9); which are each to bring their glory into the kingdom of God (Revelation 21:26). The Christian Council of Great Britain and Northern Ireland therefore resolved to recognise the godly importance of race and nation as groups based on this historical and providential process of objective descent: giving rise to different organically-formed communities; sharing and passing-on common genetically inherited (physical, intellectual and character) features, together with cultures, mores, relationships, loyalties, memories, and identities-in-common; and ultimately – by the will of God – national homelands, where an ongoing connection between land and people has developed, and can be encouraged and preserved (Acts 17:26). The Christian Council of Great Britain and Northern Ireland recognises these facts and privileges, especially with regard to the historic British people whose land this is. The Christian Council of Great Britain and Northern Ireland therefore resolved especially to welcome the British as such a People, and as individuals, into membership.

In other words, other races and cultures are fine; just don’t let them into our country. Elsewhere, CCB founder Reverend Robert West said that “the mixing of races challenges the glory of God”.

The CCB grew out of the racist British National Party (BNP), to which West – a councillor in his native Lincolnshire – later defected when he was ousted by the Tory Party. See these documentaries for evidence of the BNP’s ugliness, which it tries hard to disguise. British religion blogger Richard Bartholomew has documented the CCB, West’s career and the BNP connection extensively, beginning here.

What are we to conclude? That evidently neither Paul Cameron nor the Christian Council of Britain are fussy about the company they keep.

From Gregory Herek, Ph.D:

Q: What does the president of Iran have in common with certain antigay activists in the United States?
A: Both maintain that homosexuals don’t really exist.

While Exodus executive vice president Randy Thomas calls for President Maumoud Ahmadinejad to “go home,” some of his past and present allies might feel somewhat differently. Among those who agree with the Islamist leader’s redefinition of homosexuality are Paul Cameron (as noted by Herek), Joseph Nicolosi, and a variety of followers who assert that there is no such thing as a true homosexual, only a heterosexual with a homosexual problem.

I’m grateful to Thomas for expressing opposition to Ahmadinejad… though Thomas’ remarks are strangely limited to the president’s anti-Semitism. Hmmm.

Jews Offering New Alternatives to Homosexuality (JONAH) appears to stand alone as the only Jewish ex-gay organization in the country. With a fairly substantial online library, rabbinical commentary, and even an option to read the site in Hebrew, JONAH is obviously taking great pains to reach out exclusively to a Jewish audience. But at what cost are they trying to prove that homosexuality is a lifestyle of vice and ultimately harmful to both society and humanity?

Apparently, not even a Jewish ex-gay group is afraid of employing the research of a Holocaust revisionist, so long as it furthers their cause. In his article entitled “Selling Homosexuality to America,” Paul E. Rondeau makes the claim that “domestic violence in homosexual ‘domestic partnerships’ as a group is several times higher than for heterosexual married couples.” Dr. Paul Cameron’s report “Gay Domestic Violence Finally Measured” is cited as proof (see bottom of the page, citation number 230). Cameron, an evangelical Christian and head of the self-created Family Research Institute, has achieved notoriety in the ex-gay community as a prime provider of anti-gay statistics. He is infamous for highly flawed studies, which despite numerous rebukes by the scientific community, still remain to be oft cited by those with an anti-gay agenda.

But perhaps most chilling about Cameron is his use of German SS officer and convicted murderer Rudolf Höss’s observations of homosexuality in concentration camps to support his own convictions. Indeed, Cameron has openly mused of his own Final Solution for gays, which involves quarantine, branding on the forehead, and – should the homosexual “problem” not subside – extermination. It is not yet known whether Cameron would take his cue from Höss and use Zyklon B to carry this out. (For a more detailed tour of Cameron’s World, see “Paul Cameron’s World“.)

JONAH remains tied to Paul Cameron in a few other more subtle ways, as well.

For example:

1. The organization is very closely linked with NARTH – one of the few non-Christian ex-gay organizations – which still espouses Cameron’s research.
2. Richard Cohen uses Cameron’s research in chapter 2 of his book, “Coming Out Straight.” This chapter, entitled “Definitions and Causes of Same-Sex Attractions,” is showcased on JONAH’S page for Richard Cohen.
3. Alan Medinger, former head of Exodus International, has also used Cameron’s statistics to support his research. He has a featured page in JONAH’s online library. Although none of his Cameron-quoting papers can be found on their site, JONAH should exercise caution in taking the word of a man who so willingly used Cameron’s “research” to prove his point.
4. I also came across a claim by Dr. Norman Lamm that “According to a recent work, one third of the homosexuals in the study were seduced in their adolescence by adults.” Dr. Lamm does not cite the source of this claim, which itself is a red flag. But in my search for the statistic, the only research I could find that supported it was none other than Paul Cameron’s article “What Causes Homosexual Desire?” I’ve thought this over and can’t decide which is worse: making an outrageous claim without citing proof, or using the work Paul Cameron to support it.

To JONAH’s credit, only one solid Cameron citation can be found on their website, but one citation is one too many. Until there is not a trace left of this despicable doctor from their site, the legacy of a man who aligns himself with Nazi ideals regarding homosexuality will be furthered and supported. I do not take lightly a circumstance in which an admirer of a murderous German SS officer and a Jewish organization find themselves on the same side of an issue.

Federal legislation on expanding hate crimes to include violent attacks against individuals on the basis of “gender, sexual orientation and gender identity” is currently being reviewed by the Senate. Christians have strongly voiced opposition to the expansion, arguing that the bill could silence believers who view homosexuality as sinful. That also applies to the transgender.–Lillian Kwon, Christian Post Staff Writer

Lillian Kwon recently wrote an article for the Christian Post entitled Media Bias on Transgenders Raising Concerns. The concern, expressed by Dr. Robert Gagnon, Peter LaBarbera and Kwon, is that there are portrayals in the first place, and that these portrayals are often positive.

Dr. Robert Gagnon, associate professor of New Testament at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, is quoted in the article as claiming that 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 contains a prohibition against transgenderism:

Alluding to Scripture (1 Corinthians 6:9-10), Gagnon quoted Apostle Paul listing persons who will “not inherit the kingdom of God.” The list includes the “effeminate” or “soft men,” which is essentially the closest thing to transgenderism, Gagnon pointed out.

Noted Yale historian John Boswell, in his book Christianity, Social Tolerance, And Homosexuality (p. 106,107) said this about the passage Dr. Gagnon quoted:

There are three passages in the writings of Paul which have been supposed to deal with homosexual relations. Two words in I Corinthians 6:9 and one in I Timothy 1:10 have been taken at least since the early twentieth century to indicate that “homosexuals” will be excluded from the kingdom of heaven.The first of the two, “” (basically, “soft”), is an extremely common Greek word; it occurs elsewhere in the New Testament with the meaning “sick” and in patristic writings with senses as varied as “liquid,” “cowardly,” “refined,” “weak willed,” “delicate,” “gentle,” and “debauched.” In a specifically moral context it very frequently means “licentious,” “loose,” or “wanting in self-control.” At a broad level, it might be translated as either “unrestrained” or “wanton,” but to assume that either of these concepts necessarily applies to gay people is wholly gratuitous. The word is never used in Greek to designate gay people as a group or even in reference to homosexual acts generically, and it often occurs in writings contemporary with the Pauline epistles in reference to heterosexual persons or activity.

Dr. Dale Martin, in Arsenokoités and Malakos: Meanings and Consequences, adds the following:

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