Ex-Gay Watch

According to the IRS, the tax-exempt status of Americans for Truth About Homosexuality (AFTAH) was revoked on 5/10/2010 (PDF). The reason for this action is listed by the reporting organization Guidestar as a “failure to file a Form 990, 990-EZ, 990-N, or 990-PF for 3 consecutive years.”  These forms are required of legitimate non-profit organizations for review by the IRS and the public.

While the current incarnation of AFTAH appears to have been active since 2006, we found only one form 990-EZ on file — for the year 2009 (PDF).  In this, total receipts are listed as $110.000, out of which Peter LaBarbera received a salary of $75,000.  For perspective, this is approximately the same salary plus benefits claimed by Exodus president Alan Chambers.  Exodus lists eleven employees and a million dollar budget.

According to the IRS documentation on revocations (PDF), AFTAH can no longer be considered a 501(c)3 tax-exempt organization, and there is no process for appeal.  Donations made to them before 6/10/2011 are still deductible by donors, though any income after revocation may be taxed and require filing of a federal return.  LaBarbera appears to have been aware of all this, as the donations section of the AFTAH website no longer claims tax-exempt status:

Before Revocation

After Revocation

However, the footer of the “About” page still claims donations are tax-deductible:

"About" page footer

AFTAH is one of a handful of anti-gay organizations classified by the venerable civil rights organization Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) as a hate group.  According to the SPLC, this is due to LaBarbera’s intense marketing of untruths which paint gays and lesbians in a false and negative light (eg. promoting the claims of the discredited Paul Cameron, claims of a disproportionate incidence of pedophilia in gays, and Scott Lively’s assertion that gays headed the Nazi party, etc).

Thousands of organizations exist which claim that homosexuality is a sin or otherwise immoral, only eighteen are listed as true hate groups by the SPLC.  AFTAH is one of them.

Edited 9:33 am to include AFTAH footer.

Christian musician Ray Boltz comes out of the closet.

Ex-gay Gregory Quinlan responds to Boltz by distorting the work of geneticist Francis Collins.

British Christian superstar Cliff Richard speaks out in favor of gay marriage.

Psychologist Jesse Bering examines some of the theories about the origins of homosexuality.

Peter LaBarbera comments on the Folsom Street Fair, inventing a “conversation” between two gay parents to prove some kind of point. No definitive answer on whether he’ll make a cameo appearance.

A local Christian reports on Love Won Out’s Anchorage show.

Exodus International’s new women’s ministry leader is a hardline ex-lesbian who once joined critics in decrying moderate remarks by Exodus President Alan Chambers.

Yvette Schneider, also known as Yvette Cantu Schneider and previously Yvette Cantu, will “communicate biblical, compassionate truth to women who feel overlooked by society,” according to an Exodus press release.

In 2007, Schneider joined Peter LaBarbera’s Americans for Truth in criticizing Alan Chambers after the LA Times reported he had softened on the meaning of “change.” Chambers said that “By no means would we ever say change can be sudden or complete.”

LaBarbera immediately supported pal Stephen Bennett in disavowing Chambers’s remarks, saying he was “disappointed.” Two days later, Yvette Schneider went on record with the following “in response“:

I came out of homosexuality after a powerful encounter with Jesus Christ and a desire to serve and obey Him. I can say with complete honesty that I NEVER have homosexual desires of any sort – physical or emotional.

Readers might prefer to check out the Google cache here. Why? Because XGW contacted Alan in early August to ask about the apparent rift. Chambers neglected to respond, but presumably he was not too busy to consult LaBarbera, as a disclaimer was added yesterday, within 24 hours of the announcement of Schneider’s appointment:

Yvette Schneider’s comments below relate to her own story of transformative change and were initially made following a controversy last year surrounding Exodus President Alan Chamber’s quotes in the Los Angeles Times. Since we first published this piece, we have learned that Alan’s statements were incomplete and taken out of context by self-serving homosexual activists to create an impression that he never sought to create — i.e., questioning the potential for radical and even complete change in the life of homosexual strugglers.

Since the Times interview, Mr. Chambers has clarified his position on change in homosexuality to AFTAH saying:

“There are a variety of levels at which individuals experience change when it comes to the issue of homosexuality. For some it may be a rapid, total transformation, but for many, it is often a gradual process of dealing with difficult life issues, habits and behaviors. Regardless of the timing, any change is still change and as Christians, we know that the process of dealing with sin and becoming more like Christ will continue throughout the course of our lives.”

The criticism remains on LaBarbera’s website unchallenged for over a year, and then suddenly it’s time to issue a disclaimer?

A timely damage-control exercise, but just as potentially damaging is Schneider’s history of right-wing political involvement. As well as her association with the notorious LaBarbera, Schneider has worked with Eagle Forum, Family Research Council and Matt Barber’s Concerned Women for America. Not a good omen for an organization that claimed last year they were leaving politics behind.

In summary, what does Schneider’s appointment mean? On inspection, it appears Exodus has appointed to a major role in its organization a woman with a track record of ultra-conservative political activism (despite Exodus’s claim to be a non-political group), who pushes a hard line on orientation change (despite Exodus’s deliberate attempt to steer away from such rhetoric, at least in public) and who has openly criticized its president’s more moderate statements (although LaBarbera tries to alter that by pinning the blame on “self-serving homosexual activists”). Isn’t this looking like just another move in the wrong direction?

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.

Yesterday, I noticed a post from Peter LaBarbera concerning The Marin Foundation. I remembered hearing Andrew Marin’s story on a podcast from The Gay Christian Network (GCN) and something didn’t click. Marin was a self-confessed “bible-banging homophobe” brought up in the Assemblies of God. His life was changed by the coming out stories of his three best friends in college. It led him to immerse himself (Marin is straight) in the gay community to understand and identify with the struggles so many have.

He has a passion to be a genuine, unconditional representation of God’s love to both the gay community and the traditional evangelical community. These and similar terms he uses are not meant to express a false dichotomy, but simply to make it easier to describe his concepts. He now lives in Boystown, Chicago, with his wife and has formed The Marin Foundation.

I had always been under the impression that Marin was one of those few success stories, one of the truly “good guys” who is affected by the honesty and truth of the GLBT people in his life and changes because of it. To see him described on LaBarbera’s site as “the other side of the same coin” caught me off guard. I wrote Marin and told him this, and asked him if he had given the only real quote that LaBarbera used. He replied quickly, and sincerely, and it led to a conversation which you may hear below.

My own assessment of what I have heard is that LaBarbera has co-opted the good will and reputation of another for himself. He already has the idea that someone is spending millions of dollars just to counter his fringe voice, so there is no doubt that he is self-absorbed. But it would appear he is willing to negatively impact both friend and foe in his struggle to be noticed.

In matters of faith there is little agreement, but one does not need to agree with Marin to sense his sincerity. I found him willing to listen and teachable. Like Wendy Gritter, he had a profound sense of the hurt LGBT’s have suffered because of the actions of the Church. But he wants nothing to do with ex-gay anything; his work, concern, and love are unconditional. You can decide what you like about Marin, but I hope you will listen to the conversation and see what you think of LaBarbera’s actions toward him.

The first part is a quick background on Andrew Marin, then his description of the issue with LaBarbera.

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Pentecostal leader Michael Brown continues to throw homosexuality into the mix with an array of exotic sexual fetishes, including pedophilia, zoophilia and coprophilia, sexual arousal from human feces.

In January, we looked at Brown, the latest evangelical leader to join Love Won Out‘s roster of conference speakers. Ex-Gay Watch found Dr Brown’s rhetoric to be aggressively militaristic. Those who read the discussions here and on Warren Throckmorton‘s website will be familiar with his argument that nothing separates homosexuality from any other manner of non-conventional sexual practices.

Last week, Brown appeared on the Concerned Women for America (CWFA) radio program, alongside Peter LaBarbera of Americans for Truth. The subject was evangelical Wheaton College’s decision to invite left-leaning, pro-gay evangelical Jim Wallis as a speaker. Without a hint of irony, host Matt Barber condemned the decision, saying that Wallis’s views were

… unequivocally unscriptural. That’s why I have a problem. I’m all for academic freedom, but if something is just so on it’s face!

All for academic freedom, except when something is “unequivocally unscriptural.” A strange sort of academic freedom, which appears to amount to “academic freedom except when I disagree.”

Then Michael Brown entered the conversation to reiterate the same arguments he has made here on XGW and elsewhere. His contention amounts to the claim that nothing distinguishes homosexuality morally from any other sexual practice, no matter how bizarre or offensive.

No moral line between homosexuality and pedophilia

Broadening the definition of “orientation” as widely as possible, Brown asks:

Are all sexual orientations gifts from God? Zoophilia, or coprophilia, the sexual stimulation by faeces, or bestiality, I mean things that everyone would be repulsed by, or paedophilia. Are those gifts from God? … How do you distinguish which sexual orientation is a gift from God and which is not?

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Box Turtle Bulletin offers coverage-in-depth of this week’s angry war of words fired by far-right culture warriors Peter LaBarbera and Stephen Bennett against Exodus International and its president, Alan Chambers.

Chambers has stated for some time that “change” is slow (if it happens at all) among ex-gays. When word of this reached the mainstream press this week, LaBarbera and Bennett became outraged that their own message of easy, instantaneous heterosexuality had been undermined in some very public forums.

None of the three activists has yet documented a gay past to XGW’s satisfaction, and LaBarbera in fact claims never to have been either gay or ex-gay. So the credibility of all three regarding change of sexual attraction or identity is tenuous at best.

While Chambers speaks from the stated experience of Exodus member ministers, LaBarbera and Bennett demonstrate a vaporous, blustery preachiness that is heavy on flattery toward God and lacking in substance. LaBarbera, for example, speaks of “allegiance to a holy, almighty God”; apparently he could not find Bible verses to support his contention that dishonest sexual behavior is the Christian Way, nor could he find legitimate medical or scientific research equating sexual orientation with lust. LaBarbera pontificates that “ExGayWatch” (sic), in particular, is “decidedly evil” but fails to explain how it is evil to hold ex-gays accountable to measurable facts and healthy therapeutic outcomes.

Ex-Gay Watch sends congratulations to Bennett and LaBarbera — may this cat fight bring them a fleeting rise in contributions from people who don’t know any better.

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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When she turned the Atlanta-area black gay and lesbian magazine Venus into an ex-gay publication, Charlene Cothran offended loyal subscribers and advertisers with antigay and antiwhite rhetoric that was written with the help of spiritual mentor, Venus blog editor, and ex-gay activist D.L. Foster.

Late last month, Venus got a boost — from an ex-gay contributor to Christianity Today and from an antigay activist in Illinois.

Antigay activist Peter LaBarbera, whose ties to the Constitution Party have raised alarm at Ex-Gay Watch in the past, printed a promotion for Venus magazine to his national religious-right readership.

LaBarbera’s promotion is uncharacteristically free of antigay rhetoric — apart from an insinuation that one cannot be “reborn in Christ” unless one pretends not to be same-sex-attracted.

Meanwhile, at Christianity Today, ex-gay activist Amy Tracy wrote up an interview with Cothran that avoids direct discussion of Cothran’s orientation.

[Question:] How do you view your sexuality now?

[Answer:] I view myself as celibate.  

The interview focuses instead on Cothran’s perception of herself as a victim of rejection by those friends whom she now preaches against.

(Tracy, the interview’s author, is a former spokeswoman, senior writer and co-worker of John Paulk at Focus on the Family. Following orders from above, and despite Tracy’s public statements against Phelps, Tracy allegedly sent an internal Focus e-mail in late 1999 that defended Fred Phelps and warned Focus employees not to protest against Phelps. In subsequent disciplinary action against a staff participant in the protest, Focus allegedly described Phelps as a “guest” of Focus on the Family. Christianity Today published an article promoting Tracy’s ex-gay conversion in January 2000.)

David Roberts recently wrote a short piece entitled Exodus President Alan Chambers is Clear About Coulter Comment. David praised and thanked Alan Chambers for making the unambiguous comment regarding Ann Coulter’s use of the pejorative faggot:

Used in any context, this hurtful word is used to demean an individual who is valuable to God. There is nothing to be gained by denigrating others with crude slurs. In doing so, we disgrace ourselves and discredit the truths we seek to publicly elevate.

Wow: “[N]othing to be gained by denigrating others with crude slurs.” That’s a powerful statement.

I wish Alan Chambers’ idea of loving the LGBT neighbor next door by treating them with respect would be embraced by other conservative Christian/ex-gay affirming organizations, especially when it comes to transgender people like me.

An example of not taking Chambers’ and Exodus International’s cautions against verbal slurs to heart include a recent piece in The Record, the online publication of the Christian Civic League of Maine (CCLM). The piece by Mike Hein  — All My Tranny Children — begins by using tranny as a slur in the article’s header. He then goes on in the article to state:

Maine Teacher Makes Queer Television History

Maine’s most famous transgendered man, Jennifer Finney Boylan, is set to make daytime network television history this week, and the radical homosexual Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) organization praises ABC Television for making “the unfamiliar [transgendered men and women] familiar.”

Starring as himself in ABC’s daytime soap opera, All My Children, Boylan (formerly James Boylan) and five other transgendered adults play a transgendered support group. The group coach ‘Zoe,’ a young female character played by a Jeffrey Carlson. The now-female ‘Zoe’ character is involved in a lesbian relationship with ‘Bianca,’ another female character on the show. Boylan is the transgendered support group leader…

…Boylan remains married to his wife despite having taken on a female persona in 2001 while still in his early 30s and despite having young sons. He mentions his experiences while taping the All My Children episode recently in his March 4 Kennebec Journal column “There from Here.” “I asked my boys and my spouse if they had any interest in coming down to the set the next day to watch me film my scenes,” writes Boylan. “My son Zach wrinkled his nose.”

As one can see, Mike Hein not only uses tranny as a slur, he sedulously points out Boylan’s former male name. And even though Boylan has had sex reassignment surgery, Hein makes a point of frequently and only using male pronouns to refer to Boylan.

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