Atlanta Press Conference On Friday, 11:30 AM

Conference Will Damage Families In the Name of Family Values and Sends The False Message That A Person Must Choose Between Sexual Orientation and Faith

WHAT: United for Truth, a coalition of groups supporting fairness and equality, will hold a press conference on Friday and a peaceful protest rally on Saturday against Love Won Out, a so-called “ex-gay” conference hosted by Focus on the Family. This anti-gay organization has already placed offensive, untruthful and misleading billboards on Atlanta’s highways to advertise for the conference.

The controversial event will take place in Woodstock, Georgia at First Baptist Church, the spiritual home of Gov. Sonny Perdue. The keynote speaker will be Dr. Joseph Nicolosi, who leads the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH). This organization recently caused a firestorm when an article that justified slavery was discovered on its website. Still, Focus on the Family proudly stands by Dr. Nicolosi and supports NARTH’s insidious and dangerous message.

FRIDAY PRESS CONFERENCE

Where: OutWrite Books, 991 Piedmont Avenue

When: Friday, Nov 3., 11:30 AM

Who: Rev. TJ McGiffert, SoulForce

Wayne Besen, Founder, Truth Wins Out

Daniel Gonzales, Former ex-gay NARTH patient

Patti Ellis, mother, www.FamilyAcceptance.com

More Speakers TBA

SATURDAY PROTEST

Where: First Baptist Church Woodstock, 11905 Highway 92, Woodstock Georgia

When: Demonstration begins at 10 am

BACKGROUND: NARTH’s Dr. Gerald Schoenewolf recently caused a tidal wave of condemnation with a polemic on the group’s website that seemed to justify slavery.

“With all due respect, there is another way, or other ways, to look at the race issue in America,” wrote NARTH ‘Scientific Advisory Board’ member Dr. Schoenewolf. “It could be pointed out, for example, that Africa at the time of slavery was still primarily a jungle, as yet uncivilized or industrialized. Life there was savage, as savage as the jungle for most people, and that it was the Africans themselves who first enslaved their own people. They sold their own people to other countries, and those brought to Europe, South America, America, and other countries, were in many ways better off than they had been in Africa.”

In August, the American Psychological Association specifically condemned NARTH and Focus on the Family by name at their annual convention.

“For over three decades the consensus of the mental health community has been that homosexuality is not an illness and therefore not in need of a cure. The APA’s concern about the position’s espoused by the National Association of Research and Therapy of Homosexuality and so-called conversion therapy is that they are not supported by the science. There is simply no sufficiently scientifically sound evidence that sexual orientation can be changed. Our further concern is that the positions espoused by NARTH and Focus on the Family create an environment in which prejudice and discrimination can flourish.”

The ex-gay founder of Love Won Out, John Paulk, was photographed in a gay bar in 2000 and eventually left the organization. The co-founders of the ex-gay group Exodus International, Michael Bussee and Gary Cooper, fell in love, left their wives and held a commitment ceremony. The enormous failure rate of these groups is usually not discussed and is often concealed from Love Won Out participants.

The purpose of Soulforce is freedom for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people from religious and political oppression through the practice of relentless nonviolent resistance.

TWO is a non-profit think tank and educational organization that counters right wing disinformation campaigns, debunks the ex-gay myth, and provides accurate information about the lives of GLBT people. Besen, the group’s founder and Executive Director, is the author of “Anything But Straight: Unmasking The Scandals and Lies Behind the Ex-Gay Myth.”

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Backers raise concerns about online postings. One advocated ridicule of nonconforming children; the other seemed to justify slavery.

By Stephanie Simon
LA Times Staff Writer

The National Assn. for Research & Therapy of Homosexuality positions itself as a scientific group dedicated to helping gay men and lesbians shed same-sex attractions and realize their “heterosexual potential.”

Its statements routinely outrage gay-rights activists. But two commentaries posted online in recent months by members of NARTH’s scientific advisory committee have raised concerns among its closest allies as well.

One psychiatrist called for allowing schoolchildren to shame and ridicule classmates who don’t act according to stereotypical gender roles. Another board member, a therapist, asserted that slaves may have been better off in
chains than in “savage” Africa.

One of NARTH’s scientific advisors has quit in protest, and a prominent therapist has canceled his presentation at the group’s annual conference next month. Alan Chambers, who leads the nation’s largest support group for “ex-gays,” urged NARTH’s members to “think long and hard about the mission of the organization.” (Read More)

By Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent, Reuters

The birds and the bees may be gay, according to the world’s first museum exhibition about homosexuality among animals.

With documentation of gay or lesbian behaviour among giraffes, penguins, parrots, beetles, whales and dozens of other creatures, the Oslo Natural History Museum concludes human homosexuality cannot be viewed as “unnatural”.

“We may have opinions on a lot of things, but one thing is clear — homosexuality is found throughout the animal kingdom, it is not against nature,” an exhibit statement said.

Geir Soeli, the project leader of the exhibition entitled “Against Nature”, told Reuters: “Homosexuality has been observed for more than 1,500 animal species, and is well documented for 500 of them.”

The museum said the exhibition, opening on Thursday despite condemnation from some Christians, was the first in the world on the subject. Soeli said a Dutch zoo had once organised tours to view homosexual couples among the animals.

“The sexual urge is strong in all animals. … It’s a part of life, it’s fun to have sex,” Soeli said of the reasons for homosexuality or bisexuality among animals.

One exhibit shows two stuffed female swans on a nest — birds sometimes raise young in homosexual couples, either after a female has forsaken a male mate or donated an egg to a pair of males.

One photograph shows two giant erect penises flailing above the water as two male right whales rub together. Another shows a male giraffe mounting another for sex, another describes homosexuality among beetles.

BURN IN HELL

One radical Christian said organisers of the exhibition — partly funded by the Norwegian government — should “burn in hell”, Soeli said. Laws describing homosexuality as a “crime against nature” are still on the statutes in some countries.

Greek philosopher Aristotle noted apparent homosexual behaviour among hyenas 2,300 years ago but evidence of animal homosexuality has often been ignored by researchers, perhaps because of distaste, lack of interest or fear or ridicule.

Bonobos, a type of chimpanzee, are among extremes in having sex with either males or females, apparently as part of social bonding. “Bonobos are bisexuals, all of them,” Soeli said.

Still, it is unclear why homosexuality survives since it seems a genetic dead-end.

Among theories, males can sometimes win greater acceptance in a pack by having homosexual contact. That in turn can help their chances of later mating with females, he said.

And a study of homosexual men in Italy suggested that their mothers and sisters had more offspring. “The same genes that give homosexuality in men could give higher fertility among women,” he said.

By Wayne Besen

One of the most successful techniques used by the right wing is creating shadow organizations designed to ape mainstream institutions in an effort to undermine them. By deceptively using scientific names and manipulating research, much of the public can’t tell the difference between the reputable groups and the reputed ones.

One such mock organization is the National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH). It was co-founded in 1992 by Drs. Charles Socarides and Joseph Nicolosi as a fundamentalist foil to the American Psychiatric Association, which had taken homosexuality off the list of mental disorders in 1973. The group lobbies to re-label homosexuality a mental illness and promotes the myth that gay people can become heterosexual through therapy.

Although NARTH works mightily to present a veneer of respectability, its rhetoric always has a way of showing its true colors. In 1998, the now-deceased Socarides (whose own son, Richard, is gay and the former gay liaison to President Bill Clinton) told The Washington Post that homosexuality is “a purple menace that is threatening the proper design of gender distinctions in society.” This churlish rhetoric belied the scholarly facade the group tried to impart. (Read More)