TruthWinsOut.org Hopes Haggard Will Come To A Place of Self-Acceptance

NEW YORK – TruthWinsOut.org said Ted Haggard’s inability to go from gay to straight was no surprise and indicative of these failed programs. Haggard entered an intensive “restoration” process after he was fired from New Life Church and resigned as head of the National Association of Evangelicals in 2006 amid allegations that he had an affair with a male prostitute.

“As far as predictions go, the failure of Haggard’s ‘ex-gay’ program was not exactly like picking the New York Giants over the undefeated New England Patriots in the Super bowl,” said TruthWinsOut.org’s Executive Director Wayne Besen. “It is pretty much a given that these programs don’t work and we hope Haggard comes to a genuine place of love and self-acceptance.”

On Tuesday, the antigay New Life Church of Colorado Springs announced that the Rev. Ted Haggard had quit the church’s five-year “spiritual restoration” process. He agreed to five years of ex-gay rehabilitation in January 2007 — and one of his mentors claimed just three weeks later that Haggard was “completely heterosexual.” Haggard then embarrassed New Life leaders when he requested donations while he sought a degree in counseling. The donations were to be collected by Families with a Mission, a Colorado non-profit run by Paul Huberly, a twice-convicted registered sex offender. (Read More)

The Iowa Family Policy Center, along with Alliance Defense Fund and Concerned Women for America, are campaigning in Iowa to:

• impeach a judge who overturned a ban on gay unions as unconstitutional
• promote judicial activism among state Supreme Court justices
• intimidate the Court with a proposed constitutional amendment, and
• allow antigay voters to redefine marriage as being solely between one man and one woman.

Iowa-based ex-gay youth activist Chad Thompson is a former media coordinator for the IFPC.

Thompson now markets himself as a kinder, gentler ex-gay activist who calls upon Christians to love homosexuals as Jesus would. We doubt this self-characterization, but invite Thompson to prove otherwise:

Thompson should repudiate the efforts of IFPC, ADF, and CWFA to:

• discriminate against gay couples
• harass judges
• promote special rights for conservative-Christian opposite-sex couples
• subject the institution of marriage to the whims of Iowa popular opinion, and
• inject bigotry into the most basic documents that govern our states and our nation.

Op-ed writer Carol Towarnicky profiles former ex-gay Peterson Toscano, a survivor of Exodus International’s flagship “Love In Action” live-in therapy program, today in the Philadelphia Daily News.

Toscano recalls the “fear and smear tactics” of the ex-gay movement to the newspaper — and also to audiences of his road show, Doin’ Time in the Homo Nomo Halfway House, scheduled for this weekend in Germantown, Pa.

Toscano is a co-founder of Beyond Ex-Gay, which has scheduled its second major gathering of former ex-gays at the Mid-South Regional Gathering in Memphis, Tennessee. The Feb. 23 gathering is timed to coincide with Focus on the Family’s Love Won Out ex-gay roadshow.

The gathering will offer a series of interactive workshops for former ex-gays and their allies, including:

• A round table discussion about the ex-gay movement and youth concerns
• From the on-line chat room to the talk show—processing our stories through the media
• Ex-Gay 101 for allies
• Creating and maintaining support structures for former ex-gays

Also scheduled that weekend: “Deconstructing the Ex-Gay Myth—A Weekend of Action & Art” (video) co-hosted by BXG and the Memphis Gay and Lesbian Community Center.

The gathering comes eight months after Beyond Ex-Gay’s first conference for survivors of ex-gay programs.

Videos Featuring ‘Ex-Gay’ Survivors and Sexual Orientation Experts To Debut Weekly In February

NEW YORK – TruthWinsOut.org (TWO) introduced a new Internet video ad today featuring openly gay former Major League Baseball player Billy Bean. In the ad, Bean challenges the long-held “ex-gay” theory that playing sports will help turn gay men into heterosexuals. This innovative ad signals the countdown to the launch of TWO’s dynamic new website, featuring an extensive and unprecedented video catalogue of “ex-gay” survivors and sexual orientation experts. Each week leading up to the March 3 debut of the new website – TWO will present its original videos.

“I am proud to work with TruthWinsOut.org to challenge the harmful myths and misconceptions spread by the ‘ex-gay’ industry,” said Billy Bean, author of ‘Going the Other Way: Lessons from a Life in and out of Major-League Baseball.’ “The notion that playing sports makes one heterosexual is patently absurd and I am happy to dispute this bizarre notion. It is unfortunate that ‘ex-gay’ organizations continue to cynically prey on the vulnerabilities of desperate and insecure people.” (Read More)

Former Major League Baseball player and out gay man Billy Bean comments on “ex-gay” claims that playing sports will help make gay men heterosexual.