We have commented many times on the atrocious human-rights record of the global ex-gay network Exodus Global Alliance: It supports imprisonment of homosexual persons in Barbados and refuses to condemn documented antigay violence from the Caribbean and Latin America to Saharan and sub-Saharan Africa. In Ecuador, as previously noted, the Exodus alliance co-exists with ex-gay torture and incarceration centers without voicing so much as a hint of opposition.

That trend of silent support for violence continued this week with the apparent murder on May 26 of Bahamian musician and AIDS activist Wellington Adderley. Exodus’ response was to show callous and immoral disregard for the latest murder of a gay humanitarian leader.

The Exodus alliance met earlier this month in Toronto. It said not one public word about global antigay violence; instead, Exodus implied that the solution to any gay problem is for gay people to stop being gay.

The Exodus Global Alliance views violence and imprisonment as useful methods of coercion to force gay people around the world to submit to its missions’ quackery, its false piety, and its brutal distortions of Christian faith.

Focus on the Family again equated same-sex-attracted and gender-variant persons with sexual predators this week, when it condemned the signing of a new Colorado law that guarantees restroom access to gay and gender-variant persons.

Focus on the Family — de facto headquarters of the ex-gay movement through its Love Won Out roadshow and its political and financial influence over Exodus International — declared:

Henceforth, every woman and little girl will have to fear that a predator, bisexual, cross-dresser or even a homosexual or heterosexual male might walk in and relieve himself in their presence.

Despite growing disenchantment among evangelicals and repudiation by a new generation of Christian young adults, the aging and morally corrupt leadership of Focus on the Family seems unwilling to free itself from obsession with toilets, ex-gay sex, and abortion. (Read More)

Family Law Attorney Don Schweitzer appeared on the O’Reilly Factor to oppose same-sex marriage. When pressed, he could not come up with a cogent or lucid reason why Californians should vote against granting gay people marriage equality. Watch the video to see how intellectually bankrupt our opponents truly are.

Also, opponents of same-sex unions were pondering a range of legal and legislative challenges to Gov. David A. Paterson’s new policy of having state agencies honor same-sex marriages that have been performed outside New York. However, such challenges are likely to fail and face an uphill fight, legal experts said.

Finally, the Los Angeles Times had an excellent editorial on this topic:

Surely the trailing edges of society will soon reflect on the resistance to this phenomenon with chagrin and more than a little embarrassment. It is bracing, after all, to realize how recently much of this nation blanched at interracial marriage, and thrilling to recognize how quickly most of us buried that prejudice, first in law, then in custom.

(Ensley, left, Doesn’t Read Exodus’ Website)

Poor Mike Ensley. Next time he debates in a mainstream venue he needs to read the Exodus website. He was totally unprepared for the Alan Colmes Show and spent much of the debate denying undeniable facts, squirming or disavowing quotes made by his loose cannon boss, Alan Chambers. He claimed that the host, Alan Colmes, and I were taking words out of context or making things up – but the problem is, the proof is on the Exodus website or part of the historical record.

Sorry Mike, but if you are going to speak to people who have not been brainwashed, at least do your homework. I know it must be difficult to defend the scientifically bankrupt “What to Do When Your Child is Gay” or argue that Exodus does not believe gays are evil or demon possessed, when your organization promotes spiritual warfare.

The cold facts can be stubborn and unforgiving.

Here is my message to Mike: If you are too preoccupied to know your topic and what the organization you work for actually represents – just tell the truth. It is amazing how easy interviews are when you believe in what you are saying and can speak with a clear conscience. When you ultimately leave Exodus, Mike, you will finally understand this simple truth.

Finally, Mike, the GLBT community will be here for you if and when you are ready to come out. We will show you the unconditional love and support that you will never find at Exodus. And, the best part is – when you do interviews with the media, you won’t have to remember the lies you told before the commercial break.

Agence France Presse reports (via PageOneQ), and Pandagon comments, on phony rehab centers opened by the Roman Catholic Church in Poland to teach quack therapy, prayer, chastity, and sexist gender roles.

Men at The Odwaga Center reportedly are taught to play the post-Biblical sport of soccer, while women are taught to cook.

Watch the AFP video report here.

The blog The Lesbian Said What? wrote a point-by-point commentary on May 21 about the strawman arguments and ludicrous stereotypes that are taught by Christine Sneeringer, director of the Exodus ministry “Worthy Creations.” Sneeringer authored the widely circulated antigay essay, “Did God Make Me Gay?”

The commentary on Sneeringer’s essay is direct but polite.

There are lesbians who have been sexually abused. There are straight women who have been sexually abused. Not all lesbians were sexually abused. And the majority of lesbians that were sexually abused would have been lesbians whether they had been abused or not, because that’ who they are: lesbians. [After being raped,] Christine found safety, comfort and warmth in the arms of women as a coping mechanism; some women turn to alcohol or drugs or food to cope with these feelings. Christine is not a lesbian, she is a heterosexual woman. What makes a more interesting Christian testimony, saying that you were a lesbian and “saved,” or saying that you were sexually abused and found healing through God?

Ultimately, Sneeringer comes across as someone who distorts and embellishes her journey away from abuse, while turning real gay and lesbian persons into cookie-cutter caricatures.

Daniel D’Orsi, 22, is yet another victim of violent assault apparently motivated, in part, by the perpetrator’s hatred of people perceived to be gay.

According to Bay Windows, D’Orsi was robbed and attacked May 6 while the alleged perpetrator yelled anti-gay slurs. Police say the suspect may have tried to attack a woman in the same neighborhood about a week earlier — and therefore, police reason, the attack on D’Orsi was not a hate crime. Bay Windows does not indicate whether the woman might have been perceived to be lesbian.

Eleven days later, on May 15, three men assaulted a 23-year-old Sacramento gay man just hours after the California Supreme Court ruling on marriage rights for gay Californians.

According to the San Jose Mercury News:

A 23-year-old Sacramento man was sitting with another man in a car near the station’s restroom when the three suspects asked if he was a homosexual, Sacramento Police Officer Michelle Lazark said. The man said he was. When he got out of the car, the three men beat and kicked him, Lazark said. He did not require medical treatment. It was not immediately clear if the suspects were reacting to the court’s ruling, Lazark said. ‘It’s a gay-bashing. Gay slurs were used before they commenced to beating him,’ she said. ‘I don’t know if these guys were looking for someone or are just ignorant.’ … The victim of the Sacramento beating, who police would not name, identified his attackers, who were arrested near the gas station. Their cases are being reviewed by Sacramento County prosecutors, spokeswoman Tanisha Worthy said.”

How have ex-gays responded?

While refusing to acknowledge the ongoing wave of antigay violence, Exodus executive vice president repeated his claim May 16 that so-called hate crimes represent “freedom of conscience and religious liberty,” and that Exodus opposes laws that limit supposed speech — even, apparently, if that “speech” occurs (in Boston) in the form of a kick to the face, a broken cheekbone, and reconstructive surgery.

Variety reports that actress Sigourney Weaver will star in “Prayers for Bobby,” a Lifetime cable TV movie.

Weaver will play a devout conservative Christian woman who “winds up becoming an advocate for gay and lesbian youths after her son is driven into a deep depression by his family’s disapproval and attempts to “cure” him of his sexual orientation.”

Jamaica prime minister Bruce Golding reiterated this week that he believes all Jamaicans should enjoy a right to privacy and equality — except same-sex-attracted Jamaicans.

Golding told reporters last month that he has no intention of moving to repeal laws that incarcerate same-sex-attracted persons for their private intimate activities.

Antigay Caribbean nations, some of which criminalize homosexuality and permit mobs to assault and kill gay people, enjoy the ongoing support of the ex-gay Exodus Global Alliance.

Around the world, as many as eighty-six countries criminalize same-gender sexuality; Exodus Global Alliance claims a presence in many of them, and explicitly opposes criminalization and discrimination in none.

From Ecuador and its ex-gay torture and incarceration centers to Gambia and its plan to behead all gays, Exodus Global Alliance says nothing about the human rights of those who “struggle” with same-sex attraction. Instead, the Exodus alliance legitimizes its host countries’ violent methods by promoting undefined ex-gay conversion while offering no public guidelines — no restraints — upon the barbarity of powerful antigay church and government agencies.

Focus on the Family — the Colorado Springs-based, $100-million-per-year hub of the U.S. antigay, ex-gay, and anti-family movement — lashed out this week at a Colorado bill that would ensure equal access to state public accommodations by gay, bisexual, and transgender Coloradans. The legislation specifically exempts places of worship.

Instead of informing its readers and radio listeners of the legislation’s actual wording and purpose, and its protection of the religious freedom of all, Focus opted to lie — calling the legislation a bill of rights for “sexual predators … in any public bathroom they come across.”

“SB 200 threatens public safety and tramples religious freedoms,” [Bruce Hausknecht, Focus "judicial" activist] said. “This bill needs to be vetoed and sent back to the Legislature with instructions to come back next session with something that all Coloradans can be proud of.”

Neither Exodus International nor any other ex-gay activist has yet to object to Focus’ attack on the right of gay and transgender people to go to the bathroom. Nor have they objected to Focus’ effort to undermine the religious freedom of any Coloradan whose religious beliefs dictate that society at large must treat gay or gender-variant neighbors and taxpayers with equality and respect.