The Onion did a radio spoof on the so-called ‘ex-gay’ ministries. The thing is, it was a pretty dead on accurate portrayal of what life is like for most people who go through this charade. Check out the parody by CLICKING HERE.

David Benkof (formerly Bianco) - the gay writer turned anti-gay religious extremist - is getting published in mainstream newspapers. It is not because of his weak, sophistic, inarticulate arguments. The reason he gets press is because of his bizarre - man-bites dog biography that positions him as a gay journalist who is against same-sex marriage.

The only problem is, Bianco is not a gay columnist. He was dumped from the Dallas Voice and Q-Notes the moment they found out that he was a double-talking fraud. Despite the end of his GLBT journalism career, he still has his fake credentials listed on his website, a testament to his low character.

Mr. Bianco, take down your fake resume and get published based on the merit of your work, not your phony biography. I predict that his journalism career will be over in a relatively short amount if time. Mr. Benkof lacks the ethical standards and morals to succeed in this business. He has already been accused on at least two occasions of misquoting people and twisting their words to fit his political agenda. People of this ilk often get weeded out and I doubt Bianco will be an exception.

Heinz pulled the company’s mayo ad in the UK after complaints spured on by an American fundamentalist organization. The advert is tasteful and should have stayed on the air. There should be nothing controversial about gay affection or relationships in this day and age. If people have psychological issues or hang-ups, they need to get help. Gay relationships are just as normal and natural as any other and must be reflected as such in the media and advertising.

The American Family Association has gone ballistic with this and pressured Heinz. So, please call Heinz and let them know you are upset about them pulling the ad - 800-255-5750

Exodus International Offers False Hope, Divorces and Ruined Lives, Says TWO

NEW YORK – TruthWinsOut.org (TWO) will join a coalition of state and local North Carolina organizations to counter a conference in Asheville (July 15-20) that plans to teach people to ‘pray away the gay.’ The controversial Exodus International symposium will sell books that promote exorcisms and encourage gay men to play touch football and lesbians to wear lipstick to become heterosexual.

“Ex-gay groups would be a farce if its failures weren’t so destructive to individuals and families,” said Wayne Besen, Executive Director of TruthWinsOut.org. “We plan a robust week of activities to highlight the harm caused by this nefarious right wing organization and to show the truth about the lives of GLBT people. I want to thank the Coalition for Equality for their commitment to educating North Carolinians about the dangers of the ‘ex-gay’ myth and the positive contributions GLBT people make to the community.”

Schedule of Events, July 15-20

Tuesday, July 15, 7:00–8:30 PM, Kick off Event
“Can You Pray Away the Gay?”
Firestorm Café & Books (48 Commerce St., Asheville)
Speakers: Wayne Besen, Director, TruthWinsOut.org and author of “Anything But Straight: Unmasking the Scandals and Lies Behind the Ex-gay Myth,” and Ian Palmist, Director, Equality NC

(Read More)

Truth Wins Out executive director Wayne Besen appeared on CNN Headline News today to defend a British TV ad which featured gay men in parental roles, serving Heinz mayonnaise.

Besen criticized U.S. foodmaker H.J. Heinz for succumbing to homophobia and withdrawing the ad under pressure from the right-wing American Family Association. About 200 viewer complaints were received by British regulators.

Here’s the ad:

Truth Wins Out defended the ad:

The Headline News segment included Randy Sharp of the AFA, who claimed that the ad promoted a homosexual lifestyle: “What does mayonnaise have to do with homosexuals and their lifestyle?” Sharp claimed that 70,000 AFA supporters in the United States disagreed with the ad.

Business marketing analyst Dan Hill said Heinz was right to pull the ad. Hill said:

“In business you can never afford to forget that the bottom line is that ‘family values’ means ‘my family, not your family,’ and I think in the UK most households have traditional family structures.”

Besen responded that gay couples are well-accepted in the United Kingdom and that gay soldiers have been allowed to serve in British armed forces with great success.

By Wayne Besen

Left, James Dobson

It is remarkable that Focus on the Family’s James Dobson would accuse anyone of “distortions” considering his ignoble record. But, that is exactly what the right wing ideologue did this week when he said on his daily radio show that democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama distorted the Bible.

“I think he’s deliberately distorting the traditional understanding of the Bible to fit his own worldview, his own confused theology,” Dobson said.” “… He is dragging biblical understanding through the gutter.”

Why do people still listen to what this serial liar has to say? In the past two years, at least seven researchers have accused Dobson of manipulating or cherry picking their results to back his anti-gay teachings. Letters and videos documenting the concerns of these respected professors can be viewed at RespectMyResearch.org.

The first researcher to step forward was New York University educational psychologist Carol Gilligan, PhD. On Sept. 14, 2006 Gilligan wrote a letter to Dobson that stated: “I was mortified to learn that you had distorted my work this week in a guest column you wrote in Time Magazine…What you wrote was not truthful and I ask that you refrain from ever quoting me again and that you apologize for twisting my work.” (Read More)

Attack on Barack Obama Hypocritical, Says TWO

NEW YORK – TruthWinsOut.org (TWO) responded today to Focus on the Family leader James Dobson’s attack on Barack Obama. On Dobson’s daily radio show, the right wing leader accused the democratic nominee of ‘distorting’ the Bible. This charge was odd, considering Dobson has been blamed by at least seven top researchers for “ distorting” their scientific findings.

“James Dobson is a serial distorter and has consistently twisted the work of respected scientists to support his political agenda,” said TWO Executive Director Wayne Besen. “It his the height of hypocrisy for him to point fingers and accuse others of distortions. It is clear that Dobson has little credibility and has tremendous difficulty with the truth.”
In the past two years, at least seven researchers have accused Dobson of manipulating or cherry picking their results to back his anti-gay teachings. Letters and videos documenting the concerns of these respected professors can be viewed at TruthWinsOut.org.

The first researcher to step forward was New York University educational psychologist Carol Gilligan, PhD. On Sept. 14, 2006 Gilligan wrote a letter to Dobson that stated: “I was mortified to learn that you had distorted my work this week in a guest column you wrote in Time Magazine…What you wrote was not truthful and I ask that you refrain from ever quoting me again and that you apologize for twisting my work.”

The most recent scientist to claim Dobson distorted his work was University of Minnesota’s Gary Remafedi, M.D., M.P.H. In a letter to Dobson dated April 28, 2008 he wrote, “I want to draw your attention to a gross misrepresentation of our research at the website of ‘Focus on the Family.’”

Other leading researchers who have taken issue with Dobson’s use of their work include: Dr. Kyle Pruett, Professor of child psychiatry, the Yale University School of Medicine; Dr. Robert Spitzer, Professor of Psychiatry, Columbia University; Angela Phillips, Professor, Goldsmiths College in London; Dr. Elizabeth Saewyc, Associate professor, school of nursing, University of British Columbia; and Dr. Judith Stacy, Professor of sociology, New York University

“We urge the media to report the facts and allow America to see the real James Dobson,” said Besen. “He portrays himself as a beacon of morality, but he is really just a tower of half truths.”

Truth Wins OUT is a non-profit organization that counters right wing propaganda, exposes the “ex-gay” myth and educates America about gay life. For more information, visit www.TruthWinsOut.org.
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From the comfort of a conservative Christian enclave in central Florida, Exodus executive vice president Randy Thomas loves those Jewish people. He loves them so much that his policy until now has been to not talk to them without praying for their conversion to his own ignorant and immature views regarding Judaism.

After blessing antigay Jewish activist David Benkof with this smug paternalism, Thomas had to be stopped and corrected by his boss, Exodus president Alan Chambers. How is it that someone so lacking in grace and courtesy, not to mention spirituality, is allowed to represent an international ex-gay “Christian” network?

There are, no doubt, some valid and fact-based reasons to oppose Barack Obama as the Democratic Party’s presumptive nominee for President of the United States.

But the echo chamber of the far right does not care much for facts; among that crowd, vague smears and self-flattery have sadly become the chosen political currency.

Exodus youth activist Mike Ensley reminds of that today, as he parrots a fact-free tirade against Obama that was first penned by Thomas Sowell of the increasingly neocon and partisan Hoover Institute.

First, Ensley (through Sowell) projects onto others his own preoccupation with trivialities — denying gay Americans equality, promoting scientific ignorance among youths — at a time when America needs unity and true leadership to reverse the catastrophe in Iraq, conserve energy at home, live with religious and cultural diversity, and accept the sacrifices that will be necessary to reverse such crises as the federal debt and economically catastrophic climate change. Ensley points to the speck in his enemy’s eye while ignoring a plank in his own:

One of the painful aspects of studying great catastrophes of the past is discovering how many times people were preoccupied with trivialities when they were teetering on the edge of doom.

Then Ensley parrots Sowell’s cynical and hypocritical position on federal judges. The Liberty Counsel, which with Exodus is a member of the Arlington Group, believes that reactionary activist judges should rewrite American law and justice, and remake social policy, according to the Group’s reinterpretations of the Bible and according to un-Biblical social mores that seem to be derived from 1950s TV sitcoms. When judges do their duty and rule that there are constitutional limits to presidential power, or that gay Americans are entitled to their constitutional rights, then Ensley, Exodus, and the Liberty Counsel vent the Arlington Group’s collective outrage and resentment with about as much individuality and originality as a ventriloquist’s puppets.

Read carefully:

Barack Obama has already indicated that he wants judges who make social policy instead of just applying the law.

Notice that Ensley does not support judges’ mandate to interpret state and federal constitutions, nor their mandate to balance and counteract the other two branches of government. Instead, Ensley views judges as rubber stamps “applying” whatever unconstitutional laws might be passed — provided, of course, that such laws are written by Republican Party apparatchiks who are, in turn, controlled by the Arlington Group.

Ensley briefly parrots unsubstantiated gossip about Obama’s record on crime. Then Ensley, who has demonstrated no knowledge of mid-20th-century American history, accepts at face value — and without a single factual example — Sowell’s vague, sloppy, and sweeping accusations about Obama’s domestic and foreign policy:

Although Senator Obama ha s presented himself as the candidate of new things — using the mantra of “change” endlessly — the cold fact is that virtually everything he says about domestic policy is straight out of the 1960s and virtually everything he says about foreign policy is straight out of the 1930s.

Sowell offers no evidence, and Ensley apparently neither notices nor cares. Whether anything that has been said about Obama has any basis in fact is irrelevant to Ensley, who lives and works in a political environment of gossip and innuendo.

If this style of gossip and innuendo is what Exodus wants to bring to the nation’s schools and youths, then Exodus should be banned from schools and disenfranchised by the nation’s Christian youth groups.

The nation and its youth are in need of historical, social, scientific, political and religious facts — not more partisan warfare and smug, factless diatribe.