A month ago, David Benkof presented me with an opinion piece he wrote slamming the “ex-gay” organization Jews Offering New Alternatives to Homosexuality (JONAH). It appeared to be useful information, but I refused to employ it in my efforts. Why?

Because, in my view, Benkof lacks character and cannot be trusted. Once upon a time, he was the openly bisexual founder of Q-syndicate, which provides the GLBT press with content. Then, he quit his job, became a born again Jew, changed his last name from Bianco to Benkof and claims to have given up sex with men. He went on to stab the GLBT community in the back and cozied up to the anti-gay industry.

Granted, I never liked this man. I met him at a National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association meeting in Chicago several years ago. I found him to be crass and lack class. He was an overbearing, insufferable, ill-mannered braggart with an ego the size of the Sears Tower. With a distaste for his personality, I simply smiled and walked away.

After Benkof became a “New Jew,” he moved to Las Vegas. I was to pass through on my “Anything But Straight” book tour. Through a respected intermediary, he tried to set up a lunch meeting and I refused. I did not like him when he was “out,” so I certainly had no use for him when he was “In.” (For the record, I’ve even dined with ex-gay leaders Randy Thomas and Alan Chambers, who are much better company than Benkof)

The last thing I was going to do was waste part of a day in Vegas with Bianco/Benkof. No thanks, get me to the pool and to the slot machines. Besides, the fake models of the Eiffel Tower and New York’s skyline were enough artifice in Las Vegas, without bringing Benkof into the picture.

This year, Benkof has slithered back into the public eye, emerging as an anti-gay activist who poses as a pro-gay advocate. He has fancied himself a regular columnist with the GLBT press, even though this is not true. He has also been accused by more than one respected advocate of misrepresentation in interviews for his column.

Most important, this spotlight-seeking charlatan has been dishonest about his motives. For these reasons, I elected not to use his information about the ex-gay industry. I try to only quote sources that are known to be honest and have integrity. Mr. Benkof does not fit the bill. One just has to feel sorry for this poor, troubled soul who craves attention at all costs.

Today, Box Turtle Bulletin’s Timothy Kincaid wrote an excellent article exposing this fraud. I urge everyone to read it so they know the true David Benkof. Here is an excerpt:

Benkof is not swayed by logic. As Benkof argued in a chatroom debate over same-sex parenting:

However, my stance wouldn’t change even if 100 studies showed no differences in children of every family structure — because my beliefs are informed by a traditional Jewish worldview and its attitudes toward families and childrearing. But I want to ask you — would your stance change if 100 studies showed harmful effects in children raised without both a mother and a father?

You see, all of Benkof’s arguments have nothing to do with what he’s claiming in his writing. Benkof doesn’t care whether it could be proven by undeniable evidence that equality, marriage, children’s issues, the military, discrimination, and every other issue was without question on our side.

He’s not really debating policy, he’s pushing his religion.

And if Benkof were honest about his efforts, I would be fine. I have respect for those who live according to their religious constraints. And I don’t seek to diminish those who present their faith for others to consider.

But that isn’t what David is doing. He’s not presenting his articles of faith for consideration for cultural adoption. He’s seeking to advance the rules of his faith by making secular argument, and not being honest about it. Because pushing religion is viewed suspiciously, David Benkof has chosen to adopt artificial arguments. And an artificial identity. And artificial supporters.

I wonder if he thinks his God is pleased.

Concerned Women for America’s policy director for cultural issues, Matt Barber, is leaving the organization to work for Liberty University School of Law and Liberty Counsel. Barber has embraced ex-gay organizations, such as Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays (PFOX). This is an organization that has used the courts to try to force schools to teach scientifically bankrupt ex-gay theories.

“We hope that Barber’s move to Liberty Counsel does not signal an increase in frivolous lawsuits and wasting of taxpayer’s money,” said Wayne Besen, Executive Director of TruthWinsOut.org. “Barber’s infatuation with ex-gay ministries combined with Liberty Counsel’s use of legal intimidation is a toxic mix.”

According to CWA founder and chairman Beverly LaHaye, “We wish him well as he goes to Liberty for this important next step in his career. We are pleased that he will continue to partner with us on the issues that are so important to him and to us.”

The youngest daughter of Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick says she’s gay, but didn’t come out to her parents until after lawmakers voted to kill a proposal to outlaw gay marriage.

Katherine Patrick made the revelation public in an interview with her father in Bay Windows, a weekly Boston newspaper aimed at the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered community.

Patrick, who supports gay marriage, said he was proud of his daughter. The two will march in Boston’s gay pride parade Saturday.

This is an example of love truly winning out, not the bogus snake oil Focus on the Family peddles to desperate and confused parents.

At TWO, we tend to focus on the official “ex-gay” ministries. However, there are many examples of GLBT families torn apart by “friends” and family members who will do anything to stop a person from living an openly gay life. It is sort of the unofficial ex-gay ministries.

Over the years, I have received calls or e-mails from men and women whose long-term partners had been persuaded to leave GLBT relationships by people who use coercion, brainwashing and mind-control. It is particularly easy to manipulate the individuals who suffer from mental disabilities.

On a new website, David Nahmod, a man who lives in San Francisco, tells a harrowing story of how a woman befriended his partner with the obsessive goal of breaking the couple apart. The “friend” allegedly poisoned the relationship and eventually lured the partner to live with her born again family in Arizona.

Such cases are difficult to track, but they can be very real and cause heartache and heartbreak for many in the GLBT community.

The parents of PFLAG reached out June 7 to attendees of “Love Won Out,” Focus on the Family’s ex-gay roadshow in Orlando, Florida. The parents offered a message of unconditional love and hope to counter the conditional love and damaging stereotypes of the ex-gay conference.

Earlier, Truth Wins Out participated in a press conference with Dr. Kathryn Norsworthy, licensed psychologist; Joe Saunders, Equality Florida; Rev. John Middleton, Joy Metropolitan Community Church; Pastor Brei Taylor, Oasis Ministries; and Linn Possell, Hope Unites United Church of Christ. The press conference was hosted by the Gay, Lesbian & Bisexual Community Center of Central Florida.

Amid protests over Focus on the Family’s use of its TiVo affiliation to discriminate against gay fathers, TiVo has removed the page of its own website that promoted Focus on the Family’s affiliate relationship with TiVo.

The original page currently displays a Page Not Found error. Here’s the page as it appeared a few days ago.

Is the removal is temporary? Is TiVo re-evaluating Focus’s role in TiVo’s KidZone child-safety filter? Is TiVo rethinking its association with Focus’s campaign against gay fathers? These questions remain unanswered.

Hat tip: Good As You

Who better to lead a Southern Baptist Convention panel promoting gender stereotypes than a cabal of gender-confused ex-gay political activists?

Photos of the panel show it to be dominated by Exodus International president Alan Chambers and other Exodus leaders including South Carolina ex-gay activist Tim Wilkins, Florida ex-gay activist Christine Sneeringer, and Texas ex-gay activist and SBC gender-issues czar Bob Stith.

The panel appears to be all-white — and all-male except for Sneeringer. Some members are not Southern Baptist.

None of these “ex-gays” has demonstrated academic expertise in gender issues nor a commitment to equal opportunity for women.

Instead of educating the public about gender diversity and individuality, the SBC gender panel plans to recruit Southern Baptist financial support for ex-gay activists and to confuse Christian teen-agers, their pastors, and their parents into believing they aren’t truly manly or womanly unless they mimic a 1950s-era heterosexual “lifestyle.”

Hat tip: Good As You

Ruling on a technicality, the Virginia Supreme Court on June 6 rejected “ex-gay” activist and veritable fugitive Lisa Miller’s use of the state as a shelter from Vermont family court rulings. The court upheld an appellate ruling which recognized Vermont’s jurisdiction and implicitly acknowledged ex-partner Janet Jenkins visitation rights with daughter Isabella, whom they jointly agreed to conceive.

(At left, Janet, Isabella, and Lisa Miller-Jenkins prior to dispute)

The dispute began in 2003, when Miller — dissatisfied with her civil union to Jenkins — took Isabella and fled to Virginia. She acknowledged Vermont’s jurisdiction by dissolving the civil union there and seeking child support. But Miller did not count on Vermont recognizing Jenkins’ visitation rights.

By 2004, Miller was claiming to be “ex-gay” and violating Jenkins’ visitation rights. (To this day, Miller has deceived the public and capitalized upon religious-right support by claiming to be ex-gay while declining to state whether she has any attraction to men whatsoever.)

In exchange for legal representation of questionable competence, Miller gave exploitation rights over Isabella to the religious-rightist Liberty Counsel, which has sought to use Miller’s flight from justice to undermine both Vermont family law and the federal Parental Kidnapping Prevention Act which protects children from parents who cross state lines to evade custody rulings.

A Virginia Court of Appeals ruling (PDF) eventually reversed a lower Virginia court’s violation of Vermont and federal law. Miller and the Liberty Counsel then waited too long to appeal and missed a deadline. Miller continued to violate Vermont visitation orders. When Jenkins sought to file a final Vermont court order for enforcement in the Virginia courts, the Liberty Counsel saw an opportunity for a fresh round of litigation. In the view of New York Law School professor Arthur S. Leonard, the Virginia Supreme Court was not fooled by the Liberty Counsel’s second round of litigation; it was clearly the same old dispute being reopened ad nauseum.

According to The Rutland Herald:

Miller’s attorney, Mathew Staver, said his client “has not lost her courage or her resolve” and will pursue other legal options. Staver, founder of Liberty Counsel and dean of the law school at the late Rev. Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University, said he hopes to raise the issue of Virginia’s constitutional amendment banning same-sex unions in a new proceeding.

Liberty Counsel’s ongoing defense of ex-gay kidnapping underlines a religious-right commitment to fundamentalist lawlessness and subversion of family values.

For more information:

• Jurist: Legal News and Research (University of Pittsburgh)
• Virginia Supreme Court ruling (PDF)
• Equality Virginia FAQ
• Equality Loudoun comments on Virginia antigay Delegate Bob Marshall’s war against the daughter
• Lambda Legal press release

Focus on the Family has joined with TiVo to turn Father’s Day 2008 into a back-door political attack against gay fathers.

The TiVo “SuperDad” campaign invites people to nominate fathers as SuperDads; Focus’ involvement ensures that gay fathers and their families will be excluded. TiVo’s ties to Focus on the Family are no accident, according to a TiVo representative who spoke with Joe.My.God Average Gay Joe. The Family Equality Council is organizing a letter-writing campaign to TiVo in support of gay fathers.

In addition to discriminating against gay fathers and their offspring, Focus and its local branches and antifamily allies in California plan this year to divert $30 million dollars from more charitable endeavors into their petty war against marriage.

Joe Brummer points out that the $30 million spent by antifamily religious-right groups to institutionalize discrimination against monogamous gay couples should instead be spent to prevent malaria in Africa, buy cell phones for soldiers in Iraq to talk with their families, sponsor a million children in Africa for a month, or send 1,000 youths to college for a year.

Gay journalist Chris Crain’s blog observed last month that in Sao Paulo, Brazil, the world’s gay pride parade has been ruined by an annual onslaught of some 2 million people, among them foreign tourists and violent heterosexual carousers and gangs, that have scared away the resident gay population.

Overwhelmed by enormous crowds, police were unable to stop an antigay murder at the Parada last year and a drug-related death this year.

The author of the post concludes that the Parada’s failure to articulate a clear message has turned the event into a meaningless party for people with no commitment to equality:

It was big and utterly pointless. It was a tragic search for pleasure in vain, and a moment which made a beautiful sense of life and purpose appear worthless in the end. It left nothing behind but questions. It made none of us feel prouder, or more secure. It taught us nothing, and betrayed a sense that we have learned nothing.

I get emails from American gays fairly often which tell me of a rising level of disgust at gay politics in the United States. To many of them, it is run by a group of hacks who lack vision and courage, who cater to politicians of both parties that have no qualms about throwing us overboard. And these critics are not outraged so much as ready to turn their backs on something that was once an inspiring movement full of hope and joy. One of them, an activist who started in the 1980s, wrote me that she felt like she was watching “my baby, all grown up, just laying there dying and I can’t do anything about it.

The writer’s leap of logic from Brazilian carnival to U.S. activists is a stretch; he seems to ignore the growth of gay religious organizations, pro-marriage groups, anti-violence groups, and gay employee groups, and gay sports and fitness groups.

But Exodus International’s “ex-gay” executive vice president Randy Thomas — who opposes hate-crime laws, pro-equality political messages, and sexual health education — makes a far greater leap in logic: (Read More)