Arkansas ex-gay advocate Victor J. Adamson advises people to adopt his ex-gay lifestyle which — according to those whom he has counseled — consists of pretending to be heterosexual. (Source: XGW)

Another ex-gay ministry, Mastering Life Ministries, has severed ties with Exodus — the second prominent, achhem, “exodus” this year. The leader of the ministry, David Kyle Foster, reportedly has long-standing issues with control, self-righteousness, and fraudulent misrepresentation of science and demographics — but those traits are by no means frowned-upon by Exodus or its membership guidelines. It is possible that Foster became fed up with what he perceived to be the “campy, gossipy, lispy” behavior of the U.S. ex-gay leadership. Foster’s board of advisers includes Neil T. Anderson, an advocate of the belief that gay Americans and the mentally ill are controlled by demons. Anderson’s “theophostic” therapy utilizes amateur “counselors” to coerce patients into recovering false memories. The theophostic counseling industry, it seems, has been established as a profit center by dominionists who have bypassed accountability to the professional mental-health community. Critics say this form of unlicensed counseling has also been used by conservative ideologues such as Chuck Colson to conduct “faith-based coercion” — at taxpayer expense — against captive audiences of prisoners. MLM was a long-standing member of Exodus, so a very big question demands an answer: Why does Exodus tolerate such abuses of mental health among its membership, and what other member organizations remain similarly obsessed with conjuring and then exorcising non-existent demons out of impressionable individuals? (Source: XGW)

Despite recent departures, Exodus claims to have more than 200 member organizations. But a quick count by TruthWinsOut.org of the ministries listed on Exodus’ referral list finds only 98 referral ministries in the United States (give or take a few) — and only two referral ministries in Canada. Many of the Exodus web site’s referrals are not ex-gay ministries, but rather for-profit conversion therapists and members of Exodus’ political mobilization network of antigay churches. Exodus’ network of ex-gay ministries seems to be shrinking, even as it grows its political network of antigay churches.

Exodus executive vice president Randy Thomas redefines transparency and accountability to mean truthiness — in other words, whatever a morally compromised ideologue wants them to mean.

Northern Irish lawmaker and ex-gay proponent Iris Robinson says gay people are worse than child molesters. Despite her later denials, her remarks were confirmed. Robinson’s defense? She proudly asserts that anything she says “is what Christ teaches us” and “is out of love.” Robinson claims to have Christian values — after redefining “Christian” to mean “intentionally untruthful” and “malicious.” And she claims to defend the word of God — but none of her particular words seem to be found in the Bible nor any other holy book. Nevertheless, British ex-gay activist Peter Ould supports Robinson’s antigay tirades and claims that the real problem is that “the world hates Jesus.” (Source: XGW)

With his career-long trait of unprincipled moral relativism on full display, Focus on the Family chairman James Dobson this week backpedaled on his already-selective moral objections to U.S. Republican presidential candidate John McCain.

McCain is distrusted among independent and liberal Americans for his short temper, reckless impulses, adultery, divorce, remarriage to a wealthy benefactor, exaggeration of his Vietnam War heroism, affinity for anti-Catholic and anti-Semitic religious advisers, and waffling on American liberties including the freedom to serve in the Armed Forces and the freedom of religious and sexual minorities to marry.

Few of those broad moral, religious, and political considerations have mattered to Dobson, however — his moral voice in recent years has become so small and self-serving that it now encompasses only two issues: Sex and authoritarianism.

(By declining to offer moral leadership in matters of personal and global finance, charity, community diversity, cooperation, interfaith relations, human rights, and environmental stewardship, Focus on the Family has effectively advocated the very same “anything goes” morality that it falsely attributes to liberals.)

Dobson has objected to McCain — and threatened to lead a national religious-right boycott — for petty reasons: McCain’s lack of photo-op religious zeal, his weak commitment to criminalize women who have abortions, and his weak commitment for government to find new ways to discriminate against, ostracize, and criminalize same-sex-attracted Americans.

But now Dobson — who seems unwilling to offer a single specific objection to Democrat Barack Obama’s pro-family and national-security policies — finds himself on the political sidelines, demonizing Obama with misleading insults in order to buy back lost influence among the GOP:

(Read More)

A new interview with self-styled “conservative crusader” Star Parker hints at Focus on the Family’s growing hatred against freedom and individual responsibility.

Parker — author of White Ghetto: How Middle Class America Reflects Inner City Decay — is unlikely ever to be allowed in the executive ranks or board of Focus on the Family. She is outspoken about her blackness, and Focus’ record of internal hostility toward African-Americans dates at least as far back as 1997, when Focus co-founder Gil Alexander-Moegerle wrote a tell-all exposé of the Focus leadership’s racism, sexism, its irrational hostility toward gay Americans, and its brewing war against basic American values.

In her interview with Focus operative Jennifer Mesko, Parker blames freedom for her life as a welfare mom. Freedom, according to Parker is one of “the messages of the Left that basically you can do whatever you want, whether it’s with your sexual choices or any other aspect of your life. So very early, I got engaged in criminal activity, and drug activity, and sexual promiscuity.”

With either breathtaking stupidity or cunning contempt for intellectual honesty, Parker confuses “can do” with “should do.” Parker believes that if one is free to commit an action, then one should commit it.

Parker dishonestly and arrogantly contends that it is somehow “conservative” or “Christian” to take away freedoms in order to deny people the free will to choose right and wrong.

Parker recounts a life of irresponsible choices — abortions, unwed pregnancy, chronic unemployment, drug use — but instead of accepting responsibility for choices, she blames liberals for allowing her to make them.

Instead of making moral choices and encouraging others to choose responsibly, Parker decided to join a culture war against freedom. “I made a commitment I was going to get engaged in that battle, and I’ve been there ever since.”

Instead of fulfilling the core Christian moral imperative of reversing poverty and its causes, Parker resolved “that we need to dismantle the war on poverty and increase the activities in the Christian community so we can be there for people in need” — in other words, it seems, she vowed to stop battling the causes of poverty and instead battled to offer ideological scapegoating and religious back-patting.

Her opposition to unnecessary or preventable abortions may be commendable, but her methods — denying families the information and freedom they need to make informed and mature choices, and turning freedom into a bogeyman — are un-American and, from this particular Christian’s point of view, unholy.

Parker and Focus on the Family claim to defend faith and a Biblical worldview, but their contempt for free will and personal responsibility have no basis in any legitimate faith nor in any legitimate interpretation of the Bible.

Gay activists are pledging to protest the induction ceremony for the National Radio Hall of Fame this November in Chicago if it goes ahead with plans to put one of the country’s leading anti-gay fundamentalists in the hall.

“It is an affront for the Radio Hall of Fame to honor James Dobson, a right-wing demagogue who built his radio empire on the backs of gay and lesbian people,” said Wayne Besen, a longtime Human Rights Campaign official who left HRC in 2006 and launched Truth Wins Out to counter misinformation efforts by anti-gay groups.

Dobson is founder and head of Focus on the Family, a Colorado-based religious organization that’s grown into one of the country’s largest and most profitable broadcasting and publishing empires. Much of that growth has been fueled by Dobson’s strident anti-gay messages, delivered throughout the country on a daily radio broadcast and often accompanied by fundraising appeals.

To Read Full Article CLICK HERE

Dr. Gary Remafedi Says ‘Ex-Gay’ Group Manipulated His Study And Should Immediately Take The Distortions Off Its Website

NEW YORK – TruthWinsOut.org published exclusive comments today by Gary Remafedi, M.D., M.P.H., a professor of pediatrics at the University of Minnesota, who claimed the “ex-gay” organization PFOX distorted his research findings.

On its website, PFOX expressed its displeasure with The Washington Post for publishing what it called “a sympathetic article about a 15-year-old boy named Saro who described his homosexual feelings and how Gay Straight Alliance student clubs help such gay teens to deal with discrimination and bullying in high school and middle school.”

“What the article failed to describe,” said PFOX Executive Director Regina Griggs, “is the danger of young sexually confused teens self-identifying as gays at an early age. Research has shown that the risk of suicide decreases by 20% each year that a person delays homosexual or bisexual self-labeling.* Early self-identification is dangerous to kids.”

Dr. Remafedi’s study was the one cited by PFOX to back their unfounded conclusions. Today, Dr. Reamafedi released the following comments to Truth Wins Out:

“My work has been cited by PFOX in response to a Washington Post article on gay-straight alliances (GSA),” wrote Dr. Remafedi. “PFOX misuses one of my studies on suicide attempts in gay youth to argue that people should not identify their sexual orientation at young ages. Our findings do not support the contention that young people choose their identity or the timing of events in identity formation. Nor is there any evidence that the availability of GSAs influences those developmental processes.” (Read More)

Sporting a fog machine for its smoke and mirrors routine and an extravagant stage that would make The Rolling Stones blush, the “ex-gay” group Exodus International held its glitzy annual conference in Asheville, North Carolina. I was in town all week to partner with regional and state organizations to oppose the meeting and its dizzying array of distortions.

A dark cloud hovered over the Exodus event, with violent hate crimes unsettling the local GLBT community. At the very moment ex-gay televangelists were railing against homosexuals in the foothills, news broke of an 18-year old boy in Anderson, South Carolina whose father, “yelled, cursed, swung a baseball bat, prayed and tried to cast the demon of homosexuality out of him.”

In nearby Greenville, South Carolina, Stephen Moller, an anti-gay thug who murdered 20-year-old Sean William Kennedy outside a gay bar, just learned that he would spend approximately 10 months in jail for his ferocious crime. In this gross miscarriage of justice, the message was sent that murdering gay people was tacitly acceptable, if not encouraged. While in town, I spoke to Sean’s grieving mother, Elke Kennedy, who rightfully called the sentence, “a joke and a slap on the wrist.”

Meanwhile, on the opening day of the Exodus conference, an anti-bullying bill was stalled in the North Carolina legislature. Into this backdrop of brutality stepped the ex-gay activists Alan Chambers and Randy Thomas, who were determined to show the progressive residents of Asheville that Exodus did not stigmatize gay and lesbian people. Unfortunately, they kept tripping over reality and revealing the true nature of their duplicitous, deceptive and depraved ministry.

For a week, western North Carolinians were dazzled with disingenuousness. The audacity of the lies was breathtaking and the sheer nerve was mind numbing. By the end of the conference, everyone who had paid attention learned that Exodus leaders are shameless charlatans who lack even a modicum of morality. (Read More)

Please check out my column on David Benkof in The Huffington Post. To read it CLICK HERE.

Extremism Won Out With Demagogue to Be Honored, Says TWO

NEW YORK – Truth Wins Out (TWO) assailed The Museum of Broadcast Communications today for announcing they would induct right wing extremist James Dobson into its Radio Hall of Fame. TWO vowed to protest the annual awards dinner, the second Saturday in November, to inform the world of Dobson’s shameful and bigoted record.

“It is an affront for the Radio Hall of Fame to honor James Dobson, a right wing demagogue, who built his radio empire on the backs of gay and lesbian people,” said Wayne Besen, Executive Director of Truth Wins Out. “We vow to stand up and protest this outrageous insult and let the world know that Dobson is a dishonest, hatemongering ideologue.”

Dobson told The Daily Oklahoman on Oct. 23, 2004, “Homosexuals are not monogamous. They want to destroy the institution of marriage. It will destroy marriage. It will destroy the Earth.”

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 and RespectMyResearch.org.

Dobson also profits from intolerance. He founded a ministry, Love Won Out, that promises to “cure” homosexuals – even though the so-called “ex-gay” leader of Love Won Out, John Paulk, was photographed in a gay bar. Dobson also continues to promote dishonest psychological theories about gay people that are rejected by every respected medical and mental health association in America, including the American Psychological Association and the American Psychiatric Association.

(Randy Thomas, Left)

Exodus Blatantly Lies In Local Media And Unveils Deceptive ‘Asheville Talking Points’ To Appeal To Progressives, Says TWO

ASHEVILLE, N.C. – TruthWinsOut.org (TWO) teamed-up with an inspiring group of state and local GLBT advocates to fight back against the “ex-gay” group Exodus International, which invaded the progressive city of Asheville, North Carolina this week with its cruel message of false hope. This Friday, TWO founder Wayne Besen will also appear on a panel, to discuss the movie “Fish Can’t Fly,” an expose on the ex-gay industry.

“I have been honored to speak out against lies and intolerance with so many incredible activists in Western North Carolina,” said Truth Wins Out’s Executive Director Wayne Besen. “We are having an impact and making a difference in the lives of many people.”

The Exodus conference has been a hot topic and covered by the local mainstream media – which has generally done a decent job. However, Exodus leaders Randy Thomas and Alan Chambers have been chronically lying to the press and spinning the truth. Chambers began the mendacious marathon by claiming in the Asheville Citizen-Times that Exodus’ message is “not about fire and brimstone.” Oh, really?

Exodus leader, Alan Chambers, said in a 2005 Exodus Newsletter, “One of the many evils this world has to offer is the sin of homosexuality. Satan, the enemy, is using people to further his agenda to destroy the Kingdom of God and as many souls as he can.” (Read More)