When contemporary Christian music singer Ray Boltz recently acknowledged the truth that he has always been same-sex-attracted, and that years of poor ex-gay advice failed him, ex-gay activist Greg Quinlan and Exodus national speaker Bob Stith responded with falsehoods and ostracism.

Former ex-gays are familiar with that sort of response: For decades, ex-gay organizations have cast out members who acknowledged the truth that ex-gay “therapies” almost never succeed and often harm counselees.

The Our Family Matters conference Oct. 22-25 in Nashville will bring together former ex-gays, gay people of faith, their families, and supportive clergy. Tennessee’s Out and About newspaper says:

Launched as a live version of Kim Clark’s acclaimed documentary, God and Gays: Bridging the Gap, the conference will address questions related to the relationship between God and the GLBT community. The event will include a film festival, live concerts, national keynote speakers Jack Rogers and Rev. Deborah Johnson, and three days of workshops.

Presenters will include Boltz, Exodus Love In Action survivor Peterson Toscano, Colorado ex-gay survivor Christine Bakke, Mary Lou Wallner (a mother whose ex-gay attitudes contributed to her daughter’s suicide), and former Exodus leader Darlene Bogle.

Hat tip: Peterson Toscano

The website for the upcoming documentary Religulous describes Bill Maher as “known for his astute analytical skills, irreverent wit and commitment to never pulling a punch.”

While I’m eager for documentary filmmakers to expose the self-contradictory fictions and power-grabs that corrupt religious institutions, I’m afraid I see little insight or humor in the following short excerpt.

(Click here for the AfterElton.com video.)

The “ex-gay” man is John Westcott, a Florida man who walked away from a seven-year committed gay relationship to become an antigay activist.

Nowadays, Westcott proclaims he is freed from the “gay lifestyle” and says “I don’t believe that anyone is gay.” In the curiously named New Man Magazine in 2006, Westcott asserted long-rejected myths about homosexuality as if they were fact:

“There are many root causes [for homosexuality],” Westcott says. “But some of the common denominators are: A breakdown in a same-sex parent relationship, not relating to other male peers, an early exposure to sexuality and sexual abuse.”

Earlier this year, Westcott violated Canadian TV ethical standards with an ad that supported antigay discrimination as a means of suppressing the visibility of gay people and increasing the visibility of self-closeted ex-gays.

Maher has been prone to cherry-pick various religions’ lunatics, as if one group’s fringe could automatically discredit the entire group. Has Maher resisted that temptation with Religulous? We’ll find out in 10 days: The movie enters broad release on October 8.

Longtime Exodus International member “minister” and speaker Bob Stith on Sept. 25 became the third ex-gay activist entity in recent times to falsely imply that the Human Genome Project or its director support ex-gay ideology.

In April 2007, A. Dean Byrd of the ex-gay advocacy group National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality cherry-picked partial statements by Francis Collins, Ph.D, of the Human Genome Project, for an article which falsely implied that Collins supported NARTH’s ideological position opposing the existence of sexual orientation as a biological phenomenon.

Collins told Ex-Gay Watch the following month (and repeated this on Sept. 21, 2008):

It troubles me greatly to learn that anything I have written would cause anguish for you or others who are seeking answers to the basis of homosexuality. The words quoted by NARTH all come from the Appendix to my book “The Language of God” (pp. 260-263), but have been juxtaposed in a way that suggests a somewhat different conclusion that I intended. I would urge anyone who is concerned about the meaning to refer back to the original text.

The evidence we have at present strongly supports the proposition that there are hereditary factors in male homosexuality — the observation that an identical twin of a male homosexual has approximately a 20% likelihood of also being gay points to this conclusion, since that is 10 times the population incidence. But the fact that the answer is not 100% also suggests that other factors besides DNA must be involved. That certainly doesn’t imply, however, that those other undefined factors are inherently alterable.

[Ex-Gay Watch’s] note indicated that your real interest is in the truth. And this is about all that we really know. No one has yet identified an actual gene that contributes to the hereditary component (the reports about a gene on the X chromosome from the 1990s have not held up), but it is likely that such genes will be found in the next few years.

Earlier this month, New Jersey ex-gay activist Greg Quinlan and the American Family Association ignored Collins’ warning against NARTH’s interpretation — and further distorted Collins’ position. Quinlan said:

When [gay Christian contemporary singer Ray Boltz] says he’s born that way, we know now for a fact that that’s false. In fact, just last year in March, the director of the Human Genome Project, Dr. Francis Collins, said this: homosexuality is not hardwired. There is no gay gene. We mapped the human genome. We now know there is no genetic cause for homosexuality.

Collins said nothing of the sort, and a few days after Quinlan’s article, Collins repeated his earlier assertion that NARTH had distorted his position. Quinlan refused to retract his claim — turning it from a mere falsehood into an outright lie.

Despite those events, Stith repeated Quinlan’s lie to his Baptist Press audience on Sept. 25:

For example, in 2003, the International Human Genome Consortium announced the successful completion of the Human Genome Project, which, among other things, identified each of the approximately 20,000-25,000 genes in human DNA. The press release read: “The human genome is complete and the Human Genome Project is over.”

While this accomplishment was widely reported, almost no one reported the words of Dr. Francis Collins, the head of the project. Collins, arguably the nation’s most influential geneticist, said, “Homosexuality is not hardwired. There is no gay gene. We mapped the human genome. We now know there is no genetic cause for homosexuality.”

Somehow the major media missed that little tidbit. Collins and others
acknowledge that genetics can predispose but not predetermine. This supports other studies that clearly document the possibility of change for people who struggle with unwanted homosexual desire.

Stith is now the Southern Baptist Convention’s “National Strategist for Gender Issues.” That SBC “gender” panel is actually an ex-gay policy group within the SBC administration. It is dominated by Exodus member activists.

In other words, Stith is no longer a spiritual minister; he has become a professional spin artist.

Stith not only parrots the exposed lie of Quinlan, but also connects that untruth to an illogical assertion that if one bisexual person can “change” their behavior, then any homosexual person can “change” their orientation.

If anything good is to come from all of this ex-gay truthlessness and spin, perhaps it’s that Stith, Exodus, NARTH, Quinlan, and the AFA have become so untruthful that many concerned families of gay people are leaving Exodus and NARTH behind, and seeking help from trustworthy sources of information in mainstream therapeutic and gay-tolerant religious communities.

I invite Stith to apologize, to distribute a retraction to the same media outlets that received his original statement, and to condemn the stubborn untruthfulness of Quinlan and NARTH.

Addendum:

In 1998, Stith spoke the following in his Sunday sermon as an apology to a gay man who attended the church that day:

We have not lived in transparency. We have often cloaked our own weakness and pointed instead at the sins of others. We have settled for a form of godliness which manifests respectability but has no power to change the core of our being.

We do humbly ask forgiveness.

We have manifested more of an interest in being right than in being loving and often succeeded in being neither.

We do humbly ask forgiveness.

Forgiveness requires true repentance, and repentance requires actual change — not merely a token expression of regret followed by more of the same misconduct.

If Stith is truly penitent, then why did he not bother to factcheck — and why does he continue to abuse the word “change”?

Coalition To Protest Awards Dinner If Undeserved Award Is Not Rescinded

NEW YORK — Truth Wins Out (TWO) launched a new website today, DumpDobson.com, that calls on the Museum of Broadcast Communications to reverse its decision to honor Focus on the Family’s James Dobson in its Radio Hall of Fame. Unless the museum withdraws its pledge to induct Dobson, TWO will join Equality Illinois and the Gay Liberation Network to protest the awards ceremony, Saturday, Nov. 8, (5:30 PM – 7:30 PM), at the Renaissance Chicago Hotel.

“There is still time to reverse the reckless and irresponsible decision to honor James Dobson in the Radio Hall of Fame,” said Truth Wins Out’s Executive Director Wayne Besen. “It is simply unconscionable that the Museum is giving its imprimatur to a demagogue who has profited from divisive and discriminatory rhetoric. If the museum wants to regain its respect and credibility, it will choose to dump Dobson.”

“We believe that you and your associates at the museum must be aware of Dobson’s contribution to anti-gay hate, and yet you chose to ignore, or perhaps even applaud, his harm to our community,” wrote Andy Thayer, co-founder of the Chicago-based Gay Liberation Network in an open letter to Bruce DuMont, president of the Museum of Broadcast Communications. “Museums should be places that celebrate the best of human endeavor, not the worst.”

To fight back against this offensive decision, DumpDobson.com is asking fair-minded people to take four actions.

1. E-Mail Radio Hall of Fame CEO Bruce Dumont, brucedumont@museum.tv, and urge him to withdraw Dobson’s honor.
2. Sign our letter to the Radio Hall of Fame urging them to reverse their foolhardy decision to celebrate Dobson’s shameful and ignoble career.
3. If you live in the Chicago area, please sign up to participate in our protest.
4. Donate to Truth Wins Out or Donate to the Gay Liberation Network to help us fight back.

Dobson’s ugly rhetoric is so polarizing that former House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-TX) said that, “Dobson and his gang of thugs are real nasty bullies.” Focus on the Family co-founder Gil Alexander Moegerle said that, “I believe Dobson-style politics have been inept, simplistic, exclusionary, divisive and alarmingly sectarian…James Dobson’s political style has been one of relentlessly demonizing his adversaries.”

Dobson told The Daily Oklahoman on Oct. 23, 2004 that, “Homosexuals are not monogamous. They want to destroy the institution of marriage. It will destroy marriage. It will destroy the Earth.” Dobson also told the Daily Oklahoman that Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) is “a God’s people hater. I don’t know if he hates God, but he hates God’s people.”

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 on 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 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.

Truth Wins Out, which operates DumpDobson.com, 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. The Gay Liberation Network is a lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered direct action group

It has been 10 years since Matthew Shepard was savagely murdered. Shepard was the University of Wyoming student who was brutally beaten and left to die on a fence in a frozen Wyoming field - simply because he was gay. Truth Wins Out Executive Director Wayne Besen was the featured speaker at a memorial rally in Chicago hosted by the Gay Liberation Network. The march drew an estimated 400 people and it was covered by the local NBC and ABC television stations.

“This senseless violence does not happen in a vaccum,” said Wayne Besen, Executive Director of Truth Wins Out. “There is a multi-million dollar anti-gay industry that dehumanizes us every day. They pump millions of dollars into making GLBT people appear to be moral monsters and then act surprised when hate crimes occur. We marched to speak out against this poisonous rhetoric that has harmed so many families.”

Besen amd GLN’s Andy Thayer were also on the popular “Feast of Fools” podcast to discuss the march.

Exodus executive vice president Randy Thomas comments today on the latest drug- and sex-related arrest of singer George Michael:

Also, in 2006, [George Michael] is quoted as saying (edit mine) …

“”Are you gay? No? Then (beep) off! This is my culture!” -George Michael, screaming at News Of The World photographers”

I thought that was interesting at the time and was glad he didn’t repeat it this go around. I do think there is a strong undercurrent of public anonymous sex among males who have same sex attractions but I don’t think a majority of George’s “culture” does that. Back in the day, I did a lot of drugs but thought this type of sex to be desperate and sad. I never participated in that type of behavior and a vast majority of my friends at the time didn’t either.

… but … we did know how to “party” and my substance abuse was probably just as bad. Thank God, literally, I am still alive.

I appreciate that Thomas not only refrains from sweeping statements based upon one man’s problems, but also compares Michael’s problems with his own past struggle with drugs.

But I think Thomas is being a bit too kind. Through repeated self-destructive incidents, George Michael has proven himself to be a bleeping irresponsible $*#?!@&%. What he needs now is tough action from those around him — if he isn’t already getting that. The time for good thoughts, in my opinion, ended some time ago.

Debbie Thurman, of Jerry Falwell’s Thomas Road Baptist Church, has founded an ex-gay web site: theFormers.com.

What, one might wonder, qualifies Thurman to mislead people into joining ex-gay political groups?

Almost nothing, apparently — she has no professional training in counseling or mental health. Her autobiographical sketch cites a college degree in English and a stint as public affairs officer in the Marine Corps. Despite her lack of competence, Thurman has spent years profiting from shell “ministries” that inflict her ignorance upon Christians who suffer from clinical depression.

Thurman’s site is well-designed, but it offers little if any original content. TheFormers.com seems to be merely another in a family of religious-right linkfests for Exodus International, Focus on the Family, NARTH, and PFOX — a pricey method of inflating the Google PageRank of these organizations. (Read More)

Six months ago, Exodus president Alan Chambers declared — despite then-ongoing political alliances — that Exodus had decided months earlier to focus upon ex-gay ministry and refrain from politics.

Exodus has violated that commitment again, with Chambers and his so-called “women’s ministry” leader Yvette Schneider — a former FRC operative — entangling themselves in California’s Proposition 8.

The ballot initiative represents a battle by the state’s Republicans against freedom to marry. In fact, the initiative stands almost no chance of passage: It is a GOP ploy to draw social-conservative voters to the polls and to squeeze defenders of religious, personal, and family liberty out of the GOP.

Chambers and Schneider will take their campaign to restrict Californians’ right to marry to three simulcast rallies, which will employ hundreds of antigay churches and antigay youth groups that seem willing to turn their tax-exempt churches into GOP recruiting stations. The simulcast are scheduled as follows:

Thursday, September 25, 7:00-8:30 pm – Rally for Pastors and Church Leaders
(Rebroadcast Thursday, October 2, 1:00-2:30 pm)
Speakers: Jim Garlow, Chuck Smith, Kenneth Ulmer, Maggie Gallagher, Glenn Stanton, Jennifer Roback Morse, Alan Chambers, Miles McMcPherson, Chris Clark, Dudley Rutherford, Jim Franklin, Lou Engle, and others

Wednesday, October 1, 7:00-8:30 pm – Rally for Youth, Young Adults and Parents
Speakers: Miles McPherson, Ron Luce, Yvette Schneider, Greg Koukl, Sean McDowell, Katinas, Stellar Kart, and others

Sunday, October 19, 5:00-6:30 pm – Rally for Congregations
(Rebroadcast Sunday, November 2, 5:00-6:30 pm)
Speakers: Jim Garlow, Matt Staver, Miles McPherson, Alan Chambers, Tony Perkins, and others

Here’s a list of participating churches political party meeting rooms.

Here’s the political propaganda that will be laundered by the “churches.”

The second researcher in less than a week has confirmed that the religious-right American Family Association and its allies lied about research regarding sexual orientation.

Earlier today, Truth Wins Out reported that Francis Collins, Ph.D, of the Human Genome Project has again repudiated falsehoods being spread about his research by ex-gay activist Greg Quinlan and the American Family Association. We also pointed out that a recent article by Kathleen Gilbert, published by the American Family Association and LifeSiteNews, appeared to have falsely reported the results of a British paper by professor Michael King.

In a followup story, Box Turtle Bulletin today said it checked the original British paper and found little resemblance between it and the claims of AFA and LSN. The Bulletin asked King for his reaction. King replied:

LifeSiteNews and OneNewsNow have misinterpreted our review.  Evidence from around the world identifies the main stressors leading to mental distress in gay and lesbian people as discrimination, prejudice, bullying in schools and colleges, and the consequent need for many LGB people to keep their homosexual identity secret, even from their families.

Our review did not examine links between mental disorder and homosexual “behaviour” or “lifestyle”.  Our work reviewed studies of the mental health of lesbian, gay and bisexual people, and sadly, those studies showed that it is people (not behaviour) that are discriminated against, and not least by religious groups and organisations.

Discrimination on the grounds of sexuality is even more devastating than other forms of discrimination such as racism, as it reaches right into families and leaves no refuge for its victims.

Box Turtle Bulletin adds:

To throw more confusion into the mix, Gilbert tossed in a discredited 2007 study by Nazi-apologist Paul Cameron which supposedly demonstrated that “that the lifespan of a homosexual is on average 24 years shorter than that of a heterosexual.” She also used Cameron’s study to claim that discrimination hat nothing to do with it, saying that, “Homosexuals in the United States and Denmark – the latter of which is acknowledged to be highly tolerant of homosexuality – both die on average in their early 50’s, or in their 40’s if AIDS is the cause of death.”

We have already examined glaring flaws in Cameron’s study, as has Danish epidemiologist Morton Frisch who described his study as “humorous example of agenda-driven, pseudo-scientific gobbledygook.” Cameron’s false claims of presenting this “study” before the Eastern Psychological Association earned him an official condemnation from EPA president Phile Hineline in April 2007.

Exodus International seems eager for such misinformation to continue to confuse the ex-gay movement and its allied churches and political groups: Since April 2007, the organization has declined to publicly warn the antigay and ex-gay movements about the lies, nor has the organization challenged AFA, LSN, NARTH, or Quinlan to correct themselves.

Truth Wins Out reported Sept. 15 that the American Family Association and New Jersey ex-gay activist Greg Quinlan lied earlier this month when they claimed that Francis Collins, Ph.D, of the Human Genome Project, supported a core myth of ex-gay ideology. Quinlan said:

When he says he’s born that way, we know now for a fact that that’s false. In fact, just last year in March, the director of the Human Genome Project, Dr. Francis Collins, said this: homosexuality is not hardwired. There is no gay gene. We mapped the human genome. We now know there is no genetic cause for homosexuality.

That claim about Collins apparently originated in April 2007 from the ex-gay think tank NARTH. It was repudiated by Collins in May of that year, via Ex-Gay Watch. Collins wrote:

The evidence we have at present strongly supports the proposition that there are hereditary factors in male homosexuality — the observation that an identical twin of a male homosexual has approximately a 20% likelihood of also being gay points to this conclusion, since that is 10 times the population incidence. But the fact that the answer is not 100% also suggests that other factors besides DNA must be involved. That certainly doesn’t imply, however, that those other undefined factors are inherently alterable.

[Ex-Gay Watch's] note indicated that your real interest is in the truth. And this is about all that we really know. No one has yet identified an actual gene that contributes to the hereditary component (the reports about a gene on the X chromosome from the 1990s have not held up), but it is likely that such genes will be found in the next few years.

But NARTH didn’t retract its deception then — thereby making the claim an intentional lie. Quinlan and the AFA then proceeded to parrot the lie.

Late last week, Quinlan retaliated against the exposure of his lie, accusing Ex-Gay Watch of fabricating its 2007 interview with Collins. Ex-Gay Watch responded early this week with hard proof and confirmation from Collins that the interview took place. Collins said:

I am happy to confirm that these e-mail communications from May 2007 and yesterday are indeed authentic, and represent my best effort at summarzing what we know and what we don’t know about genetic factors in male homosexuality. I appreciate your continuing efforts to correct misstatements that seem to be circulating on the internet.

Quinlan, AFA, and NARTH still refuse to retract and apologize for their lie.