More than a dozen equality advocates and their families protested a religious-right ex-gay roadshow Sept. 13 in Anchorage, Alaska. Truth Wins Out was a participant in the protest. According to media reports, 200-300 people attended the ex-gay antifamily event, which sponsored by James Dobson’s Focus on the Family. Alan Chambers of Exodus International spoke at the event.

Here’s a digest of media and blog coverage:

• KTUU-TV has video and pictures of the protest:
  

  Protesters like Mike Mason say the church has it wrong and that a person’s sexuality is just a part of who they are.

  “People should accept people for who they are, and they shouldn’t use bigotry concealed in the name of God’s love to pass hatred on to others and to create a culture where discrimination against someone is OK, because it’s not,” Mason said.

  “We’re not telling people that they need to reject their gay son or daughter,” Johnston said. “We’re just saying what we do is equip people to reach out and love to those struggling with same sex attractions.

  Focus deceitfully declined to acknowledge its discriminatory antigay lobbying in all 50 states, as well as the anti-family poison that it delivers to parents at its ex-gay roadshow: Namely, the myth same-sex attraction is caused by molestation and bad parenting.

• USA Today reports:
  

  …[Fourteen] people held signs like “Honk if You Love Gay People” during a 12-hour vigil outside the Abbott Loop Community Church in Anchorage, where a conference promising to convert gays into heterosexuals through the power of prayer was being held.

  Palin’s place of worship, the Wasilla Bible Church, promoted the “Love Won Out” conference, sponsored by Focus on the Family.

  “Our main message is that God loves everyone the way they are,” said protester Mike Mason. “People should be accepted for who they are.”

  Attempts by The Associated Press to reach someone at the church Saturday for comment were not successful.

• Bent Alaska has pictures and first-hand accounts:
  

  Kirt and Roger stand together near the church parking lot. They were married in Canada, the first gay couple from Alaska to be legally wed.

  “I’m here for people like Stuart Matis,” said Roger, “a young gay man in California who thought it better to put a bullet in his head rather than live with the shame that these people in the church create.”

  “I grew up in a very religious background,” said Kirt. “I know about these types of programs that profess that you can change and that it’s some kind of choice to be gay. It absolutely isn’t. I’m proud to be a gay man, and proud to be married to my husband, and I’ll be proud to die that way.”

  and…

  Sean and Ted arrive with Ted’s mother. “We found out about Focus on the Family through watching the documentary For The Bible Tells Me So,” said Sean, a social work student at UAA.

  “‘Reparative therapies’ and ‘conversion therapies’ are not only ineffective but harmful. These programs are misleading the public, misleading people who are struggling with their sexual orientation, causing emotional harm and in some cases it’s devastating. I can’t sit idly by and allow the general public to accept this ignorance.”

  “What they are teaching in that church is not about acceptance, it’s not about love,” said Mary, “it’s about self-loathing and fear.” Her signs say, “True Love is Unconditional” and “God Loves You Just As You Are.”

• While Focus on the Family calls its deceit “love,” ex-gay activist Joe Dallas remains impenitent in his adultery and his disobedience of the Bible. Emproph explains.

More news to come….

The Family Research Council — co-founder and longtime supporter of Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays — allowed racist merchandise to be sold for two days last week at its Values Voter Summit.

Two vendors from Tennessee sold an “Obama Waffles” parody of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama. The product affirmed dated Aunt Jemima stereotypes, and — by placing Obama in an Arab-style headdress — repeated the religious right’s lie that Obama is a Muslim. (Fact: Obama is a Christian in the United Church of Christ, and has been for decades.)

The vendors capped their racist comedy with a back-of-the-box caricature of Obama in a Mexican headdress serving food to presumably despicable illegal aliens.

The parody sold well among Values Voter Summit attendees on Friday and Saturday, according to the New York Times. Buyers of the box included Lou Dobbs.

FRC later claimed ignorance of the parody’s offense. Then again, how would “aspiring Klansmen” — as critic Pam Spaulding puts it — understand Racism 101?

Defeated last week by the Maryland Court of Appeals, a Maryland antigay coalition’s canvassers continue to lie to mall shoppers in a twin effort to:

• re-legalize discrimination against transgender persons
• deny transgender persons access to gender-specific public facilities

The coalition includes “Citizens for Responsible Government” — an outfit of seemingly paranoid individuals sponsored by the national pro-theocracy Family Research Council and Alliance Defense Fund — and Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays (PFOX).

Contact: Wayne Besen, 917.691.5118

Truth Wins Out Calls On Sarah Palin To Comment On Her Church’ Support of “Pray Away The Gay’ Conference

Coalition To Hold Educational Forum On Thursday To Counter “Ex-Gay’ Program

Truth Wins Out (TWO) today urged GOP Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin to speak out about her church’ support for an “ex-gay” conference that will be in Anchorage on Saturday. Palin is scheduled to be in Alaska today and should use her visit as an opportunity to inform Americans whether she agrees with her church that homosexuals can be cured through prayer, says TWO.

“It is time Sarah Palin lets the American people know whether she shares her church’ view that being gay is a choice that can be prayed away,” said Truth Wins Out’ Executive Director Wayne Besen. “Voters are entitled to know who Palin is and what her views are on this issue before they go into the voting booth. Palin’ visit to Alaska is an opportunity for her to address whether she supports the goals of Focus on the Family’ divisive anti-gay conference.” (Read More)

The New York Blade on Monday spotlighted actress Judith Light’s role in Save Me, a motion picture starring Chad Allen that is now showing in limited U.S. release.

Gay-media obsessions with heterosexual actors bore me — I have boycotted The Advocate for a decade for this reason. However, writer Dustin Fitzharris does eventually offer useful observations about the movie:

“Save Me,” directed by Robert Cary, follows Mark (openly gay actor Chad Allen), a sex and drug-addicted young, gay man who overdoses and finds himself at the mercy of his disapproving family. Their solution to his problems is Genesis House. At first, Mark resists the efforts of Gayle [Judith Light] and her loving husband (Stephen Lang), but he soon finds solace and brotherhood with the other residents, including Scott (Robert Grant of “Queer as Folk” fame), who is battling demons of his own. Soon, Mark and Scott find their bond is more than friendship, and they have to confront the teachings they’ve begun to accept. Their bond is something Gayle, whose own 17-year-old gay son died of an overdose, can’t bear to witness.

(Read More)

“We Will Stop Focus on the Family’ Destructive Lies Wherever They Are Spread,’ Says TWO

Truth Wins Out’s founder, Wayne Besen, will speak at a forum on Thursday evening in Anchorage with local religious and community leaders to discuss the danger of so-called “ex-gay” ministries. The “God Loves You Just as You Are,” symposium is sponsored by the Metropolitan Community Church (7208 Duben Avenue) and will take place at 7:00 p.m. The conference is a response to Focus on the Family’s Love Won Out “pray away the gay” road show.

“We appear wherever Focus on the Family spreads lies and fear,” said Wayne Besen, Executive Director of Truth Wins Out. “Love Won Out distorts gay life and conflates stereotypes with science, while selling false hope to vulnerable people. We are looking forward to working with Alaskan advocacy groups to counter Focus on the Family’ false and destructive messages.”

Speakers at the MCC forum include: Rev. Sara Gavit, St. Mary’s Episcopal Church; Rev. John Carey, Pastor of Immanuel Presbyterian Church; Rev. Beatrice Hitchcock, Unitarian Universalist Fellowship; Edie Bailey, Worship Coordinator for Metropolitan Community Church; Summer LeFebvre, Social Action Chair, National Association of Social Workers Alaska Chapter; Kaya Kade, President of the Alaska Counseling Association; Wayne Besen, Executive Director, Truth Wins Out.

Besen is the author of “Anything But Straight: Unmasking the Scandals and Lies Behind the “Ex-Gay’ Myth.” TWO shadows this anti-gay seminar across the nation to ensure that the public is armed with the facts and aware that Focus on the Family is deliberately disseminating misinformation about gay and lesbian people.

The Love Won Out conference will take place on Sept. 13 at the Abbott Loop Community Church. Love Won Out is a quarterly symposium that preys on vulnerable and desperate parents upset because they have a gay child. John Paulk, an ex-gay leader who was on the cover of Newsweek, founded the program. Love Won Out suffered a major setback after Paulk was photographed inside a Washington, DC gay bar by Besen in 2000.

In the past two years, at least seven researchers have accused James 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.

On September 18, the Anchorage chapter of Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) will hold a support meeting for parents and family members of gays and lesbians at Immanuel Presbyterian. “We do not believe that ‘reparative or conversion’ therapy should be used to ‘cure’ gay and lesbian children of homosexuality,” says Jane Schlittler, current president of PFLAG-Anchorage. “There is nothing wrong with our children. They are not sick or evil. They are jCCCust fine the way God made them.”

Truth Wins Out is a non-profit organization that counters right wing propaganda, exposes the “ex-gay” myth and educates America about gay life.

On Tuesday, the U.S. federal budget deficit soared to $407 billion for this year alone.

Just a day earlier, mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were seized by the federal government, adding substantially to an astronomical $9 trillion national debt that threatens to bury the nation’s future families in debt and a devalued dollar.

Sadly, the culture warriors of Focus on the Family failed to warn its supporters that neither presidential candidate is addressing these brewing catastrophes for the family.

Instead, all five of Focus Action’s daily CitizenLink “news” items for Tuesday scapegoated gay Americans for the nation’s growing fiscal and foreign-policy crises. (Read More)

Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) today responded to reports that U.S. Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin’s church promoted Focus on the Family’s “Love Won Out” ex-gay road show. The ex-gay propaganda day, which mobilizes antigay parents and pastors to oppose equality and sexual honesty for gay members of their families and churches, will commence later this week in Alaska’s state capital, Juneau. (Read More)

The Maryland Court of Appeals today threw out a ballot petition to re-legalize discrimination against the transgender residents of Montgomery County. The antigay group, Citizens for a Responsible Curriculum and its offshoot Citizens for a Responsible Government, obtained substantial publicity and petition support from Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and its co-founder, the Family Research Council. The antigay campaign suffered from reports of misconduct among uncivil and misinformed canvassers who deceived petition signers about the petition. (Read More)

Exodus youth activist Mike Ensley says he frequently receives inquiries from antigay parents and youths about gay-straight clubs that unite students against violence and prejudice in schools. (Read More)