The Chicago-Sun Times ran the following op-ed on the Dump Dobson Coalition’s efforts to keep James Dobson out of the Radio Hall of Fame.
INDUCTING ANTI-GAY DOBSON WOULD TAINT BROADCAST MUSEUM
BY WAYNE BESEN
Chicago’s Museum of Broadcast Communications is making a regrettable mistake if it follows through on its plan to induct Focus on the Family’s James Dobson into its Radio Hall of Fame on Nov. 8.
To do so would tarnish the reputation of the museum, erode its respectability and make it a monument to intolerance. The prospect of celebrating this anti-gay figure has united the entire gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community in Chicago and beyond.
To LGBT people, Dobson is a dangerous demagogue who has repeatedly dehumanized our very existence. He has lied about our lives, distorted science to back his falsehoods and peddled destructive stereotypes. Dobson has lobbied to pass anti-gay laws, divided families in the name of family values and said that allowing gay people to marry will “end the earth.”
Hate crimes against gay people still regularly occur. Yet despite violence, Dobson tells his millions of listeners that gay activists have “sought to implement a master plan that has had as its centerpiece the utter destruction of the family.”
Dobson also runs a traveling “ex-gay” conference, Love Won Out, where sexual engineers teach people to “pray away the gay.” He gives a platform to people who believe that homosexuality is demonic and say that gay people don’t truly exist, but are, “heterosexuals with a homosexual problem.”
What Dobson fails to tell conference-goers is that attempts to change sexual orientation are considered harmful by every respected medical and mental health organization in the nation.
There are also serious questions about Dobson’s integrity. In the past two years, seven prominent scientists and authors have demanded that he stop citing their work because he misrepresented their conclusions on homosexuality.
If just one professor was upset, it could be chalked up to a misunderstanding. If two had come forward, this could be a mere coincidence. But when seven leading academics from three countries have stepped out of the ivory tower to publicly give Dobson failing marks, it is clear that a deliberate pattern of deception has emerged. A full list of scientists can be verified at www.RespectMyResearch.org.
Given this dubious record, it is astounding that the Museum of Broadcast Communications would elect to honor Dobson. MBC’s Director, Bruce Dumont, defends this amoral decision by saying that the views and actions of the 2008 inductees were not taken under consideration. This is a cop out. If Dobson had insulted another minority in the same way, he never would have been nominated in the first place. It is clear there is a double standard, where smearing the LGBT community can be overlooked if doing so helps bring the MBC conservative donors.
While the Radio Hall of Fame has the right to pay tribute to anyone of its choosing, we urge them to act responsibly and wisely. By honoring a notorious individual who has built his radio empire on the backs of LGBT people, the organization is in jeopardy of sullying its name and being known as the Radio Hall of Shame.
Dr. Lisa Diamond’s Charges Come One Week Before NARTH’s Annual Convention In Denver
Truth Wins Out released an exclusive video interview today with University of Utah professor, Dr. Lisa Diamond, who said that the National Association of Research & Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH) grossly and deliberately distorted her research on sexual orientation. Dr. Diamond’s assertion comes one week before NARTH’s annual conference in Denver, which will take place Nov. 7-9.
“Dr. Nicolosi, you know exactly what you are doing,” said Diamond in the video, addressing NARTH’s co-founder Dr. Joseph Nicolosi. “This is a willful misuse and distortion of my research. Not an academic disagreement. Not a slight shading of the truth. It’s willful distortion. And, it’s illegitimate and it’s irresponsible and you know that. And you should stop.”
“We are fighting back against the gross distortions of our lives by anti-gay organizations who manipulate science for political gain,” said Wayne Besen, Executive Director of Truth Wins Out. “These organizations claim to be moral, but often twist scientific research in the most shameless and dishonest ways imaginable. We are committed to exposing these lies and ensuring that science is accurately and honestly presented.”
Lisa M. Diamond, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Psychology and Gender Studies in the Department of Psychology at the University of Utah. She has won a number of awards for her work. In 2000, Dr. Diamond published a study, “Sexual identity, attractions, and behavior among young sexual minority women over a 2 year period.” This study was distorted by NARTH. The anti-gay organization falsely claimed that Dr. Diamond’s work shows that sexual orientation is “amenable to change.”
Dr. Diamond also produced a second study, “Female Bisexuality From Adolescence to Adulthood: Results From a 10-Year Longitudinal Study” in Developmental Psychology (2008, Vol. 44, No 1., 5-14). NARTH recently cited this study to support its anti-scientific belief that homosexuality is a mental disorder that should be treated. Truth Wins Out informed Dr. Diamond about these misrepresentations of her research, and she agreed to discuss how her work was manipulated. (Read More)
Activists Step Up Campaign Against Award to “America’s #1 Hater of Gays”
CHICAGO – The November 8th visit of Focus on the Family’s James Dobson to this city is being met with a wave of revulsion from a who’s who of local gay organizations and activists, with the three main LGBT papers in the city running full-page signature ads against Dobson in this week’s editions.
The Chicago Free Press, Windy City Times and Gay Chicago each have ads denouncing Chicago’s Museum of Broadcast Communications for honoring Dobson with an award on November 8th. The signatories encourage the LGBT community and its allies to protest at 5:30 PM that night in front of the building where the award will be given, the Chicago Renaissance Hotel, 1 W. Wacker Drive, Chicago.
“It is unconscionable that any public institution would honor someone who has devoted his life to denying a whole section of the community legal equality, and promotes slanders against that community,” said Bob Schwartz of the Gay Liberation Network, which along with TruthWinsOut.com, are the principal organizers of the protest. “Someone who does that is a hater, pure and simple, no matter how much they try to excuse their pro-discrimination rhetoric with so-called ‘Christian’ rationalizations.”
For more information about the ads, call the Gay Liberation Network (www.GayLiberation.net) at 773.209.1187 More information can also be found at www.DumpDobson.com and www.TruthWinsOut.com
We feel the need to express our sincerest gratitude with your organisation for the dump Dobson website and campaign.
We are also fighting tooth and nail against Focus on the Family here in South Africa and the bigot ridden radio stations that air their offensive material, although we come across a whole lot of apathy and unfortunately the men’s movement and the resurgence of the patriarchy has started to show its ugly face here as well. We do our best to counteract it.
Although the South African constitution is one of the most liberal and progressive in the world and LGBTIQ rights are enshrined in it and same-sex marriages were legalized in 2006, we still have our fair share of religious based bigotry. And James Dobson is one of the main culprits here.
We support your endeavours and we will watch your protest and be there in spirit of allegiance.
My name is Barry Reed. I am 45 years old and reside in Knoxville, Tennessee. My story begins a long time ago when I knew I was gay and sought help to be cured. I went to a School of Ministry in Tulsa, Oklahoma where I encountered a city prayer group that sought to deliver me of homosexual demons.
After the deliverance session I was deemed ” free.” It was a lie.
For many years I fought with the Bible, prayed, sought counsel from religious leaders, married a woman, had two wonderful children. Yet, still, I knew I was gay and finally had the strength to come out of the closet. I was also in ministry for many years.
In 2006, I was divorced and before that had already came out of the closet. I thought I was finally going to be accepted. However, because of coming out my ex-wife remarried a religious bigot. They devised plan to move out of state so my children would not have consistent contact with me except 65 days out of the year. They did this because I was gay and now have a partner.
The court system n Knoxville Tennessee would not hear the gay issue and the ex-wife was being vindictive. Love Won Out Conferences, Exodus International, etc., propel ideas such as my ex-wife’s. They preach that homosexuals teach their own children how to be gay. Plus they really do not love gay people as they state. They only do so if gays conform to their image of being “ex-gay.”
I have a wonderful partner with an ongoing relationship of now over a year.
I don’t want to overstate the importance of a one-line Facebook status entry — I’ve occasionally said things on Facebook that I regretted — but I found the following ex-gay Facebook entry deeply disturbing today.
Charlene E Hios is wondering if we realize that homosexuality is a judgment of God upon the human race because we have exchanged the Glory of God for images such as ourselves!
Hios is the operator of Bridging the Gaps Ministries in California. She claims to be a former lesbian, but she reports little if any attraction to men and she is not very forthcoming about her ongoing attraction to women.
Hios has in recent months used her “ministry” to promote Proposition 8 by wagging her finger against California gay couples who wish to marry — dictating, at various times, that she and other Christians know God’s will better than the couples do, and insinuating that conservative Christian voters are somehow more qualified than liberals or people of other faiths to decide who is entitled to marry under civil law.
Hios is sincere in her beliefs, but deeply deluded — not only about her artificial ex-lesbian “identity” and her ignorance of the Bible, but also about her moral fitness to judge others and to make laws that will make others as unhappy and alone as she — unfortunately — seems to be.
Is it possible that Hios is so consumed by her own sexual struggles that she has exchanged the glory of God for her own image? Is it possible that the ex-gay movement strangles human generosity and love toward other people by crippling its adherents with obsessive preoccupation over their own minor problems?
Parents & Friends of Ex-Gays & Gays, a national group known as PFOX, last week announced it was “suing” the D.C. Office of Human Rights to overturn a decision that ex-gays do not belong to a protected category under the city’s Human Rights Act.
An office spokesperson called the PFOX announcement inaccurate, though, and noted the group filed a petition, not a lawsuit, before the D.C. Superior Court to appeal the 2005 decision.
James Maloney, a PFOX attorney, called the petition “a lawsuit of sorts,” but acknowledged it was essentially a routine appeal of a decision that he said unfairly denied “ex-gays” protections under the Human Rights Act.
Maloney said the appeal is important because it could lead to a court order requiring the city to include “ex-gays” as a protected category under the Human Rights Act’s sexual orientation clause.
The clause lists gays, bisexuals and straight people as protected from discrimination under the act.
Regina Griggs, the executive director of PFOX, said that while “ex-gays” consider themselves heterosexual, they are often subjected to discrimination because of their status as “ex-gay” rather than as straight.
The PFOX appeal stems from a decision to dismiss a complaint that PFOX filed against the National Education Association. The complaint alleged that NEA discriminated against “ex-gays” as a class by denying a PFOX application to maintain an exhibit booth during a 2003 NEA convention.
NEA initially argued that the content of PFOX’s proposed exhibit was inconsistent with NEA’s mission because it promoted alternatives to homosexuality rather than acceptance of homosexuality.
NEA General Counsel Bob Chanin said last week that NEA has since agreed to allow a PFOX exhibit if a recently formed “ex-gay” caucus of NEA members organizes it.
In its 2005 decision, the D.C. Office of Human Rights says its determination that ex-gays are not covered under the human rights act as a class separate from heterosexuals is based on court rulings and legal precedent that define categories protected from discrimination as “immutable characteristics,” such as race and gender.
Whichever side loses the appeal before the Superior Court can appeal that decision to the D.C. Court of Appeals.
Wayne Besen, executive director of Truth Wins Out, a gay rights group that disputes claims that gay people can be turned straight, called the PFOX legal appeal a “nonsensical” and “frivolous” attempt to draw publicity from the media.
“If so-called ‘ex-gays’ are now heterosexual, they are covered [by the Human Rights Act] under the basis of sexual orientation,” he said.
Are you a gay man or lesbian who wants to be straight? Do your friends or family disagree with your gay lifestyle and wish you were straight? If you ever wish you could erase your same-sex attractions and not be gay?”
The failure of the show to invite survivors of ex-gay programs is a bit disappointing: It’s a sign not only of sloppy talk-show producers, but also of the failure of ex-gay activists (thus far) to share the public spotlight with the individuals and families who have been harmed by their quack cures.
Former ex-gays need not settle for exclusion: They can use the Tyra Bank Show’s contact form to sign up to appear on-air with the ex-gays.
How about it, survivors? If you’re feeling grounded, self-confident, articulate, and willing to face some media, consider making a difference: Share your experiences, and help protect others from prejudice, family turmoil, and years of ineffective and expensive “therapy.”
The Exodus Global Alliance continues to turn a blind eye and deaf ear to defamation and human rights violations committed against Africans who are same-sex-attracted.
Yesterday, Queerty reported that Ugandan media are spreading the myth that gay people perform sexual recruitment of new homosexuals, primarily in secondary schools and prisons. A week earlier, Bishop Eria Paul Luzinda muttered the smear that same-sex-attracted persons are, without apparent exception, motivated by greed.
The Anglican Bishop of Uyo, Rt. Rev. Isaac Orama, last year condemned the activities of homosexuals and lesbians in language that typifies Nigerian Anglican leaders’ hostility to gays.
“Homosexuality and lesbianism are inhuman,” he said.
“Those who practice them are insane, satanic and are not fit to live because they are rebels to God’s purpose for man.”
Nigerian law states that anyone who has “carnal knowledge of any person against order of nature or permits a male to have carnal knowledge of him” can be imprisoned for 14 years.
Exodus’ response: Silence.
In the past year, African bigots have used Christian churches and other moral platforms to promote the “corrective rape” of lesbians, and to demand long prison sentences or death for persons who are honest about their same-sex attraction.
Anglicans in Africa are waging cultural warfare against their own family and church members who dare to be honest about their same-sex attraction. Worse, they seem to be dressing their bigotry in the trappings of conservative Christian language and exploiting similar bigotries among conservative Episcopal congregations — all for political gain within the Anglican Communion.
Exodus has responded to these instances of antigay hostility and dehumanization with a mix of support and apathy. Its singular political statement in recent times regarding the global human rights of gay people was an expression of support for criminalization of same-sex attraction and expression in Barbados, where ex-gay activist Donnie McClurkin is currently spreading antigay hostility, misunderstanding, misdirected hope, and division among families and communities in which some people are same-sex-attracted.
With a gift of $35 to Truth Wins Out, you can receive an autographed copy of "Anything But Straight: Unmasking the Scandals and Lies Behind the Ex-Gay Myth."
My name is Barry Reed. I am 45 years old and reside in Knoxville, Tennessee. My story begins a long time ago when I knew I was gay and sought help to be cured. I went to a School of Ministry in Tulsa, Oklahoma where I encountered a city prayer group that sought to deliver me of homosexual demons.
