After it was disclosed Friday that New Life Church in Colorado Springs paid money to one of Ted Haggard’s longtime same-sex partners in 2006 in exchange for his silence, Exodus executive vice president Randy Thomas swiftly diverted attention from the church’s abuse of power and instead made Haggard out to be a sexual predator — even though the “other man” was in his 20s.

For better or worse, it has long been commonplace — in both conservative Christendom and Hollywood — for 40- and 50-year-old heterosexual men to seek relationships with 23-year-old women. That potential imbalance of age, privilege, and life experience is insignificant compared to the abuse of power committed by a church that, by its admission, offered untold sums of “compassionate assistance” on the condition that the sexual relationship not be disclosed — even as the church was publicly declaring in 2006 that it knew of no sex partners other than Mike Jones, Haggard’s middle-aged prostitute.

Contrary to Thomas’ claim, there is no evidence that Haggard’s newly disclosed male partner was any more “impressionable” than the average twentysomething woman. And since no illegal sexual activities appear to have happened, Thomas’s call for “proper justice” suggests that Thomas might support the re-enactment and enforcement of antigay sex laws against consenting adults.

Thomas — an opponent of self-disclosure and sexual honesty among homosexual men — expresses no objection to New Life’s attempted cover-up. Like New Life, Thomas equates “compassionate assistance” with secrecy.

For nearly a decade, Thomas and his peers at Exodus’ flagship Love In Action program have sidestepped and excused similar abuses of power against genuinely impressionable youths — perhaps because Exodus believes that secrecy and denial about sexual orientation is all the “change” that one ultimately needs.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Wayne Besen
Phone: 917-691-5118
E-Mail: wbesen@truthwinsout.org

Hush Money Scandal Emerges From New Life’ Closet, Says TWO

NEW YORK — Truth Wins Out (TWO) today called on Colorado officials to investigate New Life Church, after the Associated Press revealed that New Life paid money to keep a male volunteer from publicly disclosing a romantic affair with the church’ former minister Ted Haggard.

According to the AP, New Life’ current Senior Pastor, Brady Boyd, said that the church reached a legal settlement to pay the man for counseling and college tuition, with one condition being that none of the parties involved discuss the relationship publicly.

“Until conservative churches stop shaming gay people and learn to accept them, we will see more tawdry scandals,” said Truth Wins Out’ Executive Director Wayne Besen. “These calamities are a direct result of the closet.”

Rev. Boyd denied that New Life paid hush money and said, “Our desire was to help him. Here was a young man who wanted to get on with his life. We considered it more compassionate assistance — certainly not hush money.”

TWO called on Colorado officials to look into the matter.

“Authorities should investigate to ensure that this volunteer was not manipulated or coerced into silence,” said Besen. “The leadership of New Life has little credibility and should not simply be taken at their word. At a minimum, Boyd should resign for using his position of power to pressure a vulnerable member of his congregation into silence.”

In 2006, Denver escort Mike Jones disclosed that he and Haggard had a three-year relationship where money was exchanged for sex. Shortly after, Haggard stepped down from New Life. Next week, HBO will air a documentary on the rise and fall of Haggard. The disgraced minister will be promoting the show in media appearances throughout the week.

There is speculation that the HBO special spurred the volunteer to contact a Colorado Springs television station to discuss the situation.

Truth Wins Out is a non-profit organization that defends the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community against anti-gay lies. TWO also counters the so-called “ex-gay” industry and educates America about the lives of GLBT people.

Under pressure from the Vatican to deny the existence of homosexuality and to expel same-sex-attracted aspirants, Catholic seminaries are now telling the Vatican what it wants to hear: that “difficulties” regarding seminarian “homosexual behavior” (whatever that is) have been “largely overcome.”

Meanwhile, the prevalence of sexual abuse among priests remains poorly surveyed, as the Vatican falsely believes that the expulsion of gay celibate seminarians and the suppression of gay celibate priests will somehow rid them of priests and seminarians who are attracted not to men or women, but to kids.

The report by the Vatican’ Congregation for Catholic Education implies that more should still be done to police seminarians’ thoughts and routine daily behaviors, according to the National Catholic Reporter:

“Laxity of discipline,” unmonitored off-campus trips and use of the Internet were additional concerns, according to the report.

Instead of looking for evidence of sexual abuse, the Vatican advises seminaries to look for “evidence of homosexuality” — whatever that is.

Advocates for clergy and for the victims of sexual abuse criticized the report:

Marianne Duddy-Burke, who heads DignityUSA, a pro-gay Catholic group, said the Catholic Church has “reinforced a climate of secrecy” in the seminaries that existed in the 1940s and 1950s.

“It’ not that gays aren’t going into seminaries,” she said, “it’ that closeted gays are going into seminaries.”

The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) said “the central problem is, and always has been, chancery offices, not seminaries.”

“Arguing that some Vatican “probe’ of seminaries is needed is just more of their finger-pointing and blame-shifting,” said SNAP President Barbara Blaine.

Truth Wins Out’s Founder and Executive Director, Wayne Besen,was featured in the controversial documentary, “Chasing the Devil.” New York documentary filmmakers Bill Hussung and Mishara Canino-Hussung spent four years winning the trust of so-called “ex-gays” who claim to have prayed away the gay. The screening, is the culmination of this pain-staking work.

“Chasing the Devil: Inside the Ex-Gay Movement” offers a rare glimpse inside the world of New York area anti-gay activists who claim homosexuality is an illness that can be healed. One New York City ministry featured in the film promotes the belief that homosexuality is caused by demons in the rectums of gay men. Members of L.I.F.E Ministry believe exorcisms can remove the demons and “cure” homosexuals.

The screening was at Anthology Film Archives and was followed by a heated question and answer session featuring three men profiled in the documentary. Self-described ex-gay success story John Sterback took questions, along with TWO’s Besen and Peterson Toscano.

Chasing the Devil: Inside the Ex-Gay Movement is presented by Coqui Zen Entertainment and IndiePix Films http://www.indiepixfilms.com/film/3607

“The film is a realistic and compelling depiction of the ex-gay issue,” said TWO’s Besen. “It is an excellent movie and I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to learn about this topic.”

These are times when well-qualified, mature, responsible, discreet, and loving gay and single parents are available to adopt orphaned Arkansas youths.

These are also, sadly, times when heterosexual Christian couples across America generally refuse to adopt youths from troubled backgrounds.

In these times, Focus on the Family today cheered Arkansas for condemning youths to live in orphanages or a broken foster-care system (at taxpayer expense, and subject to abuse and neglect by bureaucrats) — all so that capable single and gay couples may be denied the opportunity and privilege of raising these youths responsibly and removing them from the government dole.

Focus’ hatred of gay couples and unmarried adults greatly exceeds its concern for child welfare and its supposed commitment to small government.

Focus on the Family this week warned conservative Christians not to watch the upcoming Lifetime TV movie, “Prayers For Bobby.” (Previous TWO coverage.)

The movie truthfully recalls the suffering of a Christian mother after her attempt to make her son turn ex-gay resulted in the son’s suicide.

The mother remains Christian, but today encourages parents to persue reconciliation rather than warfare against their gay teen-agers and adult offspring. The movie and a related book were produced with the assistance and support of the mother.

Focus on the Family does not explicitly tell would-be viewers not to watch; instead, Focus creates a climate of fear which is intended to scare conservative Christian readers away from media that are deemed to be ideologically damaging to Focus ideology.

First, Focus lies about the movie, claiming that it “casts Christians in (an) ugly role.” Then, Focus:

• falsely describes the son as “gay-identified,”
• falsely blames the son’s homosexuality — and the absence of a father — for the suicide,
• falsely implies that the mother is victimized by an anti-Christian movie, and
• falsely states that the movie does not respect a “redemptive” view of Christianity.

Instead of encouraging parents to make peace with their children, Focus idolizes antigay mother Terri Brown, who for 17 years has demanded in vain that her son pray-away-the-gay while she does the same.

Focus antigay activist Jeff Johnston says that the movie’s message against ex-gay falsehoods, parental ignorance, rejection, and untreated depression “runs contrary to God’ [message].”

Despite the proven existence of thousands of people nationally who are born with the genitals of both sexes, and despite decades of research into the biological and early-childhood roots of gender identity, Focus on the Family continues to deny the existence of transgender persons — and to suppress their constitutional freedoms.

Focus’ CitizenLink political propaganda tool sneered at persons of mixed biology in a Jan. 19 article, placing the word “transgendered” in scare quotes and insinuating that such American taxpayers should not granted to equal access to public facilities and government employment.

Focus urges voters in Gainesville, Fla., to vote away equal access. Focus accomplishes this by falsely telling its readership that the vote to repeal an equal-access and non-discrimination ordinance is really a ban of “pedophiles” from bathrooms.

“The statute says if they have an inner sense of being of a specific gender, then they can be that gender,” said John Stemberger, president of the Florida Family Policy Council. “That’ crazy because pedophiles would love to use bathrooms where little girls are located in parks.”

Quite simply, the insinuation that transgender persons are pedophiles is a lie that is intended to incite violence against people of mixed biology and identity.

According to The Gainesville Sun: (Read More)

When self-styled conservatives change their minds and oppose gay marriage, Focus on the Family cheers.

When Barack Obama changes his mind and opposes gay marriage, Focus on the Family jeers.

The people of Maine should be free to marry the one person they love, under civil law, according each couple’s personal, religious and philosophical freedom of conscience.

Unfortunately, Focus on the Family opposes religious freedom, and further believes that conservative Christians should enjoy sole authority to define marriage and to dictate who is, or isn’t, allowed to marry.

Today, gay couples are under fire. Tomorrow, why not ban marriage for Muslims and Mexican-Americans?

What a difference a day makes.

Barack Obama’s administration already has on the White House website its support for the LGBT Community. This is a great day,

I have to say what a relief it is to have the worst president in the history of the nation out of office. Obama gave a terrific speech today and I have high hopes for his presidency.