UPDATE 2: It appears that the Team Obama has responded. Gene Robinson’s website said that, “One addendum to yesterday’s posting: I have been invited to be on the President’s Platform for the inauguration/swearing in. An astounding honor!”
UPDATE 1: This is the official statement from Team Obama:
“We had always intended and planned for Rt. Rev. Robinson’s invocation to be included in the televised portion of yesterday’s program. We regret the error in executing this plan — but are gratified that hundreds of thousands of people who gathered on the mall heard his eloquent prayer for our nation that was a fitting start to our event,” said PIC communications director Josh Earnest.
TWO’s Response: “We appreciate the explanation,” said Wayne Besen, Executive Director of Truth Wins Out. “However, it seems that Team Obama should make up for its error by having the courtesy to invite Bishop Robinson to address the nation on national television. He is a major national figure, and more historically prominent than Rick Warren, who will give the invocation. He deserves a ‘Do-Over’.”
Warren Gets Prime Time, Robinson Gets No Time, Says TWO
Truth Wins Out today urged the Presidential Inauguration Committee (PIC) to explain why openly gay Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson was excluded from a Home Box Office airing of inauguration festivities. He gave his sermon on Sunday, but HBO did not air it, leaving America wondering why he was bumped from the broadcast. Additionally, Robinson’ microphone wasn’t turned on until his prayer was nearly over, so the crowd was also unable to hear him. (Read More)
Truth Wins Out’s Founding Executive Director, Wayne Besen, was on the O’Reilly Factor Sunday evening to debate anti-gay Bishop Harry Jackson. The show discussed Revs. Gene Robinson and Rick Warren, who both offered prayers at Obama’s inauguration.
On this map you can actually learn who the bigots were – the nasty neighbors – who donated to ban marriage in the Proposition 8 battle. It is astounding that people would have so much hate in their hearts to give huge sums of money to take away the rights of other people. How empty one’s soul must be to ignore the cry of hungry and sick orphans – and instead use scarce resources to attack other families. How depraved the human mind, warped by fanaticism, to make hurting others a top priority?
Think of all the good that could have been done with this wasted money and weep for humanity. “Lovism” – bigotry based upon who one loves – truly is an illness.
Why do hip-hop artists — often the victims of bigotry themselves — incite this hatred? For 10 years, Terrence Dean was at the heart of the hip-hop scene as a producer at MTV and Warner Brothers. His life is as ghetto as any of the big name artists. His mother was a heroin-addicted, Aids-infected prostitute whose “clients” held Terrence hostage at gunpoint. His drunken grandmother raised him in the slums of Detroit, and he eventually ended up in prison. When he was released, he headed for Hollywood — and he was amazed to stumble into a gay underworld stocked with some of the biggest names in hip-hop.
I recently interviewed Dean for the gay magazine Attitude. He told me about a man — I don’t believe in outing, so I won’t give his name — who “has been named in the past as one of the biggest rappers of all time by MTV. He’s always trashing gay men in his lyrics. But he is surrounded by a posse of transvestites,” who he has sex with. Dean then runs through a list of hip-hop gays, each more famous and closeted than the last.
He explains: “When the rappers rap about the hatred they have of homosexuals, I know it’s because many of them are struggling with their own sexuality. They hate what they are and in turn they spew their hatred toward men who are reflections of themselves.”
This month IN THE LIFE looks at the power of religion to shape our lives, our worldview and our political convictions. The Bible, the Koran, and the Torah are tools for spiritual guidance, comfort, and direction, but those same texts are often used to promote intolerance and hatred of LGBT people. In this episode, we look at the intersection of religion and sexuality, to see how gays and lesbians reconcile their faith within their religious communities: In God We Trusted explores the tragic consequences of the ex-gay ministries of fundamentalist Christianity; In A Conversation With….Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum and Bishop Gene Robinson discuss their spiritual journeys; and a Real to Reel encounter with Muslim director, Parvez Sharma’s ground-breaking film, A Jihad For Love, and the struggle of gay and lesbian Muslims to stay true to their Faith and themselves.
IN GOD WE TRUSTED
Believing that homosexuals have no place in the Christian church, evangelical ex-gay ministries, such as EXODUS, have been established around the country to re-program LGBT people to make them heterosexuals…often with tragic consequences.
A Conversation With… Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum and Bishop Gene Robinson
Sharon Kleinbaum, rabbi of New York’s largest LGBT synagogue, leads Judaism’s national dialogue on the issues of gay rights and social justice. Gene Robinson, the first openly gay Bishop in the Episcopal Church, has been at the center of the Church’s heated debate on homosexuality. The rabbi and the bishop discuss their spiritual journeys, faith, religion, and politics.
Real to Reel: “A JIHAD FOR LOVE”
In the world of Islam, “Jihad” translates as a “struggle in the way of God.” For gay Muslims, reconciling one’s homosexuality is a struggle against oppression, against tradition, and fear. In our final story, Director Parvez Sharma’s ground-breaking film, A JIHAD FOR LOVE, looks at gay and lesbian Muslims who strive to be true to their Faith and themselves.
Mormon leaders broadcast an hour long training video via satellite to hundreds of churches in 5 states in the weeks leading up to the election. While only 4 minutes of the video was released publicly, ANP has obtained the audio and text of the entire hour. In it, Mormon leaders outline a war plan for assuring the passage of Proposition. They promise to produce “several multimedia pieces” including “print, radio, television, and internet video”, they mention the “blossuming” of yard signs and the establishing of call centers.
But none of these items were accounted for in financial records. Also, protesters are calling for the IRS to strip the church of its tax-exempt status.
TV Guide has uploaded video clips of Prayers For Bobby, a dramatization of a real-life story about a mother coming to terms with suicide of her gay son after she tried to cure him with ex-gay therapy. The movie stars Sigourney Weaver as the mother. Airtime: Jan. 24, 2009, 9-11 p.m. Eastern, 8 p.m. Central.
Prayers For Bobby is based on the 1995 book by Leroy Aarons, “Prayers for Bobby: A Mother’s Coming to Terms with the Suicide of Her Gay Son.”
Exodus President Alan Chambers, Exodus Executive Vice President Randy Thomas, and disgraced evangelical Ted Haggard all claim two things in common: An egocentric evangelical faith, and the notion that molestation at an early age caused them to “battle with homosexuality.”
In an article written for the religious-rightist publication WorldNetDaily, Chambers declared today that “there are some important lessons that the church can learn from Ted Haggard.” Chambers applies his own egocentrism to a disingenuous commingling of sexual orientation with sexual trauma, resulting in an article that intentionally misinforms readers about gay people’s lives, values, and religious beliefs. Readers are expected to illogically believe that, because Chambers is an amoral victim of sexual trauma, all gay people are just like (or anything like) Alan Chambers.
Chambers surmises, “For every gay activist that shouts in the parades, I’m willing to bet that there’s someone in our congregations who painfully struggles with homosexuality, but is afraid to reach out for help. I know because I was that person.”
With this statement, Chambers stereotypes participants in gay pride events, insinuating that anyone who attends a gay pride event — parents, children, choirs, country square-dancers, rollerbladers, music-lovers, and foodies — is a stereotypical, lockstep “gay activist.” He also stereotypes people who are born with a strong predisposition to same-gender sexual orientation, falsely insinuating that — because he, Thomas, and Haggard say so — real gay people share Chambers’ own lonely, lust-plagued “gay life” that is incompatible with religious faith.
Chambers praises freedom-from-sexuality as a virtue:
While there is freedom through the power of Christ….
and then Chambers complains:
… the sad truth remains that there is still something terribly wrong in many of our congregations, something that all of the marriage protection laws and constitutional amendments cannot fix. Many of our churches are not safe places for us to be vulnerable and seek help and so many continue to suffer in silence.
Exodus is not a solution to the antigay violence and unchecked fear that plague churches: It is a cause.
All too often and all too loudly, Exodus defends murder, rape, and battery as religious “free speech” rights. Randy Thomas routinely opposes all efforts to punish hate crimes in which the victim is targeted for one’s perceived sexual orientation or gender identity, going so far as to accuse antiviolence advocates of being thought police. Meanwhile, he and Chambers offer no concrete objections to existing hate-crime laws that punish violence which targets people for their religion or ethnicity. Exodus joins with religious-rightist allies in promoting paranoia and self-pity over non-existent threats to Christian free speech, while each year hundreds of people are brutally and deliberately murdered — and thousands more are beaten and injured — because of their orientation or gender variance.
Exodus promotes the myth that gay people are promiscuous, unhappy, lonely, faithless and amoral. Instead of discussing sexuality, orientation, and mental health honestly, Exodus leaders project their own unhappiness, loneliness, childhood traumas, self-denial, and past or present sexual compulsions onto the gay population. The natural result is a marginalization of gay people within their churches, as Exodus misinforms churchgoers about gay congregants’ “struggles.” Another result is family breakup, as misinformed relatives stigmatize their gay family members.
Given Exodus’ role in making churches unsafe, it’s sad but unsurprising that Chambers’ article offers no concrete solutions to readers — except to place their blind trust not only in Exodus and its psychobabble, but also in convicted (and largely impenitent) Watergate criminal Chuck Colson, who has made a second career out of scapegoating society’s bogeymen for his own sins while curtailing religious freedom and respect toward Jewish and other non-evangelical prisoners.
God TV Cuts Deal With Focus on the Family During Creepy “End Times’ Month
NEW YORK — Truth Wins Out (TWO) today expressed its dismay over a deal between GOD TV and Focus on the Family to air the group’ “ex-gay” Love Won Out conference. Focus on the Family claims they will now reach millions of people with their anti-gay propaganda and distorted science. The agreement comes at a time when GOD TV is airing a solid month of spooky End-Times programming.
“This deal of the delusional seems like a marriage made in heaven because so-called “ex-gay’ programs are a personal apocalypse for so many people,” said Truth Wins Out’ Executive Director Wayne Besen. “It is tempting to brush this off as fundamentalists preaching to the choir. But, these viewers have children who internalize this damaging message and are psychologically harmed by the lies.”
“Love Won Out offers hope for those struggling with same-sex attractions,” said Nima Reza, host of Focus on the Family’ “news’ program, Turn Signal. “That message will go out to millions on GOD TV.”
GOD TV has aggressively promoted its maudlin End-Times line-up this month as a bulwark against Satan, according to its website:
“Over the past year, the Lord has laid on our hearts a tremendous sobriety concerning the End-Times and we believe that it is so important to the Lord that His people were prepared in their spirits for the shaking that lies ahead and that they are not ignorant of Satan’ devices. That is why we at GOD TV are sounding the alarm this month, as we bring you an extensive line-up of End-Time programming.”
In the Life has produced a powerful segment highlighting the harm of ex-gay programs that is worth watching. A new movie, “Chasing the Devil,” will also have a showing in New York City on January 21 (6PM) at the Anthology Film Archives (32 Second Avenue, at 2nd street). TWO’ Besen will be on a panel following the show and invites people to attend the movie.
Love Won Out’ founder, John Paulk, was photographed by Besen in a gay bar in 2000. The next ex-gay road show will be in Charlotte on Feb. 21. TWO will join local and state activists who are planning a vigorous response.
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."
On this map you can actually learn
God TV Cuts Deal With Focus on the Family During Creepy “End Times’ Month
