A Bridgeport, Conn., church called Manifested Glory Ministries posted a controversial video on YouTube that raises concern about the unregulated abuse of children by church-sponsored ex-gay programs.
The video features church elders performing an exorcism of so-called “homosexual demons.”
The video shows leaders of the Manifested Glory Ministries in a frenetic scene, screaming, “Right now I command you to leave!”
At the same time a teen writhing on the ground as the adults around him implore so called “homosexual demons” to get out.
The leaders yell at the boy on the ground saying, “Right now in the name of Jesus, I call the homosexuality, right now in the name of Jesus.”
For 20 minutes it continues with the boy in a near seizure, even vomiting.
Robin McHaelen runs a mentoring program for gay teens, True Colors, and tells Fox 61 that she knows of five other teens in Connecticut who’ve been subjected to “demon casting”:
What really freaked me out is the people who did that to that child wasn’t because they were trying to hurt him. They thought they were trying to help him, but I think that they murdered his soul.
The church has since taken down its YouTube account, but not before its videos were replicated by other YouTube users.
Exodus International has one member church in Connecticut, New Life in Meriden. Truth Wins Out contacted the church for comment but has not received a response.
In February 2009, Truth Wins Out and Lambda Legal released “Ex-Gay and the Law,” a publication which educates persons harmed by ex-gay programs about their legal options. The two organizations requested that anyone who has been harmed by an “ex- gay” program or any other form of anti-lgbt discrimination to contact Lambda Legal’s help desk.
Father Marty Kurylowicz responded, and has given permission for his response to be reprinted below.
People for the American Way‘s Right Wing Watch points out that Focus on the Family holds at least two conflicting positions regarding hate-crime legislation:
A. Existing laws are OK if they only punish violent crimes based upon the victim’s race or religion, not gender or sexual orientation.
B. Existing laws are not OK.
People for the American Way asks:
Which is it? Yesterday [FOTF's Ashley] Horne thought it was perfectly acceptable to have “special status” for “certain groups,” so long as they were limited to race and religion but now says that giving “special status to certain groups” is fundamentally unfair.
The religious right already enjoys “special status” under existing hate-crime laws. It is clear that they do not wish to share that privilege with those who are at greatest risk of violent attack.
So indeed, which is it? Is Focus on the Family willing to discard its special status and call for the repeal of existing hate-crime laws, or is the organization determined to protect some privileged groups at the expense of others?
Without checking their facts, Focus on the Family and LifeSiteNews swiftly reported today that the commission had issued an authoritative repudiation of the legislation.
While the letter on the National Review web site is unsigned, a full copy of the letter is available on the USCCR web site. The letter was signed by six of the commission’s eight commissioners. Four of the signers are Republican. Two Democratic commissioners declined to sign.
The letter’s main argument — not substantiated — is that the new bill somehow enables the federal government to “re-prosecute” individuals who have been acquitted by local juries that are tolerant of violence against minorities. The letter fails to acknowledge that existing federal hate-crime law already substantially performs this function; the new legislation adds sexual orientation to the categories of victims covered by existing law.
Focus on the Family falsely stated that the commission is “not known for being on the side of social conservatives on policy issues.”
But according to critics, the federal commission has been stacked with conservative appointees for much of the past three decades. Earlier this year, Mary Frances Berry, former chair of the commission, wrote in the New York Times:
To help resolve the issue of gay rights, President-elect Obama should abolish the now moribund Commission on Civil Rights and replace it with a new commission that would address the rights of many groups, including gays.
Berry explained: “The Commission on Civil Rights has been crippled since the Reagan years by the appointments of commissioners who see themselves as agents of the presidential administration rather than as independent watchdogs. The creation of a new, independent human and civil rights commission could help us determine our next steps in the pursuit of freedom and justice in our society. A number of explosive issues like immigration reform await such a commission, but recommendations for resolving the controversies over the rights of gays, lesbians and transgendered people should be its first order of business.”
Focus on the Family also mischaracterized the commissioners’ concerns by appending an allegation by religious-rightists that the legislation — which the commissioners agree is narrowly tailored to punish violent crime — somehow punishes antigay speech by pastors. Section 10 of the bill specifically protects religious speech, and restricts prosecution to “violent acts motivated by actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability of a victim.”
Neither the commissioners’ letter nor the ensuing religious-right rumor-mongering addressed an obvious concern: If the current legislation (which adds sexual orientation to existing hate-crime laws) is objectionable, then why is nothing wrong with the current laws providing enhanced penalties for crimes committed on the basis of the victim’s race or religion?
A new day emerged Wednesday at Focus on the Family, and it appears that day is somewhere in the 1960s. Going from business attire to more casual workwear is fairly routine these days, but the Denver Post reports that the biggest change specifically affects Focus’ women workers.
Beginning [yesterday], men who work at Focus no longer have to wear mandatory business attire, including a tie, and female employees don’t have to stick with just dresses or skirts and hosiery. Men can now come to work donning an open-collar shirt ‚Äî but no spandex ‚Äî and women can be decked out in dress pants and pantsuits.
On its face, this story is not major news. It is instructive, however, when considering the source of the hateful and divisive “information” that comes from Focus on the Family and its various media outlets. In sharing this at the very least interesting and unique (in 2009 America) story, the intent is not to criticize, but to get people thinking: Female employees were forced to wear dresses, skirts, and panty hose at Focus as recently as Tuesday. Two days ago. It boggles the mind — and it may explain quite a lot about the mindset of at least some of our opponents.
Truth Wins Out’s Executive Director, Wayne Besen, will appear live on the John Gibson National Radio Show at 2:10 ET.The topic will be Obama and the GLBT community.
After years of posing as “Mr. Values” and making a career out of supposed moral superiority, Sen. John Ensign (R-NV) is resigning from a key post after admitting an affair with a staffer. The woman with whom Ensign had the affair, Cynthia Hampton, the former treasurer of Ensign’s political committees, came forward yesterday to acknowledge the affair. Her husband, Douglas Hampton, served as a senior aide to Ensign in his Senate office.
As the Washington Post story notes today, Cynthia Hampton’s salary doubled in 2008 during the time she had the affair with Ensign. Her husband got an additional two weeks of pay in April 2008 (two months before the affair ended) and their son was put on the payroll until the affair ended in mid August 2008. The Las Vegas Sun asked today, “Were payments to the Hamptons, documented in Senate and federal election records, intended to ensure their silence about the affair?”
Yet, another Republican hypocrite preaching to others, while not living as advertised. When will the party of “family values” learn to stop preaching and start practicing the values they allegedly hold dear? When will they stop defiling the institution of marriage and allow solid gay couples to marry?
I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of being judged by a party of two-faced, two-timing liars, who can’t keep their zippers up, but tell me that there is something immoral about my relationship.
This latest scandal is emblematic of the implosion of the Republican Party. It is now led by:
Newt Gingrich: The thrice married Congressman who left his first wife in the hospital when she had cancer. Nice.
Rush Limbaugh: A race-baiting, pill popping junkie – who is rabidly against drugs. Go figure that one out.
Sarah Palin: A preachy woman who promotes abstinence while her own family is a mess and far from “conservative.”
I really wish a moderate GOP would emerge. That way, there would be two parties, giving the gay community more political bargaining leverage. But, this latest disaster with Ensign, underscores that the Republicans are no more than a sad joke and a party of pious poseurs.
In case you are wondering, Ensign scored a ZERO on the Human Rights Campaign’s last scorecard.
While mainstream media and a non-partisan antiviolence watchdog organization warned today that antigay killings are rising sharply, Focus on the Family said that’s of no interest.
Focus declined to tell its audience about the latest reported increase in violence and instead said:
In a Monday news conference, Reid, D-Nev., called hate crimes “a unique brand of evil.”
“A violent act may physically hurt just a single victim and cause grief for loved ones,” he said. “But hate crimes do more. They distress entire communities.”
Ashley Horne, federal policy analyst for Focus on the Family Action, said Reid has it backwards. A hate-crimes law, she said, could distress entire communities — particularly Christian churches.
Apparently, according to Focus on the Family, a law against felony violence is what distresses communities and churches — not the violence itself.
Focus concluded:
[Horne] said the most recent FBI statistics do not back up the alleged epidemic of hate crimes against people in the gay community.
That’s untrue: While overall hate-crime violence declined in 2007, according to the FBI, antigay hate crimes rose six percent. (Source: USA Today.) The FBI says that violent antigay hate crimes have been occurring with growing frequency since 2005.
But remember: Laws against violence distress communities and churches — not the violence itself.
Focus on the Family urges its audience to contact lawmakers and pressure them to vote “No” on legislation that would treat violent antigay hate crimes as harshly as all other hate crimes.
Anti-Gay Organization Drew False Link Between Sexual Abuse and Homosexuality
NEW YORK — In a letter made available to Truth Wins Out, the authors of a book on the health of gay men have accused Focus on the Family of distorting their research. The researchers publicly repudiated an article written by “ex-gay” activist Jeff Johnston in Focus on the Family’ web magazine, Citizen Link, which falsely linked homosexuality to childhood sexual abuse. This letter marks the tenth researcher in two years who has claimed that Focus on the Family misrepresented their work.
“Focus on the Family has zero credibility when it comes to interpreting or analyzing scientific research,” said Wayne Besen, Executive Director of Truth Wins Out. “This group has serially distorted legitimate studies on human sexuality to score political points and demean gay and lesbian people. We thank these researchers for having the courage to come forward and set the record straight.”
In the article, “Childhood Sexual Abuse and Male Homosexuality”, Johnston wrote, “Many pro-gay researchers, activists and theorists deny that there could be a connection between child sexual abuse and adult homosexuality.” As proof of a supposed connection, he cited a 2008 book, “Unequal Opportunity: Health Disparities Affecting Gay and Bisexual Men in the United States”, edited by Professors Richard J. Wolitski, Ron Stall (pictured), and Ronald O. Valdiserri.
When approached by Truth Wins Out, the researchers were surprised by the manipulation of their data and agreed to respond.
“We want to respond to a recent Focus on the Family characterization of scientific findings reported in our book, “Unequal Opportunity: Health Disparities Affecting Gay and Bisexual Men in the United States’ that misrepresented findings in the book to suggest that childhood sexual abuse causes male homosexuality,” Stall and Valdiseri wrote in their letter. “The Focus on the Family description of the findings reported in Unequal Opportunity is inaccurate and, in our opinion, a distortion of the scientific literature.”
Focus on the Family has made a habit out of twisting science to back its anti-gay agenda. Melissa Fryrear, a Love Won Out speaker, has also repeated the phony link between abuse and homosexuality.
“I never met one woman who had not been sexually violated or sexually threatened in her life,” said Fryrear at a 2007 Love Won Out conference in Phoenix. “I never met one woman. And I never met one man either, that had not been sexually violated or sexually seduced in his life.”
“We call on the media to stop quoting an organization on gay issues which has proven to be untrustworthy and unethical in its use of research,” said Besen. “It is abundantly clear that this organization will do and say anything in its effort to misrepresent the lives of gay and lesbian people.”
The editors of the book have released the following statement to Truth Wins Out regarding Focus’ portrayal of their publication’ research:
We want to respond to a recent Focus on the Family characterization of scientific findings reported in our book, Unequal Opportunity: Health Disparities Affecting Gay and Bisexual Men in the United States (Oxford University Press) that misrepresented findings in the book to suggest that childhood sexual abuse causes male homosexuality. The Focus on the Family description of the findings reported in Unequal Opportunity is inaccurate and, in our opinion, a distortion of the scientific literature. (Read More)
The number of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people killed in bias-motivated incidents increased by 28 percent in 2008 compared to a year ago, according to the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs. (Via MSNBC.)
“What we’re also seeing, more disturbingly, is the increase in the severity of violence,” said Sharon Stapel, executive director of the New York City Anti-Violence Project, which coordinates coalition.
According to MSNBC:
Overall, the number of victims who reported anti-LGBT violence in 2008 increased by 2 percent compared to 2007, said the New York-based coalition of programs in 25 states.
Coalition officials say their figures are more accurate than those from law enforcement agencies. As an example, they say, the FBI doesn’t record bias crimes against transgender people because gender identity isn’t covered by federal hate-crime law.
Also, victims sometimes are reluctant to report bias incidents to police because they don’t want to reveal their sexual orientation or gender identity and/or they fear bias from police, officials said.
Reports of physical abuse by police increased to 25 incidents last year from 10 in 2007, the report said.
According to NCAVP:
Reports of violence in Milwaukee increased 64% and Minnesota and Chicago saw increases of 48% and 42%, respectively.
The number of reported killings and violent incidents against ex-gays was zero.
Anti-Gay Organization Drew False Link Between Sexual Abuse and Homosexuality
