When Michael Bussee and other Exodus International co-founders and early members admitted that Exodus’ reorientation counselors had failed to change their sexual orientation, one might expect Exodus to have compassionately asked what it had done wrong, help counselees find competent therapists, and take responsible action to ensure that any future counseling actually worked.
And considering that Exodus boasts that it supports families and friends, one might expect that Exodus helped Bussee’s parents, siblings, and wife adapt.
That’s not what happened.
Bussee’s siblings kept their kids away from him and deprived his mother of a family Thanksgiving dinner. His mother felt worse than when his father died, and said she wanted to drive her car off a cliff. Bussee’s sister said she would pray that God makes him miserable for the rest of his life — just as Exodus president Alan Chambers and Focus on the Family activist Mike Haley do today. Bussee’s wife and her church sought to prevent him from having any custody.
Exodus exiled Bussee, and continues to exile whistleblowers and to threaten counselees with ostracism and prayers for damnation.
How Exodus treated Bussee then, it continues to treat people today:
In terms of Exodus’ response, I got this very loving letter from Frank Worthen of Love In Action telling me that I was cursed, I was an anathema, that I had forfeited my salvation and he ended the letter with very graphic descriptions of the flames of hell that awaited me and he said that his heart was going to be grieved to see me pushed into the fiery pit by the angels on the final day. He’ never apologized for that.
A small group of fellow Exodus ministry leaders came to my house and sort of begged me to turn back. And I told them that there was no turning back, that I had never changed, that I was never really ex-gay and I was just accepting the truth about myself. But they made that one attempt, I think they felt biblically obligated to plead with me one last time but then after that nothing.
So when [my partner] Gary and I left we were pretty much abandoned.
Support is slowly building from LGBT groups and affirming therapists for people who are abandoned by Exodus — but no one tells them that.
I didn’t get a warm welcome from the gay community because I didn’t know there was a gay community to become a part of so it was a very isolating kind of experience. I’ve talked to people who are considering, even now after 30 years of marriage, after presenting themselves as ex-gay that are considering coming out and leaving Exodus, but they’re terrified of that abandonment they know they’re going to experience. And they’re terrified of the rejection by family and friends and it’ a real fear.
Last week on our Facebook page, Truth Wins Out pointed to a newly released “study” by the antigay Family Research Council (PDF document). FRC claimed that a 2002-2003 research study by the Centers for Disease Control supported the Christian Right’s contention that sexual orientation is determined by whether or not children are raised by a mother and a father and made to attend a “Christian” (aka ideologically and politically conservative) church every week.
Our friends at Box Turtle Bulletin have helpfully confirmed that FRC was lying about the earlier study.
1. FRC misled its audience about the ideological and sexual makeup of the churches being studied.
2. The difference in upbringing resulted in a statistically insignificant — virtually non-existent — difference in orientation, a difference far too small to suggest any relationship, much less causation.
Last year, Truth Wins Out joined a small coalition of activists to boycott Jamaica because of the island’s rampant homophobia. During the campaign, I appeared on Jamaican talk radio shows where people called in and berated me for promoting immorality. The callers insisted that Jamaica a purified Christian nation with bedrock values and pristine morals. The indignant citizens claimed that it was gay rights activists, such as myself, who were corrupting the good citizens if Jamaica.
So, imagine my surprise to learn in the New York Times that the Jamaican government resisted attempts to extradite druggie gang leader, Christopher Coke, who is wanted in the United States on gun and drug charges. His brutal gang attacked three police stations in an attempt to pressure the government to let him remain free.
Mr. Coke is accused by federal prosecutors in the United States of running a major cocaine and marijuana trafficking operation from Tivoli Gardens, the neighborhood in Kingston that he controls. The State Department sought his extradition last August to New York, where he is accused in United States District Court of trafficking drugs and using the proceeds to buy guns in the United States and send them back to his allies in Jamaica.
Prime Minister Bruce Golding, who represents Tivoli Gardens in the Jamaican Parliament, initially balked at sending him to the United States.
Both of Jamaica’s major political parties have fostered ties with neighborhood gangs, which turn out the vote in exchange for political favors.
Christopher Coke, who runs a consulting firm that receives sizable contracts from the government, is linked to the Jamaican Labor Party led by Mr. Golding.
Just a refresher, Golding is staunchly anti-gay, yet he uses a drug cartel as a get out the vote operation. I suppose that is cheaper than robo-calls. Here is a BBC interview with Golding:
This wonderful culture condemns homosexuality, yet its political leaders protect drug dealing gang leaders. Not just any gang leader, but one in charge of a lethal cartel, the Shower Posse, that American prosecutors say is accused of hundreds of drug-related killings in the United States in the 1980s.
My question is: Where are all those moralistic gay-hating Christians now? Like cowardly bullies, they attack defenseless LGBT people, often in mobs, to supposedly protect family values. But, they are MIA when it comes to standing up to drug gang violence – which truly affects their families. They elect a Prime Minister tied directly to this illegal operation, yet they want to preach against gay people? They want to portray themselves as a Christian nation?
While our official boycott has ended, I personally would not go to Jamaica and I still boycott their products. Not only is Jamaica a homophobic island, it is also filled with phony hypocrites who slander gays but tolerate — even celebrate — violent criminal behavior at the highest levels of government.
It is time the citizens of Jamaica clean up their act before getting on their moral high horse.
U.S. cable network Current TV is premiering a can’t-miss documentary this week:
The network’s Vanguard program traveled to Uganda to “trace the influence of American evangelical leaders on a proposed law that could make being gay punishable by death.”
The episode premieres on Wednesday, May 26 at 10/9c. Current TV is available on DIRECTV channel 358, DISH Network channel 196, Comcast channel 107 (most cities) or 125 (Dallas and Seattle), AT&T U-verse channel 189, and various Time Warner Digital channels. Portions of its broadcasts are also available at Current.com/video.
Update: The documentary is now viewable via Hulu. (Hat tip: Ex-Gay Watch)
Leinaala Fruean spoke at the Religious Right’s May 1 rally in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, “May Day 2010: A Cry To God For A Nation In Distress.” I was at the event and videotaped what can only be describes as a zealously zany sermon by Fruean.
Fruean represents Island Breeze Ministries in Hawaii. The woman next to her in the yellow shirt is the infamous televangelist Cindy Jacobs.
Enjoy the show! It’s Nutapalooza!! (And they call us crazy??)
In 2009, Holocaust revisionist Scott Lively led an Exodus International board member and a representative of former PFOX president Richard Cohen’s International Healing Foundation to support an antigay conference which launched a campaign for antigay genocide and torture in Uganda.
While that initial campaign was dampened under international pressure, Uganda is now considering a new bill to execute HIV-positive gay Ugandans — and the original bill to execute all LGBT Ugandans remains under consideration.
Seeing a new opportunity for influence and fund-raising, Lively is jumping to the forefront of efforts to rejuvenate Uganda’s war against its own citizenry. This year, Lively is posturing as a moderate who merely favors the torture of gay Ugandans in “ex-gay” prison camps until they pretend to change their orientation.
Lively told Edward Ssekandi, the speaker of Uganda’s parliament, in a March 2010 letter that antigay torture is more palatable to the international community than an all-out death penalty. (Read More)
Exodus International lashed back today at meager efforts by professional therapists to confine the rampant youth abuse and anti-parent scapegoating that occur among Exodus’ network of antigay counselors.
While allegations of sexual abuse continue to hover over George Rekers and Exodus’ longtime Michigan ex-gay counselor Mike Jones, spokesman Randy Thomas seeks to change the topic with a fresh attack upon religious freedom and mental health. Of course, Thomas claims to defend both, even as he’s undermining them in his revealing blog post.
Among Thomas’ revelations: Of Exodus’ 240 individual and church chapters, just 40 have any professional qualifications for counseling. By Thomas’ own admission, these antigay therapists have been lobbying the California Association of Marriage and Family TherapistsÔªø to ignore patient welfare, medical ethics, and solid mental-health research in favor of “traditional views on marriage and sexuality.”
Quoting LifeSiteNews, Thomas expresses faux outrage at the “bullying” tactics of just two small groups of professional therapists whom he and LSN falsely characterize as “the gay-rights community” and “lobbyists.” While a letter from CAMFT stood up to these tactics, the same letter expressed support for marriage equality and other social-justice efforts.
Having made a sweeping mischaracterization of mainstream therapists, Thomas then tries to portray Exodus as a heroic alternative. Yet — typical of Thomas — he undermines his own case through a series of transparent falsehoods. (Read More)
We all know that Bryan Fischer is nothing if not an attention whore, but he’s really starting to go Full Metal Phelps, and he’s doing this while on the dime of the American Family Association, which seems to grow more extremist and dangerous by the day, all while their partners at Focus on the Family try to split the difference between hatred and a kinder, gentler sort of hatred. Here’s what he said on the radio on Friday, via Right Wing Watch:
I want to read a passage that my wife pointed out to me this morning from Numbers 25. This is a story about a man by the name of Phinehas, the nation had lapsed into rampant sexual immorality – I don’t know if that sounds familiar to you, it certainly does to me – and Phinehas was motivated to do something about this and he did something very decisive: he found an Israelite in flagrante with a Philistine woman and he ran them both through with a spear, pinned them both to the ground inside their tent, ran his spear through both of them, right into the ground. And that shook up the nation, it got their attention and they transformed, they made a decision, they turned from that kind of behavior and renewed their commitment to follow God.
[Fischer then reads Number 25: 10-13: 10 Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, 11"Phinehas the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, has turned away My wrath from the sons of Israel in that he was jealous with My jealousy among them, so that I did not destroy the sons of Israel in My jealousy. 12"Therefore say, Behold, I give him My covenant of peace; 13and it shall be for him and his descendants after him, a covenant of a perpetual priesthood, because he was jealous for his God and made atonement for the sons of Israel."]
So Phinehas is commended for his zeal, that he was willing to take action, that he was willing to act boldly, he was willing to act decisively out of his jealousy for his God and his jealous desire to see that his people, his nation, would be wholly devoted to God.
So what God is obviously looking for is more Phinehases in our day … you know, and it’s striking here, that here’s the actions of one man, here is one man by his action, by his commitment, by his energy, by his commitment, by his willingness to take decisive and assertive action when that’s what was called for, he alone was able to turn back the wrath of God from his people, from his nation.
So may his His tribe increase, may each one of us be a Phinehas our own world and in our own generation.
“May each one of us be a Phinehas.” Huh. Sounds like a thinly-veiled call to violence to me; how does it sound to you? Because, if I’m reading Numbers 25 correctly, it sounds like Fischer is praising this very ancient wingnut named Phinehas who decided to make it his business to drive a spear through two people who were having sex he didn’t approve of. You know what we call that in all modern societies today? A hate crime. Oh, and also murder. And if he’s calling all to be “a Phinehas,” it would seem to logically follow that he’s suggesting that common wingnuts take matters into their own hands in their own communities and kill or otherwise maim any they perceive to be “sexually immoral,” by the patriarchal, harmful standards of the fundamentalist Christian church.
At what point are people going to realize that we liberals occasionally call people like Fischer the “American Taliban” for a damned good reason?
Here’s the video if you’re into that sort of thing:
He sounds sexually aroused when he says “rammed through them with a spear!”, doesn’t he?
The separation of Church and State is a fundamental tenet of the U.S. Constitution. Increasingly policies that funnel taxpayer dollars into faith-based organizations challenge this important principle. This month on our June Pride episode, IN THE LIFE follows the money to expose some faith-based initiatives that sanction homophobia here and abroad.
DEMOCRACY OR THEOCRACY?
The first amendment of the U.S. Constitution protects religion from governmental interference, at the same time it ensures government is protected from religious influence. But faith leaders with close ties to Capitol Hill, target the LGBT community by using religion as a basis to deny our equality and blur the line distinguishing our democracy from a theocracy.
EXPORTING HATE
In 2009, the Ugandan Parliamentary proposed an anti-homosexuality bill that would impose the death penalty on serial offenders of homosexual acts. Inciting fear and sanctioning homophobia, the bill has caused LGBT Ugandans to be hunted in their communities and forced into exile. IN THE LIFE focuses on the man behind the bill and his supporters, and exposes the political and financial influence used by powerful conservatives in the U.S. to export their anti-gay agenda overseas.
Intersections of Church and State will begin airing June 1st. To find out when it airs in your local area, to stream or download it, go to the IN THE LIFE website: www.inthelifetv.org.
Having attended the Harvey Milk Diversity Breakfast in San Diego last week, Jason Mraz took to his blog to explain, on a personal level, part of why his support for LGBT people is so fierce:
When I was in high school, I experienced being bullied. For whatever reason, there were a few students that enjoyed calling me “faggot” as I walked thru the lunchroom. On one occasion, just before graduation, I was in the wrong place at the wrong time and picked up a few punches, kicks and scrapes to add to my story. I never knew why the handsome lads called me names or felt the need to bully me, but it happened and I let their actions contribute a great deal to my moving away from that community.
Shortly after the row, my best friend came out, sharing with his friends and family that he was gay. In my small town, this was uncommon and since then I’ve considered my friend to be the bravest man in the world. Aware of the hate within our community, I was afraid my friend might be inviting trouble to his door — but that never stopped him from being fully expressed.
This is why I am actively seeking equality for the whole. When all of us are acknowledged as the human equals that we really are, there will be no space left for bullying. It will no longer be wrong to choose one thing over another. Equality and Separation cannot exist in the same space.
I love that man.
His experience sheds light on why the Religious Right’s lies about anti-bullying programs are so hollow. Linda Harvey and others hide the fact that they support the bullying of LGBT students by telling their sheep that discouraging bullying against LGBT students somehow stifles their religious freedom. The only way that could be true is if the full exercise of their religious beliefs included berating and abusing students different from them. Indeed, all of the proposals and programs to limit LGBT bullying merely seek to bring all students to a level playing field, where all bullying is treated seriously, whether due to a student’s actual or perceived sexual orientation, race, religion, size, or whatever stupid reason kids are bullying other kids. The fact that we have to talk about it is sad, but it’s reflective of the reality that, while things are getting better in many places, LGBT kids still often deal with schools where that sort of bullying is either ignored or tacitly supported.
Jason Mraz is straight. But he dealt with the same sort of bullying I did (worse, in fact, as I was never physically hurt), simply because he was perceived as different, and in middle schools and high schools across the nation, “different” is often interpreted as “gay.” Indeed, though, among the kids who fall victim to that sort of bullying, it’s often because the kid (whether or not he/she is actually gay) is more talented, more creative, smarter, or a whole host of other characteristics that vulnerable kids view as threatening. (It’s important to remember, as always, that the kids doing the bullying tend to be extremely vulnerable and battling their own demons, as well. That’s why this requires such a holistic approach.)
It’s heartening to see public figures like Jason get behind issues like these as truly fierce advocates, because the younger generations are already basically on board with issues of equality and fairness. It’s also heartening that, among people who younger folks respect, the Religious Right messages of hatred and fear are mostly absent. It’s not surprising, though, because these days, it’s becoming harder and harder to find people who are truly intelligent, creative, talented or inspiring who still cling to messages of vilification, discrimination, and animus toward LGBT people. While the Religious Right may still, as a force, be obnoxious, and still have the power to hurt untold numbers of people, as the years roll on, that power is dwindling, and will continue to do so. The only hope people like Maggie Gallagher have left is the (unproven) axiom that people grow more conservative as they age. It might hold true in certain areas, among certain subsets of the population, but there’s no evidence that people start hating gay people more as they grow older. One of the main reasons, I suppose, is that Generation X and the Millenials are probably the first generations among whom a solid majority know and love gay people, in their families, neighborhoods, churches, schools, etc. They know, from personal experience, that Religious Right spewing about LGBT people is garbage, and thus, they are out of reach for the Peter LaBarberas and Matt Barbers of the world.
This, by the way, is why they’re turning their wigging out up a notch. They’re spooked. And they can’t blame it on Hollywood. They can’t blame it on Teh Homosexical Agenda. They only need to turn an eye on the bright light of reality and knowledge to see why they’ve lost the war.
Last year, Truth Wins Out joined a small coalition of activists 
