The parents of PFOX wrote to me yesterday to alert me to the “Political and Social Oppression of the Ex-Gay Community.” How horrible, I thought, that the sprawling Ex-Gay Community is treated that way!
I feared for the lives and the rights of my “no – longer – identified – as – anything, free-from-freedom, no – news – here, move – along” friends in the teeming ex-gay ghettoes of Colorado Springs and Orlando. So I tore open the PFOX e-mail envelope and read the following dispatch from suburban Washington, D.C. …
As you can see from the below local ABC news video, many ex-gays are afraid to come out of the closet because of the harassment they will receive — their names, phone numbers and personal information posted on gay websites; attacked at ex-gay exhibit booths; press releases issued against them, etc. The tactics of gay activists are to go after anyone who comes out publicly as ex-gay, force them back into the closet, and then claim that ex-gays don’t exist because there aren’t any out in public:
PFOX radiates fear and paranoia — blaming critics of the ex-gay industry for ex-gay homophobia, prejudice, and fear of legitimate mental-health professionals. These fears result in ex-gays, and the antigay families of gay people, living in fear of their own shadows.
Thankfully, open-minded parents and school officials in Maryland were also watching WJLA-TV on May 5.
David Fishback, for example, is a former chair of the Montgomery County (Maryland) Public Schools Citizens Advisory Committee for Family Health and Human Development. He also is on the board of Metro-DC PFLAG.
The full text of WJLA’s video report is here; Fishback’s full analysis is here. (Wayne Besen, executive director of Truth Wins Out, is featured in the WJLA report.)
Here are some brief bullet points that I culled from Fishback’s analysis:
1. Antigay book author Ryan Sorba lacks qualifications for attacking scientific consensus that sexual orientation is not chosen. WJLA failed to assess Sorba’s qualifications.
2. WJLA contacted and quoted Peter Sprigg of PFOX while failing to note that PFOX is a de facto shell organization for the Family Research Council and Sprigg is an FRC vice president. WJLA also did not bother to contact Metro DC PFLAG.
3. The piece gives only a “peremptory nod” to the scientific consensus, without even mentioning the recent American Psychological Association’s publication Just the Facts About Sexual Orientation and Youth which lays out the health dangers of ex-gay therapies.
4. WJLA fails to document any number, much less “many” who “still maintain homosexuality is triggered by childhood abuse or poor relationships and people should be freed to choose which path to take.” Fishback notes: “No reputable scientific or medical researcher believes what WJLA says that ‘many still maintain.’”
5. Fishback believes that the piece “entirely misses the key question underlying the controversy: Why do some people want to change their sexual orientations in the face of the reality, confirmed by the mainstream scientific community, that people cannot will themselves to change their orientation?”
6. WJLA’s framing of its report with students at Smith College yelling at Ryan Sorba distracts from the real issues.
Other reactions to WJLA:
is ryan sorba self proclaimed exgay?
http://www.queersunited.blogspot.com
Ah yes, PFOX – the group who “hopes your daughters get raped”.
I’ve NEVER seen any gay activists online posting the private info of any “ex-gays”; however, most “ex-gays” out there have their own vanity website, and most print their personal contact info for the whole world to see (they gotta sell their “testimony” over and over somehow).
Once again, PFOX blames teh gays for everything the “ex-gay” prostitutes do themselves, to sell themselves.
Wayne Besen, formerly of the “Human Rights Campaign,” a pro-sodomy political organization, displays his explosive and fascist denial when he denounces any therapist or organization that dares help persons seeking to change their own sexual preference as misery mongers, when he states:
“They take people with extremely low self-esteem and make them feel even worse about themselves…The amount of conflict, turmoil, suffering and human misery these groups cause people is astounding… [Q]uit simply, ex-gays don’t exist.”
Wayne’ comments echo what we have heard time and time again from the pro-sodomy political community, but can they be trusted? And could it be true that Wayne Besen has never heard of a single person ever changing their so-called “sexual orientation,” so as to qualify his statement? Wayne worked for the “Human Rights Campaign,” one of the leading pro-sodomy activist organizations in America. For him not to have heard of Anne Heche, or Greg Louganis, or “Bro” Broberg, or “Bia,” or filmmakers Gregg Araki, Elain Hollman, Maria Maggenti, or “lesbian” literary award winning authors Joanne Loulan, and Jan Clausen, or even the award winning book Sister Brother, would be virtually impossible. These are all well-known members of the so-called “gay” community, members who were very defined as either “gay” or “lesbian,” and in most cases for many years, yet all changed their so-called “sexual-orientation.” It seems that it would be impossible for “Wayne Besen” to be unaware of these well-known cases. In all likelihood, the man is a calculating and manipulative liar. Besen isn’t the only liar.
Pro-sodomy political organizations nationwide have promulgated equally offensive lies. One such pro-sodomy political organization is “The National Organization of Social Workers” (NASW). In its “Policy Statement on Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Issues,” it states:
“Social stigmatization of lesbian, gay, and bisexual people is wide-spread and is a primary motivating factor in leading some people to seek sexual “orientation’ changes….No data demonstrate that reparative or conversion therapies are effective, and in fact they may be harmful….NASW discourages social workers from providing treatments designed to change sexual “orientation’ or from referring practitioners or programs that claim to do so.”
This NEA resolution could not be further from the truth. In the words of Dr. Stanton Jones, the provost and former chair of the psychology department at Wheaton College, “anyone who says there is no hope [for change] is either ignorant or a liar.”
Camille Paglia, a very prominent lesbian author agrees, “Gay activists are guilty of Stalinist disinformation when they assert that homosexuality is no different than and equivalent to heterosexuality…is the gay identity so fragile that it cannot bear the thought that some people may not wish to be gay?”
With this uncertainty about their own identity, it must be psychologically intolerable for so-called “lesbians” and “gays” when such “change” concepts are carried to their logical conclusion by groups like Exodus International. Exodus and other groups openly facilitate the changes in sexual preference recognized privately as valid by the pro-sodomy community. Plagued by self-doubts, “lesbian” and “gay” insecurity explodes into fascist-style attacks on groups who would make public, what the pro-sodomy community talks about only in private.
Eric Pollard is a former member of the homosexual organization ACT UP. Eric criticizes pro-sodomy activists for their techniques. He calls ACT UP a “truly fascist organization.” He says that their disruptive techniques have an ominous source‚Äîthey were, “subversive tactics, drawn largely from the voluminous Mein Kampf, which some of us studied as a working model.” Mein Kampf is, of course, Adolf Hitler’ book on fascist ideas and strategy.
Schulman learned her fascist lessons well from ACT UP. “Lesbian Avengers” follows its parent group, ACT UP, whose philosophy and techniques are fascist, their objective is to suppress dissent and their motivation is the “desperation of denial,” as pro-sodomy activist Randy Shilts has so aptly put it, “…the desperation of denial: how when something is so horrible you don’t want to believe it, you want to out it out of your mind and insist it isn’t true, and how you hate the person who says it is.” Desperate denial; this seems to be what drives the pro-sodomy movement’ deceit, psychological manipulation, and intimidation of scientific groups and other apposing members of society.
Jeff:
I have met many people that have claimed to have gone from gay to straight. I photographed one of them in a gay bar (John Paulk). I helped another come out of the closet (Wade Richards). I, along with attorney Michael Hamer, exposed a third (Michael Johnston) having orgies with men he met on the Internet. Others are now in my videos as ex-ex-gays. The remaining ones work for right wing organizations, such as Exodus or Focus on the Fmaily – essentially getting paid to peddle their tales of change.
Jeff, if there is one thing that is an incontrovertible fact, it is that ex-gay testimonials are unreliable. The entire movement is really just a big marketing campaign and consumer fraud with a veneer of Christianity to justify the bigotry. You must admit, that so-called ex-gays have very little credibility.
My offer is still on the table for ex-gays to:
1) Keep statistics
2) Take the “No Lie MRI” or other psychical measures to back up their outlandish claims of transformation. Why are there no takers? What are they afraid of? What is Exodus hiding?
I have put commenter “Jeff” on moderation because:
1. he cross-posted duplicate posts on numerous pages
2. he violated netiquette in terms of posting article-length comments
3. he used defamatory language in these comments
4. he failed to substantiate malicious accusations via links to independent and authoritative information sources. Potentially libelous comments are not permitted at TWO for legal reasons
5. his duplicate comments did not relate to the topic of each page
Hhahaha. So, homofascists really do exist. Suppressing free speach is fascist Micheal Airhart. I just may blog about this on my site.
Viva la conservative revolucion.
Wayne Besen,
I challenge you to a debate.
“Same-Sex Attraction: Nature or Nurture”
Jeff
Jeff,Ann Heche Was never gay. She Was only using Ellen to further her lousy acting career.Btw, where is Ann now? I do know she has spoken out Against The exgay creeps!
Jeff:
1) Who are you?
2) What makes you qualified to have such a debate? Because you make numerous posts on the Internet? Are you a geneticist or a laboratory psychiatrist? It seems you are just an angry cyber activist with a right wing agenda.
3) I’ll be happy to debate you after you have 10 leading “ex-gays” submit to psychical measures – the No Lie MRI – polygraph – etc – to measure their attractions. Until such tests are agreed to be taken, the ex-gay myth is little more than a lot of talk and PR.
Why not let the people decide? Are you afraid that they will actually look at the issue, or perhpas find out the following:
Dr. Lillian Faderman, who has won the Monette/Horwitz Award from the pro-sodomy activist group Lambda Literary Foundation, states: “And we continue to demand Rights, ignoring the fact that human sexuality is fluid and flexible, acting as though we are all stuck in our category forever.” She further states, “The narrow categories of identity politics are obviously deceptive.” It becomes obvious later in the article from which the above quotes are pulled that Dr. Faderman sees a political threat from the truth, from the fluidity of human sexuality. “I must confess that I am both elated and terrified by the possibilities of a bisexual moment. I’m elated because I truly believe that bisexuality is the natural human condition. But I’m much less happy when I think of the possibility of huge numbers of homosexuals (two-thirds of women who identify as lesbian for example) running off to explore the heterosexual side of their bisexual potential and, as a result, decimating our political ranks.” Dr. Faderman also writes that, “The concept of gay and lesbian identity may be nothing but a social construct, but it has been crucial, enabling us to become a political movement and demand the rights that are do to us as a minority. What becomes of our political movement if we openly acknowledge that sexuality is flexible and fluid, that gay and lesbian does not signify “a people’ but rather a “sometime behavior’?”
Dr. John DeCecco is a psychologist, Director of the Center for Research and Education in Sexuality at San Francisco State University, and Editor of The Journal of Homosexuality. Dr. DeCecco calls himself “gay” but insists that such attractions are a changeable preference not an orientation. He explains in his book entitled, If You Seduce A Straight Person You Can Make Them Gay, that, the whole born gay and immutable characteristic idea is just “gay and lesbian politics” and is aimed at achieving “gay” rights.
Dr. Vera Whisman writes in her book, Queer by Choice: Lesbians, Gay Men, and the Politics of Identity, “The political dangers of a choice discourse go beyond the simple (if controversial) notion that some people genuinely choose their homosexuality. Indeed, my conclusions question some of the fundamental basis upon which the gay and lesbian rights movement has been built. If we cannot make political claims based on an essential and shared nature, are we not left once again as individual deviants? Without an essentialist [born gay] foundation, do we have a viable politics?”
Lesbian writer Jennie Ruby admits, “I don’t think lesbians are born…I think they are made… The gay rights movement has (for many good, practical reasons) adopted largely an identity politics.”
Jan Clausen, lesbian author of the book Apples and Oranges writes, “What’ got to stop is the rigging of history to make the either/or look permanent and universal. I understand why this argument may sound erotic to outsiders for whom the public assertion of a coherent, unchanging lesbian or gay identity has proved an indispensable tactic in the battle against homophobic persecution.” Later, Clausen quotes the popular lesbian poet Audre Lorde, who admits the lies associated with the born “gay” hoax as well, when she writes, “I do not believe our wants have made all our lies holy.”
The National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR) is one of the homosexual activist organizations that pressure the American Psychiatric Association to reject homosexual reparative therapy. The NCLR claims that the “gay” identity is innate and unchangeable. JoAnne Loulan is one of the psychotherapists who served on the board of directors for this organization. Loulan made hypocritical headlines on the February 18, 1997 edition of the homosexual magazine The Advocate because she reportedly changed her own sexual orientation when she, fell in love with a man…?
Further, Kate Kendall, the Director of the NCLR, who in the spirit of Ulrichs, Kirk, and Madsen argued that the so-called “gay” person was endowed with a fixed, innate, and unchangeable, “sexual orientation” and commanded the American Psychiatric Association to halt all forms of reparative therapy for all people, including those desperately looking for help, actually wrote an article for Frontiers Magazine, arguing that sexual orientation is fluid, not fixed.
Kate Kendall and Joanne Loulan stood before the American Psychiatric Association with straight faces declaring reparative therapy to be the dangerous equivalent of pouring bleach on a black person’ skin to make them white. Then, one of these self-proclaimed “gays” went out and changed her own so-called “sexual-orientation” by falling in love with a man and the other took the time to write an article for an insiders’ magazine arguing that sexuality is changeable. Is it possible, for us to continue to trust these activists when say that they are born gay?
Jeff –
Again:
1. you have posted an article-length comment that makes countless unsubstantiated claims
2. your comment appears to be cut-and-pasted (plagiarized) from sources that you have failed to credit.
3. your comment is off-topic — it does not relate to WJLA’s report
Your comment will be deleted shortly. In the future, substantiate all malicious claims, keep them on topic, and most important, link to original and reputable sources.
This is your second warning.
Is WJLA owned by the Washington Times, and by extension the Moonies? The report smacks of the same style as I’m used to from the WAtimes.
Jeff – less is more. Those posts are too long and run together and are tiresome to read. Brief, concise paragraphs are much more effective than the manifesto style you are using.
“Jeff,Ann Heche Was never gay. She Was only using Ellen to further her lousy acting career.Btw, where is Ann now?”
And don’t forget Ann’s mom uses her daughter to further her own agenda (among the “ex-gay” kooks).
What did Ellen see in that bisexual doped-up looking nut of a bad “actress” anyway?
WJLA is owned by the Allbritton family. Sorry, no Moonie connections — and their anchors (Maureen Bunyan, Leon Harris, Gordon Peterson) are top-notch for the local market.
I think this is an example of rushed TV reporting that pretends to be balanced by giving undue attention to various fronts of the very-well-funded Family Research Council.
However, I give WJLA credit for including Scott Melendez and Truth Wins Out in the report.
Jeff,be careful what you wishful in a debate with Wayne, He’s polished and knows his stuff, he’ll have your head on a platter before the debate is over!
Please, Wayne Besen is living a lie. Good luck to him in a debate with me.
Speaking of living a lie, good luck proving you’re a heterosexual, Jeff. No expert on homosex is.
Jeff you seem to avoid Mr. Besen’s challenge. We would be more than happy to accept your ‘ex-gay’ “evidence” I want to see these ex-gays take a lie detector test and I will be open to believing your argument. All I see is miserable people in denial and living double lives as Wayne has demonstrated.
http://www.queersunited.blogspot.com
WJLA and News Channel 8 are sister stations in the Washington, D.C., Metropolitan area. News Talk on News Channel 8 did a segment on the WJLA report, the transcript of which may be found here:
http://www.teachthefacts.org/2008/05/david-fishback-on-newschannel-8.html#comments
Yeah Jeff,
Reparative therapy does not work. It supresses homosexual desires, is all it does. I could see if someone is really straight but has homosexual thoughts, they would benefit from reparative therapy, but not people who are really homosexual.
Reparative therapy almost destroyed my life completely. Your sexual identity is important. Mine was ripped out of me. Because I am really gay, suppressing my homosexual feelings (which is what reparative therapy does) is like suppressing who I am. A chunk of me was literally lost, and I had to fight to get it back and I had to see a real therapist so I could learn to love myself for who I am and deal with other people who would not.
I don’t think reparative therapists understand how dangerous they are being.