(Cry Baby: Throckmorton, Whines To Right Wing Rags)
Still fuming from the American Psychiatric Association’s cancellation of the “Quack Panel” he was scheduled to appear on this week, notorious “ex-gay” therapist Warren Throckmorton continued on his vindictive warpath. All week, he has done the rounds, whining and playing victim, with fawning right wing rags – apparently the only media that will listen to his bizarre ideas.
Throckmorton’s latest stop on his “Sour Grapes Media Tour” is an interview with World Net Daily – a publication best known for publishing a kooky article that claims that eating soy products might turn children gay.
“‘Weird Nut Daily’ and Warren Throckmorton are two peas in a pod, so it was entirely expected that they would join hands to do a hatchet job on TruthWinsOut.org,” said Besen. “It is time for Throckmorton to preserve his remaining dignity by ending his ‘Sour Grapes Tour’ and moving on. The Quack panel did not happen because the more people learned about Throckmorton, the more uneasy they became with giving him a platform that might appear to legitimize his outlandish and archaic views on sexuality”
Striking back, an embittered and embattled Throckmoton and other discredited zealots have desperately latched onto a well-reasoned post that I wrote on this blog. The ex-gay industry has tried – and failed – to smear me by falsely claiming that I tied rapes in South Africa to the West’s “ex-gay” movement. Actually, I never made a direct link and flat out said:
“Of course, these extreme cases do not represent the so-called ‘ex-gay’ movement in general. Certainly, Exodus and even NARTH, I beleive, would oppose such torture.”
I’m not sure how much more clear I can be. Isn’t it obvious that Throckmorton has an agenda? He can’t win on the merits of the issues, so he has resorted to cheap personal attacks and creating links where they don’t exist. What I did say – and I proudly stand by it – is this:
“The notion that GLBT people must be ‘changed’ no matter what the psychological or physical toll is in step with the West’ “ex-gay’ movement. The very existence of these organizations creates a sour climate where GLBT lives are demeaned and homosexual relationships are viewed as inferior. In such a hostile environment, some people will take desperate measures (exorcisms) or partake in dangerous experiments (shock therapy) to fix the ‘problem’.”
Finally, Weird Nut Daily misfired when it claimed that police confirmed an attack happened against PFOX at a Virgina fair. Actually, what happened is that PFOX faked a hate crime. The police only confirmed that PFOX complained to the police about an incident that supposedly happened – but there were no witnesses. (No witnesses at a crowded fair? Amazing.) They did, however, escort someone away from the fair, but the individual never acknowledged PFOX’s version of events. Furthermore, PFOX’s Regina Griggs claimed she witnessed the harassment, but there is no evidence that she was present at the fairgrounds. Griggs has yet to come clean on her whereabouts at the time of the alleged assault.
The week following the bogus fair incident, PFOX was at it again. However, this time, they humiliated themselves at another Virginia fair when they tried to accuse the respected publisher of the the Falls Church News Press of harassing them. They even threatened to call the police. The newspaper wrote about the incident and exposed PFOX’s efforts to accuse people of harassment, even when none has occurred. It is part of their strategy to portray so-called “ex-gays” as victims – even though no evidence exists that shows bias towards such individuals.
The bottom line is that Warren Throckmorton and his nutty right wing cohorts need to grow up and get over the fact that thier work is considered a joke in psychological circles. They should stop attacking me and TWO – as we only point out the fallacies in thier debunked arguments.
Throckmorton is best known for inventing a repressive style of therapy known as, SIT, or Sexual Identity Therapy. However, a more accurate name would be “Shame Induced Trauma” because anti-gay therapists reinforce a client’s belief of sinfulness, and then helps the individual avoid sex and healthy same-sex relationships to please God. Throckmorton is also known for a hate movie, “I Do Exist,” which portrays gay life by showing adult bookstores and features a known exorcist. As a result of such a long history of bias, he has been dismissed as a right wing operative and has been largely discredited. Further, he has long downplayed the suffering of victims who have been damaged by ex-gay therapy.
Obviously Truth Wins Out is making powerful progress in exposing the ex-gay industry. If this weren’t the case, they would not have issued such a transparent, foolish attack on Wayne Besen’s outstanding work. It is plainly obvious that they are just raging with indignation about the cancellation of Throckmorton’s “ex-gay” panel. That is what has motivated this attempt to falsely smear Besen with these blatantly incorrect assertions about his original article, an article which is actually an insightful look into commonly-held attitudes about what motivates ex-gay ideas in societies around the world.
Throckmorton and others don’t seem to grasp Wayne Besen’s basic motivation, which is that when the “ex-gay” crowd attempts to entice vulnerable, often young, gay people into the demonstrably harmful pseudoscience of ex-gay “therapy”, well-meaning gay people will always respond forcefully and decisively with the truth. Many of us have been through your programs. We know that your methods, which once included electro-shock and other inhumane aversion therapies, only serve to move your victims towards suicide and religious-based despondency.
We will never simply stand by and allow the most vulnerable in our community to be victimized by the ex-gay industry, the leaders of which are most strangely transfixed and confounded by the happy existence of gays and lesbians in our world. If any panel should be assembled on the subject, it should be one which examines this bizarre obsession people like Throckmorton seem to have with the ability of well-adjusted gay men and women to live their lives openly and with faith in America’s ultimate promise, that there is indeed liberty and justice for all.
SOUR grapes? More like rotten, shriveled grapes that are too nasty to be on the vine.
Throck is just latching onto your article and bringing it over to Wingnut Daily, because it keeps him from getting a real job. Just some kook who started playing doctor when he was 5, and has never stopped.
I’m surprised Regina Griggs is still around. People who endlessly hallucinate and cry wolf deserves only the attention of a doctor bringing her some meds, while she’s wrapped up in a straight jacket.
Griggs is worse than those idiots who finds bum p**s on a turnpike, somehow manages to see the image of Jesus in the mess, and calls the media to take a look and make a hoopla over the splashes.
And yes, “ex-gay therapists” in the USA are most certainly guilty of rape in one form or another. It might not be physical rape, but in almost every case, EMOTIONAL rape, and spiritual rape.
In my opinion, emotional/mental rape (such as an old pervert approaching your child, and threatening that he/she will go to hell if they don’t become “christian”) should be a criminal offense, with jail time.
As always Wayne, keep up the good work & have a good weekend!!
http://conwebwatch.tripod.com/blog/index.blog?entry_id=1812759
Dr. Warren Throckmorton has lashed out at me in a mad fit of rage after the APA canceled his quack forum. To execute his smear campaign, he turned to discredited right wing publications, such as World Net Daily (WND) to do his dirty work. Throckmorton’s goal was to create an echo chamber of irrationality, where multiple fundamentalist news articles – at the same time – misrepresent what I had written, in an effort to slime me.
Fortunately, Throckmorton’s underhanded tactic has backfired. A media watchdog, ConWebWatch, exposed the untruths in the “Weird Nut Daily” article and also noted that WND scrubbed reference to shamed researcher Paul Cameron.
This past week has only further diminished the unlicensed counselor’s standing and shown how close he is to anti-gay activists at right wing publications. It is time that Throckmorton apologize for his misrepresentation of my work.
[...] Bitter Throckmorton Continues ‘Sour Grapes Media Tour’ By Trashing TWO in Fringe Right Wing Medi… (3) [...]