Once again, “ex-gay” propaganda has been used to keep gays from achieving equal rights. The New York Times reported on a gay activist in Nepal, Sunil Babu Pant, who is the only openly gay member of the newly elected Constituent Assembly. He is working to convince this conservative society that homosexuals are just like any other people.

According to the article, merely a decade ago gay life was difficult in Katmandu because the police were brutal. People were driven from their homes, and others endured torture in police custody, said Pant. “I thought nothing would improve unless we organized,” he said.

He tried to found an advocacy group to fight for the rights of gay men, lesbians, the transgendered and others. But government officials said they would register the group only if it devoted itself to converting homosexuals into heterosexuals.

To get around that, Mr. Pant said only that the group was dedicated to defending human rights in general and working on health issues and H.I.V./AIDS. Today, the group, the Blue Diamond Society, has offices in 20 districts and has 120,000 registered members.

Well, folks, there you go. The repressive ideas promoted by Exodus International and Exodus Global Alliance have spread around the world and they are being used to persecute people everywhere. Harmful notions are loudly broadcast by these sexual engineers (with no record of success) and they have a way of filtering down to bullies, whether on school yards, Congress or in foreign nations. The primary purpose of the “ex-gay” myth is to allow people to rationalize and justify despicable behavior and discriminatory actions that keep gays “in their place.”

Sexual engineering groups, such as Exodus, would argue that they don’t approve of some of the more extreme actions in foreign nations – and this is true, yet irrelevant. They simply cannot deny the deleterious effects of their message, that are heard throughout the world or easily accessed on the Internet.

In short, the “ex-gay” message causes much pain and suffering worldwide. What is tragic about this, is that for all of this drama and trauma, no one is going from gay to straight. It is a cruel hoax that is perpetuated for the sake of an extreme political agenda, where people are cast aside, as if their lives hardly matter.

It is time that Exodus stops burying its head in the sand and admit the misery it has brought to so many good people.

The Roman Catholic Church generally does not fire church music directors for presumed premarital sex, usury, moderate gambling, smoking, or countless other vices.

But when a Verona, Wisconsin, church fired music director Charles Philyaw for being honest with the congregation about having a gay partner who was also a member of the church, the hypocrisy of antigay parishioners and an ex-gay advocate became apparent. The June termination at St. Andrew Catholic Church was reported Monday by the Wisconsin State Journal.

Parishioner Jo Ellen Kilkenny said, “We are all sinners, but when you hold a leadership position, you’re held to a higher standard than people in the pews.” She may be right to hold leaders to a higher standard — but that’s beside the point: Kilkenny tolerates sinful church leaders — she just doesn’t tolerate homosexual Catholics. In particular, she could not stomach receiving the Eucharist from someone (Philyaw’s partner) whom she knew to be gay.

Another self-deluded parishioner, Mark Heyde, incomprehensibly believed that laying the groundwork for Philyaw’s termination would somehow save Philyaw’s soul. Two other antigay parishioners, Kevin and Julie Keyes, fled responsibility for their actions, deflecting blame for Philyaw’s termination to church officials.

The diocese refused to comment — but made its unfortunate moral double-standard clear by referring media to a vocal ex-gay activist: (Read More)

Exodus International executive vice president Randy Thomas commented today on the revelation that Christian singer Ray Boltz has always been gay.

Let me explain, I feel awful for him that he felt so isolated and suffered from shame. It’ sorrowful that he didn’t feel like he could be honest and transparent with others unless it was to embrace a gay identity and worldview.

Nonsense. Boltz did not “embrace a gay identity and worldview,” he acknowledged the truth that he has always been same-sex-attracted. Thomas’ politically correct chatter about “identity” and a nonexistent “gay worldview” is a reminder that Exodus leaders too often behave like the heads of an elitist cult — or worse, like press-release writers for a slick politician. They certainly do not present themselves as trustworthy counselors in a safe, sincere, or truthful refuge for Christians such as Boltz who are same-sex attracted.

According to The Washington Blade, Boltz tried to be ex-gay for decades:

It got to the point by the early-to-mid ’00s that keeping his homosexuality hidden had become an increasingly wearying notion.

“You get to be 50-some years old and you go, “This isn’t changing.’ I still feel the same way. I am the same way. I just can’t do it anymore.’”

There was some exploration of “ex-gay” therapy though Boltz never attended an “ex-gay” camp or formal seminar.

“I basically lived an “ex-gay’ life ‚Äî I read every book, I read all the scriptures they use, I did everything to try and change.”

Indirectly, this spilled out into his songwriting. Boltz says even though he never told his fans the specifics of his struggle, it added a dimension to his lyrics that resonated.

Thomas’ current advice to same-sex-attracted Christians is the same advice that ex-gay books and therapists gave to Boltz: Hide your sexual orientation. Falsely claim to be heterosexually attracted. Only relate to people and only read books that are “Biblically appropriate” as redefined by James Dobson, Coral Ridge Ministries, or the American Family Association.

Such advice betrayed Boltz, and it continues to betray the spiritual and social well-being of people of faith. It sells out the truth for the sake of correctness, conformity, and authoritarian political interests.

Thomas presumes to pray down to Mr. Boltz and his family, but perhaps it is Thomas who needs prayers.

Christian contemporary music singer Ray Boltz (pictured) recently emerged from decades of effort to be “heterosexual” and honestly declared that he is same-sex-attracted. His story of sexual and religious struggle was reported last week in The Washington Blade. In short order, New Jersey ex-gay activist Greg Quinlan and the American Family Association’s “OneNewsNow” lied about Boltz’s action.

The AFA falsely stated that Boltz “has publicly announced he’ living a homosexual lifestyle” and falsely characterized a person’s honesty about sexual attraction as a “decision to engage in homosexuality.”

Quinlan went further — misquoting established science regarding the biological impulses that define sexual attraction and the psychological impulses that define romantic attraction. In particular, Quinlan misquoted Francis Collins of the Human Genome Project:

When he says he’s born that way, we know now for a fact that that’s false. In fact, just last year in March, the director of the Human Genome Project, Dr. Francis Collins, said this: homosexuality is not hardwired. There is no gay gene. We mapped the human genome. We now know there is no genetic cause for homosexuality.

Quinlan’s fiction, however, was exposed as such sixteen months ago. After the ex-gay pseudoscience outfit NARTH also misquoted Collins, Collins told Ex-Gay Watch in May 2007:

It troubles me greatly to learn that anything I have written would cause anguish for you or others who are seeking answers to the basis of homosexuality. The words quoted by NARTH all come from the Appendix to my book “The Language of God” (pp. 260-263), but have been juxtaposed in a way that suggests a somewhat different conclusion that I intended. I would urge anyone who is concerned about the meaning to refer back to the original text.

The evidence we have at present strongly supports the proposition that there are hereditary factors in male homosexuality ‚Äî the observation that an identical twin of a male homosexual has approximately a 20% likelihood of also being gay points to this conclusion, since that is 10 times the population incidence. But the fact that the answer is not 100% also suggests that other factors besides DNA must be involved. That certainly doesn’t imply, however, that those other undefined factors are inherently alterable.

Your note indicated that your real interest is in the truth. And this is about all that we really know. No one has yet identified an actual gene that contributes to the hereditary component (the reports about a gene on the X chromosome from the 1990s have not held up), but it is likely that such genes will be found in the next few years.

Sidestepping any discussion of science, the Gospel Music Association mischaracterized Ray Boltz’s honesty, saying, “We do not comment on the lifestyle choices of people in our community.” (Emphasis is TWO’s.)

For more insight into the (mis)handling of sexual orientation by the Christian gospel music scene, check out averyfineline.

Addendum: Good As You notes that Francis Collins is — contrary to any forthcoming ex-gay smears — an evangelical Christian.

From The Daily Dish at The Atlantic:

There is no way that a person who is indifferent to the question of whether homosexuality is a choice or genetic can support a conference of crackpots, psychological renegades and far-right Christianists seeking to “cure” gay people. Palin is on record seeking to strip gay couples of all rights in their relationships, although she was forced by constitutional mandate to grant equal benefits to gay couples who are employees of the state government in Alaska. She supported a non-binding referendum for an Alaskan constitutional amendment to deny state health benefits to same-sex couples:

Ultimately, she said, she supports denying those [health and retirement] benefits through a constitutional amendment, if that’s what the public wants.

For at least a decade, the antigay political organizations Focus on the Family and Exodus International have promoted the myth that their opposition believes sexual orientation is determined by a single “gay gene.”

This claim has never been true of most researchers nor of most equality advocates, but that lie — a strawman argument — is useful to ex-gay scam artists because it distracts potential supporters of the ex-gay movement from three unpleasant facts:

• No reputable scientific survey has found sexual orientation to be either chosen or changeable in most persons
• Most persons who claim to be ex-gay later admit they were always attracted to the same sex and had never “left homosexuality.”
• Ex-gay programs injure their participants, give false hope to spouses, poison parental relations, and divide families.

On Top magazine touches on the ex-gay strawman argument about a “gay gene” in an article that spotlights Truth Wins Out’s role in weekend protests against an ex-gay roadshow in Anchorage, Alaska. (Read More)

More than a dozen equality advocates and their families protested a religious-right ex-gay roadshow Sept. 13 in Anchorage, Alaska. Truth Wins Out was a participant in the protest. According to media reports, 200-300 people attended the ex-gay antifamily event, which sponsored by James Dobson’s Focus on the Family. Alan Chambers of Exodus International spoke at the event.

Here’s a digest of media and blog coverage:

• KTUU-TV has video and pictures of the protest:
  

  Protesters like Mike Mason say the church has it wrong and that a person’s sexuality is just a part of who they are.

  “People should accept people for who they are, and they shouldn’t use bigotry concealed in the name of God’s love to pass hatred on to others and to create a culture where discrimination against someone is OK, because it’s not,” Mason said.

  “We’re not telling people that they need to reject their gay son or daughter,” Johnston said. “We’re just saying what we do is equip people to reach out and love to those struggling with same sex attractions.

  Focus deceitfully declined to acknowledge its discriminatory antigay lobbying in all 50 states, as well as the anti-family poison that it delivers to parents at its ex-gay roadshow: Namely, the myth same-sex attraction is caused by molestation and bad parenting.

• USA Today reports:
  

  …[Fourteen] people held signs like “Honk if You Love Gay People” during a 12-hour vigil outside the Abbott Loop Community Church in Anchorage, where a conference promising to convert gays into heterosexuals through the power of prayer was being held.

  Palin’s place of worship, the Wasilla Bible Church, promoted the “Love Won Out” conference, sponsored by Focus on the Family.

  “Our main message is that God loves everyone the way they are,” said protester Mike Mason. “People should be accepted for who they are.”

  Attempts by The Associated Press to reach someone at the church Saturday for comment were not successful.

• Bent Alaska has pictures and first-hand accounts:
  

  Kirt and Roger stand together near the church parking lot. They were married in Canada, the first gay couple from Alaska to be legally wed.

  “I’m here for people like Stuart Matis,” said Roger, “a young gay man in California who thought it better to put a bullet in his head rather than live with the shame that these people in the church create.”

  “I grew up in a very religious background,” said Kirt. “I know about these types of programs that profess that you can change and that it’s some kind of choice to be gay. It absolutely isn’t. I’m proud to be a gay man, and proud to be married to my husband, and I’ll be proud to die that way.”

  and…

  Sean and Ted arrive with Ted’s mother. “We found out about Focus on the Family through watching the documentary For The Bible Tells Me So,” said Sean, a social work student at UAA.

  “‘Reparative therapies’ and ‘conversion therapies’ are not only ineffective but harmful. These programs are misleading the public, misleading people who are struggling with their sexual orientation, causing emotional harm and in some cases it’s devastating. I can’t sit idly by and allow the general public to accept this ignorance.”

  “What they are teaching in that church is not about acceptance, it’s not about love,” said Mary, “it’s about self-loathing and fear.” Her signs say, “True Love is Unconditional” and “God Loves You Just As You Are.”

• While Focus on the Family calls its deceit “love,” ex-gay activist Joe Dallas remains impenitent in his adultery and his disobedience of the Bible. Emproph explains.

More news to come….

The Family Research Council — co-founder and longtime supporter of Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays — allowed racist merchandise to be sold for two days last week at its Values Voter Summit.

Two vendors from Tennessee sold an “Obama Waffles” parody of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama. The product affirmed dated Aunt Jemima stereotypes, and — by placing Obama in an Arab-style headdress — repeated the religious right’s lie that Obama is a Muslim. (Fact: Obama is a Christian in the United Church of Christ, and has been for decades.)

The vendors capped their racist comedy with a back-of-the-box caricature of Obama in a Mexican headdress serving food to presumably despicable illegal aliens.

The parody sold well among Values Voter Summit attendees on Friday and Saturday, according to the New York Times. Buyers of the box included Lou Dobbs.

FRC later claimed ignorance of the parody’s offense. Then again, how would “aspiring Klansmen” — as critic Pam Spaulding puts it — understand Racism 101?

Defeated last week by the Maryland Court of Appeals, a Maryland antigay coalition’s canvassers continue to lie to mall shoppers in a twin effort to:

• re-legalize discrimination against transgender persons
• deny transgender persons access to gender-specific public facilities

The coalition includes “Citizens for Responsible Government” — an outfit of seemingly paranoid individuals sponsored by the national pro-theocracy Family Research Council and Alliance Defense Fund — and Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays (PFOX).

The New York Blade on Monday spotlighted actress Judith Light’s role in Save Me, a motion picture starring Chad Allen that is now showing in limited U.S. release.

Gay-media obsessions with heterosexual actors bore me — I have boycotted The Advocate for a decade for this reason. However, writer Dustin Fitzharris does eventually offer useful observations about the movie:

“Save Me,” directed by Robert Cary, follows Mark (openly gay actor Chad Allen), a sex and drug-addicted young, gay man who overdoses and finds himself at the mercy of his disapproving family. Their solution to his problems is Genesis House. At first, Mark resists the efforts of Gayle [Judith Light] and her loving husband (Stephen Lang), but he soon finds solace and brotherhood with the other residents, including Scott (Robert Grant of “Queer as Folk” fame), who is battling demons of his own. Soon, Mark and Scott find their bond is more than friendship, and they have to confront the teachings they’ve begun to accept. Their bond is something Gayle, whose own 17-year-old gay son died of an overdose, can’t bear to witness.

(Read More)