Beginning with its patronizing title — parents struggle with the coming-out of older teen-agers and adult offspring, not a “child” — the article proceeds to declare that homosexuality is a disease, that family members are doomed to a lifestyle of depraved promiscuity, and that parents are to blame.

Ensley’s first bits of advice:

• homosexuality can “afflict” any family, as if it were a disease
• parents should “put some space between you and your child” and get help not from licensed family-therapy professionals, but from an unlicensed “Christian counselor” via Exodus’ referral network of amateurs

Ensley says he sympathizes with parents’ desire to “fix” their gay family members, “considering all the danger, sin and uncertainty we associate with the gay lifestyle.” Ensley apparently wants parents to project an unseemly ex-gay lifestyle of furtive anonymous sex, self-suppression, conformism, sexual dishonesty, and loneliness onto their own family members.

Ensley positions himself as a neutral voice of reason in parents’ choice of support system:

Is an Exodus ministry right for your child? It can certainly help, but everyone in your family needs to understand what Exodus is and what it isn’t, and what they should and should not expect.

But Ensley fails to tell parents just how little they should expect. He fails to mention that most people who seek (or are forced into) treatment by Exodus’ amateur counselors receive little benefit and that many suffer years of counterproductive emotional and spiritual advice.

Then Ensley bashes parents: He tells them to “Discover your part in the problem.”

Ensley is a bit too timid to spell out his vicious and presumptuous accusation against parents in detail. Distant father? Possessive mother? Molester uncle? Too little football for the boys? Too little lipstick for the girls? Ensley does not say.

Like so many hacks in the ex-gay industry, Ensley sugar-coats his poison with soothing godtalk that has nothing to do with the subject:

We’re so often given the impression that God is concerned only with our becoming holy and giving Him glory that, in the midst of crisis, we lose sight of the fact that He cares very much.

He does not coldly survey the brokenness in our lives; He collects our tears. And there is no distance to which you can flee or fall that is out of the reach of His saving grace. “The Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save,” the Bible tells us (Is. 59:1, NKJV).

There is a long road ahead, but God will never leave you alone. You can trust Him to provide all you need to restore your family to Him and to one another.

There is nothing holy, glorious, or Biblical about blaming parents, isolating parents from professional family counselors, scaring parents away from mainstream support groups such as PFLAG, and lying to parents about their family members’ values and lifestyles.

Ensley’s poison pill is a reminder of Exodus’ spiritual and moral corruption, and of the threat that Exodus poses to family values.

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NEW YORK – TruthWinsOut.org expressed jubilation over the California Supreme Court’s decision to overturn a ban on same-sex marriage. The momentous 4-3 ruling is one of the biggest victories in the GLBT equality movement’s history. It also undermines “ex-gay” propaganda that demeans gay relationships to recruit new members.

“We are thrilled to be a part of history and experience a monumental victory for marriage equality,” said Wayne Besen, TruthWinsOut.org’s Executive Director. “The court made a bold decision and confirmed that all relationships, regardless of sexual orientation, are equal in California.”

“Under these circumstances, we cannot find that retention of the traditional definition of marriage constitutes a compelling state interest,” the court said in a majority decision. “Accordingly, we conclude that to the extent the current California statutory provisions limit marriage to opposite-sex couples, these statutes are unconstitutional.”

The California court also said that the right to marry in the state’s constitution “guarantees same-sex couples the same substantive constitutional rights as opposite-sex couples to choose one’s life partner and enter with that person into a committed, officially recognized, and protected family relationship.”

“This ruling is a devastating blow to ‘ex-gay’ cults, because it undermines their propaganda, which claims that same-sex relationships don’t work,” said TWO’s Besen. “The images of happy couples marrying undercut their efforts to recruit vulnerable people.”

The ruling will take effect and marriages will begin in 30 days. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger issued a statement that said he will “respect the court’s decision and will “uphold its ruling.” He also said that he “will not support an amendment to the constitution that would overturn this state Supreme Court ruling.”

TruthWinsout.org is a non-profit organization that counters right wing propaganda, exposes the “ex-gay” myth and educates America about gay life. For more information, visit www.TruthWinsOut.org.

-30-

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Feministe say wrote May 13 of efforts to assist people struggling with gender identity:

Ken Zucker of Toronto’s Clarke Institute represents the widespread, traditional approach, where the goal is to eliminate cross-gender behavior and the desire to be a different gender. He basically describes his success rate as the number of kids he’s managed to steer away from becoming an adult trans person; as he’s said elsewhere, he wants to “help these kids be more content in their biological gender.”

Which sounds all right on paper, but how far do you go in denying a child’s perfectly innocent inclinations?

Feministe notes that some view Zucker’s attitude toward gender-variant people as repackaged ex-gay therapy. And so Feministe is naturally concerned that the American Psychiatric Association has put Ken Zucker in charge of a working group that will weigh changes to the definition of gender identity disorder.

Although I don’t know if I quite understand this given that the DSM is a diagnostic tool rather than a prescriptive tool, and given that previous DSMs were written from similarly retrogressive approaches, she also feels there’s “an additional danger that gay and lesbian communities need to be cognizant of […] if Zucker and company entrench conversion therapy in the DSM-V, then it is a clear, dangerous step toward also legitimizing ex-gay therapy and re-stigmatizing homosexuality.”

That may seem to be a logical fear, but apparently it is unwarranted:

Gay City News wrote a story today that addresses some (not all) activist apprehensions. Key points:

• The working groups will not prescribe treatment
• The diagnosis of homosexuality will not be put back into DSM

Dr. Jack Drescher, a gay psychiatry professor at New York Medical College and a member of APA working groups relating to sexual and gender identity disorder, was instrumental in clearing up concern relating to the scope of working-group efforts.

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Three years after the furor over a teenage boy who was forcibly sent to one of its camps, the ex-gay movement may be losing steam. Meanwhile, ex-gay survivors are gaining strength. But are the two groups really that different?

While offering a comprehensive range of voices ranging from Exodus’ John Smid and Alan Chambers to ex-gay survivors Peterson Toscano and Christine Bakke, The Advocate article glosses over:

• the exploitation of ex-gay counselees by antigay and GOP-affiliated political organizations
• efforts by ex-gay therapists and activists to scare ex-gays away from friendships and dialogue with gay acquaintances
• the abandonment of counselees by their ex-gay “ministries” when counselees such as Noe Gutierrez reject certain ex-gay political positions or misleading claims about orientation change – or find a way for faith and sexual honesty to co-exist
• deliberate efforts by ex-gay activists to promote discrimination, intrafamily blame games, prohibition of legal gay relationships, and tolerance of antigay violence, as tools to pressure gay people to submit to quack therapy and abusive, politicized distortions of religion
• the tight connections between the Exodus International board of directors and the Arlington Group of religious rightists that strive to replace federal law with fundamentalist reinterpretations of the Bible, science, history, and the rights of non-fundamentalists
• the ongoing false marketing of Exodus and Focus on the Family, promising “change” and a dishonest ”heterosexual identity”

Until a substantial number of moderate members of Exodus take responsibility for their leaders’ political and cultural warfare, and act appropriately to interfere with that warfare, there really is no sincere effort toward common ground on the ex-gay side — contrary to what The Advocate suggests.

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Last month, in a declaration that antigay violence is a non-issue, Exodus and Focus on the Family voiced opposition to a national Day of Silence which commemorates antigay violence and seeks to establish specific school policies to reduce violence and harassment. Pro-exgay pundit Warren Throckmorton sought to compete with the Day of Silence through a Golden Rule initiative, while Exodus featured speaker Ken Hutcherson organized a antigay protest purposely intended to disrupt public-school classes at a school in Washington state where the Day of Silence was being observed by some students. Exodus and Focus supported a so-called Day of Truth three days later. The DOT was a national religious-right campaign that sought to:

• oppose school programs that offer specific measures to reduce antigay violence
• vent antigay religious judgmentalism and sexual insults against gay and gay-tolerant students while they are at school trying to learn

Since the February killings of California gay student Lawrence King and Florida gay youth Simmie Williams, reports of antigay assaults and killings stretching from Tennessee to Illinois to New Jersey and elsewhere have been met by the ex-gay movement with ongoing silence and a refusal to act — except to silence survivors and hold rallies for bullies.

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In an April 18 article in the Toledo Free Press, Crystal Davis, associate vice president for human resources for the university, declared her support for discrimination on all three counts:

• she was willing to enforce her own antigay religious views upon university employees and students possessing less-homophobic, more-genuine religious beliefs,
• despite university hiring policies to the contrary, she denied that gay people have civil rights or that discrimination victimizes them, and
• she implicitly denigrated gay African-Americans.

Davis also denied the natural existence of intersexed and gender-variant people who might apply for jobs at the university — and threatened God’s wrath against such people:

She concluded: “My final and most important point. There is a divine order. God created human kind male and female (Genesis 1:27). God created humans with an inalienable right to choose. There are consequences for each of our choices, including those who violate God’s divine order.

Davis was fired for flouting the policies that she was hired to enforce, and religious-right media have been in an uproar ever since — accusing the university of discriminating racially and religiously against Davis because it would not permit her to deny religious freedom to others, nor to arbitrarily violate campus hiring and employment policies with impunity.

Two ex-gay activists have now leapt to Davis’ defense with a bizarre assertion that antigay African-Americans somehow enjoy a special racial and religious right to discriminate against others on the basis of victims’ religion and sexual orientation, whatever local laws and employer hiring policies may say to the contrary.

With amazing chutzpah, Davis said that her race gave her the special right to deny others their own rights under civil law and university policy — and she cited non-existent “daily thousands” of ex-gays who leave a non-existent “gay lifestyle” as justification for her denial of equality to fellow Americans:

Dixon said she took “great umbrage at the notion that those choosing the homosexual lifestyle are ‘civil rights victims.’”

“I cannot wake up tomorrow and not be a black woman,” she wrote. “I am genetically and biologically a Black woman, and very pleased to be so, as my Creator intended. Daily, thousands of homosexuals make a life decision to leave the gay lifestyle evidenced by the growing population of PFOX (Parents and friends of Ex-Gays) and Exodus International, just to name a few.”

Dixon referenced “ex-gay” individuals, many of whom, she said, “report that the impetus to their change of heart and lifestyle was a transformative experience with God; a realization that their choice of same-sex practices wreaked havoc in their psychological and physical lives.”

In a press release issued this morning, the antigay group Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays made the same argument: That race somehow gives a human-resources administrator a special right to discriminate against others with impunity:

“African-Americans like Dixon have the right to defend their race without being subjected to punishment,” said Regina Griggs, Executive Director of PFOX.

Speaking earlier in defense of Davis, Ohio “ex-gay” activist Greg Quinlan (pictured, right) charged that anyone who denies ex-gay and antigay activists the special right to violate workplace policies, to discriminate at will, to impose religious beliefs upon subordinates, and to state unscientific falsehoods about sexual orientation without opposition, is guilty of hating and silencing ex-gays:

“Today, if you speak out against homosexuality on a college campus, you are considered a criminal,” Quinlan told Cybercast News Service . “I’ve been out of the homosexual lifestyle for 16 years. And if you speak out as an ex-gay, you are always under attack. I’ve been slapped in the face. I’ve been screamed and yelled at. I’ve been called all kinds of names. When you disagree with someone, that doesn’t mean you hate them.”

Quinlan, a former homosexual activist who said he had raised “thousands of dollars” for the Human Rights Campaign Fund in the 1980s, said his own conversion came about slowly.

“The science is clear, absolutely clear: no one is born a homosexual. It is nurture, not nature,” he said. “But if you say that, you are branded a bigot, you’re branded as a monster, you’re branded as a hater. You are branded as intolerant. But you are also, on many campuses, treated as if you have no right to your opinions.”

In Florida, expect a similar battle to erupt after a judge ruled, in response to students’ lawsuit, that it is constitutionally forbidden for a public high school principal or school board to selectively ban all gay-tolerant or gay-affirming speech.

Far from apologizing for their un-American activities, ACLU legal documents indicate that the principal and school board planned to retaliate against the suing students until the judge warned them not to.

No doubt, religious rightists will again shout to the mass media that they are being denied their religious “freedom” to deny constitutional rights to others — including free speech and the expression of gay-tolerant and gay-affirming religious beliefs.

Hat tip: Box Turtle Bulletin

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(Bob Davies, right)

Exodus claims to love homosexuals, but their message to those infected with HIV: “You are getting what you deserve and God is punishing you for being gay.” On Exodus’ website, there is a commentary by former Executive Director Bob Davies, “A Biblical Response to the Pro-Gay Movement.” In this screed he says:

Those who practice these sins “receive in their own persons the due penalty of their error” (v. 27). In today’s society, homosexuality is reaping a bitter harvest. Homosexual men are six times more likely to have attempted suicide than heterosexual men. Between 25 and 33 percent of homosexual men and women are alcoholics (the national average is 7 percent). Currently, 70 percent of Americans with AIDS are male homosexuals or bisexuals. Homosexual involvement reaps deep devastation in the lives of many who practice it.

It was certainly convenient for Davies to ignore that heterosexuals make up more than 80 percent of cases worldwide - so this is hardly a product of homosexual behavior. Many of the new infections are caused by right wing squeamishness to teaching comprehensive sex education - including condom use.

For political convenience, Exodus also skirts the obvious. In Washington, DC, black residents are hardest hit, accounting for 81% of new reports of HIV infection and 86% of people with AIDS, though the city’s population is only 57% African-American. Based on Exodus “logic” this would mean that the “black lifestyle” is dangerous and should be condemned. Interesting, how they only focus on homosexuality and ignore other demographics and the International AIDS epidemic because they don’t mesh well with the group’s bigotry.

The fact is, Exodus is a bona fide hate group that will say anything to smear homosexuals. Gay sex, when practiced safely, is no more dangerous than any other form of sexuality. Gay people have been around for thousands of years before AIDS and will be on this planet long after the disease subsides or is eradicated. In the grand scheme of the universe, it does not define homosexuality any more than syphilis outbreaks in Europe defined heterosexuality. It is time for Exodus to stop the blame game and act responsibly.

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Exodus International is becoming more desperate and shrill as they lose their war against homosexuality. We call on Exodus to take action against Black and apologize for the group’s outrageous slander against GLBT advocates. These paranoid, mean-spirited and unfounded attacks are unethical and undermine Exodus’ claim that they love homosexuals.

“There are actual GAY hate groups who wish to silence the voices of ex-gays,” wrote Black on his blog. “These groups are like the brazenly named ‘Ex-Gay Watch’ and their klan of bloggers who use hatefully sarcastic words in addressing ex-gays.”

Black went on to compare the work of ex-gay watchdog groups to Nazis and say – without evidence – that ex-gays were somehow being “stalked.”

“One merely need to lightly read over blogs like the “Ex-GAY WATCH” (yes, they are WATCHING and STALKING ex-gay leaders) and/or Wayne Besen’s blog and you will know we are living in very dark days….A very successful attorney friend of mine recently told me he felt it was like 1933 in Nazi Germany for Christians and Exodus type ministries in the USA. He seriously joked with me and said, ‘Stephen it is like 1933 and your last name isn’t Black, but Bernstein. Your ministries will be on the front-line of the next demonic wave of an anti-Christ movement in history. It is coming.’ WOW! It was a sobering moment.”

Black also claimed that gay activists and the media are, “silencing their great stories about overcoming homosexuality.” He makes the bizarre case that there are so few ex-gay stories from people not on the payroll of right wing organizations because they are, “afraid to come out from fear of persecution.”

Black must live in a delusional bubble. The mainstream media has featured Exodus International countless times, even though the group provides no statistics and offers no concrete evidence of change. The reason that we see so few ‘ex-gays’ who are not on the payroll of political organizations is because they don’t exist. To say, without evidence, that it is because of persecution is a cop out and a transparent excuse for Exodus’ astronomical failure rate.”

Finally, Black is being patently dishonest. His blog states that he is “not associated with any organization,” yet, he directs an Exodus Ministry. He should be ashamed for his radical hit piece with the intent of character assassination. The question is, what does Exodus intend to do about it? If they remain silent, it will be viewed as a tacit endorsement of Black’s nutty views.

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There certainly must be enough room for this panel (or one like it) to speak at Mohler’s Baptist Theological Seminary, or at the Focus on the Family headquarters (Mohler is on the Board), or perhaps at a Love Won Out conference?

If they do not issue invitations for APA views to speak at their centers, then perhaps it is actually they who are afraid to debate in front of a wide audience? And, perhaps what everyone is saying, that they are just looking to make publicity to cast APA in a bad light is true. Maybe they are afraid that if their flocks are presented with real scientific views it will be more difficult to manipulate and brainwash them?

So, right wingers, when are the invitations coming?

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(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’s ‘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.

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