ABC World News covered Truth Wins Out’s investigation of Marcus Bachmann’s therapy practice, where John Becker discovered that Bachmann indeed does utilize discredited, scientifically fraudulent “ex-gay” reparative therapy.

Also, if you value and appreciate the sort of work Truth Wins Out does, we need your help, as we are funded by donations.  Please consider a tax deductible contribution to Truth Wins Out so that we may continue to expose the harmful “ex-gay” industry and continue the fight for LGBT people against religious extremism in all its forms.  Thanks!

More good news.  Though Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell has technically been repealed, as we all know, there has been an injunction in place essentially preserving the ban while the military prepares for the policy change.  The Ninth Circuit has put a stop to that, and the Pentagon says they’ll comply with the court order:

Even with Obama’s support for ending the 18-year-old policy, Obama’s justice department asked the appeals court to keep the injunction in place to give the military more time to prepare for admitting gay soldiers.

On Wednesday, a three judge-panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals noted that the process of repealing DADT is now “well under way”.

The government “can no longer satisfy the demanding standard” to keep the injunction on hold, the court ruled.

The Pentagon said it was still studying the ruling, but added it would comply with the court order.

Dave Lapan, a military spokesperson, said the US military was immediately taking “steps to inform the field of this order.

Step by step, the discriminatory institutions are falling away.  It’s always nice when the courts give the administration a little nudge, though.

UPDATE:  Predictably, the self-loathing gay wingnut part of the internet has found a reason to hate this victory, as there is no victory for LGBT rights that they are ever truly happy about.

The Obama Justice Department has filed a brief in a San Francisco case involving DOMA which may be the strongest signal they’ve given as to where they’re headed on the issue of marriage equality. We already knew that they had deemed DOMA Section 3 to be unconstitutional, and this seems to be that decision in action:

The filing, submitted Friday in the case of a San Francisco federal court employee seeking family insurance coverage for her wife, was the department’s first chance to elaborate on President Obama’s announcement Feb. 23 that he considered the Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional and would no longer defend it in court.

[...]

The brief was just as striking for the emphatic tone of its arguments as for its conclusion, that the law was invalid:

– The law “was motivated in substantial part by animus toward gays and lesbians and their intimate relationship,” and rested on “stereotype-based thinking” that offends the constitutional guarantee of equality, the Justice Department wrote.

– Even sincere moral or religious disapproval of homosexuality “is not a legitimate policy objective” or basis for a law.

– Laws that penalize or prohibit same-sex marriage do not encourage heterosexual marriage, procreation or responsible child-rearing, but instead deny children of same-sex couples “the benefits of the stable home life produced by legally recognized marriage.”

– Proposition 8, the 2008 California initiative banning same-sex marriage, was an example of a “political backlash” demonstrating the relative powerlessness of gays and lesbians – a critical factor in judicial review of all such laws.

It seems as if legal minds are starting to, finally, coalesce around a very simple understanding of gay rights, one that considers the gay community as we actually are, rather than as the Religious Right says we are. That’s huge, considering the fact that so many of these cases are headed for the Supreme Court.

And to be sure, they haven’t technically said they support marriage equality, but every argument detailed above is an argument for it.  They’re getting there.

No matter what the issue is, no matter what progress the rest of the nation is making, social conservatives are always moving in the opposite direction.  Bob Vander Plaats, the extremist Republican who led the effort to remove the Iowa Supreme Court justices who ruled for marriage equality in that state, is now unveiling an anti-gay pledge that he and his wingnut group, The Family Leader, want all Republican candidates to sign:

According to Fox News, the pledge includes support for the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), the 1996 law that bars federal agencies from recognizing the legal marriages of gay and lesbian couples, opposition to gay marriage laws, picking constitutionalists for federal judgeships and opposition to Sharia law. Candidates are also being asked to pledge fidelity to their spouses.

Gay, gay, gay…wait, Sharia law? What?  Andrew Belonsky analyzes that with one simple question:

Isn’t it clever how social conservatives, aware that national opinion on LGBT rights has shifted left, are now trying to link gay panic to another irrational fear, Islamophobia?

Clever, indeed.

The trial has begun in the slaying of 15 year-old Larry King.  If you need a refresher on the details:

Brandon McInerney, now 17, is charged with murder in the 2008 shooting death of Lawrence King in a high-profile case that has rallied the gay community and triggered calls for greater protections of young homosexuals on school campuses.

King was bullied by McInerney and other boys at the school, Deputy Dist. Atty. Maeve Fox said in her opening statement in the trial, which is being conducted at a courthouse in Chatsworth. But shortly before his death, King had begun wearing high heels, makeup and earrings to school and had become more confident in himself, she said.

“Larry King for the first time in his life wasn’t taking it anymore,” Fox said. “And he started to give people what I prefer to call the proverbial chin. Only it was more profane. The proverbial ‘f … you.’”

McInerney allegedly mentioned that he was going to kill King the day before the murder occurred. Oh, but look at what the defense is doing:

McInerney’s lawyer, Scott Wippert, argued that King — and not his client — was the aggressor. He said King targeted McInerney for sexual harassment, making flirtatious remarks, and had humiliated him.

King was encouraged in his effeminate behavior and dress by school administrators who said he was within his rights to dress that way, Wippert said.

For his part, McInerney was “a confused, emotionally torn 14-year-old from a violent home who saw no other way out than to shoot Larry,” Wippert said. “It was a heat-of-the-moment decision.”

Gay panic. The suggestion that if a person feels uncomfortable because a gay person flirts with him, that murder is somehow on the spectrum of Reasonable Responses. I do remember from the days immediately after King’s murder that he did seem to have a crush of some sort on Brandon McInerney. That happens, especially in the formative years of high school.

My feeling on this case has always been that it was tragic all around — that a kid like Larry could be murdered in cold blood at school just for being who he is, and that a kid like Brandon could have been raised/neglected in such a way that he would feel justified in taking Larry’s life.  But the suggestion from the defense that a little 15 year-old gay boy who liked to wear make-up was the aggressor in a situation which resulted in his own murder is beyond disgusting.

Well, the whole gay internet is making fun of this, and I try never to miss an opportunity to mock a wingnut, so here is NOM’s time-consuming pipe dream of a plan to repeal marriage equality in New York:

We’re putting together a 4-year campaign strategy that will reverse same-sex marriage in New York. We’ll have many more details, and ways for you to get involved, in the days ahead but the overall plan will have three phases:

PHASE 1:
Elect pro-marriage majorities next November that will approve a marriage amendment in both the Assembly and Senate during the 2013 legislative session.

PHASE 2:
Protect pro-marriage candidates in the 2014 elections, so that the amendment can receive final legislative approval in the 2015 legislative session.

PHASE 3:
Successfully pass the ballot measure when it goes before voters in November 2015.

Uh, let’s see. So first they’d have to get rid of lots and lots of pro-gay politicians in the Assembly, get rid of anyone in the Senate they don’t like, find underpants, (??????), profit, and then get the voters of New York, who already support marriage equality to the tune of almost sixty percent, to suddenly lose their minds and become bigots, when in reality, by 2015, support will probably be closer to seventy percent…

Brian Brown and Maggie Gallagher will do absolutely anything to avoid getting real jobs, won’t they?

As Andy Towle said, “Good luck, bigots.”

Oh, Newt:

Republican presidential contender Newt Gingrich on Saturday said the adoption of same-sex marriage in New York showed the nation is “drifting toward a terrible muddle.”

Saying he thinks marriage is between a man and a woman, he told reporters that he “would like to find ways to defend that view as legitimately and effectively as possible.”

He defends that view by finding a new woman to marry every time the current ball and chain ends up going into the hospital for life-threatening rather than plastic surgery purposes.

Also, Tiffany’s and stuff.

There are two really interesting articles in this past Sunday’s New York Times Magazine dealing with the intersection of religion and sexuality, and both merit a careful look.  In another piece, I’ll examine the one about gay activist turned “ex-gay” activist Michael Glatze, but that’s going to take some time, so I’m tackling this one first.  It’s about the idea of therapists — not complete wingnuts, mind you – helping clients either stay in the closet or live lives which are completely counter to who they really are, based on the clients’ religious desires to remain “pure.”  Or something.  Let me say on the front end that this article makes me want to throw things, because it elucidates so clearly the harmful effects that fundamentalist religious indoctrination has on people.  Having experienced such indoctrination myself, it makes me furious, but simultaneously grateful that I was able to, over a period of years, to abandon that indoctrination entirely.*

The article presents us with a conundrum:  what to do when a client comes in and can’t balance their religious indoctrination/beliefs with their sexuality?  Which wins out?  How do good, well-meaning therapists treat these clients for whom tweaking the specific doctrines of their religious beliefs isn’t an option?  As it turns out, some mental health specialists have some ideas, but I don’t think they’ve found the answers yet:

“I’m a very strong believer in people’s rights,” [therapist Denis Flanigan] said one gray morning at a Starbucks in Houston. But during his early training, he encountered a few clients who either would not come out of the closet or suffered mightily when they did. Christians of the kind who earnestly believed that the Bible deplored homosexuality were particularly troubled as they tried to reconcile their faith with their sexual orientation. The more Flanigan studied this conundrum, the more he came to see it as intractable. Some gay evangelicals truly believe that to follow their sexual orientation means abandonment by a church that provides them with emotional and social sustenance — not to mention eternal damnation. Keeping their sexual orientation a secret, however, means giving up any opportunity to have fulfilling relationships as gay men and women.

“When these clash, what do you do?” Flanigan recalled thinking, and when he began to research the topic about a decade ago, he found few answers beyond the obvious. Antigay religious groups would not condone homosexuality; they thought gays should just give up their orientation, and the most extreme among them offered frightening “conversion” practices. Nonreligious gays thought the conflicted should just walk away from churches that won’t accept homosexuals as they are. “Which trumps which?” Flanigan asked himself. “Religion or sexual orientation?”

So basically, the approach they’ve taken is to focus on the client’s needs and desires first and foremost. Is the religious angle so important to them that they want to find a way to be authentic within that framework? Are they looking to keep a job in that religious framework while remaining husbands and fathers in public?

“Psychological ethics say that we’re supposed to support religious beliefs and support sexual orientation,” Flanigan told me. “But there was nothing I knew of that says what to do when they conflict.” As far as he could tell, the only choice those people had was to give up one or the other.

Here is the tragedy in all of this. They’re working with these clients, trying to meet them where they are, but they’re addressing none of the root causes of people’s anguish, which is caused by religious indoctrination. It’s sad that there are so many people brought up in those sorts of environments, where the idea of “Christian love” has a lot more to do with judgment and guilt than it does with any human definition of “love.” It should be taken as a given that this article is dealing with grown-up, reality-based mental health professionals, so the crock of shit known as “ex-gay” or reparative therapy is not even on the table. No, that has been successfully laughed out of intelligent, educated company in this country, and for good reason.

So these mental health professionals are essentially helping people stay in the closet. That might be a band-aid, but it’s not a solution. The difference here is that we’re dealing with therapists who actually do mean well and have their clients’ best interests at heart, unlike the Joseph Nicolosis of the world, who go about their work with the empathy of common sociopaths. Another therapist, Douglas Haldeman, discusses the approach he came up with to deal with these sorts of cases:

Haldeman found in his research that the vast majority of people seeking to change their orientation held strong religious beliefs; often, these were married men with families who grew up in a church and who felt that they had far too much to lose by coming out.

[...]

In other words, Haldeman was certain that conversion therapy didn’t work, but he wasn’t sure that gay-affirmative therapy — helping gay clients to see that their discomfort with their orientation might come from internalizing a prejudice — would help them find peace of mind, either. In these circumstances, Haldeman tried a different approach.

[...]

The approach Haldeman used was, in the therapeutic parlance, client-centered; that is, the client’s desires took precedence over any values or opinions held by the therapist. So if John wanted to be a gay man who lived as a straight man, Haldeman would help him become that person.

I said before that this article makes me want to throw things. It still does.  I was raised in a marginally conservative home, but ended up being exposed to seriously hateful religious indoctrination in high school in two churches I was involved with.  Perhaps it was because I’ve always been strong-willed that I was able to at least put the self-hatred I had learned, along with the religious spew, in order to at least start on the journey out of the closet.  It makes me seethe knowing that there are others who truly believe what they have been taught, that who they really are is unworthy of God.

Again, these therapists are certainly well-meaning, as they try to find answers for how to treat those who have been spiritually bullied and abused into believing that self-hating religious beliefs are truly what is best for them, or worse, that those beliefs are actually true in any sense.  But the mental health community doesn’t have the real answers yet, possibly because we still haven’t wrapped our heads around the notion, in this nation at least, that spiritual abuse is itself a sickness inflicted on unwitting individuals.  And as you read this piece, you’ll see that this sort of “client-centered” therapy leads to some serious double-lives, some grade-A hypocrisy, in the pursuit of giving these poor souls a little inner peace.

Warren Throckmorton is discussed in the piece as well.  Most of you are familiar with him, but if not, in a nutshell:  Warren is a Christian psychologist who used to preach the “ex-gay” nonsense, but became disillusioned when he realized that the luminaries of the fundamentalist/”ex-gay” industries are common liars, and started to question everything he thought he knew about human sexuality and its intersection with religious faith.  In the section about Throckmorton and Mark Yarhouse, our own Wayne Besen is quoted:

Yarhouse and Throckmorton came up with what they called sexual-identity therapy (SIT). At first, Yarhouse told me, many left-leaning therapists saw SIT as a trick — conversion therapy by another name, and many remain skeptical: Wayne Besen, the founder of Truth Wins Out, an organization devoted to debunking the ex-gay ministry, told me that though he respects Throckmorton, he still believes that SIT is just another way of encouraging repression. “I think Throckmorton means well and really wants to help people reconcile their faith and sexuality,” Besen said. “However, the more appropriate way is for people to find a more moderate religion that doesn’t force them to live at cross purposes with their sexual health.”

Therein lies the rub. Some people of faith are raised to view it as a source of comfort, support, love and fellowship. The fundamentalist world is lacking in those departments, though, if you don’t easily conform to their definition of “normal.”  The sad thing, though, is that while Wayne is completely right about the best way to handle these things — find a more moderate religion, do some research and go through the long, arduous process of abandoning religion altogether, etc. — some people are just far too tortured by their religious faith to do so.  Abusers like to break their victims down until they feel that they are powerless and weak without the abuser around.  You see this with abusive husbands, child rapists and anyone else who gets off on controlling people.  These are also the hallmarks of fundamentalist religious indoctrination.  Find comfort from the pain at the source of the pain, etc.

I wish I had the answers.  Instead I just encourage the mental health community to keep working on their side of it, keep trying new things that, above all, respect people’s integrity and their true selves.  The good news is that more and more people are abandoning religious fundamentalism every day, so future generations of Americans, perhaps, won’t need such therapy as much.  Moreover, more and more people are getting the counter message of love and acceptance and equality — the It Gets Better project comes to mind — far earlier, even while they’re still being drowned in the baptismal font.  The bad news is that as they lose power, religious abusers are digging in their heels and will certainly be around to hurt a few more generations of their own gay offspring.

I quoted liberally from the article, because it’s long and hits a lot of topics, but you all should take the time to read it if you haven’t already.  We all have a lot of work left to do.

*I also abandoned religious faith in general, but that’s not the point, as there are several valid ways to unshackle oneself from religious indoctrination.  My atheism has very little, if anything, to do with my sexuality, as I didn’t actually become an atheist until age 28, nine years after I came out of the closet.

This morning, my friend Anne Gullick, co-chair of the local chapter of the Tennessee Equality Project, and I went on Live at 9 in Memphis to discuss Tracy Morgan, anti-gay bullying and what it’s like for gay youth when they hear negative messages about who they are from people they respect. One thing I talked about with hosts Marybeth Conley and Corie Ventura was that we still have a situation in places all over this country where the life of a gay teen is often luck of the draw — some of them have the love and support of their friends, families and churches, and some instead hear negative messages from all sides about who they are.

Click them to embiggen them!  The third and fourth pictures feature Mitchell Gold, close friend of Truth Wins Out and head of Faith in America.