(Weekly Column)

When openly gay Republican Steve May was elected to Arizona’s state House in 1998, he surely lost the votes of some social conservatives who thought he led a sinful lifestyle. It turns out that these detractors were correct, although it had nothing to do with the politician’s sexual orientation.

A New York Times story revealed that May has become a soulless dirty trickster for the Arizona GOP, who is recruiting drifters to run as Green Party candidates in a sleazy effort to siphon away Democratic votes.

One man that May recruited for statewide office is twenty-year-old Benjamin Pearcy. The “candidate” has a faux Mohawk, his campaign headquarters is a Starbucks, and his career is strumming a guitar on the street. He describes himself as the illegitimate son of a stripper.

“I’ve been homeless,” he told the Times, which said that during the interview his eyes darted back and forth.

Another May candidate, Thomas Meadows, 27, is a broke tarot card reader running for state treasurer who wears a court jester’s hat.

The Green Party has urged its supporters to avoid voting for the sham candidates. The Democratic Party has filed a formal complaint with local, state, and federal prosecutors.

“These are people who are not serious and who were recruited as part of a cynical manipulation of the process,” said Paul Eckstein, a lawyer representing the Democrats. “They don’t know Green from red.”

Sadly, at one point May was a legitimate hero, serving in the Arizona legislature and fighting the military’s Don’t Ask/Don’t tell policy.

In February 1999, following a legislative debate on domestic partnership legislation, May objected to another legislator’s anti-gay remarks. In April 1999, the U.S. Army Reserve called May to active reserve duty during the Kosovo crisis. Shortly after he returned to civilian life, an investigation was launched resulting from May’s comments made during the verbal confrontation with the state lawmaker. A military panel recommended that he be discharged – although he fought the panel’s recommendation and eventually won.

It is incredibly disappointing that May would lower himself to perform such degrading acts that mock the homeless and undermine democracy. This man of valor has now become a vulture and has transformed from role model to rogue model. Did May really serve his country only to return home and sabotage elections?

May once chided the U.S. government for forcing him to lie in order to serve his country. Ironically, he now claims, with a straight face, that his candidates aren’t imposters.

“Did I recruit candidates? Yes,” said May, who is himself a Republican candidate for the State Legislature. “Are they fake candidates? No way.”

If one is to believe May’s fantastical story, the preppy conservative just happened to have been strolling in Tempe’s Mill Avenue bohemian district and had the good fortune of meeting Roxie, a one-armed pregnant woman who introduced him to a slew of politically ambitious drifters.

Yeah, right.

In last week’s column, I wrote that Republicans “trick the American people into voting against their own interests.” May’s tawdry campaign to recruit street people vividly proves my point.

One of May’s candidates, a pedicab driver nicknamed Grandpa, is running on a platform of opposition to higher taxes and putting God in the classroom. The aforementioned Benjamin Pearcy has bought into the GOP’s cheerleading about an opportunity society, even as his fake candidacy will help elect officials who will reduce future opportunities for the poor.

“Anyone can do it. We’re all good enough,” says Pearcy, apparently unaware of the policies pushed by May and the Republican Party.

I never thought I’d agree with the Religious Right, but Steve May needs to change his wicked lifestyle. His exploitation of these “candidates” and the American political system is truly perverse.

Weekly Column

This weekend, I attended an event on Fire Island that featured Sen. Kirstin Gillibrand (who was quite lovely and engaging). Interestingly, a few donors publicly expressed displeasure about the Democratic Party’s progress on LGBT issues during a Q&A session. This got me thinking about why some Democrats are disappointed with the Party – and it goes much deeper than votes on a few key issues. The unease, in my view, comes directly from the Party’s inability to define itself, defend itself and the style in which it communicates.

If one is asked to name five defining issues the Republican Party stands for, it would be easy: Lower taxes (for the rich), Pro-business (corporate welfare), Discrimination (gays, blacks, Muslims immigrants, etc.), Family Values (undermining separation of church & State) and a strong defense (dumb wars we can’t afford).

But, if one asks the same question about Democrats, people would be left scratching their heads. Over the past couple of decades, the Party has left us with a series of mind-numbing, ever-changing slogans and strategies.

Sure, many of the Democratic Party’s issues are laudable and they have had some success passing legislation. But the merry-go-round of messages has left the Party with an identity crisis. Any experienced salesperson understands that without a solid brand, the product can’t easily be marketed or sold.

In the absence of a brand, Democrats have had to disproportionately rely on prodigy politicians, such as Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, as well as scaring voters into believing (rightfully) that Republicans are too radical to govern. Fear will send many Democratic voters to the polls in November. However, spooking people into voting against the bad guys and Mama Grizzlies, while important, will not be enough to win long-term.

Aside from defining, the Democrats are going to have to start defending and stop allowing themselves to be tarred by Republicans. First, Al Gore was painted as a wimpy, serial exaggerator who lacked leadership. Then, we had war hero, John Kerry, who was swift boated as a traitor. Now, Barack Obama has been mercilessly slimed as a communist, Muslim terrorist who wants to march into Middle America and take their guns.

It is frustrating that the Democratic Party can’t make Americans remember the disaster of George W. Bush’s presidency, a mere two years ago. Yet the GOP still has people remembering the alleged nightmare of life under Jimmy Carter.

Wouldn’t the party be much better off if it cast aside its reticence and threw political punches against the GOP in the same way that Rachel Maddow, Keith Olberman and Jon Stewart do each night?

If Barack Obama still thinks he can play nice and make friends with intransigent Republicans, then he is kidding himself. The GOP is already planning, if they win back the House, to undermine the President’s legitimacy and effectiveness by launching a series of frivolous investigations.

Of course, the biggest problem the Democrats have is that they often do not know how to talk to voters. In the early stages of my career, when I was in broadcasting, news directors taught that to reach a mass audience, reporters had to write at a fifth-to seventh grade level. The Republicans get this, while Democrats talk to the American people as if they are conducting a college seminar. We hear them yammering about complicated or meaningless terms such as: public option, cap and trade, deregulation, ENDA, and working people.

(Today’s real working people would rather be defined by their aspirations, not their current station in life. So, appeal to their dreams, not their present job.)

Here are four quick examples of the way Democratic Party officials and politicians should start talking to voters about key issues:

Deregulation: “Thanks to Republicans, we can’t even feel secure having eggs for breakfast because they have dismantled safeguards that protected us from food poisoning.”

Alternative Energy: “Every time we go to the gas pump and use foreign oil, we are pumping up the terrorists. This is why we support homegrown energy innovation.”

Environment: “We will not allow Republican policies to ruin our heritage by polluting our blue water and skies with oil and smog.”

ENDA: “In a free market, the best worker should get the job, regardless of sexual orientation. We have zero tolerance for discrimination because it is morally wrong and it is bad for business.”

I know it can be difficult to dumb down the rhetoric. But, it is better than feeling stupid on Election Day, watching Republicans trick the American people into voting against their own interests.

Weekly Column

In February, a brave gay Ugandan living in exile, Kushaba Moses Mworeko, appeared at the National Press Club in Washington with a paper bag over his head to denounce Uganda’s deadly Anti-Homosexuality Bill. He wore a mask to conceal his identity because he feared for his life. At the DC press conference, he decried the interference in Ugandan affairs by intolerant American evangelicals, including the “ex-gay” organization Exodus International.

The catalyst for the infamous “Kill the Gays Bill” was a 2009 conference in Kampala featuring Scott Lively, who wrote The Pink Swastika, a book that blamed gay men for the rise of Nazism in Germany, and Don Schmierer, a board member for Exodus International.

Looking back, these were heady days for Exodus, with high-profile television appearances and globetrotting to exotic lands to evangelize the “ex-gay” myth. The good times were rolling with Exodus living by the economic rules of “God’s Economy”, where strong faith trumps smart finances.

The spiritual drunkenness of Exodus had led the organization to foolishly trade its leased offices in favor of a building with a million dollar mortgage. Now, deep into the recession, the organization is left begging the Lord for a loan and asking God’s helpers for a helping hand. On Monday, Exodus wrote on its blog, “Will you pray and ask if God would use YOU to extend His hand of generosity to our ministry during this challenging season?”

In this same Internet post, the organization announced layoffs. The downsizing mirrored severe cuts by Focus on the Family, which sold its financially strapped “ex-gay” road show, “Love Won Out”, to Exodus last year. Apparently, it was not such a wise investment for Exodus, judging by the group’s latest plea for help.

“Dear friends, please pray for us at Exodus,” wrote the organization’s President Alan Chambers. “We have experienced an unexpectedly low giving season this summer coupled with much higher expenses (insurance, utilities, etc). Sadly, we have had to let several staff go. Your prayers are appreciated. For those who are also having to endure this unfriendly economy, our prayers are with you!”

Those who do not follow the “ex-gay” industry must have been surprised by Exodus’ poverty plea. After all, on Aug. 10, the organization’s President Alan Chambers told CNN’s blog that, “Our calls are increasing. Our ministries say we’re busier than ever.”

Exodus’ Vice President, Randy Thomas, also appeared to be oblivious to the cliff ahead. On Aug. 7, he posted a flamboyant video where he gregariously sang, expressed horror that his deodorant smelled too gay, and ordered a designer Starbucks “iced venti, skinny vanilla latte”.

However, the shortfall wasn’t a shock to those of us who study these groups. In late January, I first warned that Exodus was in trouble, evidenced by its moribund website and tardy press releases – which suggested there had been staff cuts. At that time I wrote, “The group’s last press release posted on its sluggish website is dated November 16, 2009. Memo to Exodus, the New Year’s ball has dropped. You can come out of your slumber.”

Exodus financial downturn seems to be echoed by Jews Offering New Alternatives to Homosexuality (JONAH), which recently begged supporters to send old clothes, so the group could resell them, presumably at second-hand stores or flea markets.

The reason for the relative decline of these groups is that they are selling a fraudulent product. If they had really “cured” self-loathing homosexuals, these groups would be swimming in money, donated by satisfied clients and ecstatic relatives. All they offer, however, is an infomercial for false hope and their seedy scheme is beginning to catch up to them.

Unfortunately, failed American “ex-gay” outfits can still do enormous damage overseas. For example, Hong Kong’s Society for Truth and Light just published a 52-page booklet citing the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH) This is the organization best known for George Rekers, its anti-gay board member who had to step down this year after vacationing with a prostitute he had met on Rent Boy.com.

This week, Kushaba Moses Mworeko released a new video, courageously taking off his mask to call attention to the plight of LGBT people in most African countries. He implored Anglican bishops attending the All African Bishops conference in Entebbe, Uganda, to denounce the “Kill the Gays Bill.”

While it may take Exodus a while to fix its financial mess, the global wreckage it has left behind will not be so easy to clean up.

In the case of Islam, there is undeniably much to be scared of and it is not necessarily Islamophobic to point this out. For instance, the 9-11 hijackers were Jihadists and crashed airplanes into the World Trade Center because of their religious beliefs. In Saudi Arabia, Iran, Afghanistan and other countries, women are treated worse than pets at an animal shelter. It seems that countries ruled by Islamic law are repressive, backward, cruel and living in another century.

For example, in Afghanistan on Sunday, the Taliban ordered a couple stoned to death after they eloped. Clearly, these are not nice people and anyone promoting such barbarism should be vehemently opposed.

If anyone from this aforementioned crowd of terrorists and tyrants tried to open a Mosque next to Ground Zero in New York City, I would understand the heated opposition. If Islamist sympathizers pledged to erect a monument celebrating 9-11, I’d say they should be turned down. I also would not support in this space an intolerant Saudi Arabian-backed Wahhabi Madrassa that trashed America.

However, the group behind the controversial Islamic Community Center has no connection to terrorism and nothing in common with radical Islamists. They have gone out of their way to explain the project and mollify fears. The center represents an olive branch to other faiths and hopes to promote a peaceful brand of Islam.

Indeed, the project’s Imam hails from the moderate Islamic sect of Sufism, which is widely despised by America’s jihadist enemies. They hate this form of Islam so much that fundamentalists have intimidated many of its followers and attacked its shrines in the Middle East and Southeast Asia.

In regard to this mosque, Islamophobia is real and being spewed by frightened people who probably think Ramadan is a dinosaur in the movie Jurassic Park. Opponents of the building are asking questions, but purposely not listening to the answers, which would have assuaged their concerns. They are intentionally painting all forms of Islam with a broad paintbrush and failing to differentiate what each sect actually teaches its followers.

Memo to protesters: Osama bin Ladin does not represent all of Islam, any more than Rev. Pat Robertson is a spokesman for all of Christendom. Don’t you get it?

Predictably, much of the overheated political rhetoric is coming from politicians, such as Newt Gingrich, who is exploiting this issue in his early audition for the 2012 presidential race. “Nazis don’t have the right to put up a sign next to the Holocaust Museum in Washington,” said the former House Speaker. “…There’s no reason for us to accept a mosque next to the World Trade Center.”

Well, there is one good reason: The United States Constitution promises freedom of religion. Furthermore, Gingrich’s loaded example is an emotionally charged, non sequitur. The Nazi’s killed six million Jews. Obviously the goal of a sign denying this tragedy would be to explicitly antagonize Jewish people. It is insulting and unconscionable to compare such butchers to a group of liberal-minded, peaceful Muslims who want to build a center with a swimming pool, performing arts center and include board members of other faiths.

Quite frankly, Gingrich sounds more like a radical Mullah than the promoters of the Islamic Center. For instance, the former House Speaker has proclaimed that America’s woes are the result of “a secular assault on God.”

Would Gingrich prefer a non-secular, Christian version of Iran in The United States?  The genuine threat we face is not radical Islam, but religious extremism of all stripes, including that preached by Gingrich.

Those who are mindlessly attacking this mosque are doing exactly the opposite of what should be done to stop terrorism. When we bash moderate Muslims, we alienate youth and make them more susceptible to online Jihadist recruiters. These extremists can say, “see, no matter how mainstream your religion is, it will be rejected. Fight back against such humiliation by joining our group.”

Building this mosque will also play well internationally where we are already spending millions of dollars to win over skeptical Muslims. Most people will likely see this as a monument to America’s religious pluralism and our would-be detractors might think, “wow, this is a great nation and this is what true freedom looks like.”

Finally, one cannot help but notice how anti-gay activists are trying desperately to link gay people to this controversy. One way is to claim that marriage equality will break down all morality and lead to Muslim harems in the U.S. Another tactic is to corner liberals and force them to choose between gay rights and religious freedom by saying, “let’s test the Muslims by building an Islamic gay bar next door to this community center.”

Let’s not forget that in order to conquer, our homegrown extremists must first divide. It is obvious that they are capitalizing on this issue to gain power. It is up to us not to let them get away with this cynical political, election-year ploy.

(Here is Newtie sounding like a Mullah)

(Weekly Column)

Anti-gay activist Peter LaBarbera billed his three-day “Truth Academy”, that took place in a Chicago exurb last week, as “one of the most thorough pro-family, educational seminars on homosexuality ever held in the United States.” The event was heavily promoted for weeks on right wing websites, such as World Net Daily, which had an article headlined, “Exposed: Gay Brainwashing of America’s Youth.”

On the eve of his hate seminar, LaBarbera got a gift from God. Judge Vaughn Walker ruled that Proposition 8, which prohibited marriage equality in California, was unconstitutional. Surely, a spontaneous outpouring of rage against this so-called “gay activist judge” would swell the ranks of angry conservatives at the Truth Academy.

My organization, Truth Wins Out, sent a “spy” to document what we expected – based on the hype — to be a large event. The thrust of the conference was to teach an army of young culture warriors how to beat back the gay agenda. These students would then return home equipped to turn back the clock on gay rights in their communities.

What we found, however, was an event that looked more like a poorly attended condo board meeting than a youthful resurgence of the anti-gay movement. The crowd vacillated between 20-30 people, who were considerably older than the “students” the conference claimed it was trying to reach. I’m not sure how LaBarbera plans to win his culture war, when he can’t even fill one buffoon platoon

“Since how we are born clearly does not justify all behaviors. For example, what if someone is born a gay basher? Instead of diverting our attention and focusing energy how homosexuals are made and born, wouldn’t it be more effective for us to instead concentrate on explaining why homosexual activity is wrong and explaining how homosexuals may be born is ultimately irrelevant?” LaBarbera asked during a panel discussion.

A few years ago, I dubbed LaBarbera “Porno Pete” because of his bizarre fascination with naughty gay magazines and his penchant to go “undercover” at leather events and photograph naked men. It seems the sodomy obsessed LaBarbera’s strategy is for anti-gay activists to talk explicitly about gay sex and why it is an unbecoming, immoral “behavior” that undermines society.

To bolster his argument, Porno Pete hosted a slew of professional gay bashers who would say just about anything to make LGBT people appear depraved. One Truth Academy lecturer was Greg Quinlan, the President of Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays (PFOX). This organization is particularly dangerous because it teams up with conservative legal organizations to threaten schools with lawsuits if they do not provide students with “ex-gay” propaganda.

“I was questioning the homosexual lifestyle. It looked like a dead end to me,” explained Quinlan. “It looked like something that was so ugly. Here we are, you go to the bar, you hook up, this back and forth stuff, it just seems so shallow. So lust filled, so immature. But I was there and too prideful to do anything about it. So I stayed there for a little while.”

Quinlan explained how he went from gay-to-straight, and found support from an Assemblies of God Church who accepted him because he allegedly was not effeminate.

“I wasn’t your flaming faggot, you know,” the effete Quinlan told the chuckling crowd. “I can say that because I’ve been there and done that. You know, the one’s whose wrists are so limp that when the wind blows they slap themselves in the face. I wasn’t one of them,”

In the same vein as Quinlan, convicted felon and co-founder of Jews Offering New Alternatives to Homosexuality (JONAH), Arthur Abba Goldberg, offered a few stereotypes of his own.

“By the way, did you notice that a lot of gays who remain in the gay lifestyle also do a lot of body building,” said Goldberg. “They will be in the gym a lot trying to build up their pecs…Because they have these body image issues and don’t feel they are masculine enough.”

Of course, an anti-gay seminar would not be complete without the old canards tying LGBT people to communists and child molesters.

“It’s consensual (sex with minors) if you don’t believe in the age of consent, which they don’t,” said Accuracy in the Media’s Cliff Kincaid. “This is the mentality of the Marxists who are a significant component and work with elements of the gay rights movement.”

Even as these anti-gay activists were harkening back to smears of the past, key conservatives were stepping into the future. Decidedly non-Marxist, Ted Olson, was defending marriage equality on national TV and the gay conservative organization GOProud announced that commentator Ann Coulter would keynote the group’s annual event.

This broad societal shift towards acceptance is the hard truth that those at the “Truth Academy” aren’t willing to acknowledge and certainly don’t seem prepared to handle.

(Weekly Column)

I never thought I’d be working as a gay advocate at the age of 40. My involvement in the LGBT movement began my junior year of college at the University of Florida. Each week, a group of openly LGBT students, as part of a speaker’s bureau, would sit in front of a sociology class and field questions from the students.

At times, it felt scary to be so vulnerable and exposed. It was invigorating, however, to watch our peers transform from opponents to allies in front of our eyes. There were times when students snickered at us when we walked into a classroom and then shook our hands by the time we left. The process of changing minds and engaging students was energizing — even addictive. It is this phenomenon of witnessing tangible progress in real time that has kept me fighting for equal rights to this day.

My senior year of college I started a non-profit organization, Sons & Daughters of America. The goal was to begin a conversation with the American people about who LGBT people truly were and what this group wanted. We began with simple messages, such as billboards proclaiming LGBT people to be “Valued Friends and Family” – which was important, because at this time Dan Quayle and the Christian Coalition were promoting the GOP as the party of “Family Values”. Another ad, placed in college newspapers, was headlined “Tony Is Gay” and told the story of two friends – one gay and the other straight – who liked to work out at the gym together.

What I learned from the speaker’s bureau and from my efforts at Sons & Daughters of America is that simplicity in messaging works. The majority of people I spoke to were ignorant of the most basic facts about the lives of LGBT people. These individuals would ask questions such as:

1)     How do you know it isn’t a phase?

2)     Can sexual orientation be changed?

3)     Why do gay activists seem so angry?

4)     Can children be taught to be homosexuals?

5)     Are gay people against religion?

When you boiled all the questions down to their essence, people basically wanted to know three things:

1)     Who are you?

2)     What do you want?

3)     Are you a threat?

Once these three questions were satisfactorily answered, opposition seemed to soften.

Of course, the task of answering these questions today is both easier and more difficult than it was in the late 90’s. It is simpler in the sense that more people know someone who is openly gay, which tends to obliterate myths and misconceptions. It is tougher because there is a tightly organized, well-funded opposition that has perfected the art of feeding fears by pumping noxious lies into the public square.

Last year, my current organization, Truth Wins Out, conducted focus groups with midwestern churchgoers. Sadly, the stubborn stereotypes and misinformation that I saw in University of Florida classrooms are alive and well today. Much of the public is still shockingly ignorant of Homosexuality 101. They have basic questions they want answered before they are comfortable supporting concepts such as marriage equality.

Unfortunately, the LGBT movement has jumped the gun and presumed that the American people are way ahead of where they actually are. We are asking a majority to vote in favor of marriage rights, when too many people still harbor irrational fears about the affect LGBT people have on children.

This point was painfully driven home in a new report authored by Dave Fleischer that examined how the Proposition 8 campaign, to prohibit same-sex marriage in California, was lost.

What he found was that in the last six weeks of the campaign, when both sides saturated the airwaves with television ads, more than 687,000 voters changed their minds and decided to oppose same-sex marriage. More than 500,000 of those, the data suggest, were parents with children under 18 living at home. Because the proposition passed by 600,000 votes, this shift alone more than handed victory to proponents.

The solution to this problem is twofold.

First, get back to basics and have an honest discussion with people. Let them know, in no uncertain terms, that gay people are actually less likely to molest children than heterosexuals. Introduce the public to straight children who grew up with LGBT parents with the message: Being around gay people does not turn one into a homosexual.

Second, we can no longer test market messages and ads during actual campaigns. To do so is the equivalent of a football team showing up to play in the Super Bowl without practicing. Try these ads out in various states without an LGBT question on the ballot. Learn from mistakes during this “dress rehearsal” and correct them in time for the “big show.”

It is time to get back to basics, before we basically keep losing referendums.

If so-called “ex-gay” therapists had a slogan it would be, “getting paid and getting laid.” This is a sick, exploitative industry run by diabolical and dysfunctional quacks that systematically sucker or seduce vulnerable clients.

Earlier this week, Truth Wins Out released a video featuring Ben Unger and Chaim Levin, two survivors of abusive “ex-gay” therapy. The young men grew up in Orthodox Jewish families in Brooklyn and were taught that they could not be gay and retain their faith. When Levin and Unger confronted this conflict, they were referred to the “ex-gay” organization Jews Offering New Alternatives to Homosexuality (JONAH).

When they first arrived, the co-founder of JONAH, Arthur Abba Goldberg, guaranteed they could become heterosexual if they worked hard.  Levin and Unger were sent to JONAH’s lead therapist, Alan Downing, who contradicted Goldberg’s rosy assessment – and told both men that he was still “struggling” with gay feelings.

So a few questions beg:

1)    If ex-gay “reparative therapy” works so well, than why is JONAH’s primary “life coach” still gay?

2)    Why should people pay Downing money to “change”, when he could not achieve this desired change in his own life?

3)    Isn’t it risky to place a self-loathing, sexually repressed counselor in a position of power over confused young clients?

Well, of course it’s a bad idea, and the results of such unholy arrangements have consistently been disastrous. Not surprisingly, Unger and Levin claim that the “life coach” asked them to do what amounted to a “psychological striptease.”

“He was encouraging me, ‘it’s okay Ben, you can take your shirt off’…here was a man that was much older than me, and I was around 20,” said Ben Unger. “At that point, I was just staring at a mirror with my shirt off and he was right behind me staring at the mirror with me at my body. Then telling me to look at my body and feel my body. It was weird.”

“While I was standing there without my clothes on, he asked me to touch my genitals,” says Chaim Levin. “Once again, I communicated that I was not comfortable with it. And he was like, you know, ‘just feel yourself. Just feel it for a second. So, you can grasp your masculinity physically.’”

Group’s like JONAH might disingenuously claim such bad behavior is an anomaly. However, it’s not – and to understand just how pathological this enterprise truly is, one just has to examine the charlatans running programs such as JONAH and Journey into Manhood, which is a backwoods “ex-gay” retreat designed to make gay men more masculine.

The guru of these programs and the pioneer of their bizarre techniques is Richard Cohen, the outlandish therapist who was expelled for life from the American Counseling Association in 2002 after it accused him of six violations of its ethics code.

Cohen’s specialty is “touch therapy”, where he places a male client between his thighs and caresses him. He and his minions claim that such petting is “non-sexual touch”, but I’m not buying it. If a closeted gay therapist is pressing his groin up against a sexually frustrated gay client (who is also forbidden from masturbating), this is a form of sex. Indeed, it is a therapeutic lap dance and should be called re-perv-ative, not reparative therapy.

Interestingly, Cohen learned his creepy methods from the Wesleyan Community Christian Church, a cult that practiced nude therapy, including adult women breast-feeding men in a church sanctuary.

The main promoter and cheerleader of such wacky techniques is JONAH’s Arthur Abba Goldberg, a Wall Street criminal mastermind, who prior to co-founding the “ex-gay” organization, was convicted in 1987 and sent to prison for “fraud of spectacular scope.” So, basically you have a former convict selling the naked therapy of a disbarred former cult member, to desperate clients. And, this is what passes for science in “ex-gay” circles.

Predictably, the results have been disastrous. Cohen-style therapy has led to cases of sexual impropriety and abuse. For example, in 2007, Christopher Austin, an “ex-gay” counselor linked to the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH), was convicted in Irving, Texas of sexually assaulting a client. Last year, Truth Wins Out exposed Exodus therapist Mike Jones of Lansing, MI, who was sexually abusing a client under the auspices of touch therapy.

How ironic, therapists who claim to cure homosexuals keep ending up naked with their gay clients. Such lurid exploitation has moved from a disconcerting pattern to a full-blown trend. We need to look beyond the shocking individual scandals to see that reparative therapy at its corrosive core is, in fact, scandalous. Isn’t it time these “therapists” shut their doors and finally get the help they so desperately need?

(Weekly Column)

If one ever completely screws up his or her life and wants “redemption”, there are two courses of action. The first is a name change, with the hope that no one notices the sordid past. Don’t laugh, the technique worked for ValuJet. In 1996, the airline crashed into an alligator-infested swamp, changed its name to AirTran – and presto – it was like the disaster never happened.

If this fails, just embrace Option 2: become a born-again Christian fundamentalist. Who cares how many people you have screwed – the flaky flock will love you! How about the innocent victims you’ve whacked? No problem — they’ll still want you back!

Time and again, fundamentalists buy the fantasy that the world’s worst reprobates can fundamentally change. It never seems to occur to these credulous Christians that perhaps they are being had by the unusually bad.

Of course, I’m not saying that people are incapable of transforming their lives. Each day, individuals make choices to better themselves. However, the eagerness and ease at which some Christians blindly accept total, comprehensive reinvention is disconcerting. They often seem so anxious to show that Jesus has special powers, that they’d probably confuse a miracle with Miracle Whip if it fit their agenda.

The latest lunacy involves the alleged conversion of David Berkowitz, who is better known as “The Son of Sam”. In 1977, Berkowitz was arrested for using a .44 caliber pistol to kill 6 people and wound 7 more in New York City.  The psychopath apparently took orders from a demonic black Labrador retriever owned by a neighbor.

Even with a disturbing past worthy of a Stephen King novel, The New York Times reports this week that gullible evangelicals have lined up to declare the Son of Sam a new man. Just as Focus on the Family embraced convicted Watergate felon Chuck Colson after he found God, they are playing a leading role in rehabilitating the image of Berkowitz.

According to the Times article, the Son of Sam’s extreme makeover started in 2003 after Focus on the Family interviewed him on its radio show.  The sympathetic segment centered on his difficult childhood, the shooting spree and his conversion to Christianity. This interview was aired in 2,000 U.S. outlets and in more than 50 countries. In other words, the man who took so many lives now has a new lease on life, thanks to these wide-eyed saps. He’s even a mini-celeb in some evangelical circles, and regularly corresponds with big-haired Christian television host RoxAnne Tauriello.

Fortunately, not everyone is buying the fairytale of transformation.

“It’s a total charade to promote himself,” Joseph Coffer, the police sergeant who took Berkowitz’s confession, told The New York Times. “I have had people who I sent to prison or put in the witness protection program find religion because it suits them by providing access to the outside world.”

Bingo.

Sure, reading the Bible might help some people give up booze or treat their neighbor a bit kinder. But, one has to be a total sucker to believe that religion can fix a man who ruthlessly murders people at the behest of a satanic canine. Psychological problems of this magnitude run much deeper — and unless Jesus Christ is a Harvard-trained psychiatrist, he isn’t going to magically fix the Son of Sam.

Thanks to the slick, if not sick, public relations efforts by Sam’s fundamentalist fans, the murderer now has his own little kingdom. His followers have set up a fancy website featuring an array of DVD’s, CDs’ and a book of his prison journals, “Son of Hope”.  Who knew the whole “saved slasher” genre would be so popular?

But, seriously, it is not coincidental that the same naive crowd that believes that people can “pray away the gay” also believes that the Son of Sam isn’t really the Son of Scam. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve witnessed evangelical rallies where the crowd appears to believe that the stereotypical homosexuals on stage have actually gone straight.

It does not matter how ridiculous these “ex-gays” look. Or, how utterly non-credible these fantastical stories may be, the people at these over-heated, over-the top revivals buy the loony lines nearly every time. When questioned about their views, they usually offer canned answers, such as, “God could turn a Chevy into the space shuttle if he wanted, so why can’t he cure a homosexual?”

Perhaps he can do all these neat little tricks. But, only fundamentalists swear that such superstitious magic actually happens on a regular basis. In their fascinating world, God is “healing” gay people by the thousands and Jesus is busy transforming David Berkowitz into a model citizen.

I do understand that such notions are driven by faith – but there is a point where blind faith becomes banal foolishness.

(Weekly Column)

A recent USA Today feature showed a striking similarity to the Religious Right’s ongoing wars on beers and queers.

In the case of alcohol, America’s busybodies organized at the turn of the last century, which led to Prohibition in 1920. The teetotalers claimed drinking was a terrible sin and that they had the right to impose their beliefs on the entire country.  The result was an unmitigated disaster that is best remembered for unintended consequences – such as dangerous moonshine and the rise of bootlegging mobsters.

In terms of LGBT people, religious fanatics banned together in the late 1970’s to pass or uphold laws that forced their sexual hang-ups and moralizing mores onto people they considered sinful. The unintended consequences included a high suicide rate among gay people and countless divorces that occurred after spouses came out of the closet.

The fight against beers and queers is most similar in that they both encompass pitched, ongoing battles and both issues are subject to a maddening patchwork of anachronistic laws at the state, county and local levels.

For example, 1 in 9 counties in the United States are still dry. Similarly, for LGBT people, laws on employment protection, marriage and adoption fluctuate wildly from place-to-place. Indeed a gay person’s family can be fully recognized by law in one state, but as soon as the state line is crossed, the family ceases to exist as a legal entity. It really is the metaphorical equivalent of traveling from dry to wet counties with a bottle of whisky in the car.

To ensure that gay people are second-class citizens, the Religious Right regularly lies about LGBT life, yet does so with soothing language about “protecting” marriage. In modern anti-gay campaigns, slick, high-priced consultants go out of their way to appear as if their campaigns are not about hate. This is part of an effort to entice mainstream voters who are turned off by fire and brimstone messages.

Similarly, today’s teetotalers are using chicanery to disguise their true intentions and avoid upsetting political moderates. For instance, in a Mount Pleasant, Texas campaign to keep alcohol illegal, a soft and misleading slogan, “Mount Pleasant Cares”, was intentionally created to deceive voters.

“We never mentioned beer or wine,” Vatra Solomon, a local resident and political consultant who advised the drys told USA Today. “We talked about children and safety and a healthy environment — those buzzwords. A lot of people like a glass of wine at dinner or a beer watching the Cowboys. We couldn’t afford to offend them.”

Isn’t this eerily similar to how some campaigns use code words like, “family values”, to conceal that passing anti-gay marriage laws cruelly strip away hospital visitation rights for same-sex couples? When it comes to the Religious Right, a belief in End Times often justifies the mean-spirited means.

Fortunately, the religious zealots are losing both battles, as grudging tolerance is finally giving way to acceptance by the wider culture. In terms of alcohol, “drys are losing ground on all levels, from the state — since 2002, 14 states have ended bans on Sunday alcohol sales,” according to USA Today.

The number of Tennessee communities that allow sales of liquor by the drink (in bars and restaurants) has increased 56% since 2003. In the same period, 22 of Texas’ 254 counties and more than 235 of its municipalities have gone wet (or “moist,” a category in which beer and wine might be legal, but not liquor).

Of course, the same can now be said for homosexuality, with a majority of Americans now finding gay relations acceptable and an overwhelming number in favor of allowing gay soldiers to be able to serve openly in the military. Five states allow LGBT couples to marry. It often seems that victories, large and small, are happening on a weekly, if not daily, basis.

Economic factors are a common denominator for recent momentum in efforts to end bans on spirits and LGBT rights. Locales are beginning to understand that being perceived as rigid and judgmental backwaters is not conducive to attracting new businesses. After all, few people want to relocate to a place that is lorded over by a narrow-minded fundamentalist elite.

One lesson to be learned from the alcohol fight is that fundamentalists don’t give up very easily. These fanatics have been railing against alcohol distribution, sales and consumption since Prohibition ended in 1933. They have fought tooth and nail to impose their values on entire communities. So, even though we may have reached a tipping point on LGBT equality, don’t expect our foes to fold the tent anytime soon.

Still, this battle is instructive because alcohol was once the Religious Right’s sin du jour.  Now, most national right wing organizations don’t waste time or political capital lobbying to ban booze. The once Biblical absolute against alcohol is disappearing as quickly as a shot of Absolut Vodka.

Would anybody bet a six pack that the same won’t be true for the alleged “sin” of homosexuality?

Call me Jezebel.

If you were Lou Engle, you would. He would call all of you Jezebel. In fact, he did last Tuesday night in St. Louis at a revival at the Gateway House of Prayer. As Wayne reported on Friday, Lou Engle and the team from TheCall are holding a series of revivals/schools every night from June 19 to July 12, open to the public. Thus, it was as a member of “the public” that I traveled to St. Louis on Tuesday to attend one of these sessions, alongside approximately two hundred of Engle’s faithful followers.

Most of the crowd was under thirty, and the striking thing was that most wouldn’t have looked out of place at Starbucks. They were suburban, to be sure, but there were also more than a few visible tattoos in the room. This is Lou Engle’s “Elijah Generation,” which represents a shift away from the overly coiffed, good-haired fundamentalist men of stereotype as well as reality. Quite frankly, I didn’t feel out of place, physically. However, mentally, spiritually, and emotionally, it was soon made very clear that, though no one in the Gateway House of Prayer made so much as a move to speak to me or welcome me*, they considered me not only to be an enemy, but moreover one of the greatest threats to their well-being. This was disconcerting to experience as an adult, fully removed from the angst-ridden, closeted paranoia of my conservative Christian adolescence, but I’ll come back to that in a moment.

The evening began with a worship team leading the crowd in singing what some might call “songs,” for almost an hour and a half. However, they really weren’t “songs,” but more repetitive kindergarten-level chants. The praise leader would seize on a line like “I love you Jesus” or “Worthy is the lamb,” or a short, equally simple verse, and then lead the group in singing it over and over again, sometimes for more than ten minutes, before going seamlessly into another simple phrase and melody. The overall effect, I noticed, was a sort of hypnosis that fell over the crowd, as the young people in that room showed how serious they were about praising God by swaying, dancing, holding their hands in the air, and the like. Those in the front were the first to stand and sway and raise their hands, and, like a slow wave, the physical expression moved backward through the rows until it reached, and passed behind, me. The congregants would call this “The Holy Spirit,” perhaps, but really, it was just good old fashioned peer pressure. More than anything, the word that kept going through my head was “occult.” They were doing nothing less than going into ceremony, as Lou Engle’s bodyguard/bouncer kept a watchful eye from the front corner of the room, perhaps peering into the crowd for evidence of uninitiated outsiders or insiders not fully toeing the line.

Behave as a member of the tribe, or be discovered. And so I did, until Lou Engle finally stopped rocking back and forth in his seat in the front row and began to speak. I have embedded, in several segments, most of Lou Engle’s talk.** For each, I will summarize, analyze and comment on what was said, and the implications therein. If you’re pressed for time, I’m putting the most significant/egregiously awful quotes in bold print. The summary starts after the jump.

(Read More)