By Wayne Besen

With Republicans deeply dissatisfied with their presidential candidates they have turned to chicanery to try to steal the 2008 election. This time, they have recruited surrogates on the Religious Right to place a constitutional amendment banning gay unions on the ballot. Although they deny their intentions are politically motivated, it can hardly be a coincidence that the Republican Party of Florida was the largest contributor of the petition drive, funneling $300,000 of the $557,000 raised.

Such cynical manipulation worked wonders for the Republicans in 2004 - when they used this strategy to turn out right wing voters in droves. In total, there are now 27 states that have constitutional amendments prohibiting marriage equality. The anti-marriage train seemed unstoppable until it was derailed in Arizona, where voters narrowly rejected a ban by a 52-48 vote.

The key to this desert victory was that voters were persuaded that the proposed amendment would affect domestic partner benefits for unmarried heterosexual partners - particularly senior citizens. This message could resonate in Florida with its huge population of seniors. Indeed, informing this demographic of the consequences of passing this amendment appears to be the central strategy in defeating it. (Read More)

(Weekly Column)

Every now and again, a snake will show its fangs. Case in point is Dr. Warren Throckmorton, one of America’s leading “ex-gay” therapists. Last week, a Nebraska-based website so obscure it was inaccessible by popular search engines such as Google, was discovered by right wing activists. What the website had to say was quite disturbing.

“Without GSA [gay straight alliance] access, students are forced to simply kill classmates who taunt & bully - shooting, stabbing and poisoning are the common forms of retribution.”

Immediately, anti-gay groups rightfully criticized the site. However, they were disingenuous in their conjured anger, as their real target was not the ugly message, but the Gay, Lesbian, Straight, Education Network (GLSEN) that helps students form GSA’s. The GSA clubs protect students from bullying and create safe space where they can find support.

Throckmorton wasted no time implicitly tying the website to official GSA’s - the only problem was, GLSEN, had nothing to do with the website. Ex-Gay Watch uncovered that a country activist, Brian Wyant, who no one outside of Omaha had ever heard of, ran the offending site. The next day, Throckmorton ran a hollow apology, but the damage was done. (Read More)

(Alan Chambers)

(Weekly Column)

I know this is hard to believe, but the “ex-gay” group Exodus International is the next Starbucks. The organization, according to its executive director Alan Chambers, is expanding so fast that it will soon have storefronts on every corner where forlorn homosexuals can pray away the gay.

In 2003, Chambers claimed that there are “thousands of former homosexuals.” By 2004, he announced that he knew “tens of thousands of people whom have successfully changed.”
Last week, Chambers stunned the world when he boasted to The San Francisco Chronicle that there are “hundreds of thousands” of ex-gays. This must have been shocking news to the masses of gay people in San Francisco’s crowded Castro neighborhood, that didn’t know they were on the verge of extinction.

Folks, we need to put this mushrooming phenomenon at the top of the gay agenda. Even the success of Brokeback Mountain can’t halt the expansion of these free the fairies franchises. If we don’t stop Chambers by 2008 - a presidential election year - there will be millions of former homosexuals and most will vote Republican. And by the end of the decade, the number of ex-gays will look like a Bill Gates ATM receipt. Exodus might even have to get a sign, like McDonalds, so we can watch the numbers turn to keep track of the billions of transformed lives.

Sure, it seems like more people are coming out, but in Exodus “surreal-ity” the masses are going back in. I know it appears that gay Pride events are growing larger each year, but is it just the liberal media puffing up the crowd size to hide the fact that Chambers is decimating the annual parades? Thanks to Exodus, will Gay Pride soon be reduced to three stubborn drag queens lip-synching on a flat bed pick up truck?

Of course, there are still skeptics who believe that Chambers likes to pull numbers out of his posterior. He bases his inflated figures on the alleged 400,000 phone calls the organization receives each year. Why do I get the feeling that Exodus counts as ex-gays wrong numbers, telemarketers and calls from the pizza delivery guy? I called Chambers twice last year for columns and wonder if I was counted as two ex-gays?

What I find bewildering, is that if there are so many ex-gays, why can’t Chambers provide any to speak to the media that are not ministry leaders or paid lobbyists? Why do Exodus and Focus on the Family use the same tired ex-gays in their advertisements? Why do they continue to highlight the testimony of Phil Hobizal, a Portland ministry leader who stepped down in 2003 after having an “emotional entanglement,” whatever that means? Why must the American Family Association peddle a video by ex-gay Michael Johnston who suffered a “moral fall?” Perhaps, there simply are not replacements for these failed leaders?

One just has to look at Dr. Robert Spitzer’s 2001 study of ex-gays to underscore the difficulty of finding these mythical people. The psychiatrist had so much trouble coming up with a mere 200 study subjects that he unethically resorted to using paid ex-gay shills and referrals from anti-gay groups such as the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH).

There is even a cloud of suspicion surrounding the subjects who said anti-gay groups did not refer them to Spitzer. Daniel S. Gonzales, a former patient of NARTH’s Dr. Joseph Nicolosi, alleges that his right wing therapist “asked me to lie to Spitzer when I called in for my study interview by denying Nicolosi had referred me.”

In light of this revelation, Dr. Spitzer has an obligation to contact all of his supposedly “independent” subjects and find out if they were coerced into participating in his study under false pretenses.

Fortunately, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force released a paper this week, “Youth in the Crosshairs: The Third Wave of Ex-Gay Activism,” that examines how these groups prey on youth, often manipulating parents to force their children into psychologically damaging therapy against their will. These groups harm children as young as five years old and lure them and their parents with comics, youth groups and a slick CD Rom called “The Map.” More studies, such as this one and my book Anything But Straight, are needed to counter the ex-gay myth that is the centerpiece of the right wing’s campaign to deny gay people equal rights.

In 1979, most Americans believed there were few homosexuals. To challenge this misperception, the GLBT community held the first of four massive rallies in the nation’s capital. If Exodus wants to silence the skeptics they should put up or shut up. It is time for them to hold an ex-gay March on Washington where we can actually see, once and for all, the invisible hordes that only seem to exist in Alan Chambers over-active imagination.

By Wayne Besen

As long as prejudice and violence against gay people exists in society, there will be a few gay men and lesbians who try to avoid discrimination by attempting to change their sexual orientation. These tormented individuals often fear coming out will mean rejection by family and friends, as well as withering condemnation in their house of worship. There are groups, unfortunately, who are in the business of exploiting these vulnerable and desperate people by peddling false hope and illusive cures for homosexuality. One such organization is the right wing political group Focus on the Family, which rolls into town this week with their anti-gay road show Love Won Out.While Focus on the Family has the right to prey on people who want to “change”, they also have the responsibility to tell the truth, which they do not. Instead of honesty, conference participants will get heavy doses of scientifically bankrupt theories and misleading information that conceals the true failure rate of so-called reparative therapy.

The facts on this subject are clear. Every leading medical and mental health organization says therapy designed to change a person’s sexual orientation is ineffective and can sometimes be dangerous. The American Medical Association, The American Psychological Association, the American Psychiatric Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics all have policy statements questioning the efficacy of such treatments. The APA says that attempts to change sexual orientation can lead to “depression, anxiety and self destructive behavior.”

History seems to reinforce the policy statements of these esteemed medical and mental health organizations. Michael Bussee and Gary Cooper, co-founders of Exodus International, the nation’s largest “ex-gay” group, denounced Exodus after divorcing their wives and holding a commitment ceremony together. Colin Cook, founder of Homosexuals Anonymous, was exposed as a fraud for giving nude massages and having phone sex with the very people he was supposed to be changing. Love Won Out also faced a scandal after the program’s director, John Paulk, was found lounging in a Washington, DC gay bar.

The truth is, the more people know about the techniques that are commonly used in reparative therapy the less credible it seems. For example, one commonly used method is the “rubber band technique” where a gay person wears a rubber band around his or her wrist and snaps it when he or she sees someone attractive of the same gender.

Another bizarre method reparative therapists use to cure homosexuality is called “Intrauterine Memory Recovery”. This method involves helping a person recover a traumatic memory that supposedly occurred while living in his or her mother’s womb. Of course, memory experts dismiss this technique pointing out that human beings can’t remember specific memories before two years of age.

Dr. Joseph Nicolosi, President of the National Association for the Research and Therapy of Homosexuality and a prominent Love Won Out speaker, has a few strange ideas of his own. For instance, he postulates that “non-homosexual men who experience defeat and failure may also experience homosexual fantasies or dreams.” He also encourages his clients to act more masculine by drinking Gatorade or calling friends “dude.” Another leading NARTH member, Dr. Jeffrey Satinover, M.D. believes that anti-depressants such as Prozac may help cure homosexuality.

With such peculiar ideas, it is no surprise that groups such as Exodus and NARTH scrupulously avoid documenting their work. When asked by Newsweek magazine why he kept no statistics, Nicolosi replied that he “didn’t have time.” These groups continue to exist, not to help people, but to help religious political leaders like Focus on the Family’s James Dobson and former Moral Majority leader Jerry Falwell deny gay people equal rights. Their message is simple: Since gay people can “change” they do not deserve protection from discrimination.

A person who desperately wants to change sexual orientations has the right to pursue therapy, no matter how bizarre or ineffective. All we ask is that the organizers of Love Won Out and similar groups stop masking political intentions in the guise of false love and pseudo-science. We urge them to start keeping accurate statistics and provide conference participants with key information, such as the failures of supposedly “healed” leaders. To continue to manipulate vulnerable people for the purpose of advancing a religious political agenda is not faith healing, as conference leaders suggest, but faith hurting of the most cynical kind.

When those who are attending the conference learn to accept themselves for who they are and realize God loves them as openly gay men and women, they will finally find the peace and freedom they seek.