Please join Truth Wins Out (TWO) founder and executive director, Wayne Besen along with the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and a local panel of LGBT clergy, a licensed therapist, ex-gay survivors, and families who’ve struggled with acceptance for a community discussion about the dangerous practice of conversion therapy.

The Jewish Press published a groundbreaking op-ed by last week by Chaim Levin, who explained in the newspaper that he had been harmed by an “ex-gay” therapy program that had been recommended to him by the Orthodox Jewish Community.

The reaction to the op-ed by anti-gay activists was ferocious. According to the newspaper: “Following the publication of this op-ed, a number of Jewish Press advertisers were approached and threatened. They were told to stop advertising with the Jewish Press.”

Instead of backing down, the Jewish Press wrote a brave editorial defending Levin’s op-ed and boldly claimed that, “The Jewish Press won’t be silenced.”

Please thank the Jewish Press for standing up to homophobic bullies who want to intimidate the newspaper into omitting any positive portrayal of gay Orthodox Jews. They have stood firm and I hope the LGBT community will express its gratitude.

Sign Petition Here

Petition Letter:

I just signed the following petition addressed to: The Jewish Press.

—————-
I personally thank the Jewish Press for publishing Chaim Levin’s op-ed and for standing up to anti-gay bullies who want to silence the newspaper.

Clearly, these forces of intolerance don’t like free speech and foolishly demand that you bury your heads in the sand and pretend that gay Orthodox Jews do not exist. This same crowd also wants you to ignore the damage caused by “ex-gay” therapy and its devastating consequences including suicide.

I am extremely grateful that you did not kowtow to the loud extremists and blowhards who want to turn a dialogue on this issue into a closed-minded monologue. It is critical that the voices of LGBT Jews are included in this discussion and I applaud the Jewish Press for ensuring that all points of view are heard.

Orthodox Jews need to understand that attempts to change one’s sexual orientation are harmful and ineffective. As the American Psychiatric Association says, such unscientific efforts can lead to “anxiety, depression, and self-destructive behavior.” This is exactly what Levin experienced at the hands of Jews Offering New Alternatives to Homosexuality (JONAH).

I am proud of the Jewish Press and they were right to disseminate the facts, instead of allowing charlatans to peddle “ex-gay” fiction. In conclusion, I will stand with you and support your bold and brave actions and dedication to superb journalistic standards.

Sincerely,

Sign Petition Here

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: John Becker, Director of Communications & Development
Phone: 920-265-6023
Email: john@truthwinsout.org

Truth Wins Out Denounces Former Archbishop of Canterbury For Defending ‘Ex-Gay’ Therapy

Archbishop Must Apologize Immediately for Embracing ‘Ex-Gay’ Lies, Says TWO

Burlington, Vt. — Truth Wins Out denounced Lord Carey, former Archbishop of Canterbury, today for signing a letter in support of Lesley Pilkington, a British “Christian” psychotherapist suspended for professional malpractice after she was caught offering ex-gay therapy to an undercover journalist.

The British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy unanimously ruled last May that Pilkington acted recklessly, disrespectfully, dogmatically and unprofessionally. The BACP suspended her accreditation and threatened to revoke it entirely if she failed to complete “extensive training and professional development.” Yesterday, Lord Carey and several other clerics issued a letter to the BACP defending Pilkington, saying that ex-gay therapy “does not produce harm.”

“Lord Carey’s defense of so-called ‘ex-gay therapy’ is simply appalling,” said Wayne Besen, Executive Director of Truth Wins Out. “The ‘pray away the gay’ lie has been denounced by every major organization of medical and mental health professionals, including the Royal College of Psychiatrists, because the truth is that it doesn’t work and actually harms people. If Carey would like to meet survivors who were gravely harmed by ‘ex-gay’ therapy we would be more than happy to arrange such a meeting.”

“Whether Lord Carey’s embrace of discredited ex-gay propaganda was intentional or simply ignorant, we are astonished by the lack of respect it shows to LGBT Anglicans,” added John Becker, TWO’s Director of Communications & Development. “The former archbishop should apologize immediately and recant his dangerous words before they cause any more LGBT people to hate or hurt themselves.”

The letter alleges that reparative therapy “does not produce harm despite the Royal College of Psychiatrists and others maintaining the contrary” and that “people who seek, freely, to resolve unwanted same-sex attractions hold the moral right to receive professional assistance.”

“This attempt to claim the moral high ground is utterly absurd,” said Becker. “None of these clerics have a shred of medical or psychiatric training, and the idea that they’re even remotely qualified to overrule scientific consensus is ridiculous on its face. Lies told in the name of God are still lies.”

“Far from being mainstream, Lord Carey’s views are extreme,” added Besen. “Instead of parroting discredited ex-gay talking points, the former archbishop should bring his outmoded beliefs into the 21st century and recognize that LGBT people are fine just the way they are.”

Truth Wins Out (TWO) is a nonprofit that fights anti-LGBT religious extremism. TWO specializes in turning information into action by organizing, advocating and fighting for LGBT equality.

– 30 –

(Weekly Column)

Cynthia Nixon, who played the role of Miranda Hobbes on HBO’s Sex in the City, told the New York Times that she chose to be gay. Her statement was clumsy, irresponsible, inaccurate, and lent itself to exploitation by anti-gay activists. While Nixon’s coy semantic games and flippant proclamations may play well in certain circles, they will surely be used as a brutal club against LGBT youth in Red State America.

In the coming years, Nixon’s “choice” statement will be spewed from pulpits, scrawled in homophobic fundraising letters, and regurgitated on talk radio as proof that lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people can “pray away the gay.” As a result, there will well-meaning parents who place their LGBT teenagers in “ex-gay” programs believing that since Nixon chose to be gay their child’s homosexuality might just be a phase.

The American Psychiatric Association says that attempts to change sexual orientation can sometimes lead to “anxiety, depression, and self-destructive behavior” which includes suicide. As the founder of Truth Wins Out, an organization that monitors such programs and assists its victims, it will be us, not Nixon, who picks up the pieces of lives shattered by the myth that sexual orientation is a casual choice. Given the potential for dire consequences, Nixon was reckless, indulgent, and smacked of someone too privileged to understand the real world ramifications of her careless words.

Anti-gay organizations, such as the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality, already try to portray homosexuality as a transitory condition by telling potential clients that their discredited therapy will help people explore their “heterosexual potential.”

Some people have foolishly said that no one will pay attention to her statement because she is just an actress. However, they conveniently forget that we elected an actor, Ronald Reagan, to serve as president, Arnold Schwarzenegger was chosen as California’s governor, and Minnesota elected professional wrestler Jesse Ventura as that state’s governor. For better or worse, what celebrities say in America matters – and even politicians must become photogenic media stars – such as Sarah Palin or Barack Obama — before anybody cares about their policies.

Most importantly, Nixon never chose to be gay, but is clearly bisexual. In an interview with The Daily Beast she said, “I don’t pull out the ‘bisexual’ word because nobody likes the bisexuals….everybody likes to dump on the bisexuals… But I do completely feel that when I was in relationships with men, I was in love and in lust with those men. And then I met Christine and I fell in love and lust with her.”

No one would have a problem if Nixon had simply said that she is a bisexual who is not enamored with that particular label. Few would care if Nixon said that sexuality exists on a continuum with some people having a more fluid sexuality. No smart person would argue that civil rights for LGBT people should rest strictly on a biological argument – even though there is a growing body of evidence pointing out that biology plays a major role in determining sexual orientation.

But the fact remains that one does not choose whom they are attracted to and fall in love with – it chooses you. Sure, people then have a choice on whether they act on these natural feelings – just as one who is ambidextrous can elect to operate with either hand. The underlying desires, however, are not something that can be changed like the latest fashion in Paris.

If you don’t want to take my word for it, consider what the leaders of “ex-gay” organizations say about the topic. Earlier this month, Exodus International President Alan Chambers told a crowd of LGBT Christians: “The majority of people that I have met, and I would say the majority meaning 99.9% of them have not experienced a change in their orientation or have gotten to a place where they could say that they could never be tempted or are not tempted in some way or experience some level of same-sex attraction.”

John Smid, the former longtime director of the “ex-gay” ministry Love in Action said last year: “Actually I’ve never met a man who experienced a change from homosexual to heterosexual.”

One must remember that people like Chambers and Smid are the most motivated in the world to find evidence of sexual conversion. Both made their livings from this idea, (Chambers continues to) and feared going to Hell. Chambers once said that, “One of the many evils this world has to offer is the sin of homosexuality. Satan, the enemy is using people to further his agenda to destroy the Kingdom of God and as many souls as he can.”

When the public hears Nixon say that her homosexuality is a capricious choice, they think that she once found sleeping with women repulsive, but then woke up one day and decided she would do it anyway for social or political reasons. It makes it sound as if she quit men like one quits smoking cigarettes – which plays into the right wing’s false addiction analogy.

No one is questioning Nixon’s right to say whatever she wants. However, with celebrity comes great responsibility and it might be wise if Nixon articulated her feelings in a more thoughtful way that would not lead to LGBT youth stuck in Bible Belt communities ending up in “ex-gay” boot camps.

(Weekly Column)

I agree with Focus on the Family co-founder James Dobson when he objects to Callista Gingrich becoming the First Lady because, “she was a mistress for eight years,” and share the view of right wing blowhard Jason Molotov Mitchell when he says that, “Newt and Callista are the last role models we want our sons and daughters looking up to.”

Both Dobson and Mitchell are odious human beings who peddle hate and traffic in lies – but at least they appear to be true social conservatives. The unassailable fact is that if you support or plan to vote for Newt Gingrich you do not stand for traditional family values. Indeed, the free-loving morality of Gingrich and his wife mirrors the distorted stereotypes they often unfairly project onto hippies and liberals.

Will someone in the Republican Party please tell me how this scheming, cheating couple that made a mockery of family values is remotely conservative? They had a secretive, sleazy affair that they hid for years until they could no longer conceal it. The hanky-panky was occurring even as Gingrich boisterously and brazenly skewered President Bill Clinton over his affair with Monica Lewisnsky.

Thanks to Gingrich’s effective dressing down of CNN’s John King and his general bludgeoning of the mainstream media, reporters have been somewhat cowed and a tad reluctant to say the obvious: Callista is a shameless home wrecker and Newt is a philandering hypocrite who talks like a preacher and lives like a porn star. Here are a few inconvenient facts:

• Newt fell in love with his high school geometry teacher, Jackie, and married her. (If it had been a gay relationship or a Democrat, no doubt Gingrich would have called the relationship pedophilia)

• Jackie, Gingrich’s first wife, claims that while she was recovering from cancer surgery in 1980, Newt came to the hospital to discuss divorcing her so he could marry his mistress, Marianne.

• In 2011, Gingrich justified his affairs by claiming they were “partially driven by how passionately I felt about this country.” (Just imagine how passionate about America he will feel if elected president!)

• In 2012, his second wife, Marianne, who suffered from Multiple Sclerosis, claimed that when she found out about the affair with Callista, Newt gave her an ultimatum that she must share him in an “open marriage.” When she declined, he divorced her.

The truth is, Newt Gingrich treats women like used cars, trading them in for newer models when something goes wrong under the hood or the new car smell dissipates. He is a totally despicable person who has poor character, is ethically challenged, and displays essentially no integrity or personal responsibility  – yet hoards of born-again Christians seem to love him.

“I came at it completely believing that evangelical women would not even consider him,” Penn Nance of Concerned Women for America told The New Yorker. “I’ve been surprised by their willingness to listen and forgive.”

It is time to drop all pretenses by pretending there is a pro-family movement in America. These two-faced scoundrels are not “pro-family” they are simply anti-gay. The only time these holier-than-thou charlatans give a damn about family values is when they slam democrats like John Edwards or to bash homosexuals. When Edwards cheated on his sick wife and lied about it he was ruined and reduced to a pariah. Gingrich engaged in the exact same behavior and instead of becoming a pariah he might become president.

To cover their putrid past, the couple is trying to hide behind religion with Callista claiming that “When Newt became a Catholic, it was one of the happiest moments of my life.” However, there are many of us who have been around long enough to remember Gingrich preaching and preening about his Christian values back when he was Speaker of the House. His sense of piety was so grandiose that he once declared himself the “definer of civilization.”

Which civilization, the orgies of ancient Greece?

Generally, I tend to not give a damn about the personal lives of politicians, as long as they do their jobs. But it is galling and appalling that Gingrich would wife swap and bed hop while denying me the right to marry. In a recent New Hampshire presidential debate Gingrich said he opposed marriage equality for LGBT couples and justified his discriminatory position by invoking the “sacrament” of marriage.

This self-righteous hypocrite wouldn’t know a sacrament from Sacramento.

Even more disturbing, in The New Yorker we learn that Callista’s longtime friend, Karen Olson, is a lesbian. Newt’s sister, Candace, is also a lesbian. With normal people, learning that friends and family members are gay changes their hearts and inevitably leads them to support equal rights. However, Newt and Callista seem more than willing to throw their “loved ones” under the bus to help his political aspirations.

If social conservatives do not stand up and smack down Gingrich’s candidacy, it is fair to say that there is no such thing as the Religious Right — just a bunch of self-righteous scolds who don’t know the difference between right and wrong.

Tomorrow will be a historic day in the Jewish Press. Chaim Levin, a survivor of “ex-gay” therapy at the hands of Jews Offering New Alternatives to Homosexuality (JONAH), will publish an op-ed that slams the “pray away the gay” group.

“The Jewish Press column is monumental because this is the first time that a national religious orthodox newspaper is printing an article that portrays  gay people in a positive light,” Levin told Truth Wins Out. “Traditionally, this newspaper does not have a favorable LGBT record and it is a big step to allow me to share my story of being bullied, shamed, and abused for being gay.”

Levin’s column tells the truth about groups like JONAH and repaprative therapists and their unlicensed and dangerous practices. Indeed, the Jewish Press used to post classifieds for JONAH, and in this article Levin gives his personal account of being manipulated to unclothe one on one with a “reparative” therapist all supposedly for the sake of change. The incident was first reported in a video that Levin and Ben Unger made for Truth Wins Out.

“The Jewish Press is doing the right thing by standing up for justice and letting the Orthodox community learn the truth about programs like JONAH,” said Levin. “It is a dream come true that the the Jewish Press, a conservative Jewish newspaper is publishing an article that will help gay Orthodox Jews like myself.”

Indeed, when Levin was 16 and in yeshiva (religious high school), he used to read the Jewish Press every week to look for some reference to other people who might have been struggling with their sexuality. Today he knows others from that community who are out and proud.

“I wasn’t the only one, and this article reaches out to all those souls who feel trapped and hopeless because of their sexual identity because of who they are,” adds Levin.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Gingrich May Have Done the Impossible by Setting a New Standard for Political Hypocrisy, says TWO

NEW YORK – Truth Wins Out called on GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich to quit the presidential race today if allegations by his second ex-wife, Marianne, are true about the former House Speaker demanding an open sexual relationship. This is hardly the behavior one would expect from a promoter of “traditional values” and a fervid opponent of marriage equality for same-sex couples.

“If the allegation is true, Newt Gingrich has done the impossible by setting a new standard for hypocrisy in politics. I’d call such actions unconscionable, but that would wrongly suggest that Gingrich has a conscience,” said Truth Wins Out’s Executive Director Wayne Besen. “Gingrich has worked to deny LGBT people the right to marry based on his professed family values, but may have failed to disclose that his definition of family might include an open relationship with a mistress.”

ABC’s Brian Ross will be airing a story that, if confirmed, would do irreparable damage to Gingrich’s campaign:

ABC Chief Investigative Correspondent Brian Ross, told WMAL’s Morning Majority program that Marianne Gingrich claims her ex-husband wanted an ‘open marriage.’ “He came to her and said, ‘I want to stay married to you and still have an affair with Callista, his current wife,” said Ross. “According to Marianne, he said ‘You need to share me,’ and she said ‘I don’t want to share,’ and the marriage ended,” he added.

Truth Wins Out is a non-profit organization that fights anti-LGBT religious extremism. TWO specializes in turning information into action by organizing, advocating and fighting for LGBT equality.

(Weekly Column)

There is something seriously wrong with a political party where it is more controversial and exotic to speak French than in tongues. Given this acid trip facsimile of reality, it was inevitable that the Republican presidential primaries have come down to the Slickest vs. The Sickest.

On the slick side is Newt Gingrich, the career politician who got rich off lobbying and switched wives and religions three times, yet is running as a “family values” Washington outsider.

Mitt Romney also personifies slick with his perfectly coifed hairdo and a propensity to take more positions than a triple-jointed hooker. He keeps talking about personal responsibility and demanding that Americans take a spoonful of castor oil, even as the silver spoon dangles from his mouth. Today, Romney admitted that he pays an effective tax-rate of only 15%, much lower than middle class Americans, and significantly less than President Barack Obama who paid just over 26% on his 2012 tax returns.

Romney, the pampered patrician, keeps pretending he’s slumming but we all know he’ll be “summering” if he doesn’t get the nomination. During one debate in Iowa, he foolishly challenged Gov. Rick Perry to a $10,000 bet as if it were pocket change. Today he solidified his “out of touch” image by saying,

“I got a little bit of income from my book, but I gave that all away… I get speakers’ fees from time to time, but not very much.” The New York Times reports, however, that Romney earned $374,327.62 in speakers’ fees from February of 2010 to February of 2011, at an average of $41,592 per speech.

Romney’s gaffe is reminiscent of George H.W. Bush who looked disconnected from real Americans in 1992 when he came across a grocery store scanner for the first time. The New York Times wrote about the incident in a story headlined, “Bush Encounters the Supermarket, Amazed”:

As President Bush travels the country in search of re-election, he seems unable to escape a central problem: This career politician, who has lived the cloistered life of a top Washington bureaucrat for decades, is having trouble presenting himself to the electorate as a man in touch with middle-class life.

Today, for instance, he emerged from 11 years in Washington’s choicest executive mansions to confront the modern supermarket…he grabbed a quart of milk, a light bulb and a bag of candy and ran them over an electronic scanner. The look of wonder flickered across his face again as he saw the item and price registered on the cash register screen.

Obviously, Bush lost his race and I suspect that President Barack Obama will be able to defeat a man who believes that $374,327 is little more than Monopoly Money.

When it comes to “The Sickest,” obviously we are talking about Rick Santorum, since Michele Bachmann has dropped out of the race. If he actually mattered, we could also be talking about Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who invokes Jesus’ name so often that he makes Tim Tebow look like Dr. Richard Dawkins.

In his infinite wisdom, Perry wants a part-time Congress so House and Senate members can go back to their home states and get “real jobs.” Which will work out fine until we have to hold off on declaring war against an enemy state because the night manager at Waffle House won’t let Congressman X leave the late shift to return to Capitol Hill. Indeed, we already had a part-time president in the endlessly vacationing George W. Bush and look how well that turned out.

Back to the Opus Dei loving Santorum — he’s just plain nuts.  Consider the infamous fetus in a jar situation:

In his Senate office, on a shelf next to an autographed baseball, Sen. Rick Santorum keeps a framed photo of his son Gabriel Michael, the fourth of his seven children. Named for two archangels, Gabriel Michael was born prematurely, at 20 weeks, on Oct. 11, 1996, and lived two hours outside the womb. Upon their son’s death, Rick and Karen Santorum opted not to bring his body to a funeral home. Instead, they bundled him in a blanket and drove him to Karen’s parents’ home in Pittsburgh. There, they spent several hours kissing and cuddling Gabriel with his three siblings, ages 6, 4 and 1 1/2. They took photos, sang lullabies in his ear and held a private Mass.

This story is remarkable considering Santorum’s wife had previously dated a well-known abortion doctor forty years her senior! With her incredible flip-flopping on abortion, maybe she should have married Mitt Romney?

Most of the media is afraid to admit the obvious: The GOP contenders are loopy clowns selling a field of schemes. The Religious Right ensures that one can only get the nomination through insanity (Santorum) or by faking insanity (Romney). Until this radical special interest group is permanently expelled from the Republican Party, the fringe binge will continue and Ron Paul will often look like the sanest one on-stage.

(Weekly Column)

When former Focus on the Family leader James Dobson told The Daily Oklahoman in 2004 that,“Homosexuals…want to destroy the institution of marriage. It will destroy marriage. It will destroy the Earth,” reasonable people dismissed him as a crank. And, for the record, six states have since legalized marriage equality and the earth is still here.

Now we learn that Pope Benedict XVI did his best Dobson imitation when he delivered a New Year’s address to diplomats representing 180 nations. According to reports, the pontiff said that the marriage was “not a simple social convention, but rather the fundamental cell of every society. Consequently, policies (such as gay couples marrying) which undermine the family threaten human dignity and the future of humanity itself.”

Really? Because I just married my same-sex partner in Vermont, a state that allows for such unions. South of us is Massachusetts and Connecticut, which both allow gay people to get hitched. To my east is New Hampshire, another state where gay couples get equal treatment under the law. In this cluster of states, marriage equality has had no visible effect on heterosexuals, unless you count the extra money their businesses have made from gay tourists who visited New England to marry. Meanwhile, for the LGBT people who live in the region, there has been an obvious increase in human dignity. Whatever evidence Joseph Ratzinger possesses to back his outrageous claim must be shrouded in more secrecy than a Pope-picking conclave.

As for the claim that the future of humanity is in jeopardy – it seems to be a figment of the Pope’s vivid imagination. Life in New England has not changed one iota since marriage equality was established and anyone who says otherwise is either a liar or a lunatic. Which camp is the Pope in?

It is time for people to be honest and admit that this pope is becoming a joke and his reign is an abject failure. He arrogantly swept into office and preposterously lambasted the secularization of Europe, as if the continent was more humane when ruled by the Church and its countless bloody religious wars.

Fortunately, his goal of turning back the clock has been unrealized. Once staunchly Catholic Spain now has marriage equality and the Vatican had to recall its ambassador to Ireland after the Irish prime minister lambasted the Roman Catholic Church over pedophile priests.

Why are we even listening to the pronouncements of a “moral leader” who presides over a church that has spent billions of dollars to settle child molestation cases? If a church and its leadership do not protect the interests of children and cover-up the misdeeds of monsters, they forfeit the right to point the finger and preach. The last thing hardworking, taxpaying, law abiding LGBT families need is to be scolded by the enablers of the child sexual abuse scandals.

The pathological homophobia of Pope Benedict XVI has filtered down the food chain. Last month, Chicago Archbishop Cardinal Francis George compared the LGBT community to the Ku Klux Klan. After a huge public backlash, he finally apologized.

In Minnesota, Saint Paul and Minneapolis Archbishop John Nienstedt recently posted a letter to the local diocesan website that infuses a prayer for marriage discrimination into the Catholic Mass. Nienstedt’s pathetic “prayer” was to “assist in the strengthening of our state-wide efforts to defend marriage in our civil constitution.”

Can you feel the spirituality?

Sadly, gay bashing is a way to ascend the career ladder in Rome. For instance, the Pope will promote New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan to cardinal next month. Dolan worked mightily, yet unsuccessfully, to keep gay couples from marrying in New York. Like the Pope, Dolan should either admit he was blowing holy smoke where the sun don’t shine or produce solid evidence that he was correct in asserting that gay couples marrying would harm society.

Of course, his attacks on innocent LGBT families are not the Pope’s only notable gaffes, which include:

• In 2006, the Pope enraged Muslims when he quoted a 14th-century Christian emperor as saying the Prophet Muhammad had introduced only “evil and inhuman” ideas into the world.

• In 2009, Benedict decreed that Anglicans who leave their Church because they believed it was too liberal could join the Catholic Church, which would allow them to keep some of their traditions.

• In 2009 the Pope revoked the excommunications of four schismatic bishops from the far right order, St. Pius X Society. One of the bishops the Pope embraced, Richard Williamson, is a conspiratorial holocaust revisionist who claims the extermination of six million Jews was a hoax.

The pontiff’s rule can best be described as insensitive, indecent, and intolerant, and his latest anti-gay comments should be put into context of his overall reprehensible record. While LGBT marriage equality does not threaten the future of humanity, the out of touch pronouncements and actions of Pope Benedict XVI may very well threaten the future of the Roman Catholic Church.