(Weekly Column)
I tried not to laugh when I read Family Research Council (FRC) President Tony Perkins’ column headlined, “Intolerant gays target Bachmann.” Perkins was referring to the undercover investigation by my organization, Truth Wins Out, that proved presidential hopeful Michele Bachmann’s husband, Marcus, lied when he claimed that his clinic did not practice “pray away the gay” therapy.
It is fascinating to see Perkins promoting “tolerance” considering FRC is listed as a certified Southern Poverty Law Center hate group. They earned the designation after a spokesperson for his organization told MSNBC’s Chris Matthews that homosexuality should be criminalized.
In 1996, while managing a U.S. Senate race in Louisiana, Perkins purchased former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke’s mailing list for $82,500. I guess he was promoting tolerance and diversity by courting the demographic of white supremacists. The “tolerant” Perkins had also given a lovely speech to the Louisiana chapter of the Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC), a white supremacist group that has described African Americans as
a “retrograde species of humanity.”
In his hit piece, Perkins insults my organization by calling it “the grossly misnamed group Truth Wins Out.” That is an interesting observation, considering his misleadingly named Family Research Council neither helps families nor conducts original research. Perkins then chided reporters in his column for using the term “pray away the gay” when referring to Bachmann & Associates’ religious counseling. Apparently, Perkins never saw the actual video, nor read the transcripts, where the therapist actually did counsel the person we sent undercover to read scripture when he thought of having a homosexual experience. But, of course, facts have never been FRC’s strong suit.
Perkins then makes the absurd point that Bachmann’s clinic did nothing wrong because the person posing as a client asked for help going from gay-to-straight. “Why would this be controversial?” asks Perkins.
Funny, I don’t remember Perkins bowing to the wishes of Dr. Jack Kevorkian’s clients who simply asked for help with assisted suicide. It also remains unclear if Perkins would support strict client determination for other controversial medical practices like skin bleaching, steroid injection, or bulimia management. In some cases, these practices are no less dangerous than “ex-gay” therapy and show significantly better results.
The effortless dishonesty of Perkins was most evident when he cherry picked a few quotes from a landmark 2009 American Psychological Association report to obscure the APA’s position on “ex-gay” therapy. He conveniently left out the headline from the APA’s press release on the report: “No evidence that sexual orientation change efforts work, says APA.” He also forgot to include the sub-headline: “Practitioners should avoid telling clients that they can change from gay to straight.” Of course, this breach of professionalism is exactly what Bachmann & Associates did during TWO’s investigation.
Perkins then breezily writes, “Homosexual advocates do not merely claim change is difficult, they claim it is impossible and the evidence contradicts them.” That’s a remarkable claim coming from the man who runs FRC – an organization co-founded by Dr. George Rekers, who was caught vacationing last year with an escort he met on RentBoy.com. Perkins also can’t seem to remember that his organization backed a 1998 campaign featuring “ex-gay” poster boys John Paulk and Michael Johnston. In 2000, I photographed Paulk in a Washington, DC gay bar. In 2003, Virginia attorney Michael Hamar and I revealed that Johnston was having intercourse with men he met men online. Given these sordid facts, FRC discussing the effectiveness of “ex-gay” therapy is a little like Casey Anthony extolling the virtues of motherhood. Perkins and FRC simply have no credibility or believability on this issue.
As noted earlier, the Family Research Council does virtually no original research. So, it is not surprising that Perkins has little understanding of Robert Spitzer’s heavily criticized 2001 study. Perkins cunningly mentions that several of Spitzer’s 200 subjects reported changes in sexual orientation. What he fails to point out is that it took Spitzer two years to find a mere 200 so-called “ex-gays” and that a significant portion of the sample were provided by activist groups directly affiliated with FRC. Furthermore, Spitzer’s methodology was assailed because he simply called these handpicked shills on the telephone and asked them if they had increased heterosexual functioning.
If this is all the evidence that Perkins has, maybe he should reconsider his erroneous assumptions on the efficacy of “ex-gay” therapy. But, that would require at least of modicum of decency and honor, so don’t hold your breath.
Perkins ends his screed by playing the tired victim card, claiming that gay advocates,” seek to force them [Christian counselors] to change their faith-based beliefs or forfeit their livelihoods.” Actually, we do expect Christian therapists to uphold basic scientific standards, just like any other professional counselor. There should be no special rights granted to faith-based counselors where they can harm clients in the name of religion. After all, therapy is about the client’s legitimate needs – not the illegitimate needs of unethical therapists who use clients to reinforce their sectarian worldview.
Ultimately, Perkins offered a weak and ignoble defense. He further undermined FRC’s legitimacy with lies and elevated his culture war above the sound mental health of clients at Bachmann and Associates.
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“You really thought Cher and Madonna were in the same bar?” – Classic
Whenever I hear the words ‘Christian counselling’, I automatically wonder why they were too stupid to qualify as actual psychotherapists and counsellors.
Speaking of which, isn’t that the case in most ‘Christian counselling’? These people are not mainstream psychotherapists and got their so-called
‘qualifications’ from fundamentalist ‘universities’ that used to be fundamentalist bible colleges.
Is there any way to rescind state certification for the ‘professional’ qualifications and credentials that these charlatans claim to have?
Excellent piece Wayne, thanks. I did not know about the CCC stuff. Makes me thinks he actually has no specific problem with gays, but with the slow gentle erosion of the cultural supremety of the white heterosexual male. When he talks of ‘tradishnul val-yoos’, he is actually refering to a time when the white guys, and NO-ONE else, were allowed to hold postions of power, and he cannot stand that this is no longer the case, because those were the only advantages he had ever had (he certainly doesn’t enjoy an elevated level of intelligence).
He has of course realised that he can no longer express his real feelings about black people, as he would be totally vilified by the vast majority of Americans, so he decided to carve himself a career attacking that other much maligned minority, the Gays. 10-15 years back we were easy targets, and attacking us made him feel so much better about his own significant inadequacies.
I hope now he might be beginning to see that homophobia is culturally on a par with racism, and that the bottom will soon fall out of his insidious ‘career’/money-making scam.
On a related topic, will someone please put a stop to the Bachmann HARPY??? Like, right NOW!!!!
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2019035/9-student-suicides-Michele-Bacmanns-Minnesota-linked-anti-gay-bullying.html?ito=feeds-newsxml
I am inclined to hold her and her ilk, and their DISGUSTING rhetoric personally responsible for this.
Bachmann, Perkins, and the rest are up to their eyeballs in the blood of these innocents.
Perky twisted facts when he didn’t tell outright lies? Shocked. I am shocked.
Seriously, thanks for this much needed, well crafted smack down.
Wayne I think you are going way to broad, in the argument against Perkins. Here are the questions he should have to answer to the public. 1) Did Marcus Bachmann repeatedly lie about whether Bachmann and Associates offer reparative therapy? 2) Did Truth Wins Out’s undercover operation reveal the truth? If you address any of Perkins’s other points, without first demanding that he answers those questions, you are giving him too much room to muddy the waters with matters not relevant to those two questions. A third question after he answers those two is 3) Why would a reputable therapist lie about which treatments he offers?
“Ex-gay for pay”. Perfectly true!
I apologize for being so shallow, but damn, Wayne Besen is hot. I had never seen him on video before. He reminds me of an actor, but I am having a hard time thinking of who it is.
Anyway, great work!
Bachmann never denied counseling unwanted homosexuality. Counseling is not harmful.
Tony/Tim/Dmitri/Omar/Evil Becky/Tom we’ve been over it several times. Every major mental health and medical association agrees this type of counseling is ineffective and potentially harmful. Bachman was asked about a newspaper article that said he offered “reparitive” “therapy” and he responded “That is a false statement.” – he lied.
Also, do you think its ethical to use force to remain in someone’s house when you’ve been told to leave and never come back?
Dear Mr. Besen,
I appreciate you coming forward and telling the real truth about family research council and there so called interest in homosexuality and reparative therapy that is fake. Anthony perkins has no interest in being honest. I don’t believe that his little group is interested in family values. Truth wins out is reveling things that FRC has failed to show proof of. As an openly gay man I support truth wins out.
I noticed on Citizenlink’s Blog today that they had a piece about Marcus Bachmann in which they misidentified John Becker as Jim Becker and they called you TWO, but did not reveal that TWO stands for Truth Wins Out (so nobody could go to your website & discover the lies Citizenlink were printing). They also claimed that no one says that reparative therapy is unethical & also claimed that no one has ever been hurt by it. I replied to them that this was not true & left your email address. I expect though that my posting will be deleted.
Also, Baptist Press has a piece by Glen Stanton of FOTF about marriage equality. He’s against it. Gee, that doesn’t come as any surprise!
“potentially harmful” which is easily interpreted as “rarely harmful” given the source. Let’s be honest, we’re talking about a conversation with a therapist, how harmful could that possibly be?
We don’t know what the “statement” was that Bachmann responded to but can be pretty certain it was a “gotcha” that mis-represented the simple matter of counseling unwanted homosexual attractions.
tony, you don’t know what you’re talking about do you? The harms of these “therapies” have been discussed continually on this site. If you’d do a little research rather than just firing off your ignorant rhetoric you might actually learn something.
Your question has been asked (probaly by you under a different name) and answered over and over again.
I have done lots of research. The assertions of “causing harm” are very poorly supported, if at all. It’s generally anecdotal and by sources with significant vested interests. TWO is the least balanced source imaginable.
LOL Tony.
I’m sure your so-called research overrides the real experts from the APA and AMA etc. I’m sure clown raffles like yourself prefer the amazing research of Paul Cameron and Rent Boy Rekers.
And what “evidence” that isn’t anecdotal supports “ex-gay” therapy? All you really have are tales if “transformation” by the “ex-gay” for pay crowd.
Tony. We see through your BS. Stop wasting our time and yours.
Please Tony, what research did you do? Go to a few anti-gay websites?
And the whole “balance” business in this case is just a red herring. When one side is just wrong–and your ex-gay side is wrong–balance doesn’t exist.
‘unwanted homosexual attractions.’ — this stupid expression is already a non-starter. How would a REAL counselor deal with someone who came in with ‘unwanted shortness’, ‘unwanted left-handedness’, ‘unwanted big feet’, ‘unwanted dark skin’, ‘unwanted love of chocolate’?!
I have a friend who is a very pale, red-headed guy of Irish descent who always hated the way he looked as a child because he lived in an area and went to a school that was predominantly Italian-American and most of the other kids had dark hair and eyes and got tan in the summer, not pink or red with ‘orange freckles’. A REAL counselor would have helped him to accept himself the way he was, and appreciate his uniqueness and whatever special talents or abilities he had to offer. A bachmannesque counselor would have made him feel even more ashamed, told him to dye his hair black, wear brown contact lenses, keep as much of his ‘unwanted skin color’ covered as possible and even spray fake tanning lotion on himself to ‘fit in’—and of course pray that some day he will wake up and magically look like all the other Italian-American kids.
Tony said ” Let’s be honest, we’re talking about a conversation with a therapist, how harmful could that possibly be?”.
Right, just like the Halebop cult leader only had conversations with people who eventually became his followers and committed suicide – how harmful can a conversation be?