The Anchorage Press, wrote a large feature story on the so-called “ex-gay” ministries. It did so after TWO and local Alaskan activists squared off against Focus on the Family, which brought its “ex-gay” road show to town last week. TWO Executive Director, Wayne Besen, flew to Alaska to help organize a response. The anti-gay symposium took on national interest after GOP Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin’s house of worship - the Wasilla Bible Church - promoted the event. Besen spoke at the Anchorage Metropolitan Community Church with local clergy and mental health experts to counter Love Won Out.

“The  Anchorage Press article was in-depth and did a very good job of getting to the essence of the ex-gay industry - which is politics,” said Besen. “Focus on the Family’s Love Won Out road show is a political vehicle used to make people feel better about themselves when they vote for anti-gay legislation. Other than that, the glitzy event has no practical purpose.”

Thanks to E. Ross of the website Bent Alaska and Edie Bailey of the Metropolitan Community Church and PFLAG, there was a powerful response to the “ex-gay” road show.

For at least a decade, the antigay political organizations Focus on the Family and Exodus International have promoted the myth that their opposition believes sexual orientation is determined by a single “gay gene.”

This claim has never been true of most researchers nor of most equality advocates, but that lie — a strawman argument — is useful to ex-gay scam artists because it distracts potential supporters of the ex-gay movement from three unpleasant facts:

• No reputable scientific survey has found sexual orientation to be either chosen or changeable in most persons
• Most persons who claim to be ex-gay later admit they were always attracted to the same sex and had never “left homosexuality.”
• Ex-gay programs injure their participants, give false hope to spouses, poison parental relations, and divide families.

On Top magazine touches on the ex-gay strawman argument about a “gay gene” in an article that spotlights Truth Wins Out’s role in weekend protests against an ex-gay roadshow in Anchorage, Alaska. (Read More)

More than a dozen equality advocates and their families protested a religious-right ex-gay roadshow Sept. 13 in Anchorage, Alaska. Truth Wins Out was a participant in the protest. According to media reports, 200-300 people attended the ex-gay antifamily event, which sponsored by James Dobson’s Focus on the Family. Alan Chambers of Exodus International spoke at the event.

Here’s a digest of media and blog coverage:

• KTUU-TV has video and pictures of the protest:
  

  Protesters like Mike Mason say the church has it wrong and that a person’s sexuality is just a part of who they are.

  “People should accept people for who they are, and they shouldn’t use bigotry concealed in the name of God’s love to pass hatred on to others and to create a culture where discrimination against someone is OK, because it’s not,” Mason said.

  “We’re not telling people that they need to reject their gay son or daughter,” Johnston said. “We’re just saying what we do is equip people to reach out and love to those struggling with same sex attractions.

  Focus deceitfully declined to acknowledge its discriminatory antigay lobbying in all 50 states, as well as the anti-family poison that it delivers to parents at its ex-gay roadshow: Namely, the myth same-sex attraction is caused by molestation and bad parenting.

• USA Today reports:
  

  …[Fourteen] people held signs like “Honk if You Love Gay People” during a 12-hour vigil outside the Abbott Loop Community Church in Anchorage, where a conference promising to convert gays into heterosexuals through the power of prayer was being held.

  Palin’s place of worship, the Wasilla Bible Church, promoted the “Love Won Out” conference, sponsored by Focus on the Family.

  “Our main message is that God loves everyone the way they are,” said protester Mike Mason. “People should be accepted for who they are.”

  Attempts by The Associated Press to reach someone at the church Saturday for comment were not successful.

• Bent Alaska has pictures and first-hand accounts:
  

  Kirt and Roger stand together near the church parking lot. They were married in Canada, the first gay couple from Alaska to be legally wed.

  “I’m here for people like Stuart Matis,” said Roger, “a young gay man in California who thought it better to put a bullet in his head rather than live with the shame that these people in the church create.”

  “I grew up in a very religious background,” said Kirt. “I know about these types of programs that profess that you can change and that it’s some kind of choice to be gay. It absolutely isn’t. I’m proud to be a gay man, and proud to be married to my husband, and I’ll be proud to die that way.”

  and…

  Sean and Ted arrive with Ted’s mother. “We found out about Focus on the Family through watching the documentary For The Bible Tells Me So,” said Sean, a social work student at UAA.

  “‘Reparative therapies’ and ‘conversion therapies’ are not only ineffective but harmful. These programs are misleading the public, misleading people who are struggling with their sexual orientation, causing emotional harm and in some cases it’s devastating. I can’t sit idly by and allow the general public to accept this ignorance.”

  “What they are teaching in that church is not about acceptance, it’s not about love,” said Mary, “it’s about self-loathing and fear.” Her signs say, “True Love is Unconditional” and “God Loves You Just As You Are.”

• While Focus on the Family calls its deceit “love,” ex-gay activist Joe Dallas remains impenitent in his adultery and his disobedience of the Bible. Emproph explains.

More news to come….

ANCHORAGE, Alaska - Gov. Sarah Palin’s church is promoting a conference that promises to convert gays into heterosexuals through the power of prayer.

“You’ll be encouraged by the power of God’s love and His desire to transform the lives of those impacted by homosexuality,” according to the insert in the bulletin of the Wasilla Bible Church, where Palin has prayed since she was a child.

Palin’s conservative Christian views have energized that part of the GOP electorate, which was lukewarm to John McCain’s candidacy before he named her as his vice presidential choice. She is staunchly anti-abortion, opposing exceptions for rape and incest, and opposes gay marriage and spousal rights for gay couples.

Focus on the Family, a national Christian fundamentalist organization, has scheduled the “Love Won Out” Conference for Sept. 13 in Anchorage, about 30 miles from Wasilla.

Palin, campaigning with McCain in the Midwest on Friday, has not publicly expressed a view on the so-called “pray away the gay” movement. Larry Kroon, senior pastor at Palin’s church, was not available to discuss the matter Friday, said a church worker who declined to give her name.

Gay activists in Alaska said Palin has not worked actively against their interests, but early in her administration she supported a bill to overrule a court decision to block state benefits for gay partners of public employees. At the time, less than one-half of 1 percent of state employees had applied for the benefits, which were ordered by a 2005 ruling by the Alaska Supreme Court.

Palin reversed her position and vetoed the bill after the state attorney general said it was unconstitutional. But her reluctant support didn’t win fans among Alaska’s gay population, said Scott Turner, a gay activist in Anchorage.

“Less than 1 percent of state employees would even apply for benefits, so why make a big deal out of such a small number?” he said.

“I think gay Republicans are going to run away” if Palin supports efforts like the prayers to convert gays, said Wayne Besen, founder of the New York-based Truth Wins Out, a gay rights advocacy group. Besen called on Palin to publicly express her views now that she’s a vice presidential nominee.

“People are looking at Sarah Palin as someone who might feasibly be in the White House,” he said.

Palin Should Explain her Views On ‘Curing’ Homosexuals

NEW YORK – Truth Wins Out expressed deep concern today after learning that Republican Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin’s church appears to support so-called “ex-gay” ministries. These programs that aim to “pray away the gay” are ineffective and have harmed thousands of gay and lesbian people. TWO urged the media to ask Palin if she supports such programs and what her views are on this topic.

In a background article on Palin, Time Magazine revealed that Wasilla Bible Church, where the Palins worship, had a Sunday morning program insert advertising an upcoming Focus on the Family conference on curing homosexuality in Anchorage called Love Won Out. Truth Wins Out’s Executive Director, Wayne Besen, will be in Anchorage next week to oppose this anti-gay symposium.

“We are deeply concerned that Sarah Palin may share the extreme and medically unsound view that gay and lesbian people can and should be cured,” said Wayne Besen, Executive Director of Truth Wins Out. “We call on Palin to express her views on this issue so we have a clear idea of where she stands. We hope this is an area where she disagrees with her church.”

Focus on the Family’s notorious “ex-gay” road show will take place at an Anchorage mega-church on Sept. 13. Besen will join several clergy and parents of gay children to speak out on the harm of ex-gay programs on Sept. 11. The seminar will be at the Metropolitan Community Church (7208 Dubin Avenue) at 6:30 PM.

‘We Will Stop Focus on the Family’s Destructive Lies Wherever They Are Spread,’ Says TWO

Truth Wins Out (TWO) announced today that its founder, Wayne Besen, would appear in Anchorage to oppose Focus on the Family’s notorious “ex-gay” Love Won Out road show on Sept. 13. Besen is the author of “Anything But Straight: Unmasking the Scandals and Lies Behind the ‘Ex-Gay’ Myth.” TWO shadows this anti-gay seminar across the nation to ensure that the public is armed with the facts and aware that Focus on the Family is deliberately disseminating misinformation about gay and lesbian people.

“We appear wherever Focus on the Family spreads lies and fear,” said Wayne Besen, Executive Director of Truth Wins Out. “Love Won Out distorts gay life and conflates stereotypes with science, while selling false hope to vulnerable people. We are looking forward to working with Alaskan advocacy groups to counter Focus on the Family’s false and destructive messages.”

More details about Besen’s trip will be forthcoming. The Love Won Out conference will take place on Sept. 13 at the Abbott Loop Community Church.

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