Apparently, “ex-gay” activists don’t like to work very much.
Since the temperature dropped below 50 degrees, Exodus International’s staff has noticeably gone into hibernation. Consider the evidence:
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.
The “recent” Nov. 16th press release was titled “Exodus Sends Letter Opposing Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill.” How nice of Exodus to get around to denouncing calls for genocide, considering the bill was introduced in mid-April 2009. It took the group 7 months to gin up the energy to crank out a single media release on Uganda. Such inaction is particualrly appalling, because Exodus played a key role in fomenting anti-gay sentiment in Uganda, which set the stage for the introduction of the “Kill the Gays” bill.
The front page of Exodus’ website still lists an Oklahoma City event from October 2009. Um, Exodus, the leaves have changed colors, they have fallen to the ground, they have been raked up and there is snow on the ground. It’s okay to update the site before the beaches reopen.
The only steady work from Exodus comes from its low-impact vanity blog with infrequent posts (maybe one or so per day) from its Vice President Randy Thomas.
There is no mention on Exodus’ front page of Love Won Out (LWO) – the “ex-gay” roadshow that Exodus recently took over from Focus on the Family. This is odd, considering the next ex-gay LWO circus is scheduled for March 6th in San Diego.
Exodus has a budget of more than $1 million dollars and a staff of more than a dozen people, yet, they can’t even update a website or write a press release?
Pathetic.
The Board of Exodus ought to launch a formal investigation to see how President Alan Chambers (pictured left, clowning around on the company dole) and Randy Thomas (pictured left, chilling out below) are spending contributions. They certainly aren’t using the money to “educate” or “inform” people on the Internet.
It seems that in 2010, Exodus has silently backed away from genuine public outreach. The group has retreated into American fundamentalist churches and taken its roadshow overseas – where people are not as informed of the groups dubious history and astronomical failure rate. All we have to do is look at the Uganda nightmare (after Exodus spoke at hate conference in Kampala on March 5 and 6) to see the disastrous results of the group’s global efforts.
Who can blame Exodus for its bunker mentality? Their lies were increasingly unconvincing to thinking people in the United States. This is why they now prefer to take their propaganda to more receptive fundamentalist churches where people are told how to think and what to believe.
In any case, Exodus’ sloth has been noticed and duly noted. The fact is, my chubby, slumbering cat seems to do more work of late than the clearly overpaid staff of Exodus International.
However, the award for laziest anti-gay extremist goes to Peter LaBarbera (aka Porno Pete). (Read More)
A congressional commission next week will hear testimony on the harshly anti-gay bill pending in the Uganda parliament, DC Agenda has learned.
The Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission has scheduled a hearing on the Uganda legislation for Jan. 21 at 2 pm. Lawmakers will hear testimony in Room 2255 of the Rayburn House Office Building.
Chairing the hearing will be Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), the only out lesbian in Congress and member of the commission’s executive committee.
In a statement Friday, the commission announced the scheduled witnesses. For the first panel, the commission has invited a representative from the U.S. State Department. For the second panel, the scheduled witnesses are Julius Kaggwa of Civil Society Coalition on Human Rights and Constitutional Law, Uganda; Cary Alan Johnson, executive director of the International Gay & Lesbian Human Rights Commission; Kapya Kaoma, a project director for Political Research Associates; and Christine Lubinski, executive director of the HIV Medicine Association.
While 2009 will be remembered for the worldwide economic recession, for the ex-gay industry, it will be known as The Great Moral Depression. It was a dreadful year for such programs, as they showed themselves to be a global menace run by reprobates, such as Exodus’ Randy Thomas and Alan Chambers, who combined a dangerous dose of arrogance and incompetence. Much like the Roman Catholic Church, these men ignored a credible allegation of abuse for more than six months and engaged in a dangerous game of denial.
Whatever shard of credibility this industry had was stripped away in 2009. It was a year where such programs were harshly rebuked by the mental health establishment. An important new study showed that their retrograde methods of shame and blame harmed LGBT people. The old, outdated research that they stubbornly latched onto for dear life seemed to betray them and then vanish into thin air.
Several “ex-gay” heroes turned out to be zeros and slithered away into the mist. The past 12 months, if anything, unmasked the facade of “love” this industry cynically showers on potential clients and an often gullible media. In 2009, the world saw ex-gay programs for what they are: A sugar coated excuse for homophobia.
Exodus was revealed as a front for international hate groups, who used the group’s credulous leaders as pawns in an international struggle for theocracy. PFOX stepped forward and showed, time and again, that it was just plain nuts.
NARTH put out an embarrassingly shoddy “study” that was so pathetic it was virtually ignored by the media. By the end of 2009, NARTH had solidified its place as a cabal of embittered and irrelevant quacks on the far outer fringes of psychology. Homosexuals Anonymous was, well, anonymous. The Catholic ex-gay group Courage also had a meager profile and had little impact on popular culture. And, JONAH, the Jewish ex-gay group, continued to humiliate itself through its affiliation with crackpot Born Again sexual reorientation coach Richard Cohen.
May 2010 bring the same abundance of truth and light regarding the ex-gay fraud we had in 2009. Here are the Top 10 ex-gay related stories of the year. Please feel free to comment on any major items I may have missed.
10) The Passing of The Old Guard
Focus on the Family co-founder James Dobson announced that he was stepping down. He was an arch-homophobe who once claimed allowing gay people to marry would end the earth. Under Dobson’s leadership, this mega-ministry started the ex-gay roadshow Love Won Out. Dobson’s retirement represents the winding down of the old guard. This includes the passing of other ex-gay proponents or anti-gay preachers such as Rev. Jerry Falwell, D. James Kennedy and Oral Roberts. A new generation of Evangelicals will hopefully join the reality-based community and break with the past. However, there is reason to be skeptical, considering the leader of the pack is Rick Warren, who isn’t too much better than his predecessors.
9) The Fizzling Out of Michael Glatze and Stephen Bennett
Michael Glatze (left) was formerly co-editor of XY Magazine and YGA Magazine, publications directed at LGBT youth. He and his partner of ten years, Benjie Nycum, also co-authored the book XY Survival Guide.
Glatze’s ventures went belly-up and he seemed to disappear from LGBT activism. He reemerged in July 2007 with a disgusting op-ed on the extremist website WorldNetDaily, where he announced he was “ex-gay” (although he had no experience with women)
Glatze alleged sexual conversion seems, in part, to have come from a sort-of nervous breakdown. He reported that he suffered from frequent panic attacks and that he obsessed about death.
In late September, Glatze contacted me, hoping that I would interview him and reinvigorate his flagging career as an “ex-gay”. I refused to oblige his publicity stunt, and so did LGBT advocates at other sites.
Glatze’s downfall came when he opened an incoherent vanity blog and wrote:
“Have I mentioned lately how utterly *disgusting* Obama is? And, yes, it’s because he’s black. God, help us all….It’s a shame Obama is black. He could end up setting back race relations decades.”
Condemned for his idiotic comment about President Obama, Glatze sent out a rambling e-mail announcing his career as an ex-gay spokesperson had fizzled and he was retiring. Chalk Glatze up to a pitiful flash in the pan.
Similarly, 2009 was the year that big haired ex-gay activist Stephen Bennett (left) completely vanished from the scene. And, Anthony Falzarano’s (founder of PFOX) attempted return to the spotlight also petered out.
8) The Lisa Miller Kidnapping and Abduction Case
Lisa Miller broke up with partner Janet Jenkins (Right) after becoming a born again “ex-gay”. In a fit of holier-than-thou zeal, Miller went on the lam and absconded from Vermont with their child, Isabella, that the couple was raising together after having a Civil Union.
As a result of Miller’s poor parenting and criminal behavior (she was cited for contempt of court), a Vermont court transferred custody to Jenkins (after a five year legal ordeal that will surely leave emotional scars on their child Isabella) and refused a motion to delay transfer, as requested by Miller’s law team.
People for the American Way’s Right Wing Watch reports that the location of Miller and 7-year-old Isabella Miller are presently “unknown”. This is highly problematic because the court order takes effect on New Year’s Day.
Janet Jenkins filed a missing person report in Virginia on Wednesday in hopes of finding her 7-year-old daughter, according to her lawyer. Unfortunately, Miller’s outlaw behavior has been cheered on by ex-gay activists who want to pretend they are martyrs, rather than criminal miscreants.
7) The Caitlin Ryan Study
The January 2009 issue of Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics reported on a new study by San Francisco State researcher Caitlin Ryan. Her research concluded that, “Teens who experienced negative feedback (when they came out as LGBT) were more than eight times as likely to have attempted suicide, nearly six times as vulnerable to severe depression and more than three times at risk of drug use.”
This definitive study was hugely important because it contradicted the claim by “ex-gay” activists that homosexuality was the root cause of such problems. Indeed, it was ex-gay programs – the epitome of negative feedback – that led to the destruction of LGBT people.
Exodus International officially cut ties with its Lansing affiliate Corduroy Stone after charges were made by an ex-gay survivor that the sessions included harmful and bizarre therapy.
In August, Patrick McAlvey made the charges against Corduroy Stone’s Mike Jones in a Truth Wins Out video. At the age of 19, McAlvey, who came from a religious background, was terrified that he might be gay. Feeling vulnerable and desperate to change, he placed his trust in Mike Jones and Corduroy Stone.
“He asked how large my penis was,” McAlvey explained of Jones’ therapy. “He asked if I shave my pubic hair. He asked what type of underwear that I wore.
He wanted me to describe my sexual fantasies to him and the type of men I’m attracted to. On one occasion, he asked me to take my shirt off and show him how many push-ups I could do, which I did not do.”
Tragically, it took Exodus until December to take action and cut ties with this renegade ministry. Exodus’ dithering in the face of scandal cost precious time and may have placed additional youth in harm’s way. This was a key episode in 2009 because it underscored how Exodus has little control over its satellite ministries and each one is an independent fiefdom with its own rules and techniques. Exodus is no more than a Wild West and an unprofessional hodgepodge of fundamentalist pop-psychology combined with spiritual warfare and efforts to pray away the gay.
5) Ex-Gay Charlatan Matthew C. Manning Unmasked As A Fraud
A report by the website, “Ex-Gay Watch” cast a dark cloud of skepticism over “ex-gay” activist Matthew Manning’s tale of being “delivered” from homosexuality and AIDS. According to the report, Manning has been repeatedly dragged into court for allegations of inappropriate behavior and was even banned from a popular gym after improper sexual advances were made on a 22-year-old heterosexual male. Manning, a frequent television guest and the founder of Lighthouse World Evangelism Inc., based in Santa Rosa, California, has yet to comment on the allegations made in the investigative report.
Porno Pete LaBarbera is steaming mad at Exodus’ Randy Thomas.
The cat fight started on Porno Pete’s vanity blog after he attributed the following quote to Liberty Counsel’s Matt Barber:
It boils down to this: there is nothing “conservative” about — as Barber inimitably puts it — “one man violently cramming his penis into another man’s lower intestine and calling it ‘love.’”
In crisis mode over Exodus’ role in the anti-gay death bill being debated in Uganda, the group’s Vice President, Randy Thomas, is searching for ways to make his group appear more humane. Thus, he jumped all over Barber’s quote and complained to Liberty Counsel, Barber’s employer. It seems the crassness of Barber’s words upset his boss, so they sent out a disclaimer calling Porno Pete a liar.
“Neither Matt Barber nor anyone with Liberty Counsel wrote or made any such public statement that is being alleged in this blog…While we strongly disagree with the sexual politics and agenda of activist organizations and individuals, we also believe that each person is entitled to respect.
Porno Pete was in a huff over “Tattletale Thomas” and attacked the ‘ex-gay” for his “politically correct overreaction.” The next day, Barber humiliated his boss by sticking up for Porno Pete. According to Barber:
“This is for clarification only. As affirmed in Liberty Counsel’s statement, neither I nor anyone with Liberty Counsel ever publicly‘wrote or made’ the comment in question – an unapologetically direct and accurate depiction of the sin of sodomy (a sin that God directly and accurately calls both an ‘abomination’ and ‘detestable’). Some years before I began working with Liberty Counsel, I made the comment in private conversation with Peter LaBarbera. At the time, Peter asked if he could ‘quote me on it’ and I said yes.
Barber’s (Left) message is simple: Yes, I hold disgusting and despicable views that are an embarrassment to my employer and any decent American. In fact, my thoughts are so vile that my employer is forced to lie and say I never uttered the offending words. Of course, if I said what I really feel, no one would hire me and I’d end up as a joke, maybe with a nickname, like my good buddy Porno Pete.
In the past week, Truth Wins Out has been dealing with twin tragedies caused, in part, by Exodus International, the nation’s largest “pray away the gay” ministry.
The first train wreck is Uganda’s proposed “Anti-Homosexuality Bill 2009″. This legislation would lead to the imprisonment and murder of LGBT Ugandans. It would jail anyone accused of “promoting” homosexuality and imprison friends and relatives of LGBT people who did not turn them into authorities.
This fascist bill came about after Exodus Board member, Don Schmierer, had gone to Uganda last spring to attend a conference on homosexuality. Schmierer was joined by Caleb Lee Brundidge of quack Richard Cohen’s International Healing Foundation and Scott Lively, the twisted author of The Pink Swastika, who believes gays are responsible for the holocaust. There were calls at the conference to “wipe out” homosexuality in Uganda. The current bill before the legislature would do just that.
The second disaster is Corduroy Stone, which was an Exodus ministry in Lansing, MI until this week. After six months of dithering and dawdling, Exodus finally parted ways with Corduroy Stone after a client accused Exodus counselor Mike Jones of engaging in bizarre and dangerous therapy. His sessions with Patrick McAlvey, who was 19 at the time, included “cuddle therapy” and odd questions.
“He asked how large my penis was,” McAlvey explained of Jones’ therapy. “He asked if I shave my pubic hair. He asked what type of underwear that I wore. He wanted me to describe my sexual fantasies to him and the type of men I’m attracted to. On one occasion, he asked me to take my shirt off and show him how many push-ups I could do, which I did not do.”
In August, Truth Wins Out released this information in a video. Yet, it took Exodus six months to act and cut its ties to Jones. Clearly, they were more interested in protecting their image than the young adults who may have been put in harms way.
Yet, despite such negligence and a trail of destruction, Exodus Vice President Randy Thomas is trying to play martyr. On Exodus’ blog, the solipsistic “ex-gay” political activist posted a letter by someone named Frank:
Randy, how do you wake up every morning, and go to work knowing that as much as you fight for truth, you are hated beyond understanding? that every word you speak will be twisted and you will be made a laughing stock? This Rachel Maddow thing (among others) has me down… truth is not acceptable anymore. no one cares. … I feel like I’ve talked and talked till im blue in the face yet no one listens… how do you do it?
You have fought longer and harder than I and have been villified more… how do you get up every morning and do it again? … I know I will never cease to proclaim the riches there are in Christ (not just talking bout ex-gay stuff) but I just get so tired of trying to make my little corner of the world a better place when it seems like “the establishment” (read: Rachel Maddow, Keith oberman, Wayne Besen…) is screaming louder telling me to shut up and sit down…
Randy Replied:
“I resisted posting this blog post because what I go through is nothing compared to some of my peers and especially other Christians around the world who are dying for their faith. I went ahead and posted this because I got this type of message from several people and thought the topic would be worth exploring in general (not just about me.)”
Mr. Thomas, you are the victimizer, not the victim. It is Exodus – not Rachel Maddow, Keith Olberman or myself – that is tied to state sponsored persecution in Uganda. It is you who has repeatedly lied and deceived, not us.
It is Thomas, and his truth-challenged boss Alan Chambers, who have kept Schmierer on the Exodus board, despite the very good possibly of genocidal results because of Schmierer’s foray into Africa.
It is Exodus that allowed bizarre and dangerous therapy to continue for half of 2009 at Corduroy Stone before action was belatedly taken.
It is Exodus who in the past had allowed youths like Zach Stark and Lance Carroll to be forced into Exodus’ ex-gay boot camps against their will.
Thomas’ cynical defense for his role in such appalling actions is that he has a nice smile, doesn’t have fangs and is surprisingly friendly. The term “banality of evil” comes to mind when Thomas tries to make the case that his public demeanor does not match his dirty deeds.
Sorry, Mr. Thomas, but it is time to take personal responsibility for the egregious harm perpetrated by you and the staff at Exodus International. If the Anti-Homosexuality Bill 2009 comes to pass and LGBT people are hunted down, everyone associated with Exodus will be viewed as an accomplice to war crimes.
Please, Mr. Thomas, stop playing the victim card. If you want to be a real victim, enroll in Corduroy Stone for “therapy”. For any semblance of respectability, you need to go to Uganda and publicly rebuke this death bill.
But, let’s be clear: right now you are more mercenary than martyr.
Warren Calls Bill ‘Unjust’, ‘Extreme’ and ‘Unchristian’
NEW YORK – Truth Wins Out thanked Rick Warren, pastor of Saddleback Church, today for releasing a YouTube Statement condemning the “Anti-Homosexuality Bill 2009” that is currently before the Ugandan Parliament. Lisa Darden, a talent agent and filmmaker working on a film about reconciling the Christian and GLBT communities, coordinated the statement with Warren’s church.
“We applaud Rick Warren for speaking out with force and clarity on a bill that would lead to the persecution and prosecution of gay and lesbian Ugandans,” said Wayne Besen, Executive Director of Truth Wins Out. “Today, Warren showed true moral courage and stood for what is right and just. We urge other leading pastors and world leaders to stand up and condemn Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill.”
In the video, Warren said he was taking “the extraordinary step of speaking to you, the pastors of Uganda and the spiritual leaders of your nation.” He unequivocally condemned the legislation as “extreme, unjust and unchristian towards homosexuals”. He also urged Ugandan pastors to “speak out against this proposed law.”
Truth Wins Out is a non-profit organization that counters anti-gay propaganda, exposes the “ex-gay” myth and educates America about gay life. For more information, visit TruthWinsOut.org.
Truth Wins Out today urged Congress to deny financial aid to Uganda if the country passes a draconian bill that would trample the fundamental rights of the nation’s gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender population. The Anti-Homosexuality Bill 2009 threatens sexual minorities with cruel and usual punishment for simply existing.
On Friday, four members of Congress wrote a powerful letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to express alarm over the proposed law.
“This egregious bill represents one of the most extreme anti-equality measures ever proposed in any country and would create a legal pretext for depriving lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) Ugandans of their liberty, and even their lives,” said the bipartisan letter, signed by Reps. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisc., Pictured), Gary Ackerman (D-NY), Howard Berman (D-Calif.) and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.). “Particularly given the United States’ substantial contribution to Uganda through the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), we believe swift action is necessary to ensure Ugandan leaders understand this bill is wholly unacceptable and antithetical to democratic values.”
Please THANK Rep. Tammy Baldwin for her support and urge her office to continue fighting against The Anti-Homosexuality Bill 2009 by e-mailing Amber Shipley
Amber.Shipley@mail.house.gov
Please THANK Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen for her support via phone call or letter and urge her to continue using her position in the U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs to hold Uganda accountable.
2470 Rayburn H.O.B.
Washington, DC 20515-0918
Telephone: 202-225-3931
Please contact the Ugandan Embassy and express your disapproval of the anti-gay bill:
His Excellency Professor Perezi K. Kamunanwire
Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary
Tel: (202) 726 4758
pkamunanwire@ugandaembassyus.org (Read More)
Exodus has a budget of more than $1 million dollars and a staff of more than a dozen people, yet, they can’t even update a website or write a press release?
It seems that in 2010, Exodus has silently backed away from genuine public outreach. The group has retreated into American fundamentalist churches and taken its roadshow overseas – where people are not as informed of the groups dubious history and astronomical failure rate. All we have to do is look at the Uganda nightmare (after Exodus spoke at hate conference in Kampala on March 5 and 6) to see the disastrous results of the group’s global efforts.
However, the award for laziest anti-gay extremist goes to Peter LaBarbera (aka Porno Pete). (Read More)
A congressional commission 
