Increasingly, victims’ advocates are taking to the Internet.
“We are breaking the silence in the frum [religious] community, and more people are getting online to tell their stories every day,” said Chaim Levin, 22, who was raised in the Chabad-Lubavitch community, an ultra-orthodox branch of Hasidic Judaism. Levin recently began blogging about the sexual abuse that he says he experienced at age 19 at an Orthodox Jewish counseling center in Jersey City. (The center — JONAH, or Jews Offering New Alternatives to Homosexuality — did not return calls or e-mail requests for comment.) Levin, who is now openly gay and no longer religious, still lives in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, which is the Hasidic movement’s headquarters.
“Our goal is to capture the eyes and ears of the world,” said Levin, who earlier this month traveled to Georgetown University to speak about abuse on “Faith Complex,” a campus TV talk show about religious issues.
TWO thanks Chaim Levin for having the courage to speak out and stand for justice. He is an important voice in our community and a rising star in the LGBT movement.
As for JONAH, this is a slippery group run by convicted felon Arthur Abba Goldberg. Any parent that sends their child to this group, given its unspeakably poor track record, is begging for trouble. Here is the experience Levin and Ben Unger had at JONAH.
A few years ago, I attended a conference in Orlando, FL by the Presbyterian “ex-gay” group, OnebyOne. The group’s affable leaders showered me with attention and tried really hard to convince me that I had wrongly portrayed them as haters, when they were actually just a cuddly bunch of love muffins. Today, we learn that OnebyOne lied to me because they have invited Linda Harvey, “The Most Homophobic Woman in America,” to speak at their Pittsburgh gathering in July:
Presbyterian Ex-gay group OneByOne will host Linda Harvey at their luncheon, Tuesday, July 3 (12:00 – 1:30 pm)
Speaker: Linda Harvey: Founder of Mission America “Same-Sex Marriage: The Destructive Impact on America’s Youth” Tonic Bar and Grill 917 Liberty Avenue (one block from the main entrance of the Pittsburgh Convention Center)
So, they love us, but we are destroying America’s youth?
That OnebyOne group is a a cynical bunch of two-faced, truth challenged scoundrels, who have invited a heinous individual who lacks a conscience to slime the LGBT people. Do you feel the love? I sure don’t.
“There are a few homosexual doctors treating kids, there are far more nurses, LPNs, technicians and other health care workers in these lifestyles so you may want to consider writing a letter that you file with your pediatrician that should your child ever be hospitalized, you do not want your child to be treated or cared for by one of these members of the Children’s Hospital gay employees group except in the case of an emergency situation.”
Harvey is also opposed to openly LGBT schoolteachers and claimed on her website that that, “These teachers then become role models, in-house activists, and possible confidants for students who want to start homosexual behavior. Student molestation becomes a real risk.”
Here are just a few studies showing that Harvery has no clue what she is talking about:
A 2000 study by Dr. Michael R. Stevenson concluded, “A gay man is no more likely than a straight man to perpetrate sexual activity on children.” A 1994 study by Dr. Carole Jenny found that less than one-percent of the children in her study were abused by a gay man or lesbian. In 1978, Drs. Nicholas Groth and Jean Birnbaum found that none of the 175 molesters in their study had an exclusively homosexual adult orientation.
Harvey’s work is truly disgusting and I am appalled that OnebyOne is enabling her to spread her ridiculous rubbish. It is particularly hypocritical for OnebyOne to invite Harvey, when you consider that they have a document on their website listing “The Top Five Myths About Ex-Gay Ministry,” with myth number three being, “Ex-Gay Ministries Promote Guilt and Condemnation.”
Obviously, the “most homophobic woman in America” is a fountain of unending guilt and shame. OnebyOne has lost whatever shard of credibility that it had with this despicable and immoral guest booking. It is also worth noting that OnebyOne lists JONAH convicted felon, Arthur Abba Goldberg, on its speaker’s bureau, without giving relevant details about his criminal past. What kind of sleazy outfit omits such pertinent information? Don’t people booking speakers for allegedly “moral” institutions have the right to know about the real Arthur Abba Goldberg?
(This reminds me of Exodus International’s similar efforts to appear loving and mainstream — yet, we just learned that Exodus activist Joe Dallas is speaking at the notorious and noxious PFOX organization. Do these sleaze merchants ever tell the truth? Are they even capable of it?)
If you feel like I do, please express your feelings to OnebyOne’s Jeff Winter:
My time undergoing reaparative therapy with a group called Jews Offering New Alternatives to Homosexuality (JONAH) was recently brought to public attention. The one experience that has stood out and has raised eyebrows across the world was my last session with a JONAH “life coach” (a self described ex gay) who manipulated me into removing my clothing and touching myself in a locked room as he looked on. While that experience is something I have to live with every day of my life, I wish I could say that was the only unconventional “technique” that I was exposed to while attempting to change my sexuality. I’ve decided that it’s time to start talking about some of the other experiences that I endured while attending weekends and group meetings with JONAH and another group called People Can Change.
At the age of eighteen I was directed to JONAH by a local rabbi in my community. I was told that JONAH was supposed to be the answer to my prayers and they were supposedly going to “cure” me of my homosexuality.
Upon meeting with Arthur Goldberg, the director of JONAH, I immediately felt reassured by the false hope Goldberg gave me when he said that anyone could change and become straight so long as they tried hard enough. I wasn’t the only person who was victimized by the false hope peddled by these groups. Many of my friends who went to JONAH ended up leaving after not changing their sexual orientation.
However, after speaking to Goldberg I was ready to do anything these people asked of me in order to become straight. I never thought that accepting myself as a gay person was an option, especially because of the strong Orthodox religious community that I was raised in. As far as I knew, there were no other gay people where I came from and hearing that false message from Goldberg only reinforced my ill informed belief that I can change my sexuality and become straight.
Over the next year and a half I endured many different “processes” conducted by JONAH and People Can Change, processes that they claimed would ultimately serve to change my sexuality. Today, four years later, I’m a proud gay man and wouldn’t have it any other way. But I’d like to tell you about some of the “exercises” conducted by the people who claimed to be “experts” in this field — exercises that left me scarred and traumatized until this very day.
The first thing Goldberg told me that I must do was register for an upcoming “Journey into Manhood” (JIM) weekend hosted by People Can Change. He was very insistent that this was the first very big step that I must take in order to get the ball rolling. Four weeks later, on June 1, 2007, I found myself on my way to a retreat center in rural Pennsylvania, feeling anxious and unsure about what to expect from the next 48 hours.
ABC Nightline aired a segment on Journey Into Manhood and interviewed myself as well as another person who had negative experiences while on this weekend. Unfortunately, the producers at ABC gave us merely 10 seconds of a 21-minute segment, which basically turned into a promotional piece for People Can Change and their “Journey Into Manhood” weekend. During my interview with ABC I spoke about some of the dreadful memories that come to mind when I think back to those weekends. I spoke about what it was like to participate in what the facilitators of the weekend called “guts work,” which is something I’d like to elaborate on.
“Guts work,” otherwise known as psychodrama, was one of the main parts of the JIM weekend. We were split up into groups of ten with the point being to recreate a traumatic memory. This was accomplished by choosing people in our group to serve as surrogates for those deemed responsible for causing those traumas. An example of this would be if someone had an abusive father or mother, they were instructed to pick someone to represent that energy and reenact the distressing situation from long ago with the intention of getting in touch with our “authentic” emotions which they claimed would lead us to healing or reduction of our SSA (same sex attraction, gayness).
So to clarify, the small breakout group spent about ten hours, with each of us given an hour to recreate some of the most traumatic incidents of our life in the hopes of bringing out anger, sadness, or other emotions that came with those memories.
For me, those ten hours were pure hell.
I witnessed people go back to some of the most painful memories of their lives, being sexually abused, being beaten by a parent or classmates, and I watched in fear and horror as every single man “lost it” and started yelling on the top of their lungs and then were encouraged to hit something that represented that anger. So you have someone who’s angry with his father or mother, and he’d be screaming at the top of his lungs while hitting a pillow with a bat or tennis racket and yelling the name of their mother, father or other bully that brought on this anger. As someone who grew up in a household with a lot of yelling, this explosive rage and emotion frightened me.
Despite the facilitator’s reassurance that we were safe, the boiling rage and horrifying screams of people reliving the most traumatic situations in their lives made me feel unsafe, vulnerable and exposed. Though I try to erase these images and memories, they are forever seared in my mind.
When it was my turn to reenact my own traumatic event I was reluctant to participate. But I desperately wanted to become heterosexual and they told me that I needed to step out of my comfort zone in order to complete the “work” that was required to “change.”
I recreated a situation in my childhood that until this day is something I don’t speak about publicly, something too traumatic for me to describe in this essay. I recreated part of the situation and watched it “play out” by the people I picked to represent those energies. I was very detached from the “guts work” and I pretended to get angry and riled up so that I would be able to complete my work as quickly as possible. The event that I reenacted relates to extensive childhood sexual abuse that I endured for a very long time, and watching it play out once again in front of my eyes was so difficult and disturbing, I just wanted it to be over as soon as possible.
After yelling really loud, cursing at the top of my lungs, and even hitting something, as I recall, they asked me to pick someone to represent my parents because according to the facilitators it was my parents’ job to protect me from the abuse I faced, and this tragedy of my childhood was their fault. I was encouraged to yell at my father (someone representing his energy) and blame him for not protecting me.
I have many issues with my family and my parents, but this event that I was reliving was not their fault. One of the saddest parts of reparative therapy is the way it destroys relationships, because clients are falsely led to believe their parents caused their homosexuality. This unscientific and unfounded belief can often lead to enormous resentment, which ends with clients alienating themselves from their families.
One of the many issues I had with this “process” was that licensed medical or mental health professionals weren’t monitoring it. As People Can Change themselves acknowledge, they aren’t a “professional therapy organization,” and so I found myself reliving possibly one of the most traumatic events of my life in the presence of amateurs, which left me feeling unprotected in this explosive environment.
These stories are still only hitting the tip of the iceberg of what reparative therapy was like for me, as time goes by, as I heal from these experiences, I’m becoming more able to write about them and share the experiences that myself and many others endured while attempting to change our sexuality.
A Brooklyn Rabbi, Yehuda Levin, wrote that gay men should consider chemical castration “as you do with cancer” to stop their same-sex feelings. Levin made his comments in a Letter to the Editor in response to a groundbreaking op-ed written in the Jewish Press by Chaim Levin. (No relation). The op-ed was important because it was the first time that this conservative publication published a column written from the perspective of an openly gay former Orthodox Jew.
“As you do with cancer, you never stop trying to find a better treatment to cure yourself,” wrote Rabbi Yehuda Levin in his Jewish Press letter. “If all therapies fail, as a last resort you use chemicals to stop the urge to act in a forbidden manner. (This resolution is ordered by European courts for offenders and it works.) Unpleasant, surely; but better than committing adultery, homosexuality or incest.”
Rabbi Levin’s medieval mindset is an embarrassment to Judaism and he should be deeply ashamed of himself. Levin’s anti-gay comments were cruel and insensitive to Jews everywhere who have felt the sting of intolerance and discrimination.
Rabbi Levin, who leads Congregation Mevakshei Hashem in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn, is no stranger to anti-gay controversies. Last year he made news by claiming that the new marriage equality law in New York helped cause the earthquake that shook the East Coast. The rabbi opposed a gay pride parade in Jerusalem in 2010 calling it a “sodomy celebration” and “nothing less than the spiritual rape of the Holy Land.”
However, Levin is most remembered for helping GOP gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino write anti-gay remarks that badly backfired. After Paladino retreated and apologized to the LGBT community, Levin dropped his support complaining that the politician, “folded like a cheap camera.”
Clearly, Rabbi Yehuda Levin is the Jewish version of Fred Phelps, the hateful Kansas preacher best known for protesting LGBT events with “God Hates Fags” signs. The fact that so many anti-gay organizations team up with him proves that they will scrape the bottom of the barrel to show that their ‘Christian Nation’ agenda has diverse support.
Indeed, Levin is a member of the advisory committee of Jews Against Anti-Christian Defamation. Last month, the rabbi joined some of America’s most radical extremists to protest the Southern Poverty Law Center for labeling a few anti-gay organizations “hate groups.”
The Rabbi was angered after he read an historic op-ed in the Jewish Press by Chaim Levin, who detailed being abused at the hands of a therapist referred by the “ex-gay” organization Jews Offering New Alternatives to Homosexuality (JONAH). The co-founder of JONAH, Arthur Abba Goldberg, is a convicted felon who concealed his lurid past until it was uncovered in a joint Truth Wins Out and South Florida Gay News investigation. Chaim originally spoke out about the harm caused by reparative therapy in a video produced by Truth Wins Out.
The reaction to Chaim’s Jewish Press 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.” In support of the publication, TWO started an online Change.org petition that generated more than 3,000 letters from people who thanked the Jewish Press for their bravery and fairness.
Levin is not the only Jewish anti-gay extremist making news. Australia’s Rabbi Shimon Cowen published a report that claimed an effective way to counter anti-Semitic bullying is to funnel public money away from anti-homophobia bullying campaigns.
So this happened today, apparently. Porno Pete brought all his worldly friends together to go down to the SPLC and cry:
A coalition of African American pastors and pro-family Christian and Jewish leaders is holding a press conference at noon tomorrow (the day after Martin Luther King Day) outside the headquarters of the Southern Poverty Law Center — to protest the SPLC’s smearing of pro-family groups that oppose homosexual activism as “hate groups”:
Ooh, Porno Pete got to go on vacation! Of course, the SPLC doesn’t brand groups as “hate groups” simply for opposing gay people. They have to be known liars and slanderers. Porno Pete = one of those.
Scheduled speakers:
Peter LaBarbera, Americans For Truth About Homosexuality (AFTAH), Chicago, IL (the SPLC has smeared AFTAH as a “hate group”);
Dr. Patrick Wooden, pastor, Upper Room Church of God in Christ (COGIC), Raleigh, NC;
DL Foster, founder, Gay Christian Movement Watch, Atlanta, GA;
Matt Barber, Director of Cultural Affairs, Liberty Counsel, Lynchburg, VA;
Tim Johnson, Fredrick Douglass Foundation, Washington, D.C.;
Rachel Conner, representing Abiding Truth Ministries (smeared by SPLC as a “hate group”)
Pastor Glen Sawyer, New Mt. Zion Church of God in Christ, Elizabeth City, NC
Pastor Wil Nichols, Victorious Praise Fellowship COGIC, Durham, NC
Pastor Jon Robinson, Kingdom C.O.M.E. Ministries, Clairton, PA
Pastor Kenneth Jefferson, Greater Harvest COGIC
The following pro-family leaders and groups will issue supporting statements:
Rabbi Yehuda Levin, Rabbinical Alliance of America;
Laurie Higgins, Illinois Family Institute (smeared as “hate group”)
Arthur Goldberg, author, “Light in the Closet: Torah, Homosexuality, and the Power to Change”;
Linda Harvey, Mission America, Columbus, OH
Brian Camenker, Mass Resistance, (smeared as “hate group”)
Awwwww, Porno Pete got to go on vacation and Matt Barber was there! Did the wives come along? Just curious. Let’s see…so Rachel Conner was there, representing the most vicious, dishonest male anti-gay hatemonger in the country, Scott Lively. D.L. Foster, the purported “ex-gay” who blames gay kids for their own depression and suicide, was there. I’m not familiar with the others, but my thinking is that the only thing the SPLC was confronted with today was the integrity of their own work.
Looking at the supporting cast, we have ol’ Yehuda Levin, probably the most unhinged rabbi in the United States, Laurie Higgins of the Illinois Family Association, who would be the most vicious, dishonest female anti-gay hatemonger in the country if Linda Harvey would ever step aside and let her talk, convicted felon Arthur Goldberg, and Brian Camenker, who holds the title of Peter LaBarbera’s Jewish Friend.
These are the leaders of your anti-gay movement, ladies and gentlemen. Quite a stellar cast of characters. I will say, though, that we should appreciate their work, in a way, because we wouldn’t be gaining quite as much public support as we are if people like those above weren’t spreading their hate around on a daily basis. Sadly, their work does embolden some of the most violent, uneducated hicks in this country, which leads to a higher gay teen bullying/suicide rate, but normal people hear the words of the people at that press conference today and it nudges them a little bit closer to our side.
Peter LaBarbera, president of Americans For Truth, which is sponsoring the press event, recently interviewed Pastor Wooden, who said that the SPLC’s gambit of labeling mainstream pro-family groups that oppose homosexual activism as “hate groups” is seriously damaging the SPLC’s credibility.
No it isn’t.
Wooden also debunked the “civil rights” analogy used by “gay” activists, saying it is wrong to compare “my beautiful blackness” with homosexual perversion.
I simply cannot make that quote better.
LaBarbera said the SPLC is engaged in a thinly-veiled, one-sided campaign to demonize adherents of traditional Judeo-Christian morality. He noted that despite the considerable hatred and anti-Christian bigotry emanating from homosexual activists (e.g., Dan Savage’s vile hate-site, Santorum[dot]com), the SPLC has never labeled a “gay” organization or website as “hateful.”
Because we don’t:
1. Lie about you people. We let your words speak for themselves.
2. Advocate for denying you wingnuts your constitutional rights, and instead defend your right to believe whatever bullroar you want, as embarrassing as it must be for your ancestors.
3. Embolden people who would want to hurt bigoted Christian wingnuts — indeed, it’s widely recognized that our side is STILL the only one with a bodycount in this “culture war.”
We do:
1. Report your words verbatim.
2. Make fun of you sometimes. Grow up.
3. Correct the constant, alternate-reality lies perpetuated by extremist religious fanatics who are unwilling to live as adults in a world where not everybody is the same as they are.
(Exodus’ Randy Thomas schmoozing with Karl Rove in headier times)
Is the once active “ex-gay” organization Exodus International on the decline?
Those who follow the group have noticed fewer events scheduled and virtually no media presence. The last press release for Exodus was posted on October 6, and the group’s front page promotes an event as far back as June. In terms of messaging, the group appears to be stuck in a rut and its once vital campaigns have grown predictable and stale.
Needless to say, I’m pleased with this development!
It is unclear if Exodus’ woes are a result of an internal shake-up, or if financial setbacks have hobbled the organization. Perhaps, they are not working as closely with Focus on the Family, which augmented Exodus’ past campaigns with creativity and professionalism. Ever since Focus on the Family handed over the flashy “ex-gay” road show Love Won Out to Exodus, it appears that the standing of Exodus has diminished.
The only evidence the group is still alive comes from Vice President Randy Thomas’ blog posts. But, even this venue suffers from inertia and rust, with Thomas posting offensive videos of Chambers preaching hate in 2006. Are there no new videos or messages to highlight?
In 2010 the organization left hardly a footprint. Its sluggish efforts lacked energy, and its impact had noticeably diminished. It will be interesting to see if Exodus comes out of its slumber and recovers in 2011.
The “ex-gay” group People Can Change (PCC) is increasingly filling the void left by Exodus. PCC runs Journey Into Manhood (JIM) weekends, which is a scam that takes gay men into the woods for $650, with the goal of making them more masculine. The group recently gained notoriety after ABC Nightline filmed a puff piece highlighting the group’s work. (A more accurate description of the group might be Journey into Manhunt)
The good news is that PCC is particularly vulnerable to scandal and outright collapse. This heavily Mormon organization adheres to the bizarre therapy model of Richard Cohen, the laughable and discredited “Sexual Reorientation Coach” who runs the bizarre International Healing Foundation. Convicted Wall Street hood, Arthur Abba Goldberg, is responsible for funneling a good number of paying clients into the group. (I’d love to see what’s in it for him) The organization’s senior trainer, Alan Downing, faced credible accusations of sexual misconduct by two clients earlier this year.
The PCC scheme is likely on borrowed time and is making a mistake by stepping out so publicly. Journalist Ted Cox wrote a fabulous expose showing the creepy and peculiar happenings at Journey into Manhood weekends. We had hoped that ABC Nightline would have engaged in real journalism and corroborated Cox’s story. However, they eschewed investigative reporting for cheap access to the camp, leading to a disappointing and woefully incomplete depiction and representation of Journey into Manhood weekends.
Still, it is only a matter of time before committed broadcast journalists with standards of excellence infiltrate JIM to reveal the closety, homo-erotic exercises that are offered in the camp’s “Cuddle Room”. When this happens, the entire program will turn into a punchline. I can hardly wait.
PFOX is also trying to assert itself, but its ties to the colorful and outrageous sexual engineer, Richard Cohen, will likely retard the group’s progress. The organization’s president, Greg Quinlan, appears angry and unstable, further hindering PFOX’s efforts to have an impact and gain mainstream credibility. And, Executive Director Regina Griggs is no more than a figurehead who avoids public appearances outside the safety of adoring fundamenalist Christian audiences. Indeed, PFOX may simply be a shell group for the Family Research Council and a number of Christian legal groups that want to show that “ex-gays” exist for political reasons. (To its detriment, PFOX embarrassingly can’t find real “ex-gays” to show, unless they work for the group, like Quinlan)
The National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH) remains a dangerous organization, because their members pose as legitimate experts on homosexuality. However, they consistently underachieve because they fail to produce respectable peer review studies. Instead, they offer up transparent propaganda that has undermined the organization’s reputation with the public and media.
It will be interesting to see which one of these organizations — or perhaps a new one — comes out of the woodwork to pick up the slack. Hopefully, the answer is “None of the above.”
Richard Cohen, continues to undermine “ex-gay” groups
TWO Pledges To Help Educate The World Bank About PFOX’s Record of Hate and Harm
NEW YORK – Truth Wins Out today praised the World Bank’s plan to eliminate matching funds for the “ex-gay” hate group Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays (PFOX), and called it a “positive step in the right direction.” The bank took this extraordinary step after learning more about PFOX’s reprehensible record and strong objections from staff who were upset PFOX had been included on the World Bank’s list of approved charities.
“We are grateful that the World Bank ensured that taxpayers will not be subsidizing PFOX’s anti-gay campaign,” said Truth Wins Out’s Executive Director Wayne Besen. “We pledge to continue educating the World Bank on this vital issue. The more they learn about PFOX’s history of hate and harm, the less likely they will consider PFOX a legitimate charity.”
Last week, Metro Weekly’s Chris Geidner discovered that a small number of anti-gay staff-members at the World Bank had recommended PFOX as a charity for this year’s Community Connections Campaign. World Bank matching funds were to be given to the chosen charities. Depending on the level of employee participation, the bank’s matching funds are either 50 percent or 100 percent of the employee donations.
Truth Wins Out and Change.org launched an online petition to drop PFOX from the list of charities. World Bank staff also made a persuasive case against using taxpayer funds to assist PFOX. The World Bank decided to take another look at PFOX and elected to change their guidelines. According to the new rules:
Bank-matching funds will be provided to those organizations that have, through prior participation, established a track record of support with staff. Organizations that have come on the list this year will not be offered matching funds in this year’s campaign, though the Bank will match any contribution that has been made to this latter group prior to today, November 15, 2010. We will review the new organizations after one year, to see if they have the staff and community support to warrant a match in the FY12 campaign.
Truth Wins Out preferred that PFOX be completely dropped from the list this year, but is satisfied with this interim measure that starves the hate group of taxpayer funds. In 2011, TWO will disseminate key information to World Bank staff and management to ensure they are aware of PFOX’s dubious record.
“It is a shame that other first time charitable organizations will have to suffer because of PFOX’s unseemly presence,” said TWO’s Wayne Besen. “Sadly, the PFOX baby is so toxic that the bathwater had to be flushed to avoid contaminating the entire program’s reputation.”
In August, two key members of PFOX spoke at the “Truth Academy”. The conference was hosted by Americans For Truth About Homosexuality’s founder Peter LaBarbera, whose website was listed as an official “hate site” by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
At the Truth Academy, PFOX Board President Greg Quinlan raised eyebrows with an offensive speech. Quinlan explained how he allegedly went from gay-to-straight, and found support from an Assemblies of God Church that accepted him because he allegedly was not effeminate.
“I wasn’t your flaming faggot, you know,” Quinlan told the chuckling crowd. “I can say that because I’ve been there and done that. You know, the one’s whose wrists are so limp that when the wind blows they slap themselves in the face. I wasn’t one of them.”
At the same conference, Arthur Abba Goldberg, the convicted Wall Street thief who runs PFOX’s speakers bureau, demonstrated PFOX’s unscientific use of stereotypes.
“By the way, did you notice that a lot of gays who remain in the gay lifestyle also do a lot of body building,” said Abba Goldberg. “They will be in the gym a lot trying to build up their pecs…Because they have these body image issues and don’t feel they are masculine enough.”
“PFOX is a dangerous organization that traffics in ugly slurs and crass stereotypes,” said TWO’s Wayne Besen. “Given PFOX’s level of vitriol, it would seem reckless and irresponsible to give this group charitable status in the future.”
PFOX’s former board President is Richard Cohen, who still serves as the “therapy” guru of the organization. Cohen runs the International Healing Foundation and sent his protégé, Caleb Lee Brundidge, to Uganda. The result of his visit was the introduction of the deadly and draconian Anti-Homosexuality Bill. Cohen was permanently expelled from the American Counseling Association on March 23, 2002 for multiple ethics violations.
PFOX is an anti-gay political organization founded in 1998 by Anthony Falzarano with the help of an $80,000 Family Research Council grant. Falzarano once called University of Wyoming hate crime victim Matthew Shepard a “predator to heterosexual men.” He also said on CBS News that, “AIDS comes directly from Satan. He uses homosexuals as pawns and then he kills them.”
“PFOX likes to claim that they ‘love’ LGBT people,” said TWO’s Wayne Besen. “But their syrupy rhetoric does not match their record, nor reality. From the moment this organization was founded, it showed open hostility and extreme animus towards LGBT people.”
There are also lingering questions as to whether PFOX should have been listed as a charity, given that to be included in the World Bank’s Community Outreach Program, an organization is required to have, “a substantial local presence in the Greater Washington metropolitan area.”
PFOX fails to fulfill the criteria. The organization is based in Reedville, VA — placing PFOX 127 miles — and a two hour and forty minute drive — southeast of the nation’s capitol. PFOX also does not list any legitimate chapters in DC or Virginia. The only “contact” e-mail listed in DC or VA is that of the national organization based in Reedville.
Truth Wins Out is a non-profit organization that defends the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community against anti-gay misinformation, counters the so-called “ex-gay” industry and educates America about the lives of LGBT people. Our goal is to fight for a world where LGBT individuals can live openly, honestly, free of discrimination and be true to themselves.
Last month, Truth Wins Out released a shocking video. It told the stories of two young men who were victims of sexual impropriety by a shady Jews Offering New Alternatives to Homosexuality (JONAH) “ex-gay” therapist, Alan Downing. Since the news broke, the organization has changed its name to Jews Offering New Alternatives to HEALING.
Even a cynical name change, however, could not stanch the flow of people out of this organization. Since the scandal, JONAH’s online list serve has decreased from 140 people to a sorry 86 members.
If this keeps up, Arthur Abba Goldberg, the groups co-founder and convicted felon, might have to get a real job and stop masquerading as an “expert” on homosexuality.
The scandalized organization, Jews Offering New Alternatives to Homosexuality (JONAH), is hatching a new scheme. Its slick con artist, Arthur Abba Goldberg, and his shady sidekick, Elaine Silodor Berk, are sending lesbians to an exciting, new workshop — for a hefty fee of $795 — in hopes of making them lipstick ex-lesbians. (I’d love to know if they are getting kickbacks)
This workshop is one that will change your life and free up the core feminine inside of you to be all that you are meant to be….Celebration of Woman is Raw, it is Real and it will Rock your Soul.
The problem is, the ladies at the Celebration of Woman Workshop in San Rafael, CA appear to have no idea that they are in the business of converting lesbians. I called the organization to ask a few questions. An irascible woman became audibly upset and roared, “we don’t have any lesbians in our workshops.”
Won’t she be surprised when a legion of lesbians from JONAH coming through the door to find their inner-feminine self? I’d love to be there for that Kodak moment!
Either Celebration of Being US is lying and is working hand-in-hand with this “ex-gay” hate group, or JONAH is secretly attaching itself to an organization that is not familiar with its outrageous and offensive efforts to “cure” LGBT people.
Please contact Celebration of Being US and tell them that they should immediately get out of bed with JONAH.
Anti-gay activist Peter LaBarbera billed his three-day “Truth Academy”, that took place in a Chicago exurb last week, as “one of the most thorough pro-family, educational seminars on homosexuality ever held in the United States.” The event was heavily promoted for weeks on right wing websites, such as World Net Daily, which had an article headlined, “Exposed: Gay Brainwashing of America’s Youth.”
On the eve of his hate seminar, LaBarbera got a gift from God. Judge Vaughn Walker ruled that Proposition 8, which prohibited marriage equality in California, was unconstitutional. Surely, a spontaneous outpouring of rage against this so-called “gay activist judge” would swell the ranks of angry conservatives at the Truth Academy.
My organization, Truth Wins Out, sent a “spy” to document what we expected – based on the hype — to be a large event. The thrust of the conference was to teach an army of young culture warriors how to beat back the gay agenda. These students would then return home equipped to turn back the clock on gay rights in their communities.
What we found, however, was an event that looked more like a poorly attended condo board meeting than a youthful resurgence of the anti-gay movement. The crowd vacillated between 20-30 people, who were considerably older than the “students” the conference claimed it was trying to reach. I’m not sure how LaBarbera plans to win his culture war, when he can’t even fill one buffoon platoon
“Since how we are born clearly does not justify all behaviors. For example, what if someone is born a gay basher? Instead of diverting our attention and focusing energy how homosexuals are made and born, wouldn’t it be more effective for us to instead concentrate on explaining why homosexual activity is wrong and explaining how homosexuals may be born is ultimately irrelevant?” LaBarbera asked during a panel discussion.
A few years ago, I dubbed LaBarbera “Porno Pete” because of his bizarre fascination with naughty gay magazines and his penchant to go “undercover” at leather events and photograph naked men. It seems the sodomy obsessed LaBarbera’s strategy is for anti-gay activists to talk explicitly about gay sex and why it is an unbecoming, immoral “behavior” that undermines society.
To bolster his argument, Porno Pete hosted a slew of professional gay bashers who would say just about anything to make LGBT people appear depraved. One Truth Academy lecturer was Greg Quinlan, the President of Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays (PFOX). This organization is particularly dangerous because it teams up with conservative legal organizations to threaten schools with lawsuits if they do not provide students with “ex-gay” propaganda.
“I was questioning the homosexual lifestyle. It looked like a dead end to me,” explained Quinlan. “It looked like something that was so ugly. Here we are, you go to the bar, you hook up, this back and forth stuff, it just seems so shallow. So lust filled, so immature. But I was there and too prideful to do anything about it. So I stayed there for a little while.”
Quinlan explained how he went from gay-to-straight, and found support from an Assemblies of God Church who accepted him because he allegedly was not effeminate.
“I wasn’t your flaming faggot, you know,” the effete Quinlan told the chuckling crowd. “I can say that because I’ve been there and done that. You know, the one’s whose wrists are so limp that when the wind blows they slap themselves in the face. I wasn’t one of them,”
In the same vein as Quinlan, convicted felon and co-founder of Jews Offering New Alternatives to Homosexuality (JONAH), Arthur Abba Goldberg, offered a few stereotypes of his own.
“By the way, did you notice that a lot of gays who remain in the gay lifestyle also do a lot of body building,” said Goldberg. “They will be in the gym a lot trying to build up their pecs…Because they have these body image issues and don’t feel they are masculine enough.”
Of course, an anti-gay seminar would not be complete without the old canards tying LGBT people to communists and child molesters.
“It’s consensual (sex with minors) if you don’t believe in the age of consent, which they don’t,” said Accuracy in the Media’s Cliff Kincaid. “This is the mentality of the Marxists who are a significant component and work with elements of the gay rights movement.”
Even as these anti-gay activists were harkening back to smears of the past, key conservatives were stepping into the future. Decidedly non-Marxist, Ted Olson, was defending marriage equality on national TV and the gay conservative organization GOProud announced that commentator Ann Coulter would keynote the group’s annual event.
This broad societal shift towards acceptance is the hard truth that those at the “Truth Academy” aren’t willing to acknowledge and certainly don’t seem prepared to handle.
Last week, Metro Weekly’s 
Anti-gay activist Peter LaBarbera billed his three-day “Truth Academy”, that took place in a Chicago exurb last week, as “one of the most thorough pro-family, educational seminars on homosexuality ever held in the United States.” The event was heavily promoted for weeks on right wing websites, such as World Net Daily, which had an article headlined, “Exposed: Gay Brainwashing of America’s Youth.”
