Behold the power of Fundamentalist Christian delusion.

Jacob, I don’t know who you are, but these people are predators. Your sexuality is part of you, and it has nothing to do with your drug addictions. And you don’t beat addiction to drugs by exchanging it for a dependency on profit-based faux-spiritual experiences proffered by people who use your life as a way to get rich. (See note.)

Note: It’s been brought to my attention that the leaders of IHOP live “modest lifestyles” and whatnot. This is, of course, anecdotal, and I have as of yet little knowledge of the group’s finances. What I do know is that whatever these people are selling is costly, because they deliver nothing real. They deliver empty promises and opiates for the masses. They also deliver real harm and dishonest counsel to people like Jacob. As you can see in the video, they are bolstering a young man with lies, and passing off as true testimony the preposterous idea that God has “healed” him of homosexuality. When your first exposure to a group is to their snake oil and lies, it’s not beyond the pale to suggest that someone, somewhere, is profiting off of this. But as I don’t know for sure, I wanted to amend this post to point out that these people could very well just be zealots. So there you go. Regardless, the video is painful to watch, because so many of us have been scarred by the people who perpetuate this sort of false worldview.

Shame on them.

Exodus International culture warrior Alan Chambers’ unsuccessful battle against his own homosexuality has required him to organize a whole platoon of code words, obfuscations, and carefully worded insults in order to market his failure as a success story — and in order to portray moral gay people as defective objects of derision.

The Genocide for Jesus blog offers a glossary to decipher Alan Chambers’ self-promotions and putdowns against people who are sexually honest.

Evergreen Also Whitewashes Suicide of Stuart Matis, Says TWO

NEW YORK — Truth Wins Out (TWO) slammed “ex-gay” Mormon group Evergreen International today for gross violations of ethics and morality. The “pray away the gay” ministry listed convicted sexual predator therapist Christopher Austin as a resource and also covered up the suicide of Stuart Matis, a Mormon who took his own life because he could not change his sexual orientation.

“Evergreen should be ashamed and apologize for the unethical and immoral way it conducts business,” said Wayne Besen, Executive Director of Truth Wins Out. “Instead of admitting the group’ failures, Evergreen has engaged in a series of omissions and cover-ups that whitewash reality at the expense of their victims.”

The blog, Ex-Gay Watch, discovered that Evergreen listed Christopher Austin on its site. What Evergreen failed to mention was that Austin, a disgraced therapist in Irving, Texas, was convicted of sexually assaulting a male client in Sept. 2007. Austin was sentenced to 10 years in prison, but received seven years probation, had to register as a sex offender and was ordered to pay a $2,500 fine.

“Unfortunately, Evergreen continued to promote Austin’ therapy and hold him up as an example of success,” said Besen. “Under pressure, Evergreen finally scrubbed him from its website this week, but the appropriate action would have been to let people know the truth. Sadly, Evergreen’ answer is to bury the facts in order to promote their fiction that one can change from gay to straight.”

In an equally disturbing incident, Evergreen whitewashed the heartbreaking suicide of Stuart Matis. On its website, Evergreen lists Fred and Marilyn Matis as past speakers and blithely says, “Their oldest son, Stuart, had same-gender attraction.”

This, of course, leads readers to believe that their son is now “ex-gay.” What Evergreen fails to tell readers is that the dangerous “ex-gay” message led Stuart to end his life. In his suicide note, Stuart Matis wrote:

“The church has no idea that as I type this letter, there are surely boys and girls on their callused knees imploring God to free them from this pain. They hate themselves. They retire to bed with their fingers pointed to their heads in the form of a gun. I am now free. I am no longer in pain and I no longer hate myself. As it turns out, God never intended for me to be straight. Perhaps my death might be a catalyst for some good.”

David Benkof (formerly Bianco) – the gay writer turned anti-gay religious extremist – is getting published in mainstream newspapers. It is not because of his weak, sophistic, inarticulate arguments. The reason he gets press is because of his bizarre – man-bites dog biography that positions him as a gay journalist who is against same-sex marriage.

The only problem is, Bianco is not a gay columnist. He was dumped from the Dallas Voice and Q-Notes the moment they found out that he was a double-talking fraud. Despite the end of his GLBT journalism career, he still has his fake credentials listed on his website, a testament to his low character.

Mr. Bianco, take down your fake resume and get published based on the merit of your work, not your phony biography. I predict that his journalism career will be over in a relatively short amount if time. Mr. Benkof lacks the ethical standards and morals to succeed in this business. He has already been accused on at least two occasions of misquoting people and twisting their words to fit his political agenda. People of this ilk often get weeded out and I doubt Bianco will be an exception.

By Wayne Besen

Left, James Dobson

It is remarkable that Focus on the Family’ James Dobson would accuse anyone of “distortions” considering his ignoble record. But, that is exactly what the right wing ideologue did this week when he said on his daily radio show that democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama distorted the Bible.

“I think he’s deliberately distorting the traditional understanding of the Bible to fit his own worldview, his own confused theology,” Dobson said.” “… He is dragging biblical understanding through the gutter.”

Why do people still listen to what this serial liar has to say? In the past two years, at least seven researchers have accused Dobson of manipulating or cherry picking their results to back his anti-gay teachings. Letters and videos documenting the concerns of these respected professors can be viewed at RespectMyResearch.org.

The first researcher to step forward was New York University educational psychologist Carol Gilligan, PhD. On Sept. 14, 2006 Gilligan wrote a letter to Dobson that stated: “I was mortified to learn that you had distorted my work this week in a guest column you wrote in Time Magazine…What you wrote was not truthful and I ask that you refrain from ever quoting me again and that you apologize for twisting my work.” (Read More)