(Ensley, left, Doesn’t Read Exodus’ Website)

Poor Mike Ensley. Next time he debates in a mainstream venue he needs to read the Exodus website. He was totally unprepared for the Alan Colmes Show and spent much of the debate denying undeniable facts, squirming or disavowing quotes made by his loose cannon boss, Alan Chambers. He claimed that the host, Alan Colmes, and I were taking words out of context or making things up - but the problem is, the proof is on the Exodus website or part of the historical record.

Sorry Mike, but if you are going to speak to people who have not been brainwashed, at least do your homework. I know it must be difficult to defend the scientifically bankrupt “What to Do When Your Child is Gay” or argue that Exodus does not believe gays are evil or demon possessed, when your organization promotes spiritual warfare.

The cold facts can be stubborn and unforgiving.

Here is my message to Mike: If you are too preoccupied to know your topic and what the organization you work for actually represents - just tell the truth. It is amazing how easy interviews are when you believe in what you are saying and can speak with a clear conscience. When you ultimately leave Exodus, Mike, you will finally understand this simple truth.

Finally, Mike, the GLBT community will be here for you if and when you are ready to come out. We will show you the unconditional love and support that you will never find at Exodus. And, the best part is - when you do interviews with the media, you won’t have to remember the lies you told before the commercial break.

The blog The Lesbian Said What? wrote a point-by-point commentary on May 21 about the strawman arguments and ludicrous stereotypes that are taught by Christine Sneeringer, director of the Exodus ministry “Worthy Creations.” Sneeringer authored the widely circulated antigay essay, “Did God Make Me Gay?”

The commentary on Sneeringer’s essay is direct but polite.

There are lesbians who have been sexually abused. There are straight women who have been sexually abused. Not all lesbians were sexually abused. And the majority of lesbians that were sexually abused would have been lesbians whether they had been abused or not, because that’s who they are: lesbians. [After being raped,] Christine found safety, comfort and warmth in the arms of women as a coping mechanism; some women turn to alcohol or drugs or food to cope with these feelings. Christine is not a lesbian, she is a heterosexual woman. What makes a more interesting Christian testimony, saying that you were a lesbian and “saved,” or saying that you were sexually abused and found healing through God?

Ultimately, Sneeringer comes across as someone who distorts and embellishes her journey away from abuse, while turning real gay and lesbian persons into cookie-cutter caricatures.

Daniel D’Orsi, 22, is yet another victim of violent assault apparently motivated, in part, by the perpetrator’s hatred of people perceived to be gay.

According to Bay Windows, D’Orsi was robbed and attacked May 6 while the alleged perpetrator yelled anti-gay slurs. Police say the suspect may have tried to attack a woman in the same neighborhood about a week earlier — and therefore, police reason, the attack on D’Orsi was not a hate crime. Bay Windows does not indicate whether the woman might have been perceived to be lesbian.

Eleven days later, on May 15, three men assaulted a 23-year-old Sacramento gay man just hours after the California Supreme Court ruling on marriage rights for gay Californians.

According to the San Jose Mercury News:

A 23-year-old Sacramento man was sitting with another man in a car near the station’s restroom when the three suspects asked if he was a homosexual, Sacramento Police Officer Michelle Lazark said. The man said he was. When he got out of the car, the three men beat and kicked him, Lazark said. He did not require medical treatment. It was not immediately clear if the suspects were reacting to the court’s ruling, Lazark said. ‘It’s a gay-bashing. Gay slurs were used before they commenced to beating him,’ she said. ‘I don’t know if these guys were looking for someone or are just ignorant.’ … The victim of the Sacramento beating, who police would not name, identified his attackers, who were arrested near the gas station. Their cases are being reviewed by Sacramento County prosecutors, spokeswoman Tanisha Worthy said.”

How have ex-gays responded?

While refusing to acknowledge the ongoing wave of antigay violence, Exodus executive vice president repeated his claim May 16 that so-called hate crimes represent “freedom of conscience and religious liberty,” and that Exodus opposes laws that limit supposed speech — even, apparently, if that “speech” occurs (in Boston) in the form of a kick to the face, a broken cheekbone, and reconstructive surgery.

Jamaica prime minister Bruce Golding reiterated this week that he believes all Jamaicans should enjoy a right to privacy and equality — except same-sex-attracted Jamaicans.

Golding told reporters last month that he has no intention of moving to repeal laws that incarcerate same-sex-attracted persons for their private intimate activities.

Antigay Caribbean nations, some of which criminalize homosexuality and permit mobs to assault and kill gay people, enjoy the ongoing support of the ex-gay Exodus Global Alliance.

Around the world, as many as eighty-six countries criminalize same-gender sexuality; Exodus Global Alliance claims a presence in many of them, and explicitly opposes criminalization and discrimination in none.

From Ecuador and its ex-gay torture and incarceration centers to Gambia and its plan to behead all gays, Exodus Global Alliance says nothing about the human rights of those who “struggle” with same-sex attraction. Instead, the Exodus alliance legitimizes its host countries’ violent methods by promoting undefined ex-gay conversion while offering no public guidelines — no restraints — upon the barbarity of powerful antigay church and government agencies.

In a new article in the conservative Charisma magazine, Exodus International youth activist Mike Ensley tells parents “What To Do When Your Child is Gay.”

Beginning with its patronizing title — parents struggle with the coming-out of older teen-agers and adult offspring, not a “child” — the article proceeds to declare that homosexuality is a disease, that family members are doomed to a lifestyle of depraved promiscuity, and that parents are to blame.

(Read More)

Ruling Undermines ‘Ex-Gay’ Propaganda And Lets Potential Recruits See The Truth About Same-Sex Relationships

NEW YORK – TruthWinsOut.org expressed jubilation over the California Supreme Court’s decision to overturn a ban on same-sex marriage. The momentous 4-3 ruling is one of the biggest victories in the GLBT equality movement’s history. It also undermines “ex-gay” propaganda that demeans gay relationships to recruit new members.

“We are thrilled to be a part of history and experience a monumental victory for marriage equality,” said Wayne Besen, TruthWinsOut.org’s Executive Director. “The court made a bold decision and confirmed that all relationships, regardless of sexual orientation, are equal in California.”

“Under these circumstances, we cannot find that retention of the traditional definition of marriage constitutes a compelling state interest,” the court said in a majority decision. “Accordingly, we conclude that to the extent the current California statutory provisions limit marriage to opposite-sex couples, these statutes are unconstitutional.” (Read More)

A 21-year-old Indiana student and four friends were physically attacked May 9 in the latest apparent antigay hate crime to be ignored by ex-gay activists.

Last month, in a declaration that antigay violence is a non-issue, Exodus and Focus on the Family voiced opposition to a national Day of Silence which commemorates antigay violence and seeks to establish specific school policies to reduce violence and harassment. Pro-exgay pundit Warren Throckmorton sought to compete with the Day of Silence through a Golden Rule initiative, while Exodus featured speaker Ken Hutcherson organized a antigay protest purposely intended to disrupt public-school classes at a school in Washington state where the Day of Silence was being observed by some students. Exodus and Focus supported a so-called Day of Truth three days later. The DOT was a national religious-right campaign that sought to:

• oppose school programs that offer specific measures to reduce antigay violence
• vent antigay religious judgmentalism and sexual insults against gay and gay-tolerant students while they are at school trying to learn

Since the February killings of California gay student Lawrence King and Florida gay youth Simmie Williams, reports of antigay assaults and killings stretching from Tennessee to Illinois to New Jersey and elsewhere have been met by the ex-gay movement with ongoing silence and a refusal to act — except to silence survivors and hold rallies for bullies.

By Wayne Besen

“What is it about gay sex that makes U.S. health officials want to play Chicken Little with AIDS prevention and public safety?” Tony Valenzuela writes in the latest Poz magazine, where he criticizes, “The clueless tabloid and public health hysteria over man-on-man sex.”

Valenzuela points to “an imaginary ‘super strain’ of HIV to the sci-fi MRSA superbug.” And, he is correct that it seems the media and society seem to always take on the absurd posture that gay sex is a mysterious ticking time bomb.

It is important to remember that gay bashing is a multi-million dollar industry. There is a vested interest by fundamentalist groups to convince the public that gay people are morally inferior and diseased, thus a threat to children, society and themselves.

The notion that AIDS is a punishment from God is a staple of right wing literature. Instead of focusing on the condemnation of unsafe sexual practices, extremist groups say that the very nature of being gay makes one a candidate for an early death. For example, the so-called “ex-gay” group Exodus International uses the Bible to justify their belief in God’s wrath and fury against homosexuals.

“Those who practice these sins ‘receive in their own persons the due penalty of their error,’” writes former Exodus Executive Director Bob Davies in ‘A Biblical Response to the Pro-Gay Movement.’ “In today’s society, homosexuality is reaping a bitter harvest…homosexual involvement reaps deep devastation in the lives of many who practice it.”

The Traditional Values Coalition has published what they call a “fact-based report on the dangers of homosexuals and homosexual behavior to children and to our society.” One “fact sheet” is called, “Homosexual Sex = Death From HIV Infection.”

Focus on the Family offers that, “solid, irrefutable evidence proves that there are lethal consequences to engaging in the defining features of male homosexuality…”

Of course, blaming victims for deadly diseases is nothing new and has ushered in some of the most shameful and horrific acts in world history. In a recent New York Times magazine article, epidemiologist and physician Gary Slutkin (the article was about gang violence, not HIV) spoke of how Chinese Americans were once thought to be inherently prone to disease.

“Chinatown, San Francisco in the 1880’s,” Slutkin said. “Three ghosts: malaria, smallpox and leprosy. No one wanted to go there. Everybody blamed the people. Dirty. Bad habits. Something about their race…And people come up with all kinds of other ideas that are not scientifically grounded – like putting people away, closing the place down, pushing people out of town. Sound familiar?”

John Kelly’s book, “The Great Mortality” explains how Jews were blamed for the “Black Death” that wiped out an estimated one-third of fourteenth century Europeans.

“In January 1349, Basel burned its Jews on an island in the Rhine, while hygiene-conscious Speyer, fearing pollution, put its dead Jews in wine barrels and rolled them into the river,” wrote Kelly. “Strasbourg marched its Jews to a local cemetery and burned them…In Worms the local Jewish community, faced with death at the hands of Christian neighbors, locked themselves in their homes and set themselves ablaze.”

What I find bizarre is how the right continues to portray HIV as a gay disease when more than 80 percent of people infected worldwide are heterosexual. If God really wanted to punish the so-called “gay lifestyle” and send a message, wouldn’t He use a smart bomb – like blowing up gay bars on Saturday nights – instead of an indiscriminate shotgun blast that claims the lives of hemophiliacs and babies? The last time God was this inefficient, He placed George W. Bush in the Oval Office to carry out his will.

For reasons of political convenience and conservative correctness, anti-gay groups pick and choose who gets blame. In Washington, DC, black residents account for 81% of new reports of HIV infection and 86% of people with AIDS, though the city’s population is only 57% African-American. Based on anti-gay “logic,” this would mean that the “black lifestyle” is dangerous and should be condemned. Interestingly, they only focus on homosexuality and ignore other demographics and the largely hetero International AIDS epidemic because the inconvenient facts don’t mesh well with the right’s anti-gay storyline.

Gay people were around for thousands of years before AIDS and will still inhabit this planet long after the disease subsides or is eradicated. In the grand scheme of the universe, HIV does not define homosexuality any more than past syphilis or gonorrhea outbreaks in Europe defined heterosexuality.

Illnesses, like natural disasters, are not God’s wrath, but ordinary phenomena that affect different populations at any given time. History, however, teaches us that the most enduring disease is divisiveness in the name of the Divine, that predictably rears its ugly head at the very moments when healing is needed instead of hatred.

(Bob Davies, right)

Exodus claims to love homosexuals, but their message to those infected with HIV: “You are getting what you deserve and God is punishing you for being gay.” On Exodus’ website, there is a commentary by former Executive Director Bob Davies, “A Biblical Response to the Pro-Gay Movement.” In this screed he says:

Those who practice these sins “receive in their own persons the due penalty of their error” (v. 27). In today’s society, homosexuality is reaping a bitter harvest. Homosexual men are six times more likely to have attempted suicide than heterosexual men. Between 25 and 33 percent of homosexual men and women are alcoholics (the national average is 7 percent). Currently, 70 percent of Americans with AIDS are male homosexuals or bisexuals. Homosexual involvement reaps deep devastation in the lives of many who practice it.

It was certainly convenient for Davies to ignore that heterosexuals make up more than 80 percent of cases worldwide - so this is hardly a product of homosexual behavior. Many of the new infections are caused by right wing squeamishness to teaching comprehensive sex education - including condom use.

For political convenience, Exodus also skirts the obvious. In Washington, DC, black residents are hardest hit, accounting for 81% of new reports of HIV infection and 86% of people with AIDS, though the city’s population is only 57% African-American. Based on Exodus “logic” this would mean that the “black lifestyle” is dangerous and should be condemned. Interesting, how they only focus on homosexuality and ignore other demographics and the International AIDS epidemic because they don’t mesh well with the group’s bigotry.

The fact is, Exodus is a bona fide hate group that will say anything to smear homosexuals. Gay sex, when practiced safely, is no more dangerous than any other form of sexuality. Gay people have been around for thousands of years before AIDS and will be on this planet long after the disease subsides or is eradicated. In the grand scheme of the universe, it does not define homosexuality any more than syphilis outbreaks in Europe defined heterosexuality. It is time for Exodus to stop the blame game and act responsibly.

Exodus Increasingly Resorts To Delusional and Paranoid Attacks Against GLBT Community

NEW YORK – TruthWinsOut.org (TWO) criticized Exodus International after Stephen Black, an organizational spokesperson, compared “ex-gay” watchdog organizations to Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan. Black, the leader of First Stone Ministries, an Exodus affiliate in Oklahoma City, used his personal blog to opine that “gay activists, liberal blog bullies and the liberal anti-Christ media machine…and Darwinism,” were determined to make ex-gay ministries illegal.

“Exodus International is becoming more desperate and shrill as they lose their war against homosexuality,” said TWO Executive Director Wayne Besen. “We call on Exodus to take action against Black and apologize for the group’s outrageous slander against GLBT advocates. These paranoid, mean-spirited and unfounded attacks are unethical and undermine Exodus’ claim that they love homosexuals.”

“There are actual GAY hate groups who wish to silence the voices of ex-gays,” wrote Black on his blog. “These groups are like the brazenly named ‘Ex-Gay Watch’ and their klan of bloggers who use hatefully sarcastic words in addressing ex-gays.”

Black went on to compare the work of ex-gay watchdog groups to Nazis and say – without evidence – that ex-gays were somehow being “stalked.”

“One merely need to lightly read over blogs like the “Ex-GAY WATCH” (yes, they are WATCHING and STALKING ex-gay leaders) and/or Wayne Besen’s blog and you will know we are living in very dark days….A very successful attorney friend of mine recently told me he felt it was like 1933 in Nazi Germany for Christians and Exodus type ministries in the USA.  He seriously joked with me and said, ‘Stephen it is like 1933 and your last name isn’t Black, but Bernstein. Your ministries will be on the front-line of the next demonic wave of an anti-Christ movement in history. It is coming.’  WOW! It was a sobering moment.”

Black also claimed that gay activists and the media are, “silencing their great stories about overcoming homosexuality.” He makes the bizarre case that there are so few ex-gay stories from people not on the payroll of right wing organizations because they are, “afraid to come out from fear of persecution.”

“Black must live in a delusional bubble,” said Besen. “The mainstream media has featured Exodus International countless times, even though the group provides no statistics and offers no concrete evidence of change. The reason that we see so few ‘ex-gays’ who are not on the payroll of political organizations is because they don’t exist. To say, without evidence, that it is because of persecution is a copout and a transparent excuse for Exodus’ astronomical failure rate.”

TWO also took Black to task for his dishonesty. His blog states that he is “not associated with any organization,” yet, he directs an Exodus Ministry.

“This was a radical hit piece with the intent of character assassination,” said Besen. “The question is, what does Exodus intend to do about it?”

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