Focus on the Family today mourned the NCAA’s cancellation of a Focus ad which implicitly shamed the parents of gay Americans.

The ad, which had been shown on the basketball tournament web site, insinuated that politically incorrect families — non-evangelicals, pro-choice families, and families of gay people — can’t “Celebrate Family” and “Celebrate Life” like everyone else.

The ad’s tagline further insinuated that fathers whose sons are not “right” for any reason are doomed to a life of disappointment — and that someone or something sinister should be blamed.

Focus failed to explain to its readers the many reasons why the NCAA found its ad offensive.

As noted by TWO, Richard Cizik, Washington lobbyist for the National Association of Evangelicals, resigned his post last week because of controversy over his nationally broadcast support of gay civil unions. The NAE and right-wing political organizations are applauding his departure with words both questionable and unkind.

During a Dec. 2 interview on National Public Radio’s “Fresh Air,” Cizik told host Terry Gross that he voted for Barack Obama in the Virginia primary and said Christians should not fear supporting pro-choice and pro-LGBT candidates. Cizik also said that his views on marriage were “shifting” and that he supports civil union.

The comments made by the lobbyist — formally known as NAE’s vice president for governmental affairs — caused a huge stir in evangelical Christian circles and the controversy led him to resign his job. In a statement to the organization’s board members, the association’s acting president Leith Anderson explained his departure, saying Cizik’s radio remarks caused “a loss of trust in his credibility as a spokesperson among leaders and constituencies.”

It turns out that Cizik’s views are evolving even more. For years, he has been one of the rare evangelicals banging the drum for addressing climate change. The DC-based Institute on Religion & Democracy’s Mark Tooley told OneNewsNow that “Cizik has been very outspoken and in some ways ‘off the reservation’ for the last five or six years in terms of his global warming activism, which the board of NAE had initially somewhat disavowed — but that had not discouraged him.”

Cizik’s civil-union support was an apparent step too far from the reservation. “The National Association of Evangelicals has official positions strongly supporting traditional marriage and opposing same-sex marriage, and certainly by implication same-sex civil unions,” Tooley said. “So it seemed to be a very clear case where Cizik was ignoring the very obvious and official positions of his own organization, for which he is supposed to be the chief spokesman and lobbyist in Washington.”

Evangelical support for Cizik’s resignation is voluminous, the criticisms harsh.

Ingrid Schlueter, co-host of evangelizing radio show Crosstalk America said, “Those who are at war with God, the author of life, should be publicly confronted by evangelical Christians. Instead, they are aided and abetted in their evil by craven leaders like Cizik.”

Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council is expectedly meanspirited: “This is the risk of walking through the green door of environmentalism and global warming – you risk being blinded by the green light and losing your sense of direction. How else can you explain enthusiastic support for what will probably be the nation’s most pro-abortion, anti-family president in our nation’s 232 year history?”

Janice Shaw Crouse, director and senior fellow of Concerned Women for America’s Beverly LaHaye Institute, takes a broad swipe: “I think, perhaps, my dear friend Rich has been inside the Beltway for too long and has swallowed too much of the NPR and Vogue magazine Kool-Aid.”

I suppose the nasty talk has to be over-the-top. After all, Cizik has the ear of millions of Americans. People listen to him. You can see it in the responses on the FRC blog, where faithful Christians responding to Perkins’ statement wonder why caring about the environment or supporting Barack Obama contradicts their beliefs. Time magazine even named Cizik one of the world’s 100 most influential people this year. That’s a lot of clout to for the evangelicals to overcome.

Consider the response of NAE supporters of Cizik — and there are many of them. According to US News and World Report, “a coalition of roughly 60 evangelical leaders (mostly of the non-Christian right variety) has written to … Leith Anderson pushing for a successor [who, like Cizik, is] not beholden to the Christian right… [one] who embraces more progressive causes like combating global warming.” Read the full letter here.

David Gushee, a college professor and progressive evangelical activist who helped write the letter to Anderson, said this in an interview with USNWR:

I think Leith and the executive committee are going to take their time and let the furor over this die down. I personally think they need to find somebody who can promote all seven of the policy commitments in the NAE’s Health of Our Nation statement. There’s one on sanctity of life and one on climate change and one on poverty. There are always pressures from the right that the two fundamental issues of our time should be abortion and homosexuality. I think there will be pressure to hire somebody to make those the top priority.

I can tell you from some feedback that if the NAE makes the mistake of rolling back to the classic Christian right agenda, they would lose support of a lot of people who are currently happy to be working with them.

Yes, this comes from within the NAE.

The good news for Cizik, if he is sincere in his evolution, is that his message is being heard across the nation. It’s evident in the growing support for legal recognition of same-gender couples and for humane and just treatment of LGBT citizens. It is reflected in the fact that an increasing number of people are realizing that “gay” isn’t something that needs to be prayed away. Even the vote that passed California’s obnoxious and un-American Proposition 8 was a close one. Cizik is but one of many Americans who are slowly but surely understanding that being a Christian does not require denying compassion and equality to LGBT people.

Let’s hope this good man is snapped up by a progressive evangelical organization so that his vast influence — and his personal evolution — can continue. And let’s hope those questioning evangelicals continue searching their hearts and minds.

In mid-November, the Colorado Springs-based media empire and political organization laid off 202 of its employees — about 20 percent of its workforce. The group’s explanation for the mass layoffs is the nation’s economic crisis. However, Focus’ money woes may stem, in part, from the more than half a million dollars it spent this fall to help defeat Proposition 8, the recently passed legislation that took civil-marriage rights away from GLBT Californians.

Today, we get new information: While Focus employees were getting the workplace equivalent to lumps of coal, Focus was busy spending more money: The Colorado Independent reports that the organization spent $35,310 to produce radio ads promoting Georgia Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss’ successful runoff re-election campaign this week. The commercials — which had to have been purchased after the Nov. 4 election that made the runoff vote necessary — reportedly were in production around the same time Focus workers were getting the bad news.

What does this move say about Focus on the Family’s priorities? In this season of love and goodwill, when much of the world’s focus will be on the Holy Family, the organization has opted to throw its money into a political move to destroy families. At the same time, Focus tells more than 200 of its workers and their families that for them, there is no more room at the inn.

Bah humbug, indeed. What would Jesus say?

Become ex-gay — or else: Sydney, Australia, Anglican Rev. Richard Lane once wrote to High Court Justice Michael Kirby, urging him to join an “ex-gay” ministry or face the wrath of God. Lane’s letters were publicized at a Sydney forum on religious tolerance and homosexuality. In response, Kirby accused the churchman of using intemperate language, ignoring modern discoveries about sexual orientation and missing the “central loving message of Jesus and the Gospels.” Kirby stated, “There is not a single word of Jesus that sustains the thesis of animosity in your letter.”

Kern’s double-talk: Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) released recordings of its 40-minute meeting with Oklahoma state Rep. Sally Kern, refuting Kern’s subsequent claims that she did not object to antigay discrimination and that she did not agree to meet again with the families of gay Oklahomans.

Exodus support for Kern? Video is now available of Exodus member activist Stephen Black giving his support to Oklahoma state Rep. Sally Kern and falsely claiming that most gay people are abused or badly parented. Exodus’ national office declined to affirm or condemn Black’s statements.

Door open to future antigay violence: Massachusetts antigay group MassResistance, which has been classified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, has declined to condemn violent threats made against Lexington, Mass., School Superintendent Paul Ash. Antigay parent David Parker, whose campaign against tolerance in Lexington schools has been trumpeted by Exodus, conditions his own opposition to the threats by simply saying that violence is not justified “at this time.”

Reclaiming Judaism: A new Hebrew-language website has been launched in Israel to counter ex-gay propaganda published by Atzat-Nefesh. (XGW)

Shock ‘em straight? Maybe not: Officials of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints have accepted an invitation to meet with Affirmation, a support group for gay and lesbian Mormons. Affirmation wishes to discuss the church’s historical support for ex-gay therapies including electric shock aversion therapy, which prompted some Mormons to commit suicide. (BTB)

PFOX — Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays — was co-founded by ex-gay activist Anthony Falzarano and the Family Research Council in 1996. When Falzarano complained in 1999 that the ex-gay movement was being exploited and underfunded by religious conservatives, he was ousted and replaced by antigay parents of adult gay individuals. Contrary to the organization’s name, few PFOX members appear to have ex-gay relatives.

Today the Virginia-based organization is led by executive director Regina Griggs, whose son is openly gay. Its board includes antigay federal civil rights attorney Estella Salvatierra, who spends various weekends at Northern Virginia public fairs, inciting arguments with bewildered passers-by. With the help of FRC’s Peter Sprigg, PFOX has fought against popular efforts by parents in Washington, D.C.’s Maryland suburbs to establish factual and comprehensive sex-ed programs and to reduce discrimination against gender-variant Marylanders.

In a racially charged rant that was distributed April 1 via PFOX’s online discussion board and official e-mail address, PFOX’s unidentified site administrator parrots an article which ignores established wisdom about gender identity disorder. Specifically, the article fails to make important distinctions among transsexuality, transvestism, biologically or genetically intersexed individuals, and other transgender conditions.

Instead, PFOX’s article reprint lumps a variety of different biological and psychological gender variances together — and then ridicules them all with the unexplained rationale that taxpayers who experience gender variance, for biological or psychological reasons, should not be granted the same access to public facilities that is granted to persons of color or other taxpaying demographics. (Read More)

Oklahoma state legislator Sally Kern claims that the Oklahoma City chapter of Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) misquoted her positions on discrimination, sin, and civility after a meeting between her and PFLAG representatives.

But PFLAG’s fact-checking reveals that it is Kern who has misrepresented PFLAG’s carefully worded account of their meeting. Kern’s latest volley of strawman arguments and uncivil vitriol against the families of gay people suggests, at the very least, that she has ensnarled herself in her own tangled web of hate speech against parents and Christian clergy.

After all, why should Kern bother to calmly discuss what she or PFLAG actually said, when it’s so much easier to rant breathlessly about what Kern imagines herself, others — or God — to be saying?

For The Bible Told Me So is a documentary of five Christian families, from traditional backgrounds, that struggle with the knowledge that a family member is gay.

A screening at Stetson University in Florida drew positive reviews from both sides of a panel consisting of ex-gay activists as well as gay-affirmative viewers, according to the Daytona Beach News-Journal.

From the ex-gay side:

“I loved that the core of it was families’ stories,” said Mike Ensley, a counselor with Exodus Ministries, which helps youth wanting to overcome homosexuality.

From the gay-affirming side:

Matt McKeown, associate pastor of United Brethren in Christ Church in Holly Hill, said he was embarrassed to see so many preachers spewing hatred toward homosexuals.

“I kept slinking lower in my chair,” McKeown said.

His complaint, which was shared by a few panel members, was that the only conservatives seen in the film were “bigoted idiots.”

On her blog, ex-gay advocate Karen Keen encourages conservative Christians to watch the film and “hopefully dispel certain harmful stereotypes about gay and lesbians.” But she cautions:

Yet, despite resonating with the family stories, I also felt strangely alienated by the film. Ultimately, despite what one would expect, it did not represent me—a Christian with same-gender attraction. The only reference to me, and those like me, was during a cartoon segment that portrayed ex-gay ministry participants as repressed and depressed. Admittedly, I laughed during the cartoon. It was funny. But, it was also mocking. It mocked me and my story. That struck me as hypocritical given the claims of the filmmakers who say they want to help change myths and stereotypes about gay people. Ironically, For the Bible Tells Me So reinforces stereotypes of same-gender attracted Christians who decide not to affirm or act on their homosexual desires.

Filmmaker Daniel Karslake said he invited conservative Christian commentators James Dobson, Gary Bauer, and Dick Cheney to participate in the documentary, but they declined.

Op-ed by Wayne Besen

By the time victims of so-called “ex-gay” or conversion therapy reach me at TruthWinsOut.org, their self-esteem has been trampled and their self-worth is non-existent. These individuals were often betrayed by therapists who were supposed to be helping, but turned out to be the root cause of their enormous pain and suffering.

Sadly, such therapists have aligned themselves with religious organizations that send the detrimental message that if a gay client refuses to undergo sexual conversion or commit to a lifetime of celibacy he or she will be socially ostracized or will burn in Hell. From my experience, I have yet to see how such coercive and cruel treatment is conducive to good mental health.

Having studied the “ex-gay” movement for a decade and authored a book on the topic, “Anything But Straight: Unmasking the Scandals and Lies Behind the ‘Ex-Gay’ Myth,” I have found that conversion therapy is ineffective, harmful and anachronistic. These therapies don’t make clients heterosexual, nor do they help reconcile faith and sexuality. All that is accomplished, unfortunately, is enticing vulnerable clients to pay dearly for the identical shame and repression they previously received for free.

Regrettably, a well-financed cottage industry has arisen to deny reality and distort the lives of gay and lesbian people. This is evidenced by a group of politically motivated right wing counselors who filed a formal complaint in February with the American Counseling Association falsely claming that the ACA had violated its own polices and had stigmatized the beliefs of Christian counselors. It’s real goal, however, was to bully the ACA into allowing some practitioners to harm clients, while shielding this damage in the cloak of religious liberty.

In another example, last summer, right wing therapists wrote a letter to protest the American Psychological Association. They were expressing their outrage over an APA task force that will review current scientific research and stances on conversion therapy in a brazen attempt to intimidate the reviewers.

On behalf of the survivors of such therapy, I implore all mental health associations to withstand such political interference and resist the attempt to mainstream fringe therapies that harm gay and lesbian Americans.

There are three primary reasons why such therapy models should be definitively rejected. First, they confuse stereotypes with science. Secondly, they lack peer review studies and evidence that such therapies work – while there is a growing body of evidence that they hurt large numbers of people. Third, they rely on bizarre techniques that are a blight on the field of mental health. (Read More)