While gay-affirming Americans rallied for the freedom to marry in 300 cities last week, ex-gay activist Michael Glatze vented some misplaced resentment and boasted that he was glad to be free of his past desire for sexual honesty and for individual freedom.

Glatze professes joy in his ex-gay freedom-from-freedom. Desensitized by the religious right to the traditional American patriotic appreciation of freedom, Glatze projects his desensitization onto others. And in the person of Sarah Palin — deficit-spending opponent of science, history, basic geography, and critical thinking — Glatze finds “a message of God and love.”

In an article for the far-right WorldNetDaily, Glatze writes:

As I watch 100,000 people pile together shouting, ‘Gay, Straight, Black, White: Marriage is a Civil Right,’ begging to be allowed by law to participate in a life of homosexual behavior, I am impressed by how desensitized we have come as a society.

When I get despondent and feel that the voice of life in our American culture is threatened by what seems to be an avalanche of desensitization and death, I remember Gov. Sarah Palin appearing out of nowhere with uncanny political and leadership skills and a message of God and love. And, I remember how violently I protested — like the 100,000 — for ‘my RIGHTS!’ to freely participate in homosexual activity without any reminder of a conscience only a few years ago.

“I had the intent, without doubt, to silence every last individual whose message might suggest my homosexual activity was anything less than entirely equal to heterosexuality. Anyone who so much as intimated that there could be a health-related, psychology-related or self-worth-related impact to homosexuality that did not exist with heterosexuality was, merely, a bigot who needed my ever-present vigilance to turn his or her backward mind to the “liberated” present.

Glatze redefines “God and love” in terms of one’s choice of mental vacancy and blindness to one’s own amorality. He lashes out at those who defend freedom, as if freedom were an undeserved privilege in a society that ought to be ruled by the iron hand of fundamentalists.

And sadly, he bears false witness against those who oppose real bigotry. Unable to defend his own baseless prejudices against sexual honesty and American freedom, Glatze redefines bigotry and then applies his strawman arguments about bigotry to those who oppose prejudice.

Glatze adds:

That is why these disgusting rallies make me inspired, more than ever, to speak the truth and offer my love and help to the many human beings trapped by flawed viewpoints and incomplete logics. Not because I want to win an argument — God knows, in today’s climate of groupthink, that’s hardly ever possible — but, because I do love every human being equally, and believe we all have the same potential. Some of us have more difficulty, for a myriad of reasons, rising to our fullest potential than others; but, we all have potential.

I believe every human being has the potential to rise out of their confusion, break out of the shackles of groupthink, stand up proud and free, and see things clearly. I believe this is the case, because it happened to me.

Glatze is a practitioner and advocate of the groupthink that he perceives in others. He does not quote a single gay-equality advocate among all his strawman arguments, and he says nothing that has not already been parroted a million times before by other anti-gay, anti-family, anti-faith, anti-freedom fanatics who never take the time to listen to their opponents.

Lost in his own political echo chamber, Glatze conveys a message of shallowness, insecurity, and disgust for others’ freedom.

Hat tip: Joe.My.God

CNN remembers:

In its May 15 ruling legalizing gay marriage in California, the [California Supreme Court] justices seemed to signal that a ballot initiative like Proposition 8 might not be enough to change the underlying constitutional issues of the case in the court’s eyes.

The ruling said the right to marry is among a set of basic human rights “so integral to an individual’s liberty and personal autonomy that they may not be eliminated or abrogated by the legislature or by the electorate through the statutory initiative process.”

Enemies of individual freedom and religious liberty — including Mormon, Catholic, and Protestant religious-rightists — chose to ignore the human rights of fellow Californians. Through a campaign of outright lies and unethical activities, religious-right groups conned California voters into approving — by a narrow margin — Proposition 8, which by a simple majority vote nullified human rights and family values of an entire demographic minority of Californians.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, defenders of the freedom to marry contend that Proposition 8 used a ballot-initiative process which is legally restricted to minor changes to the state constitution. According to California law, changes of Proposition 8′s magnitude are supposed to be made only through a careful and deliberative legislative process.

Prop 8 replaced the freedom to marry with a sectarian religious ban that discriminated against the civil marriage and relationship rights of persons who choose not to adhere to the religious biases of one powerful voter bloc.

Today, according to CNN, the high court agreed to hear challenges to the constitutionality of Proposition 8. The case will not be heard before May 2009; until then, antifamily religious-rightists continue their efforts to nullify the pre-existing marriages of gay and lesbian couples.

Hat tip: All Facts and Opinion

Millions of lives are destroyed, relationships are uprooted, and fortunes are wasted in the false hope of becoming ex-gay, all because of the blatant misuse of one biblical passage.

It is well-known that the ex-gay movement is based on very faulty psychological premises. What is not so well-known is that the biblical basis for their assumptions is equally bankrupt. It may be good to remind ourselves that every time oppressed groups began to make headway in America they were all opposed by those who claimed to have the Bible on their side. Eventually, their arguments were perceived as the rantings of self-serving demagogues and carry no weight today among mainstream Christians and biblical scholars.

So today we should not be surprised that the Bible is trotted out once again to keep another oppressed group under wraps. And just as before, a careful look at their arguments finds this current effort wanting.

(Read More)

Religious-rightists on Monday lost one phase of their campaign to give California doctors a blank check to practice bigotry against any class of patient for supposed religious reasons.

While anti-family activists explicitly sought to deny medical care to same-sex-attracted Californians and unmarried women, an unlimited religious “right” to discriminate against entire classes of patients could give bigoted doctors the right to discriminate against Jews, Asian-Americans — anyone whose existence was contrary to a medical group’s choice of supposed religious beliefs.

According to The Washington Post, the California Supreme Court ruled that physicians’ constitutional right to the free exercise of religion does not exempt businesses that serve the public from following state law that prohibit discrimination.

Jennifer C. Pizer, a lawyer with the gay rights group Lambda Legal who is representing [Guadalupe] Ben??tez, said that while the law protects doctors who refuse certain treatments on religious grounds, it does not allow them to do so on a discriminatory or selective basis.

In other words, a doctor may refuse to provide fertility services for religious reasons, but may not cherry-pick patients for whom to provide those services.

Despite the legal setback, right-wing political activists continue to maintain that the U.S. Constitution gives them a blank check to violate any law that they deem to be in conflict with their religious whims — and to use their own religion to infringe upon the freedom of others.

According to the American Family Association’s OneNewsNow propaganda service:

Attorney Mailee Smith of Americans United for Life (AUL), spokeswoman for the Christian Medical & Dental Associations and several other faith-based groups who presented amicus briefs in the case, said the ruling takes away a federally protected Constitutional right of physicians to freely exercise religion.

The case of Guadalupe Benitez will revert back to trial court where it will be determined whether Benitez was denied medical care due to her marital status or her sexual orientation.

Accepting that one is same-sex-attracted is equivalent to being addicted to pornography, according to Exodus President Alan Chambers.

In his August 2008 “President’s Letter,” Chambers writes:

While my friend John hasn’t battled same-sex attractions, he personally understands sexual addiction as he was embroiled in a deep struggle with pornography for a few years. At one point his wife found out. Unfortunately, like many, they didn’t tell anyone because of fear and shame. That’ the same reason why I waited so long to share my struggles.

A couple of years ago that all changed for my friend John and his wife Joy when they began sharing their story of freedom.

Exodus cheapens true freedom and erodes serious discussion about sexual addiction when it conflates unrelated issues — and when it refuses to specify the kind of “freedom” that it offers to “ex-gays”:

“Freedom” to Exodus means freedom from sexuality, freedom from honesty, freedom from intimate relationship, and freedom from having openly gay neighbors or co-workers.

A new interview with self-styled “conservative crusader” Star Parker hints at Focus on the Family’s growing hatred against freedom and individual responsibility.

Parker — author of White Ghetto: How Middle Class America Reflects Inner City Decay — is unlikely ever to be allowed in the executive ranks or board of Focus on the Family. She is outspoken about her blackness, and Focus’ record of internal hostility toward African-Americans dates at least as far back as 1997, when Focus co-founder Gil Alexander-Moegerle wrote a tell-all expos?© of the Focus leadership’s racism, sexism, its irrational hostility toward gay Americans, and its brewing war against basic American values.

In her interview with Focus operative Jennifer Mesko, Parker blames freedom for her life as a welfare mom. Freedom, according to Parker is one of “the messages of the Left that basically you can do whatever you want, whether it’ with your sexual choices or any other aspect of your life. So very early, I got engaged in criminal activity, and drug activity, and sexual promiscuity.”

With either breathtaking stupidity or cunning contempt for intellectual honesty, Parker confuses “can do” with “should do.” Parker believes that if one is free to commit an action, then one should commit it.

Parker dishonestly and arrogantly contends that it is somehow “conservative” or “Christian” to take away freedoms in order to deny people the free will to choose right and wrong.

Parker recounts a life of irresponsible choices — abortions, unwed pregnancy, chronic unemployment, drug use — but instead of accepting responsibility for choices, she blames liberals for allowing her to make them.

Instead of making moral choices and encouraging others to choose responsibly, Parker decided to join a culture war against freedom. “I made a commitment I was going to get engaged in that battle, and I’ve been there ever since.”

Instead of fulfilling the core Christian moral imperative of reversing poverty and its causes, Parker resolved “that we need to dismantle the war on poverty and increase the activities in the Christian community so we can be there for people in need” — in other words, it seems, she vowed to stop battling the causes of poverty and instead battled to offer ideological scapegoating and religious back-patting.

Her opposition to unnecessary or preventable abortions may be commendable, but her methods — denying families the information and freedom they need to make informed and mature choices, and turning freedom into a bogeyman — are un-American and, from this particular Christian’s point of view, unholy.

Parker and Focus on the Family claim to defend faith and a Biblical worldview, but their contempt for free will and personal responsibility have no basis in any legitimate faith nor in any legitimate interpretation of the Bible.

Concern is rising about violent antigay mob violence in Jamaica — violence that has been supported by some of the island nation’s antigay Christian pastors.

As a result of authorities’ and churches’ refusal to take action against the violence, the gay-affirming Metropolitan Community Church has called for a possible tourism boycott against that island nation.

While claiming to offer compassion and a cure for homosexuality, Exodus Global Alliance — a worldwide network of ex-gay activists — has offered no public condemnation of the violence.

Indeed, the organization appears to support criminalization of homosexuality in the region.

Consider the following Exodus Global Alliance flier for a 2006 conference in Barbados — click the banner to view the full flier.

The Exodus-Project Probe slogan, “Some say decriminalise homosexuality …… we say lets offer solutions” (sic), markets fraudulent ex-gay therapy as an alternative to decriminalization.

Throughout recent media coverage of violence in Jamaica, Exodus Global Alliance has declined to announce an unambiguous public policy opposing antigay violence or reversing its nod to criminalization.

This should not be a tremendous surprise: The organization’s newsletters claim, in country after country, that “sexual freedom” is unilaterally harmful and must be stamped out in places as far-flung as Barbados, Brazil, China and Ethiopia — where Exodus blames sexual freedom for AIDS.

Exodus Global Alliance apparently believes that, even with proper education, people cannot be trusted to manage their own lives — that they need the harsh hand of authoritarian law to control their sexuality. And when Exodus responds to mob violence with silence, it joins Jamaica’s local police in offering a cold shoulder to gay people as mobs bash gay residents and loot their homes.

• Portland Fellowship, an Exodus affiliate program in Portland, Oregon, has launched a web site to recruit churches to the ex-gay cause. Supporters are asked to pick a church, write a recruitment letter, and send $25 per church. The $25 apparently buys each church an ex-gay CD-ROM and a Starbucks $5 gift card. One critic noted that Starbucks is among the top gay-inclusive companies, according to Human Rights Campaign. Obvious question: Were the cards purchased by the Fellowship or donated by Starbucks?
• Randall Harp is a supporter of the antihomosexual agenda — that is, an agenda that opposes the supposed gay agenda (whatever that is). Harp attempts to separate gay people from their agenda their freedom by appealing to fear and strawman arguments.
• A middle-aged British woman asks whether she has become ex-straight.
• Box Turtle Bulletin fact-checks ex-gay propaganda that was provided by Exodus and NARTH (a reparative-therapy advocacy group) and recently marketed to the American Fork High School PTSA in Utah.
• Beyond Ex-Gay, a support group for survivors of ex-gay programs, celebrates its first anniversary. Congratulations!

Addendum: Portland Fellowship confirmed to TWO that Starbucks gift cards are purchased with the $25-per-church contribution. Starbucks was chosen for its availability.

At its “Freedom Conference” this weekend in Fresno, California, Exodus XScape sold freedom (from sexuality) to the under-25 set as a solution for homosexuality.

According to The Fresno Bee, a dozen protesters held a vigil outside, organized by a local church. The vigilers included a former ex-gay who said that, contrary to claims by Exodus president Alan Chambers, ex-gays generally do not go on to have healthy heterosexual relationships. (Read More)

Humbled Infidel has the complete speech by ex-gay activist Stephen Black at a pro-bigotry rally held April 2 on behalf of Oklahoma state Rep. Sally Kern.

Black is the executive director of First Stone Ministries, an Oklahoma-based Exodus member “ministry.”

A point-by-point analysis of Black’s speech finds appeals to conformity, false and unsourced statistics, and sweeping dehumanization of sexual strugglers. Instead of healing strugglers and reuniting families, Black’s rhetoric divides families and alienates Americans whom he has falsely maligned.

(Read More)