Lisa Ling produced a segment on “ex-gay” ministries that missed the boat. She was factually inaccurate in several places and whitewashed Exodus International’s abominable record of harm and deceit. The most glaring error is when Ling portrays Exodus as a group that no longer makes false promises. She contrasts this alleged kinder and gentler Exodus with the harsher ministry of Janet Boynes.

It is amazing that Ling had no idea that Boynes is listed as a referral on Exodus’ website — meaning her intolerant message offering false hope is also that of Exodus. Ling also was duped into believing that Exodus does not try to “pray away the gay.” She obviously did not do her homework and review substantial evidence to the contrary.

In this video, Truth Wins Out set the record straight and urged the Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN) to pull the show from re-airing until the factual errors are expunged from the video. Truth Wins Out believes that reporters ought to do their homework and research a topic before broadcasting misinformation on national television. In the case of Our America with Lisa Ling — the ball was dropped and a fallacious report aired that undermined efforts to stop the harm.

Ex-gay activist Joe Dallas and Nancy Heche — estranged and embittered mother of a certain Hollywood actress — both base their livelihoods upon demonization of Christians who value grace more than they fear the unorthodox and the outcast.

As with their previous works, their recent book “The Complete Christian Guide to Understanding Homosexuality” is utterly incomplete in its perspectives on faith and sexuality. And for all of its butchered Bible quotes, the book falls far short of its subtitle, “A Biblical and Compassionate Response to Same-Sex Attraction.”

Patrick Fitzgerald of Ex-Gay Watch observes, “The book is nearly 500 pages long and most of the information contained is an organized conglomeration of things we’ve been hearing for years and rebutted ad-nauseum.” But, Fitzgerald notes, the book also contains numerous new defamations that require methodical investigation — since the book’s authors regrettably have a history of distorting research, telling half-truths, and — in Heche’s case — lying about her own family history.

Dallas and Heche are not alone in these defamations; they are joined by Exodus International and Focus on the Family veterans Alan Chambers, Paul Copan, Melissa Fryrear, Mike Haley, Bill Maier and Randy Thomas. The book represents the combined opinion of the leadership of Exodus International and key people at Focus on the Family.

Fitzgerald’s book review is lengthy; here are some quick take-home points:

• Exodus denies the existence of sexual orientation and contends that everyone is equally heterosexual.
• Exodus contends that love is counterfeit unless the Christian Right approves of it.
• Exodus promises “freedom” and “liberation” from authentic selfhood, not freedom from one’s sexual orientation.
• Exodus is incapable of explaining how consensual loving relationships are in conflict with the Golden Rule.
• Exodus employs circular logic to declare its interpretation of the Bible to be “authoritative.”
• Exodus cites Leviticus to justify the murder of gay men — and blames the murder victims for Exodus’ violence.
• Heche continues to lie about her marriage and about her daughter.
• Dallas severely mangles the Bible, contradicting himself regarding the supposed “characteristics of homosexual people” while allowing the armed forces to recruit felons, anti-Semites, and racists to replace the tough and talented gay, lesbian, and transgender servicemembers whom he wants purged.

Cloaked in pious humility, this collective work of Exodus’ leaders shows that unholiness, fear, ideological insecurity, lust, sexual predation, and bitterness have consumed an organization that is dangerously inserting itself into the nation’s public schools and church networks as a beacon of purity.

Once again, Exodus International is lying about what it offers potential clients. In this slick video promoting its upcoming road show in Irvine, California, Exodus peddles false hope when it asks, “Is freedom from homosexuality possible?” The group is playing semantic games at the price of the mental health of desperate and vulnerable people Exodus purports to assist.

The organization’s leaders, in rare moments of candor, answer the question of “freedom” by saying that one can, with great difficulty, alter behavior but the underlying gay feelings will always stay the same:

Alan Chambers
“One thing we can expect as Christians is a life of denial. I don’t think we’re afraid to tell people that they may have a lifetime of struggle. Freedom isn’t the absence of struggle, but the life of struggle with joy in the process.” (Christianity Today, Sept. 13, 2007)

“By no means would we ever say change can be sudden or complete.” (Los Angeles Times, June 18, 2007)

Sexual orientation “isn’t a light switch that you can switch on and off.” (Los Angeles Times, June 18, 2007)

“And so every single morning — this is a ritual for me — I wake up and I say, “Dear Lord, I can’t make it today without You. I choose to deny what comes naturally to me.’” (Love Won Out, Phoenix, Feb. 10, 2007, www.boxturtlebulletin.com)

Chambers told One News Now that he had never met someone who had a “sudden or complete change when it came to homosexuality.” He told the news service that he believes that God gives people the ability to overcome on a daily basis, rather than “a complete transformation in an instant.” (One News Now, June 22, 2007)

“I don’t think change is going from gay to straight. Just saying that doesn’t sound like an accurate representation of what Exodus facilitates or proclaims.” (Anything But Straight: Unmasking the Scandals and Lies Behind the Ex-Gay Myth, pg. 35, Haworth Press 2003, interview taped March 11, 2001)

“To say that Exodus is a great healer and the place for people to become straight, I would think that is not right. If there are Exodus ministries that do that, we need to change that. We need to work on that.” (Anything But Straight: Unmasking the Scandals and Lies Behind the Ex-Gay Myth, pg. 35, Haworth Press 2003, interview taped March 11, 2001)

“Put me in a bathhouse, would I find people attractive or would it stir me, it probably would. I’m not a raging heterosexual where I have to worry about if a lady walks in the room and I have to turn my head, while some guys are like that.” Anything But Straight, pg. 58, Haworth Press 2003, interview taped March 11, 2001)

Joe Dallas, Speaker, Focus on the Family’ Love Won Out tour
“No one has ever left therapy saying, “Wow, I have absolutely no homosexual thoughts.” (Los Angeles Times, April 5, 1990)

Jeff Konrad, Author, You Don’t Have To Be Gay
“Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t lust for women as some men do; that is not healthy behavior either.” (“You Don’t Have to Be Gay,” Pg. 280, Pacific Publishing House, 1987)

Alan Medinger, Author, Growth Into Manhood
“If an attractive man and an attractive woman enter a room, it is the man I will look at first.” (The Wall Street Journal, April 21, 1993)

There you go folks – the real truth behind the fancy video. Exodus is selling false hope. The group is asking people to pay hard earned dollars so they can “help” you spend your life lonely and sexually frustrated. Please consider the simple fact that one can accomplish this for free, without paying the salaries of Randy Thomas and Alan Chambers.

Ever wonder why Exodus does not keep statistics? It is because they have an astronomical failure rate. If they told the truth about their batting average, they would have struck out decades ago.

Don’t be fooled. Don’t be bilked. Don’t be suckered. Don’t be defrauded. Ask questions and think for yourself.

TWO Executive Director Wayne Besen to Appear at Just Love Counter-Conference on Saturday, March 6

Truth Wins Out’ Executive Director, Wayne Besen, will join nationally recognized gay and lesbian advocates to oppose Exodus International’ “ex-gay” road show, Love Won Out, which travels to La Mesa’ Skyline Church on Saturday. On the same day as the Exodus event, a counter-conference will be held, Just Love, which will expose the ex-gay industry and educate people about the lives of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.

“Sexual orientation is not a choice, but thanks to conferences like Love Won Out, some people do choose to embrace prejudice and discrimination,” said Wayne Besen, Executive Director of Truth Wins Out and author of Anything But Straight: Unmasking the Scandals and Lies Behind the Ex-Gay Myth. “You cannot pray away the gay and the sooner people learn to accept themselves, the better off they are.”

On September 19, 2000, Besen photographed the ex-gay founder of Love Won Out, John Paulk, in a gay bar in Washington, DC. He also has shadowed Love Won Out, organizing or participating in protests or counter-conferences wherever Love Won Out’ road show appears. The last one was in Birmingham, Alabama in November 2009.

Just Love will take-place at St. Paul’ Episcopal Cathedral (2728 6th Ave) from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM. Sessions will be conducted by experts including the former co-founder of Exodus International, Michael Bussee, who is now an outspoken critic of the group he helped start. Other notable speakers include, ex-gay survivor Daniel Gonzales, Jim Burroway, Editor of Box Turtle Bulletin and Amity Buxton, founder of the Straight Spouse Network (SSN), which supports straight spouses whose partners came out as gay. There will also be a session for leaders of the faith community led by Louise Brooks of California Faith for Equality and the Human Rights Campaign.

“We refuse to be defined by misinformation, junk science and religious bigotry,” said TWO’ Besen. “Just Love will set the record straight on the ex-gay industry and provide factual information on our lives. We will dispel stereotypes, shine a bright light on the lies and send the message that gay people are fine just the way they are.”

The ex-gay “Love Won Out” roadshow has, since its inception, taught parents, clergy, and would-be “ex-gays” not to trust mainstream mental health professionals or mainstream science regarding sexual orientation.

Instead, LWO speakers use vague and mostly un-Biblical religious language, discredited claims, and misquotations of legitimate research to blame overmothering, absent fathering, and abuse — without exception — for homosexuality. LWO also denies the existence of sexual orientation as opposed to mere sexual temptation. The program stereotypes gay men as insufficiently masculine, lesbians as insufficiently feminine, and both as depressed sex addicts.

The solution, they say, is not mainstream psychiatric care; it’s a heavy dose of blame, political correctness, prayer, and acting-out of stereotypical masculine or feminine behavior.

In a promotion for its roadshow this weekend in Birmingham, Ala., Focus on the Family doesn’t deny Truth Wins Out’s allegation that “Love Won Out tells young people and their families that they aren’t whole and that they should and can change — which isn’t true.”

Instead, activist Joe Dallas — who claims to be a former homosexual and writes books damning gay people of faith and their values — portrays himself as though he were a leader of an organization that ex-gays frequently condemn: the gay-affirming parents group PFLAG. According to Dallas, LWO does not teach parents to hate or coerce.

“Just the opposite,” he said. “We teach parents how important it is to love and care for their sons or daughters, no matter what choices they make.”

That sounds nice, but like so many statements by Focus on the Family, it’s a half-truth. Dallas teaches parents and pastors to believe prejudices about LGBT persons and to reject the plain truths spoken by these persons (and expert researchers) as if they were satanic deceptions. Dallas is neither tolerant nor respectful toward people of his same religion who disagree with his antigay prejudices and his sloppy, egocentric theology. He divides families according to his own political and religious agendas. And he uses the word “choice” to describe sexual orientation — a cruel hoax that is rejected even by some conservative Christian researchers. In short, Dallas defines “love and care” the way most sensible people define “hate and coerce.”

Meanwhile, his LWO colleague Melissa Fryrear says, “Moms and dads shouldn’t have to relinquish their religious convictions.” But she makes it clear that, given a choice between political and religious correctness and the health, welfare, and love of their children, parents should choose the former.

It is hateful to deliberately and persistently lie about the nature of sexual orientation in one’s relatives, as Dallas, Fryrear, and LWO teach parents to do. It is hateful to deliberately lie about the attractions, character, values, choices, and “lifestyle” of one’s relatives. And it is coercive to manipulate relatives by requiring them to conform to LWO stereotypes, stigmatizing relatives and their partners, and denying relatives full equality in religion, housing, employment, and public services.

Focus on the Family equates prejudice with love, and ignorant manipulation with care.

Wayne Besen, executive director of Truth Wins Out, will be on hand in Birmingham on Saturday to support local LGBT people and their affirming families and allies in protest against FOTF’s grotesque assault against family integrity and human dignity.