The website for the upcoming documentary Religulous describes Bill Maher as “known for his astute analytical skills, irreverent wit and commitment to never pulling a punch.”

While I’m eager for documentary filmmakers to expose the self-contradictory fictions and power-grabs that corrupt religious institutions, I’m afraid I see little insight or humor in the following short excerpt.

(Click here for the AfterElton.com video.)

The “ex-gay” man is John Westcott, a Florida man who walked away from a seven-year committed gay relationship to become an antigay activist.

Nowadays, Westcott proclaims he is freed from the “gay lifestyle” and says “I don’t believe that anyone is gay.” In the curiously named New Man Magazine in 2006, Westcott asserted long-rejected myths about homosexuality as if they were fact:

“There are many root causes [for homosexuality],” Westcott says. “But some of the common denominators are: A breakdown in a same-sex parent relationship, not relating to other male peers, an early exposure to sexuality and sexual abuse.”

Earlier this year, Westcott violated Canadian TV ethical standards with an ad that supported antigay discrimination as a means of suppressing the visibility of gay people and increasing the visibility of self-closeted ex-gays.

Maher has been prone to cherry-pick various religions’ lunatics, as if one group’s fringe could automatically discredit the entire group. Has Maher resisted that temptation with Religulous? We’ll find out in 10 days: The movie enters broad release on October 8.

An antigay outfit called Life Productions aired a Canadian TV ex-gay ad featuring a man with no name, no history, no evidence of a sexual orientation, and no explanation of how he “changed.”

In the ad, the mystery man claims that his (somewhat dubious) existence is proof that people can “change,” but he offers viewers no guidance on how or where to change. Instead, he implies that the recognition of gay persons’ equality under the law somehow threatens the public’s ability to learn about no-name people like him.

Since no guidance is offered in the ad, nor on Life Productions’ web site, the ad appears to be a ploy by Life Productions to collect personal information from troubled individuals without guarantees of privacy nor promises that the information won’t be shared with antigay political organizations. Worse, presumably troubled individuals are told by the web site’s contact form that “due to high volumes of mail we regret we cannot answer everyone.”

After an initial airing on CTV, Canada’s largest private broadcaster, a Facebook campaign last week persuaded the network to revisit the ad. Its issue advocacy and implicit approval of discrimination were found to violate the network’s ethical standards, and CTV withdrew the ad.

Critics of the ex-gay political movement sometimes observe that successful ex-gays rarely seem to exist as real people with real names — except when they are paid political hacks of the religious right. Critics also observe that the movement commits more resources to politics than to helping people with specific paths to “change.”

This ad unwittingly fuels critics’ arguments.

Hat tip: XGW