New Landmark Publication By Truth Wins Out and Lambda Legal Offers Legal Options To Those Hurt By Ex-Gay Programs
If You Have Been Harmed By ‘Ex-Gay’ Programs, ‘Ex-Gay & The Law’ Is For You
CHARLOTTE — Truth Wins Out and Lambda Legal released a landmark publication today, “Ex-Gay & The Law“, that aims to educate victims of “ex-gay” programs of their legal options. This work was inspired by the many people who have had their lives damaged by programs that seek to “pray away the gay” or use questionable counseling techniques.
“Ex-Gay & the Law helps survivors of ex-gay programs explore their legal rights if they believe they have been harmed,” said Wayne Besen, Executive Director of Truth Wins Out. “This groundbreaking publication offers practical legal advice so important questions can be answered.”
“We are pleased to help support this publication and to be a part of this effort,” said Hayley Gorenberg, Deputy Legal Director of Lambda Legal. “Groups that proclaim to ‘cure’ gay people of their sexual orientation lack any legitimate medical backing, cause harm, and sometimes operate unlawfully and unethically. If you have experienced any of the scenarios outlined in the last pages of ‘Ex-Gay & the Law‘, we welcome you to contact or Legal Help Desk.”
Each year, thousands of men and women enter “ex-gay” programs. Adolescents are even forced into these boot camps by their parents. While their stories differ, nearly all of these individuals have one thing in common: They are harmed by the traumatizing experience.
The American Psychiatric Association says, “The potential risks of ‘reparative therapy’ are great, including depression, anxiety and self destructive behavior.”
Ex-Gay & The Law was released at a press conference in Charlotte to counter Focus on the Family’s ex-gay Love Won Out conference. The Charlotte Rainbow Action Network for Equality (CRANE) hosted the event.
CRANE is a grassroots coalition of activists and community members working toward civil and social equality for Charlotte‘s lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and intersex (LGBTQI) community.
Truth Wins Out is a non-profit organization that defends gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people from anti-gay lies. TWO also counters the “ex-gay” myth and educates America about gay life.
Lambda Legal is a national organization committed to achieving full regonition of the civil rights of lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, transgender people and those with HIV through impact litigation, education and public policy work.
New Landmark Publication, “Ex-Gay & The Law’, Unveiled At Press Conference
CHARLOTTE — Truth Wins Out (TWO) announced today that it has joined a coalition of North Carolina gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender advocates responding to Focus on the Family’ Love Won Out conference, which encourages people to “pray away the gay.” Led by the Charlotte Rainbow Action Network for Equality (CRANE), there will be a week of educational events in Charlotte designed to get correct information to the public about the danger of ex-gay programs. The coalition will also offer honest and accurate depictions of the lives of GLBT people, to counteract the distorted view offered by Focus on the Family.
“The research is very clear that you can’t pray away the gay and attempts to do so can be harmful,” said Wayne Besen, Executive Director of Truth Wins Out. “Focus on the Family is offering false hope to vulnerable people and profiting from their pain. They are intentionally confusing stereotypes with legitimate science in an attempt to mislead people about homosexuality. We hope to offer a realistic view of our lives and use sound science to set the record straight.”
The week’ events include a lecture by Besen on Thursday, Feb. 19, at the Lesbian & Gay Community Center (7:00-8:30 PM). On Friday, Feb. 20, there will be a press conference at the Unitarian-Universalist Church of Charlotte (11:30 AM). On Saturday, Feb. 21, there will be a non-violent protest against Love Won Out (11:00 AM-2:00 PM) in front of Central Church of God (5301 Sardis Road).
At the Friday press conference, Truth Wins Out and Lambda Legal will release a landmark publication, “Ex-Gay & The Law”, that aims to educate victims of “ex-gay” programs of their legal options. The many people who have had their lives damaged by ex-gay programs inspired this work.
“Ex-gay programs teach that homosexuality is demonic and “treat’ children as young as three years old,” said Besen. “What they do is dangerous, scientifically unsound and rejected by every respected medical and mental health association in America.”
CRANE is a grassroots coalition of activists and community members working toward civil and social equality for Charlotte’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and intersex (LGBTQI) community. Truth Wins Out is a non-profit organization that defends gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people from anti-gay lies. TWO also counters the “ex-gay” myth and educates America about gay life.
Thursday Evening Talk Will Dispel False Claims Made By Focus On the Family’ Love Won Out Conference
What: Wayne Besen, Executive Director of Truth Wins Out (TWO), will discuss the damage caused by programs that teach people to “pray away the gay”. The presentation will take place prior to Focus on the Family’ “ex-gay” road show, Love Won Out, which rolls into Charlotte on Saturday. Besen will address the history of ex-gay ministries; what the mental health experts say; the bizarre techniques used by these programs; why they are harmful and the political machine behind these dangerous groups.
Where: Lesbian & Gay Community Center, 820 Hamilton St., Charlotte NC
When: Thursday, Feb. 19, 7:00-8:30 PM
Background:The Charlotte Rainbow Action Network for Equality (CRANE) is sponsoring the lecture. CRANE is a grassroots coalition of activists and community members working toward civil and social equality for Charlotte’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and intersex (LGBTQI) community.
To educate the community about the harmful message of Love Won Out, CRANE will hold a press conference on Friday, Feb. 20, 11:30 AM. It will take place at the Unitarian-Universalist Church of Charlotte (234 N Sharon Amity Rd.) At the event, Truth Wins Out and Lambda Legal will unveil their new publication, “Ex-Gay & the Law,” which offers practical legal advice for victims of “ex-gay” therapies.
On Feb. 21, there will be a non-violent protest of Love Won Out, 11:00 AM-2:00 PM, in front of Central Church of God (5301 Sardis Road). The demonstration is open to all people and supporters of equality are encouraged to participate.
Exodus International and Focus on the Family take their exgay-for-pay road show, “Love Won Out,” to Charlotte, N.C., on Feb. 21.
The event’s timing was suspicious, as it coincided with the Human Rights Campaign’s Carolinas Gala and a conference of the gay-affirming Metropolitan Community Church and Unity Fellowship.
The Charlotte Rainbow Action Network plans a series of events Feb. 14-21 to raise public awareness about the ex-gay organizations’ ongoing acts to divide families and churches and to replace school science lessons with sectarian religious rhetoric. Truth Wins Out is among the invited participants.
In his presentation, “Pray Away the Gay,” Besen will discuss the myths and lies of “ex-gay” organizations like Exodus International. The event will be held at 7 p.m. at Charlotte’ Lesbian & Gay Community Center.
A press conference will follow the next day. Media has been invited to the Unitarian-Universalist Church of Charlotte where Besen will unveil a new Truth Wins Out/Lambda Legal booklet “Ex-Gay & the Law.” The new publication offers resources for those who might have been victimized by unscrupulous “ex-gay” ministries and therapies.
On Saturday, Feb. 21, the grassroots group’ efforts will culminate in a non-violent, silent protest of the Love Won Out conference. Members and supporters will be present outside Central Church of God on Sardis Road from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Other invitees for the events countering Exodus and FOTF include Lambda Legal, the Human Rights Campaign and Faith in America, and local and state groups such as One Voice Chorus, Gay Men’ Chorus of Charlotte, Charlotte Coalition for Social Justice, UNCC Pride and EqualityNC.
Exodus appears to be leaving its network of ad-hoc “ex-gay” ministries in the dust as the political organization and its primary benefactor, Focus on the Family, reach out instead to antigay churches with false messages about the struggles of same-sex-attracted persons.
Just last month, Exodus quietly laid off two key ex-gay outreach workers amid severe budget constraints and lackluster fund-raising efforts among its member “ministries” and antigay churches.
In the last six years, the organization [Exodus] has grown from 117 member agencies to 234 — including churches, counselors and parachurch ministries.
“When you call Exodus, we offer our point of view ‚Äî which is biblical (and) redemptive, but also practical,” said Randy Thomas, the group’s executive vice president. “We understand what it means to deal with same-sex attractions and have to live out our faith in light of those attractions.”
Exodus’ viewpoint is not Biblical: There is no Biblical basis for Exodus’ secular Freudian myth that sexual orientation is determined by lousy mothering or fathering or by sexual abuse. Nor is Exodus’ viewpoint “redemptive”: Exodus routinely excommunicates ex-gays from its movement when Exodus’ sham treatments and Scripture-lite prayers fail to achieve the promised “change” of sexual orientation.
Having failed (according to its own studies) to achieve “change,” Exodus has allowed its network of approximately 100 ad-hoc amateur ex-gay “ministries” to shrink in recent years, cutting services to these programs while Exodus has instead grown a sizable political network of antigay churches that are committed to prejudice, discrimination, and quack counseling against same-sex-attracted churchgoers and neighbors.
Exodus piggybacks a portion of it antigay church outreach on the marketing budget of Focus on the Family’s “Love Won Out” ex-gay roadshow. Focus again boasts:
Focus on the Family’ Love Won Out team, which works alongside Exodus, is encouraged by the expansion.
“This is really exciting because churches are getting behind this movement of teaching people about healthy sexuality and teaching people that they don’t have to be gay,” said Jeff Johnston, gender issues analyst at Focus on the Family and part of the Love Won Out team.
Johnston’s unholy objective: Convince same-sex-attracted persons to call themselves heterosexual, lie to themselves and their families, deceive and marry hapless persons of the opposite sex, and conduct marriages marred by sexual dishonesty, celibacy, denial, and hypocrisy.
Call it karma, but Focus on the Family is now in big trouble. At the group’s peak, it had nearly 1,500 employees. This week, they announced another round of layoffs – shedding 202 jobs, an estimated 20 percent of its workforce. This brings the new total to around 950 workers, according to the Colorado Independent.
The move to can workers comes after the group threw away $800,000 on Proposition 8 to ban same-sex marriage in California. One wonders if Focus on the Family will cut staff from its failed “ex-gay” Love Won Out road show? This extravagant traveling circus must cost a lot of money and it doesn’t work.
The fact is, if this organization would butt out of gay relationships, it might be able to actually help heterosexual families. If it would stop its “ex-gay” propaganda – which helps no one and destroys lives – it would not have to downsize.
I think donors to this organization should focus on the money flushed down the toilet to uphold bigotry and discrimination at the expense of families.
Contact: Wayne Besen
Phone: 917-691-5118
E-Mail: wbesen@truthwinsout.org
TWO Sends Palin A Book To Help Change Her Backward, Unscientific Views
NEW YORK — Truth Wins Out criticized Republican Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin today for repeatedly saying in an interview with Katie Couric on CBS News that homosexuality is a choice.
“While it is encouraging that Palin has a gay friend, we are still disturbed that a person on the cusp of enormous power could hold such backward and unscientific views,” said Wayne Besen, Executive Director of Truth Wins Out. “She seems to be in lockstep with her church, that promoted a “pray away the gay’ conference in Anchorage. We hope Palin will choose to educate herself so she will learn that being gay is not a casual choice, like eating moose stew for dinner. We want her to understand that you can’t pray away the gay.”
Truth Wins Out Executive Director Wayne Besen sent Palin his book today, “Anything But Straight: Unmasking the Scandals and Lies Behind the Ex-Gay Myth.” He hopes it will bring her up to speed on the latest science on homosexuality, as well as introduce her to the damage done to gay people who “choose” to go straight. Every respected medical and mental health association in America — including the American Psychiatric Association and the American Psychological Association — warn that so-called “ex-gay” sexual engineering programs can be harmful.
On the topic of sexual orientation, Palin told Couric the following:
“And you know, I don’t know what prayers are worthy of being prayed and I don’t know what prayers are going to be answered or not answered. But as for homosexuality, I am not going to judge Americans and the decisions that they make in their adult personal relationships. I have one of my absolute best friends for the last 30 years who happens to be gay, and I love her dearly, and she is not my ‘gay friend, she is one of my best friends, who happens to have made a choice that isn’t a choice that I have made. But I’m not going to judge people.”
The Anchorage Press, wrote a large feature story on the so-called “ex-gay” ministries. It did so after TWO and local Alaskan activists squared off against Focus on the Family, which brought its “ex-gay” road show to town last week. TWO Executive Director, Wayne Besen, flew to Alaska to help organize a response. The anti-gay symposium took on national interest after GOP Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin’s house of worship – the Wasilla Bible Church – promoted the event. Besen spoke at the Anchorage Metropolitan Community Church with local clergy and mental health experts to counter Love Won Out.
“The Anchorage Press article was in-depth and did a very good job of getting to the essence of the ex-gay industry – which is politics,” said Besen. “Focus on the Family’s Love Won Out road show is a political vehicle used to make people feel better about themselves when they vote for anti-gay legislation. Other than that, the glitzy event has no practical purpose.”
Thanks to E. Ross of the website Bent Alaska and Edie Bailey of the Metropolitan Community Church and PFLAG, there was a powerful response to the “ex-gay” road show.
There is no way that a person who is indifferent to the question of whether homosexuality is a choice or genetic can support a conference of crackpots, psychological renegades and far-right Christianists seeking to “cure” gay people. Palin is on record seeking to strip gay couples of all rights in their relationships, although she was forced by constitutional mandate to grant equal benefits to gay couples who are employees of the state government in Alaska. She supported a non-binding referendum for an Alaskan constitutional amendment to deny state health benefits to same-sex couples:
Ultimately, she said, she supports denying those [health and retirement] benefits through a constitutional amendment, if that’s what the public wants.
More than a dozen equality advocates and their families protested a religious-right ex-gay roadshow Sept. 13 in Anchorage, Alaska. Truth Wins Out was a participant in the protest. According to media reports, 200-300 people attended the ex-gay antifamily event, which sponsored by James Dobson’s Focus on the Family. Alan Chambers of Exodus International spoke at the event.
Protesters like Mike Mason say the church has it wrong and that a person’s sexuality is just a part of who they are.
“People should accept people for who they are, and they shouldn’t use bigotry concealed in the name of God’s love to pass hatred on to others and to create a culture where discrimination against someone is OK, because it’s not,” Mason said.
“We’re not telling people that they need to reject their gay son or daughter,” Johnston said. “We’re just saying what we do is equip people to reach out and love to those struggling with same sex attractions.
Focus deceitfully declined to acknowledge its discriminatory antigay lobbying in all 50 states, as well as the anti-family poison that it delivers to parents at its ex-gay roadshow: Namely, the myth same-sex attraction is caused by molestation and bad parenting.
…[Fourteen] people held signs like “Honk if You Love Gay People” during a 12-hour vigil outside the Abbott Loop Community Church in Anchorage, where a conference promising to convert gays into heterosexuals through the power of prayer was being held.
Palin’s place of worship, the Wasilla Bible Church, promoted the “Love Won Out” conference, sponsored by Focus on the Family.
“Our main message is that God loves everyone the way they are,” said protester Mike Mason. “People should be accepted for who they are.”
Attempts by The Associated Press to reach someone at the church Saturday for comment were not successful.
Kirt and Roger stand together near the church parking lot. They were married in Canada, the first gay couple from Alaska to be legally wed.
“I’m here for people like Stuart Matis,” said Roger, “a young gay man in California who thought it better to put a bullet in his head rather than live with the shame that these people in the church create.”
“I grew up in a very religious background,” said Kirt. “I know about these types of programs that profess that you can change and that it’s some kind of choice to be gay. It absolutely isn’t. I’m proud to be a gay man, and proud to be married to my husband, and I’ll be proud to die that way.”
and…
Sean and Ted arrive with Ted’s mother. “We found out about Focus on the Family through watching the documentary For The Bible Tells Me So,” said Sean, a social work student at UAA.
“‘Reparative therapies’ and ‘conversion therapies’ are not only ineffective but harmful. These programs are misleading the public, misleading people who are struggling with their sexual orientation, causing emotional harm and in some cases it’s devastating. I can’t sit idly by and allow the general public to accept this ignorance.”
“What they are teaching in that church is not about acceptance, it’s not about love,” said Mary, “it’s about self-loathing and fear.” Her signs say, “True Love is Unconditional” and “God Loves You Just As You Are.”
While Focus on the Family calls its deceit “love,” ex-gay activist Joe Dallas remains impenitent in his adultery and his disobedience of the Bible. Emproph explains.
Thursday Evening Talk Will Dispel False Claims Made By Focus On the Family’ Love Won Out Conference
