Religious-right socialism: Focus on the Family, ex-gay political powerhouse and host of the Love Won Out roadshow, rebrands Barack Obama’s vision of compassionate community values with the label “big-government socialism.” Focus overlooks its own support of socialism in the form of so-called faith-based initiatives — at least $2 billion in taxpayer handouts to ineffective and unskilled evangelical organizations, with regulatory strings arbitrarily enforced by bureaucrats.

You told us so We told you so: Exodus and Focus on the Family pretended today that they have always supported a combination of nature and nurture in theories about the roots of sexual-orientation formation. In discussing a new brochure by the American Psychological Association, Randy Thomas of Exodus voices hope for a slippery slope in which the APA eventually slides into a cesspool of belief that sexual and romantic attractions don’t matter — that all people can change their self-labeling as easily as Thomas has. Addendum: Good As You notes that Thomas and Focus omitted reference to a key passage of the brochure that finds no evidence that ex-gay programs are effective — and some indication that ex-gay promotions are harmful.

Who’s jamming whom? The religious right has, since 9/11, jammed public discussion of sexual orientation with hot-tempered and poorly documented accusations of terrorism, atheism, and dangerous behavior among people of faith and family values who happen to be American couples of the same gender. In their latest effort to make discussion of sexuality inseparable from terrorism, defenders of Oklahoma state Rep. Sally Kern are accusing the opposing side — those couples at home by the fireplace, upset at fundamentalist smear campaigns — of being the jammers.

Ex-gay: Bullies made me gay, not nature: Independent ex-gay activist Stephen Bennett recently appeared on an evangelical TV “helpline” (video intro) to declare — amid waves of amateurish gospel music — that childhood name-calling by bullies caused him to mistakenly believe he was gay. But have no fear, he reassures antigay Christians — nature has nothing to do with sexual orientation.

After claiming last week that the ex-gay network had stepped back from public policy, Exodus admitted otherwise this week — but without admitting the apparent deception.

President Alan Chambers acknowledged to Ex-Gay Watch that his organization will continue as an active member of the Arlington Group, a political alliance of most major religious-right organizations that coordinates members’ policy choices and priorities.

Chambers claimed last week, “There isn’t anyone on staff that has policy in their job description and we don’t plan to spend money there.” On its 2006 filing of an IRS 990 form (PDF via Guidestar), Exodus reported a $5,000 donation to the Arlington Group; Exodus donations for 2007 are yet to be disclosed.

Chambers announced last week that Exodus’ withdrawal from public policy began in “August, 2007. 2008, however, marked a complete refocus on ministry.”

But as TWO has noted since then, Exodus board member Phil Burress (pictured), youth activist Mike Ensley, and speaker Ken Hutcherson continue to actively campaign for antigay and partisan political causes.

Just two days ago, Exodus executive vice president Randy Thomas boasted of his ongoing, expenses-paid trips to Washington, D.C., to provide political “friends” with ex-gay rhetoric and support.

And on Friday, board member Burress sued to hold taxpayer-subsidized church services in an Ohio public library. Burress’ self-led Citizens for Community Values (another Arlington Group member) opposes anti-bullying, tolerance, and sex-education programs in schools, and it is largely responsible for a 1993 Cincinnati vote to overturn local antidiscrimination law. A 2004 vote reversed the earlier vote.

In reaction to Exodus’ commitment to the Arlington Group, former ex-gay Peterson Toscano finds Exodus violating Biblical values under Chambers’ leadership.

The following is an excerpt from the March 2008 electronic newsletter of Exodus Youth:

In the news

UK Foster Parents Must Support Homosexuality A Christian couple in the UK was told they were “unsuitable” to be foster parents because they refused to teach children that homosexuality is morally acceptable.

Many CA Students May be Leaving Public Schools A number of Christian organizations are urging parents to remove their children from public schools due to the passage of SB 777, a bill that will greatly increase the amount of pro-homosexual propaganda incorporated into the school system.

Homosexuality: A Polarizing Term A group called Catalyst recently visited a Love Won Out conference. They were able to interview many of the main speakers, including Alan Chambers, and have posted those interviews on their website.

These articles and many more are available on the Exodus Media Blog.

Of these three “news” items, the second is excerpted from a partisan political publication, and none of the items relates in a constructive way to the struggles or needs of gay or “ex-gay” youths and their families.

Why is Exodus officially parroting partisan political propaganda six months after, it says, it decided to refrain from such activity?

Exodus International president Alan Chambers said last week that the ex-gay network had halted its aggressive antigay political advocacy as of August 2007.

Exodus youth activist Mike Ensley, however, vows to continue using his position in the ex-gay network as a soapbox to silence gay students, withhold accurate information from heterosexual peers of those students, and deny the existence of intersexed persons.

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Karen Keen comments on the generation gap between conservative Christian adults and their teenage children.

Specifically, she observes, 80 percent of teens in Christian youth groups have gay friends and acquaintances — which is a big surprise to parents. Keen, who speaks to youth groups and church conferences and favors ex-gay resources, says she struggles for access to conservative churches, whose leaders believe she’s irrelevant because they mistakenly assume there are no gay people, nor friends of gay persons, within their churches.

Conservative Christian youth want practical answers to difficult questions, Keen says, but many churches — preoccupied, perhaps, with politics — have yet to offer them.

• Exodus board member Phil Burress, speaking as the leader of Ohio-based Citizens for Community Values, says nominee-in-waiting John McCain has failed to mobilize so-called “values voters” (conservative Christians). Disappointed at the defeat of Southern Baptist former pastor Mike Huckabee in the GOP presidential race, Burress spells out what he thinks McCain must do to win support: “apologize to evangelical Christians and values voters for the way he has treated them over the years” and “strengthen his pledge to appoint strict constructionist judges to the Supreme Court.”
• Exodus conference speaker Ken Hutcherson prays for God’s help to hinder a woman’s right to visit her lesbian partner in the hospital — and to deny other basic rights to certain types of Americans who do not self-identify as African-American.
• Ex-gay activist groups including Abiding Truth Ministries and Stephen Bennett Ministries have mobilized to scare conservative Christian parents into keeping their kids home from school when antiviolence advocates commemorate an annual Day of Silence. Watchmen on the Walls, an organization co-led by Exodus conference speaker Ken Hutcherson, also is joining the campaign to stop antiviolence efforts in schools. Two gay and gender-variant youths were killed last month, one of them in an Oxnard, Calif., classroom. Since then, youths and young men have been assaulted in Florida and Georgia.

Focus on the Family, host of the Love Won Out ex-gay roadshow and national billboard campaigns, has been known to celebrate politicians who cherry-pick Old Testament verses to justify partisan political policies.

But when Barack Obama cited the Sermon on the Mount in an Ohio speech on Sunday, Focus on the Family’s partisan political unit objected — and was careful to misquote Obama.

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