As Truth Wins Out has previously noted, in recent months Exodus International leaders Alan Chambers and Yvette Cantu Schneider headlined several religious-right mass gatherings to eliminate the right of gay couples to marry and to deny religious freedom to gay-tolerant congregations that choose to marry same-gender couples.

Instead of apologizing for their role in extortion, deception, Internet denial-of-service attacks, and exploitation of gay-tolerant heterosexual parents’ children, Exodus Youth and Exodus executive vice president Randy Thomas are playing the victim card.

Exodus Youth this week distributed an e-mail newsletter which promoted Thomas’ Nov. 3 blog entry. Ignoring Exodus’ role in coordinated unethical activities by supporters of antigay constitutional amendments, Thomas instead spotlights isolated incidents of anger by opponents of the religious-right campaign.

Thomas remains impenitent for his organization’s role in official, well-coordinated, and possibly illegal attacks against the rights of religious and sexual minorities.

Meanwhile, Exodus continues its cultural war against the parents and churches of gay and lesbian people this month with a conference speech by antigay mother Nancy Heche in Fair Oaks, Calif., today, followed by two events in mid-November promoting ex-gay ignorance among parents and pastors in Tennessee.

California Proposition 8 explicitly eliminates equal marriage rights for gay and lesbian Californians. It also overturns religious freedom for California religious institutions that affirm marriage for same-sex couples. Proposition 2 in Florida and Proposition 102 in Arizona do the same.

The ballot propositions impose on the states — and all their residents — the sectarian religious belief that homosexuality is immoral and that gays and lesbians are not entitled to be treated equally under the law.

But the religious-rightists who support these propositions can’t win popular support by telling voters the truth. So instead, Focus on the Family, Exodus, wealthy Mormon donors, and others have caved in to the immoral gutter instincts of dirty politics, illegal Internet attacks, and alleged election-law violations.

The L.A. Times editorial board today listed some of the deceptions of the lawless forces behind Proposition 8: (Read More)

Focus on the Family today cheered columnist Mark Joseph’s ultimatum to U.S. Republican presidential candidate John McCain.

Joseph told McCain in an open letter:

Fire up the Straight Talk Express or whatever it’s called and get your tail to Colorado Springs,” he writes. “Evangelicals don’t have popes; they have leaders with names like (Dr.) Dobson, (Chuck) Colson, (Rick) Warren, (Billy) Graham and (Albert) Mohler. Unless you have a death wish, suck it up, fly to Colorado Springs.

Let me be blunt with you: If you don’t do this, you will lose the election. It’s just that simple.

Those words could not have been said more bluntly if they had come directly from the Man himself, Focus chairman James Dobson. Instead, Focus responded with a verbose statement whose tone begins as false gentility and rapidly inflates with megalomania:

Tom Minnery, senior vice president for government and public policy at Focus on the Family Action, said: “Dr. Dobson would gladly open his door to either candidate for a discussion of issues vital to the family.”

While the mainstream media see Dr. Dobson as a “typical televangelist,” Joseph tells CitizenLink he has “always understood Dr. Dobson’s role and influence to be far larger.

“Many moms listen to his show as they car pool their kids around or run errands,” he told CitizenLink. “They trust him on issues of childrearing and want to hear his opinion on other issues, as well.”

Minnery said Joseph accurately describes Dr. Dobson’ influence with millions of American voters. “It’ a deposit of trust built up over 30 years,” he said.

Joseph’s open letter to McCain was paired at FoxNews.com with Joseph’s open letter to Democrat Barack Obama.

Clearly preoccupied with McCain, Focus on the Family had nothing to say today about Joseph’s positive remarks about Obama’s liberal, pro-American, and Christian values.

U.S. presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain are preparing to discuss AIDS, poverty, human rights, and the environment at an Aug. 16 forum hosted by the Rev. Rick Warren at California’ Saddleback Church.

Focus on the Family — an avowed opponent of humanitarian values and sustainable living — lobbied July 28 to replace these moral, social, health, and religious concerns with James Dobson’s two pet causes that FOTF says are at “the heart of Christianity”: Discrimination against gay couples, and imprisonment of women and doctors who choose abortion when alternatives fail.

Focus Action senior vice president Tom Minnery (pictured above) dismissed the forum’s topics as being of mere “secular” interest.

United Church of Christ minister Chuck Currie (pictured below) says:

Care of creation (for the earth on which we live) and care of the least of these – the sick, those living in poverty – are actually issues central to Scripture and of deep concern to the Christian community.

And I suspect that most Christians don’t wake up each morning thinking that today would be a great day if we could just limit civil rights for gay and lesbian people.

Focus and the Family and their founder James Dobson are at risk of being left behind and left out of political debate. Their divisive rhetoric – the kind that has divided Americans in the past – isn’t listened to so much anymore (except on the very extreme and troubled edges of society). That’s a good thing.

Focus on the Family may be weakening, but with a $100-million-per-year budget, it remains a dominant force in conservative U.S. politics, a hardened and congested artery in the “heart” of U.S. Christianity.

The Los Angeles Times web site hosts a database that monitors the money spent by non-profit organizations to raise funds — and how little money was returned to the non-profit by the fund-raisers. (The database is limited to fund-raising reported to the state of California from 1997 to 2006.)

The database reports, for example, that Concerned Women for America‘s education and legal action fund collected $14.7 million in gross revenue via for-profit fund-raisers during the decade.

However, CWFA only received $975,000 from its fund-raisers. It seems that more than a million dollars per year, or 93.4 percent of donations collected by for-profit fund-raisers and reported to California, went to the fundraisers, who were primarily:

• InfoCision Management Corp., an Ohio telemarketing company with conservative-Christian and GOP clients,
• MDS Communications Corporation, an Arizona/California outfit that also serves National Right to Life, FRC, the Republican National Committee, the National Republican Congressional Committee, and the National Republican Senatorial Committee. (They also serve the global anti-hunger charity CARE — perhaps some polite letters to CARE are in order.)
• Regency Communications, apparently a now-defunct Texas telemarketer that was tied to Jerry Falwell’s Liberty Alliance and The Rutherford Institute

I understand that for-profit telemarketers don’t just raise funds; they charge fees to non-profits to conduct political advocacy, such as rallying members to call lawmakers about an antigay vote. CWFA donors expect their donations to be spent as described by the telemarketer, but CWFA’s for-profit fund-raisers can spend their majority share of the donated money any way they please. They can redirect non-profits’ fund-raising revenues — via discounts, pro bono work, and fresh donations — into partisan political campaigns. And non-profits can choose to overpay their fund-raising contractors, with the knowledge that the overpayment will benefit allies who use the same contractor.

In fact, there are vague signs of such a redistribution of donor cash at MDS Communications: While CWFA received an average 6.6 percent return from all reported for-profit fund-raisers, its returns from MDS are often negative: CWFA has repeatedly spent more than it received. Meanwhile, Family Research Council has enjoyed a 30.6 percent return on donations and National Right to Life has received returns of up to 50 percent from various MDS campaigns from 1997 to 2006.

In 2007 federal tax filings, CWFA reported $10 million in direct public support. While other organizations conduct their political advocacy in-house to maintain control of their message and conserve cash, CWFA paid its for-profit contractors more than $4 million in 2007 — $2.8 million of which appears have been for-profit political advocacy rather than pure solicitation.

The Los Angeles Times story focuses on excesses of charitable fund-raising, and so it does not report, nor even question, MDS’s fund-raising results for Democratic and GOP committees.

There is a strong and largely unregulated potential for cronyism among religious shell organizations; insiders who double-dip as employees and as contractors; fund-raisers; partisan political interests; and unrelated political causes (such as free trade) that would offend many donors to religious-right shell organizations.

Concerned Women for America isn’t alone in preying upon donors’ patriotism and concern for children while handing donations to cronies, according to the Times:

Among The Times’ findings:

• More than 100 charities raised $1 million or more from commercial appeals but netted less than 25 cents per dollar. Fundraisers got the rest.
• In 430 campaigns, charities got nothing: All $44 million donated went to fundraisers. In 337 of those cases, charities actually lost money, paying fees to fundraisers that exceeded the amount raised.
• In hundreds of other campaigns, charities apparently entered into contracts that limited their share of donations to 20% or less, no matter how successful the campaign.
• Groups with strong emotional or patriotic appeal — those supporting animals, children, veterans and public safety workers, for instance — often fared worst. Missing-children charities received less than 15% of more than $28 million raised on their behalf.

What additional restrictions, if any, are needed to prevent religious non-profit organizations from hiring fund-raisers that may siphon off donations for partisan political uses, out of sight of the donors?

And what more must be done to prevent religious organizations from abusing their tax-exempt status?

In 2004, Exodus International board member Phil Burress put an anti-marriage constitutional amendment on the Ohio ballot and drew thousands of Ohioans to the polls to support the re-election of George W. Bush for president.

Until recently, Burress — the powerful leader of Ohio’s anti-family organization Citizens for Community Values, an affiliate of Focus on the Family — has withheld support from 2008 Republican presidential candidate John McCain.

Just a month ago, Burress had told the Los Angeles Times that while he might vote for McCain,

he will not work directly for McCain, and he suspects that many conservatives will stay home on election day.

“They think we have no place to go [other than the Republican Party], and in some respects, that’s true,” Burress said. “But it’s going to take a whole lot more than that for him to win.”

Last week, however, the Los Angeles Times reported that McCain met with Burress in a bid to secure far-right votes as McCain’s rival, Democratic candidate Barack Obama, wins over religious centrists and the religious left.

“We told [McCain] that if he didn’t come out and share his pro-family stances on these issues, then he can kiss Ohio goodbye,” said influential anti-gay Ohio activist Phil Burress, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Instead of pursuing a moderate presidential course that might unite Americans behind shared family, community, and national values, McCain pandered to the forces of paranoia and division: He announced his support for an initiative in California to ban same-sex marriage, even though a similar initiative in his home state of Arizona failed.

Burress was impressed:

“It was obvious there were a lot of changed hearts in the room,” said Burress. “We realized that he’s with us on the majority of the issues we care about.”

McCain still hopes to meet with James Dobson, the leader of Focus on the Family. Dobson has said he would not vote for McCain and claimed that neither candidate gives “a hoot about the family.”

Meanwhile, Burress — along with other social conservatives — is pressuring McCain to recruit Southern Baptist minister and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee as his vice-presidential running mate.

Burress characterized the Huckabee overture as a “suggestion, not a demand.”

“This is a man you don’t threaten,” Burress said of McCain. “His principles are his principles. The last thing you want to do is try to force him to do something he doesn’t want to do because he’d probably do the opposite.”

Burress said that while Huckabee is a favorite of Christian conservatives, the most important thing is that McCain’s running mate be “pro-life and pro-family.” Huckabee isn’t a favorite of all evangelical leaders, either; some dislike his populist message, emphasis on the environment and economic positions.

The leaders meeting in Denver included Phyllis Schlafly, head of the Eagle Forum; “Left Behind” co-author Tim LaHaye and his wife, Beverly, founder of Concerned Women for America; David Barton, founder of WallBuilders; Rick Scarborough of Vision America; and Don Hodel, a former interior secretary and former president of Colorado Springs-based Focus on the Family, according to [Liberty Counsel chairman Mat] Staver.

Burress asserts that the Bible commands evangelicals not to vote for Obama:

“The only evangelicals that will support Obama are the ones who haven’t read their Bible,” Burress said. “The more and more we learn about Obama, the closer and closer we get to McCain.”

Does this Exodus board member feel sufficiently holy that God has permitted him to rewrite the Bible? Or does this Exodus leader feel that merely saying the word “Bible” in a sentence makes the sentence true?

There are, no doubt, some valid and fact-based reasons to oppose Barack Obama as the Democratic Party’s presumptive nominee for President of the United States.

But the echo chamber of the far right does not care much for facts; among that crowd, vague smears and self-flattery have sadly become the chosen political currency.

Exodus youth activist Mike Ensley reminds of that today, as he parrots a fact-free tirade against Obama that was first penned by Thomas Sowell of the increasingly neocon and partisan Hoover Institute.

First, Ensley (through Sowell) projects onto others his own preoccupation with trivialities — denying gay Americans equality, promoting scientific ignorance among youths — at a time when America needs unity and true leadership to reverse the catastrophe in Iraq, conserve energy at home, live with religious and cultural diversity, and accept the sacrifices that will be necessary to reverse such crises as the federal debt and economically catastrophic climate change. Ensley points to the speck in his enemy’s eye while ignoring a plank in his own:

One of the painful aspects of studying great catastrophes of the past is discovering how many times people were preoccupied with trivialities when they were teetering on the edge of doom.

Then Ensley parrots Sowell’s cynical and hypocritical position on federal judges. The Liberty Counsel, which with Exodus is a member of the Arlington Group, believes that reactionary activist judges should rewrite American law and justice, and remake social policy, according to the Group’s reinterpretations of the Bible and according to un-Biblical social mores that seem to be derived from 1950s TV sitcoms. When judges do their duty and rule that there are constitutional limits to presidential power, or that gay Americans are entitled to their constitutional rights, then Ensley, Exodus, and the Liberty Counsel vent the Arlington Group’s collective outrage and resentment with about as much individuality and originality as a ventriloquist’s puppets.

Read carefully:

Barack Obama has already indicated that he wants judges who make social policy instead of just applying the law.

Notice that Ensley does not support judges’ mandate to interpret state and federal constitutions, nor their mandate to balance and counteract the other two branches of government. Instead, Ensley views judges as rubber stamps “applying” whatever unconstitutional laws might be passed — provided, of course, that such laws are written by Republican Party apparatchiks who are, in turn, controlled by the Arlington Group.

Ensley briefly parrots unsubstantiated gossip about Obama’s record on crime. Then Ensley, who has demonstrated no knowledge of mid-20th-century American history, accepts at face value — and without a single factual example — Sowell’s vague, sloppy, and sweeping accusations about Obama’s domestic and foreign policy:

Although Senator Obama ha s presented himself as the candidate of new things — using the mantra of “change” endlessly — the cold fact is that virtually everything he says about domestic policy is straight out of the 1960s and virtually everything he says about foreign policy is straight out of the 1930s.

Sowell offers no evidence, and Ensley apparently neither notices nor cares. Whether anything that has been said about Obama has any basis in fact is irrelevant to Ensley, who lives and works in a political environment of gossip and innuendo.

If this style of gossip and innuendo is what Exodus wants to bring to the nation’s schools and youths, then Exodus should be banned from schools and disenfranchised by the nation’s Christian youth groups.

The nation and its youth are in need of historical, social, scientific, political and religious facts — not more partisan warfare and smug, factless diatribe.

Exodus International executive vice president Randy Thomas stated on his weblog June 3 that he supports the latest efforts to deny gay California and Florida couples access to marriage, and implied his support for GOP efforts to exploit marriage for political gain in November:

I am posting this because this November is shaping up to be very similar to “06 with regard to State marriage battles. Except this time, you have some HUGE populations (CA and FL) in the mix.

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.