It seems that America could use a genuine pro-family movement instead of hate groups using “family values” as a cover for their anti-gay activities. According to the Census Bureau as reported in the New York Times:
** Married couples have dropped below half of all American households for the first time. Married couples represented just 48 percent of American households in 2010
** Just a fifth of households were traditional families – married couples with children – down from about a quarter a decade ago, and from 43 percent in 1950
** 37 states, plus the District of Columbia, in which married couples make up fewer than 50 percent of all households, up from just 6 states in 2000
** Rising income inequality has divided American society, making college-educated people less likely to marry those without college degrees. Members of that educated group have struck a new path: they marry later and stay married. In contrast, women with only a high school diploma are increasingly opting not to marry the fathers of their children, whose fortunes have declined along with the country’s economic opportunities.
** 41 states showed declines in traditional households of married couples with children. In 2000, married couples with children were fewer than 20 percent of all households in just one state, plus the District of Columbia. Now they are fewer than a fifth in 31 states.
The statistics are quite telling and perverse. In the name of saving marriage socially conservative groups helped elevate anti-gay Republicans, which enacted policies that led to great income disparity — which depresses marriage rates. Nice going, fundies!
This is similar to the way social conservatives try to cut funding to Planned Parenthood, which leads to unplanned parenthood and higher abortion rates. Or, how they promote abstinence-only programs in schools, which also backfire. It seems that right wing social engineering consistently boomerangs.
I think these new statistics are a good opportunity for “pro-family” groups to look in the mirror and realize that their politics have failed. Focus on the Family, the National Organization for Marriage and the Family Research Council have obsessed about gay families at the expense of traditional marriage. If they had bothered to pull their noses out of our bedrooms and averted their eyes from our keyholes, they might have noticed the problem.
James Dobson, Tony Perkins, Brian Brown, and Maggie Gallagher have no one to blame but themselves for the disintegration of marriage in America. They wasted (and continue to throw away) gobs of time and money harming LGBT people — and ignored the challenges faced by the majority of working families.
Given the statistics and their professed aim to support families — one can only conclude that the leadership of these groups has been misguided, blinded by anti-gay bigotry, addicted to the money from anti-gay direct mail campaigns, or simply incompetent.
It is time for Focus on the Family and other such groups to refocus. Working to destroy our families has done little to promote family life for the majority of Americans. If they are looking for something to do, consider this:
The nation’s overall education spending grew at a slower pace in 2009 than at any other time in more than a decade, amid deepening state fiscal woes and flatter tax revenues, according to new census figures released Wednesday.
Less education = Less marriages. Now, “pro-family” groups — stop gay bashing and get to work solving real problems.
If you need to catch up on why we’re protesting at Harvard today, click here.
On Saturday, April 2, 2011, approximately fifty people protested the fundamentalist “Social Transformation” conference held at Harvard Extension School. The conference promoted the “Seven Mountains” movement intended to bring various spheres of American life under greater religious right influence: society: education, government, media, business, arts & entertainment, religion, and the family. The conference featured religious extremists who were billed as “leading voices for the faith-based social transformation culture.” Conference speaker Lance Wallnau said during an October 2010 webcast: “So you’ve got your homosexual activity, your abortion activity here, Islam coming in, you’ve got a financial collapse — all of this, to those of us who are Christians, is an apocalyptic confirmation that when you remove God from public discourse, when you don’t line up your thinking with kingdom principles, you inevitably hit an iceberg like the Titanic and you go down.”
Organized by Join the Impact MA and Truth Wins Out, the rally took place on Harvard University grounds. Join the Impact MA Board member Sasha Kaufman started the action by leading the protestors in a series of chants: “Hey, Hey, Ho, Ho, Homophobia’s Got To Go” and “Racist, Sexist, Anti-Gay, Take Your Hate and Go Away.” Signs featured messages like “Standing in Love against Hate” and “Love Is the Answer.” Calling attention to the ties of one conference speaker to the Anti-Homosexuality Bill in Uganda, Join the Impact MA member Matthew Murphy carried a sign that read: “Os Hillman Take a Bow for Anti-Gay Violence in Uganda.”
The first rally speaker, Wayne Besen of Truth Wins Out, decried the efforts of conference organizers to whitewash the speakers’ extremist views. Organizers denied that conference presenters espoused anti-gay and anti-Islamic positions—though YouTube video footage is conclusive. Wayne noted that, “once the Potemkin Village is dismantled – these activists will go to places like Uganda or the backwoods of Mississippi and preach the poisonous ‘gospel’ of hate.”
Join the Impact MA member and Harvard School of Education graduate student James Croft, a Briton, observed that the conferees’ theocratic agenda conflicted with foundational American values. He exhorted the crowd that “it is our duty to confront these theocrats, and to defeat them, to ensure freedom of conscience, freedom of religion, and secular government remain among the guiding principles of the United States of America.”
Three student speakers represented different schools at Harvard. Neil Peterman of the Harvard Graduate School for Arts and Scientists, Jacob Krueger of Harvard Divinity School, and Sam Bakkila of Harvard College’s Queer Students Association and Allies all emphasized that the Seven Mountains conference clashed with Harvard’s tradition of welcoming LGBT people and other minorities. They stressed that the conferees were not representative of the Harvard community.
National Gay and Lesbian Task Force organizer Sue Hyde attended the conference to observe, and reported back to the group that there weren’t many more people inside participating than outside protesting. Bruce Wilson, a researcher with Truth Wins Out and editor of the blog “Talk 2 Action” which follows the religious right, critiqued the “International Coalition of Apostles,” the umbrella organization for many of the conference speakers. He noted that along with their hostility to LGBT people, the “apostles” warn that witchcraft is a threat to society and seem to regard Catholicism and Mormonism as illegitimate faiths. Another speaker, the Rev. Kapya Kaoma, an Anglican Priest from Zambia, made clear that the theocrats at the conference did not know the true Jesus Christ.
Join the Impact Co-Chair Ann Coleman lambasted the conferees’ plan for “social transformation” toward greater bigotry. Coleman noted that “there is a real movement for LGBT equality that sends a different message. I have faith in the power of the people: women, men, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, those of all faiths, students and working people to create real democracy, freedom, equality, and justice. Every great social transformation for the good of all people has started with those willing to take a stand against bigotry no matter where it emerges.”
TWO Pledges To Help Educate The World Bank About PFOX’s Record of Hate and Harm
NEW YORK – Truth Wins Out today praised the World Bank’s plan to eliminate matching funds for the “ex-gay” hate group Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays (PFOX), and called it a “positive step in the right direction.” The bank took this extraordinary step after learning more about PFOX’s reprehensible record and strong objections from staff who were upset PFOX had been included on the World Bank’s list of approved charities.
“We are grateful that the World Bank ensured that taxpayers will not be subsidizing PFOX’s anti-gay campaign,” said Truth Wins Out’s Executive Director Wayne Besen. “We pledge to continue educating the World Bank on this vital issue. The more they learn about PFOX’s history of hate and harm, the less likely they will consider PFOX a legitimate charity.”
Last week, Metro Weekly’s Chris Geidner discovered that a small number of anti-gay staff-members at the World Bank had recommended PFOX as a charity for this year’s Community Connections Campaign. World Bank matching funds were to be given to the chosen charities. Depending on the level of employee participation, the bank’s matching funds are either 50 percent or 100 percent of the employee donations.
Truth Wins Out and Change.org launched an online petition to drop PFOX from the list of charities. World Bank staff also made a persuasive case against using taxpayer funds to assist PFOX. The World Bank decided to take another look at PFOX and elected to change their guidelines. According to the new rules:
Bank-matching funds will be provided to those organizations that have, through prior participation, established a track record of support with staff. Organizations that have come on the list this year will not be offered matching funds in this year’s campaign, though the Bank will match any contribution that has been made to this latter group prior to today, November 15, 2010. We will review the new organizations after one year, to see if they have the staff and community support to warrant a match in the FY12 campaign.
Truth Wins Out preferred that PFOX be completely dropped from the list this year, but is satisfied with this interim measure that starves the hate group of taxpayer funds. In 2011, TWO will disseminate key information to World Bank staff and management to ensure they are aware of PFOX’s dubious record.
“It is a shame that other first time charitable organizations will have to suffer because of PFOX’s unseemly presence,” said TWO’s Wayne Besen. “Sadly, the PFOX baby is so toxic that the bathwater had to be flushed to avoid contaminating the entire program’s reputation.”
In August, two key members of PFOX spoke at the “Truth Academy”. The conference was hosted by Americans For Truth About Homosexuality’s founder Peter LaBarbera, whose website was listed as an official “hate site” by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
At the Truth Academy, PFOX Board President Greg Quinlan raised eyebrows with an offensive speech. Quinlan explained how he allegedly went from gay-to-straight, and found support from an Assemblies of God Church that accepted him because he allegedly was not effeminate.
“I wasn’t your flaming faggot, you know,” Quinlan told the chuckling crowd. “I can say that because I’ve been there and done that. You know, the one’s whose wrists are so limp that when the wind blows they slap themselves in the face. I wasn’t one of them.”
At the same conference, Arthur Abba Goldberg, the convicted Wall Street thief who runs PFOX’s speakers bureau, demonstrated PFOX’s unscientific use of stereotypes.
“By the way, did you notice that a lot of gays who remain in the gay lifestyle also do a lot of body building,” said Abba Goldberg. “They will be in the gym a lot trying to build up their pecs…Because they have these body image issues and don’t feel they are masculine enough.”
“PFOX is a dangerous organization that traffics in ugly slurs and crass stereotypes,” said TWO’s Wayne Besen. “Given PFOX’s level of vitriol, it would seem reckless and irresponsible to give this group charitable status in the future.”
PFOX’s former board President is Richard Cohen, who still serves as the “therapy” guru of the organization. Cohen runs the International Healing Foundation and sent his protégé, Caleb Lee Brundidge, to Uganda. The result of his visit was the introduction of the deadly and draconian Anti-Homosexuality Bill. Cohen was permanently expelled from the American Counseling Association on March 23, 2002 for multiple ethics violations.
PFOX is an anti-gay political organization founded in 1998 by Anthony Falzarano with the help of an $80,000 Family Research Council grant. Falzarano once called University of Wyoming hate crime victim Matthew Shepard a “predator to heterosexual men.” He also said on CBS News that, “AIDS comes directly from Satan. He uses homosexuals as pawns and then he kills them.”
“PFOX likes to claim that they ‘love’ LGBT people,” said TWO’s Wayne Besen. “But their syrupy rhetoric does not match their record, nor reality. From the moment this organization was founded, it showed open hostility and extreme animus towards LGBT people.”
There are also lingering questions as to whether PFOX should have been listed as a charity, given that to be included in the World Bank’s Community Outreach Program, an organization is required to have, “a substantial local presence in the Greater Washington metropolitan area.”
PFOX fails to fulfill the criteria. The organization is based in Reedville, VA — placing PFOX 127 miles — and a two hour and forty minute drive — southeast of the nation’s capitol. PFOX also does not list any legitimate chapters in DC or Virginia. The only “contact” e-mail listed in DC or VA is that of the national organization based in Reedville.
Truth Wins Out is a non-profit organization that defends the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community against anti-gay misinformation, counters the so-called “ex-gay” industry and educates America about the lives of LGBT people. Our goal is to fight for a world where LGBT individuals can live openly, honestly, free of discrimination and be true to themselves.
Meet LGBT Bloggers Joe Jervis (Joe.My.God) and Jeremy Hooper (Good As You) at Demonstration
What: A coalition of local and statewide LGBT organizations will protest the annual conference of the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH), on Saturday, Nov. 6 (noon-1:30 PM). The so-called “ex-gay” group falsely believes that homosexuality is a psychological condition that can be cured through prayer and therapy. The organizations protesting want to send the message that gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people are fine just the way they are, and that you can’t “pray away the gay.”
The LGBT advocacy groups will be joined by mental health professionals, survivors of “ex-gay” therapy and nationally known LGBT bloggers. The demonstrators will point out that “ex-gay” therapy is harmful, ineffective and a fringe practice that is rejected by every respected medical and mental health association in America. The protest takes on new urgency, following a series of teen suicides due to anti-gay bullying.
Theme: The notorious “ex-gay” group NARTH is hoping that Americans have amnesia and don’t remember that its most “prominent” board member, George Rekers, was forced to resign in May. Rekers stepped down after he was caught vacationing with a male escort he met on RentBoy.com. When asked why he had hired the young man, Rekers said it was to, “lift his luggage.” The theme of this event is “Lift My Luggage” and protesters are urged to bring luggage to the protest (pink luggage would be ideal). If you don’t have luggage, bring a drawing of luggage or just yourself to show support.
Transportation: For the first 90 people, there will be busses leaving The William Way LGBT Community Center at 11:30am on Saturday and returning after the protest. (1315 Spruce Street – Philadelphia, PA 19107)
Who: The Lift My Luggage demonstration is co-sponsored by Truth Wins Out, Equality Pennsylvania, PFLAG-Philadelphia, Equality Forum, The William Way LGBT Community Center, MCC Philadelphia, The Mazzoni Center, ex-gay survivor Chaim Levin, mental health professionals Drs’. Michele Angello and Dr. Maureen Osborne, Joe Jervis (Joe.My.God), Jeremy Hooper (Good As You) and Zack Ford (ZackFordBlogs.com).
Truth Wins Out is a non-profit organization that fights anti-LGBT religious extremism. TWO monitors anti-LGBT organizations, documents their misinformation and exposes their leaders as charlatans. TWO specializes in turning information into action by organizing, advocating and fighting for LGBT equality.
Bonus: SoulForce will be hosting a symposium in Philadelphia exposing the lies of the ex-gay myth. Please attend all events!!
If you can’t be there, please show your support with a tax-deductible contribution to Truth Wins Out. Fighting back against the “ex-gay” industry takes money and we cannot succeed without your help.
Truth Wins Out
337 College Street, #12
Burlington, Vt. 05401
Contact: Wayne Besen
Phone: 917-691-5118
E-Mail: wbesen@TruthWinsOut.org
Demonstration Against ‘Ex-Gay’ Group Takes On New Urgency Following LGBT Teen Suicide Crisis
PHILADELPHIA – Truth Wins Out launched the website, Lift My Luggage.org, today and announced a Saturday, Nov.6 protest against the “ex-gay” organization, The National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH), at their annual convention in Philadelphia.
The notorious “ex-gay” group is hoping that Americans have amnesia and won’t remember that its most “prominent” board member, George Rekers, was forced to resign in May. Rekers stepped down from NARTH after he was caught vacationing with a male escort he met on Rent Boy.com. When asked why he had hired the young man, Rekers said it was to, “lift his luggage.”
“As the infamous quacks at NARTH gather for their annual convention, let’s remind America that NARTH is a pseudo-scientific organization that is more about luring Rent Boys than conducting legitimate research,” said Truth Wins Out’s founder Wayne Besen. “In light of recent gay teen suicides, we must stand up and show how NARTH’s lies harm LGBT youth and create an intolerant climate where persecution, bullying, and violence occur.”
The Lift My Luggage demonstration is co-sponsored by the Equality Forum, The William Way LGBT Community Center, MCC Philadelphia, Pam Spaulding (Pam’s House Blend), Joe Jervis (Joe.My.God) and Jeremy Hooper (Good As You), Zack Ford (Zack Ford Blog). If your organization would like to consider co-sponsoring this event, please contact Wayne Besen, wbesen@truthwinsout.org.
Protest Information:
What: Protest of NARTH’s annual convention. We are asking that you bring your own luggage to the demonstration (pink luggage would be ideal).
Please consider attaching signs to the luggage such as:
NARTH = Junk Science
“Ex-Gay? No Way”
“Rent Boy Rekers”
Where: Renaissance Philadelphia Airport Hotel
500 Stevens Drive
Philadelphia, Pa.
Recent protests in Albany and Providence spotlighted a stark difference in strategies among supporters of marriage equality.
Having lost civil public debates over the supposed merit of its immoral bigotry, the antigay National Organization for Marriage resorted this summer to a low-budget bus tour to state capitals: a tour whose sole intent appears to be to muster self-pity and victimhood among bigots who believe that discrimination, heterosexual adultery, and conservative Catholic pedophilia qualify as “Christian values.”
At one of the tour’s stops in Albany, New York, state and local equality advocates coordinated a creative counterdemonstration featuring rainbow umbrellas and white shirts with heart symbols that expressed the love that is at the core of the quest for marriage equality.
Days later, a larger and more energetic counterdemonstration featured one of the state’s smaller, more aggressive activist groups working with out-of-state allies. (The state’s largest equality group, Marriage Equality Rhode Island, did not participate.) Demonstrators confronted the antigay bigots with shouting matches and with noisemaker bottles that were filled with pebbles.
After the Albany protest, NOM humiliated itself with the feeble complaint that a rainbow umbrella had blocked one bigoted woman’s view. After the Providence protest, however, it seemed that NOM had exactly what it wanted: Video footage of uncivil homosexuals intimidating supposed victims of marriage equality.
Michael Crawford of Freedom to Marry on July 23 voiced concerns about the result of the Providence protest.
With their anti-gay summer tour, NOM is hoping to add to their false narrative of victimization. By holding events in communities across the country, NOM is hoping to evoke outrage and confrontation with supporters of the freedom to marry. Their latest propaganda video as a perfect example:
We can’t let anger get the best of us and feed into NOM’s false narrative that they will then use against us in court rooms and legislatures across the country. We must funnel our anger against anti-gay forces like NOM into constructive actions that will educate the public and move marriage forward.
Given the uncivil and untruthful tactics that NOM and its allies have used against equality advocates, anger and intimidation by equality advocates may seem justified.
However, in the struggle for the right to love equally, does it make sense to fight NOM’s deceit with anger rather than love? Is it wise to fight for our freedom by shouting down others the same way we have been shouted down by Exodus International and its allies in the past?
Is there a way to combine the energy of the Providence protest with the optimism and hope of the Albany protest?
Six protesters were arrested this afternoon at a White House protest which demanded that President Obama take the lead i repealing the U.S. armed forces’ antigay “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” personnel policy.
Participating organizations included Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, GetEqual, and Queer Rising.
Exodus International is the nation’s foremost organization claiming to use Christianity to turn LGBT people into “ex-gays.”
And while Exodus says it “loves” gay people, the Gay Liberation Network says Exodus’ fake attempts to change gays into straights is rooted in their “hatred of gay people.” GLN points out that Exodus opposes all civil rights for LGBT people; in just the past few months, Exodus has taken extreme actions to oppose the human rights, health, and safety of same-sex-attracted people.
In March, Exodus board member Don Schmierer traveled to Uganda to keynote a conference which declared that life imprisonment for homosexuals is too lenient and that tougher laws should be accompanied by involuntary detention in ex-gay re-education camps. More recently, Exodus joined the religious-right “Freedom Federation” which promotes the myth that conservative Christian freedom requires that liberal and non-Christian Americans be denied their own freedom and equality under the law. Exodus opposes laws that would require that violent crimes against gay and transgender persons be punished just as harshly as violent crimes committed on the basis of the victim’s race or religion; Exodus claims that the punishment of violent crime threatens the “freedom of speech” of antigay pastors, even though such laws contain safeguards for religious speech. Finally, Exodus refuses to publicly oppose ex-gay exorcisms performed against a 16-year-old youth by an amateur pentecostal church in Connecticut.
Every major professional mental-health association has denounced Exodus’s efforts to suppress and lie about individuals’ sexual orientation as potentially very damaging to the very people Exodus claims to “help.”
As the American Psychiatric Association notes: “The potential risks of ‘reparative therapy’ are great, including depression, anxiety and self destructive behavior, since therapist alignment with societal prejudices against homosexuality may reinforce self hatred already experienced by the patient. Many patients who have undergone ‘reparative therapy’ relate that they were inaccurately told that homosexuals are lonely, unhappy individuals who never achieve acceptance or satisfaction. The possibility that the person might achieve happiness and satisfying interpersonal relationships as a gay man or lesbian is not presented, nor are alternative approaches to dealing with the effects of societal stigmatization discussed.”
GLN invites Midwesterners to help expose the “ex-gay” fraud, and help show young LGBT people that there is an alternative to the damaging quack “therapy” that Exodus International promotes.
The Gay Liberation Network is organizing a protest against the opening of Exodus International’s annual “Freedom [from Gay Equality] Conference” and it invites you to join them:
6:30 PM
Tuesday, July 14
Wheaton College
500 College Avenue
Wheaton, Illinois Related Facebook group
GLN is organizing transportation from Chicago to the protest, and may be able to offer it from some suburban locations. If you need transportation or are willing to offer it, please email LGBTliberation@aol.com.
Last week, Metro Weekly’s 
