Editor Seth Bracken of Q Salt Lake, a publication for LGBTQ people in Utah, just posted a story about a Utah man who hanged himself after imbibing a lifetime of Mormon homophobic self-hatred. He was rescued in the nick of time by his mother, who faced the horrifying task of cutting him down from the rope, but who also probably had plenty to do with the indoctrination that led him to suicidal despair. She, too, may well have been force-fed groundless hatred at a vulnerable age. (That kind of transgenerational cultural blindness is what I think of when I hear “the sins of the fathers will be visited on the sons.” That was no curse. It was an observation.)
This pitiable gay man, born by ill luck into one of the most homophobic social groups in the country, if not the world, literally bought into the ex-gay propaganda that Mormon culture sells to people like him. He tried “reparative” therapy at Evergreen International; he tried it at LDS Family Services; and he paid hundreds to try Journey into Manhood, run by “ex-gay” Rich Wyler, whose exploits on NPR and elsewhere have been covered in detail by TWO.
Mr. Wyler made a revealing statement with regard to the American Psychological Association’s condemnation of “reparative” therapy.
“They (the APA) have such a high standard for research, it’s almost impossible to meet,” Wyler said. “They require a control group and a reputable organization and continue to disregard research that doesn’t have these things.”
This, too, is pitiable. Mr. Wyler has not just uncritically internalized his subculture’s homophobia–he appears to regard the fundamental tenets of science as mere annoying inconveniences. This statement underscores why many progressives like to say that we’re living in the reality-based community. And yet people like Mr. Wyler must read weather reports, take vitamins, drive across bridges, and do all the millions of other things that owe their existence to science. Maybe those things exist in a dream world for them.
I think most people, even haters, have good intentions; conscienceless sociopaths are in the minority. And I think that, given enough time and care, people with good intentions can learn to understand each other’s points of view. But Mr. Wyler’s statement made me suspect I’m being naive. How does one go about debating a man like this? How could we ever find a set of axioms to agree on?
By the way: Evergreen International and Journey into Manhood will be holdingconferences in Utah in September, thus perpetuating their non-reality-based, suicide-provoking work. The reality-based community needs to represent.
(Exodus’ Randy Thomas schmoozing with Karl Rove in headier times)
Is the once active “ex-gay” organization Exodus International on the decline?
Those who follow the group have noticed fewer events scheduled and virtually no media presence. The last press release for Exodus was posted on October 6, and the group’s front page promotes an event as far back as June. In terms of messaging, the group appears to be stuck in a rut and its once vital campaigns have grown predictable and stale.
Needless to say, I’m pleased with this development!
It is unclear if Exodus’ woes are a result of an internal shake-up, or if financial setbacks have hobbled the organization. Perhaps, they are not working as closely with Focus on the Family, which augmented Exodus’ past campaigns with creativity and professionalism. Ever since Focus on the Family handed over the flashy “ex-gay” road show Love Won Out to Exodus, it appears that the standing of Exodus has diminished.
The only evidence the group is still alive comes from Vice President Randy Thomas’ blog posts. But, even this venue suffers from inertia and rust, with Thomas posting offensive videos of Chambers preaching hate in 2006. Are there no new videos or messages to highlight?
In 2010 the organization left hardly a footprint. Its sluggish efforts lacked energy, and its impact had noticeably diminished. It will be interesting to see if Exodus comes out of its slumber and recovers in 2011.
The “ex-gay” group People Can Change (PCC) is increasingly filling the void left by Exodus. PCC runs Journey Into Manhood (JIM) weekends, which is a scam that takes gay men into the woods for $650, with the goal of making them more masculine. The group recently gained notoriety after ABC Nightline filmed a puff piece highlighting the group’s work. (A more accurate description of the group might be Journey into Manhunt)
The good news is that PCC is particularly vulnerable to scandal and outright collapse. This heavily Mormon organization adheres to the bizarre therapy model of Richard Cohen, the laughable and discredited “Sexual Reorientation Coach” who runs the bizarre International Healing Foundation. Convicted Wall Street hood, Arthur Abba Goldberg, is responsible for funneling a good number of paying clients into the group. (I’d love to see what’s in it for him) The organization’s senior trainer, Alan Downing, faced credible accusations of sexual misconduct by two clients earlier this year.
The PCC scheme is likely on borrowed time and is making a mistake by stepping out so publicly. Journalist Ted Cox wrote a fabulous expose showing the creepy and peculiar happenings at Journey into Manhood weekends. We had hoped that ABC Nightline would have engaged in real journalism and corroborated Cox’s story. However, they eschewed investigative reporting for cheap access to the camp, leading to a disappointing and woefully incomplete depiction and representation of Journey into Manhood weekends.
Still, it is only a matter of time before committed broadcast journalists with standards of excellence infiltrate JIM to reveal the closety, homo-erotic exercises that are offered in the camp’s “Cuddle Room”. When this happens, the entire program will turn into a punchline. I can hardly wait.
PFOX is also trying to assert itself, but its ties to the colorful and outrageous sexual engineer, Richard Cohen, will likely retard the group’s progress. The organization’s president, Greg Quinlan, appears angry and unstable, further hindering PFOX’s efforts to have an impact and gain mainstream credibility. And, Executive Director Regina Griggs is no more than a figurehead who avoids public appearances outside the safety of adoring fundamenalist Christian audiences. Indeed, PFOX may simply be a shell group for the Family Research Council and a number of Christian legal groups that want to show that “ex-gays” exist for political reasons. (To its detriment, PFOX embarrassingly can’t find real “ex-gays” to show, unless they work for the group, like Quinlan)
The National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH) remains a dangerous organization, because their members pose as legitimate experts on homosexuality. However, they consistently underachieve because they fail to produce respectable peer review studies. Instead, they offer up transparent propaganda that has undermined the organization’s reputation with the public and media.
It will be interesting to see which one of these organizations — or perhaps a new one — comes out of the woodwork to pick up the slack. Hopefully, the answer is “None of the above.”
Richard Cohen, continues to undermine “ex-gay” groups
UPDATE: Evan here, with a quick update. If you want to see what it looks like when an actual, trained journalist who takes his job seriously investigates Journey Into Manhood, click here to read Ted Cox’s report.
I was incredibly disappointed with ABC Nightline’s segment that aired last night about the bizarre group People Can Change, which hosts Journey into Manhood (JIM) weekends. JIM takes closeted men with religious hang-ups into the woods, where they hug each other to allegedly become more masculine. The goal of this male bonding is to remake these repressed homosexuals into heterosexuals.
The problem is, it does not work, the techniques are based on junk science and the attendees, which pay $650 to be manipulated, can be psychologically harmed. JIM is a strange brew of New Age psychobabble mixed with fundamentalism, weaved into a scam that can accurately be described as consumer fraud, in my view.
JIM does not work for the vast majority of people who go through it. Yet, ABC made the critical mistake of focusing on the hand-picked alleged success stories, while largely ignoring the vast majority of attendees — which were victims who were ripped off by this scheme.
Why would a network elect to create what essentially was an infomercial for JIM, while skimming over the harm perpetrated on the majority? Shouldn’t this story be told in the form of an expose from the perspective of the victims?
Sadly, Nightline’s producers elected to trade accuracy for access. They bragged that they were the first network that got to take cameras into JIM. Well, not exactly. ABC was denied access to the actual JIM weekends — which are furtive, painful and bizarre — and instead allowed the network to film a JIM Reunion featuring canned spokespeople touting the Party Line. In essence, the PR people at JIM slyly created a Potemkin Village and ABC was suckered into videotaping the propaganda.
This really pisses me off. I spoke to the producer, Melia Patria, and explicitly warned her that in order to do this segment correctly, Nightline had to go undercover, like 60 Minutes used to. This would be the only way to get an accurate account of the silliness and seduction that truly represents JIM.
I suppose good old fashioned journalism is a quaint and anachronistic notion. These days, the networks often take the easy way out, even at the expense of an accurate portrayal of their subject matter.
The ABC piece was also biased, in that it gave an enormous amount of time to the JIM propagandists, while giving mere soundbites to victims Chaim Levin and Ben Unger, who were featured in a Truth Wins Out video. These men bared their souls and took big risks coming forward, and all they got was short shrift and shafted. Ben and Chaim did a marvelous job (as did star psychiatrist Jack Drescher), but their valid criticism of JIM was a mere afterthought.
Nevertheless, propaganda can only go so far. ABC does get credit for asking the right questions in terms of whether the so-called “ex-gays” are still attracted to the same sex. After hesitating, JIM’s spokesmodel, “Preston”, admits that he still thinks guys are hot. And, in a startling admission, his wife admits that they cruise men together. I’m sure church might even be fun with that couple! (Speaking of wives, why didn’t ABC interview anyone from survivor groups like the Straight Spouse Network, to show how these “ex-gay” marriages usually lead to divorce in the long run?)
Is it not astounding that the handpicked poster boy of JIM’s propaganda campaign looks at dudes with his wife? The moral of the story, thus, is the best this organization can offer is repression of sexual desires, rather than a genuine change in sexual orientation. Do people really need to spend $650 to suppress their desires?
Today, I am going to challenge ABC to do another segment — and do it correctly. The network has a moral obligation to tell the real story and do so from the victim’s perspective — not the victimizers. There are good people at Nightline who can get this right, and as top tier journalists with network budgets, they have the ability to do so. It is imperative for the sake of journalistic integrity that they take this story further and objectively search for truth. When they do so, I can guarantee the final product will be quite repellent to mainstream America and look much different than the slick PR dish served up last night.
Earlier this week, Boyd K. Packer, president of the Mormon Church’s Quorum of Twelve Apostles, gave a sermon that endorsed discrimination against gay people and claimed that they could be converted into heterosexuals.
Conveniently, Packer failed to point out that the keynote speaker at the Mormon “ex-gay” group Evergreen’s September conference was John Paulk – the supposedly cured family man that I photographed in a Washington, DC gay bar in 2000. (video below)
Truth Wins Out recently revealed that Mormon “life coach”, Alan Downing, was instructing clients to touch their genitals in front of a mirror to help make them straight. (video below) And “People Can Change”, a bizarre boot camp run by Rich Wyler, a Mormon “ex-gay” activist, has a “cuddle room” where men touch each other to find sexual “healing”.
No matter how many millions of dollars religious organizations squander on this fatal fantasy, or how loudly they preach this destructive lie – there is no evidence that one can pray away the gay. The idea that millions of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people will abandon rich, satisfying lives to become “ex-gay” is equal parts propaganda and pipedream.
Given the fact that LGBT people exist and are not going anywhere, the Religious Right has two choices:
1) It can accept that LGBT people are on a trajectory to be embraced by mainstream society
2) Or, it can suppress this rapidly growing trend through intimidation and violence
In the past year, I believe, the LGBT movement has reached a tipping point, where there is finally light at the end of the tunnel. Polls are in favor of equal rights and widespread acceptance is seeping into nearly every sphere of society.
Anti-gay activists see the writing on the wall and are reacting rabidly by spewing unprecedented amounts of biblical bile. The attitude of these extremists can be summed up by The Call’s Lou Engle, who said at an anti-gay seminar in Lynchburg, Va., earlier this year, that without a Godly intercession, the LGBT movement would win.
Of course, there will be no Godly intercession, anymore than there will ever be a mass exodus into the silly “ex-gay” ministries. And, this is precisely why organizations like Focus on the Family, The Minnesota Family Council, and Exodus International fight tooth and nail against programs that would stop anti-gay bullying.
The horrible truth is that the Religious Right needs the threat of violence and selective use of terror to keep young people from living openly and honestly. They even have entire websites, such as TrueTolerance.org, and annual events, like the “Day of Truth”, to ensure bullying remains a bloody right of passage for many gay students.
Indeed, Focus on the Family’s True Tolerance website smarmily states, “Concerned about homosexual advocacy in your child’s school? You’ve come to the right place.”
Our foes would deny that violence is their intention, and no doubt many of them would prefer a neat and clean conversion, before a messy reversion to brute force. But, Dr. Joseph Berger revealed how the right genuinely believes gender norms should be enforced.
“…let the other children ridicule the (gay or transgender) child who has lost that clear boundary between play-acting at home and the reality needs of the outside world,” wrote Berger, a “Scientific” Advisory Committee member of the “ex-gay” therapy group NARTH. “Maybe, in this way, the child will re-establish that necessary boundary.”
How do such “academic” ideas play out in the real world?
Ask 11-year old Tyler Wilson, a victim of such boundary enforcement. Last month bullies broke his arm because he joined his school’s cheering team. Also last month, at least six gay youth committed suicide, by way of bridge jumping, hanging, and gunshot wound. (Finally – through suicide — the Religious Right can claim success for helping gay youth “leave homosexuality”.)
The closet is also enforced for adults by roaming thugs who use violence to let LGBT people know their place. In the heavily gay neighborhood of Chelsea, a group of friends were attacked this weekend with fists and a metal garbage can, while the assailants yelled, “Go home faggots. This is our neighborhood.”
Actually, this is my neighborhood, with my apartment only one block away from where this gay bashing incident occurred.
I have also had drinks at the historic Stonewall Inn – birthplace of the modern LGBT movement and the scene of an equally horrific anti-gay hate crime this past weekend.
On a street corner where I have held hands with my partner, I now must look over my shoulder. In a bar where I once imbibed carefree, I must now be on guard. Even if the perpetrators are caught and jailed, the damage to all LGBT people is done.
Breeding such insecurity, at root, is why the Religious Right vehemently opposes efforts in schools to stop bullying. As long as no place feels completely safe, the church-inspired closet will maintain the illusion of a safe haven.
The unholy marriage of the bully and the pulpit really is all anti-gay activists have left in their arsenal to defeat the LGBT movement. No matter how many youth commit suicide or adults are gay-bashed, don’t expect our foes to give up their trump card of violence anytime soon.
If you ever want to study the actions of a coward, look no further than Rich Wyler (pictured). He is the founder of People Can Change (PCC), which hosts Journey into Manhood (JIM) weekends. This is an individual who fancies himself as a macho, he-man, and for roughly $700 he takes effeminate gay men into the woods to butch them up. He and his unqualified, touchy-feely trainers do this by sometimes getting clients naked or having them give “non-erotic” massages in his seedy “cuddle room”. ( A more appropriate name for JIM would be “Journey to Your Manhood”)
Last week, Truth Wins Out broke the story of how JIM’s senior trainer, Alan Downing, was undressing clients and making them fondle their genitals in front of a mirror — in a convoluted effort to make them straight. When the scandal broke, Wyler almost immediately took Downing’s name off of the PCC website. Yet, there is no statement or apology from Wyler. (A better name for this lucrative scam would be, “People Can Charge”)
Why no statement?
Downing was no intern – he was the group’s SENIOR TRAINER. If the therapy did not work for Downing, who the hell does it work for? Of course, it doesn’t matter if it works, the product that PCC sells is false hope. All is well in the world as long as Wyler keeps forking in the dough by manipulating confused gay men who are traumatized by years of religious abuse.
If Wyler were a real man, he’d address this scandal head on. But, no, he’s a sniveling wimp. That is why he hid for years under the pseudonym Ben Newman. Old habits are hard to break. It seems Newman/Wyler is still hiding and refuses to let his former JIM campers know about the shocking sin that took place under his nose.
We will be watching to see if Wyler will publicly admit to this huge failing that undermined his “butch-up-the-gays” program.
Contact: Wayne Besen, TWO Executive Director
Phone: 917-691-5118
E-Mail: wbesen@truthwinsout.org
Therapist Alan Downing, A Key Figure In JONAH and People Can Change, Allegedly Made Clients Get Naked And Touch Genitals
NEW YORK – Truth Wins Out (TWO) released an exclusive video statement today from two former clients of “ex-gay” life coach Alan Downing. The clients, Ben Unger and Chaim Levin, alleged that during individual therapy sessions, Downing (pictured) made them undress in front of a mirror and touch their bodies while the significantly older therapist watched. Unger and Levin call the sessions a “psychological striptease” and believe they were harmed by what they consider unprofessional behavior and sexual misconduct.
Downing, who admits he is still attracted to men, is a major player in the “ex-gay” industry and a practitioner of so-called “reparative therapy”. He is the lead therapist for Jews Offering New Alternatives to Homosexuality (JONAH) and is listed on the People Can Change website as a “Senior Trainer” for Journey into Manhood, which is a controversial “ex-gay” backwoods retreat designed to supposedly make gay men more masculine.
“These dysfunctional, unscientific programs are rife with sexual impropriety and need to be shut down,” said Truth Wins Out’s Executive Director Wayne Besen. “Too often, repressed ‘ex-gay’ quacks pretend they are trying to get into your head when they are really trying to get into your pants. They call what they do reparative therapy, but it’s more like re-perv-ative therapy.”
“He was encouraging me, ‘it’s okay Ben, you can take your shirt off’…here was a man that was much older than me, and I was around 20,” said Ben Unger, a former client of Alan Downing. “At that point, I was just staring at a mirror with my shirt off and he was right behind me staring at the mirror with me at my body. Then telling me to look at my body and feel my body. It was weird.”
“While I was standing there without my clothes on, he asked me to touch my genitals,” says former Downing client Chaim Levin. “Once again, I communicated that I was not comfortable with it. And he was like, you know, ‘just feel yourself. Just feel it for a second. So, you can grasp your masculinity physically.’”
“If you believe having a closeted gay therapist undressing clients makes one straight, than you’ll believe that playing doctor makes one a brain surgeon,” said TWO’s Besen. “The concept is both outrageous and ridiculous and these sick, exploitative practices should be abandoned immediately.”
JONAH was co-founded by Arthur Abba Goldberg, a Wall Street criminal mastermind who was convicted in 1987 of “fraud of spectacular scope”. Upon completing parole, Goldberg secretly reinvented himself as a moral leader who “cures” gay and lesbian people. Known as “Abba Dabba Do” in the financial world, Goldberg was sentenced to 18 months in jail for bilking poor communities with complicated bond schemes and served six months in prison.
“Given the sordid history of JONAH, this latest scandal is not too surprising,” said TWO’s Besen. “This is an unscrupulous organization of high moral turpitude that has few qualms about harming desperate and vulnerable clients. This group has consistently been tied to bizarre, sexually suggestive methods that are unsettling, dangerous and ineffective.”
Journey into Manhood, where Downing is a counselor, exhibits similar eyebrow raising techniques. Writer Ted Cox infiltrated this peculiar program and was surprised to find what he called, “homoerotic exercises” and a cabin that he called “The Cuddle Room” because it was a space where supposedly “ex-gay” men gave each other inappropriate massages.
“Apparently some of the guys in one cabin threw their mattresses into the middle of the room and had an all-night holding session,” said one of the men attending the Journey into Manhood session, according to Cox’s article.
“How ironic that therapists that claim to cure homosexuals keep ending up naked with their gay clients,” said TWO’s Besen. “Such lurid exploitation has moved from a disconcerting pattern to a full-blown trend and it needs to be investigated by the authorities.”
Truth Wins Out is a non-profit organization that fights religious extremism. TWO monitors anti-LGBT organizations, documents their lies and exposes their leaders as charlatans. TWO specializes in turning information into action by organizing, advocating and fighting for LGBT equality.
Once again, we get a silly little story by the media that is ostensibly objective. This time, it is from the Daily Progress, based in Charlottesville, VA. While the story appears “balanced”, it is not. It, unfortunately, gives equal footing to real science and junk science, while elevating quacks to “authorities” and “experts” on gay issues.
Since “ex-gay” programs are consumer fraud, media stories — if they are to be accurate — should be told from the perspective of the victims who were harmed. But, no, in this puff piece we got a “he said/she said” regurgitation of the issue that gave the veneer of credibility to bizarre programs that use outlandish techniques and border on possible sexual misconduct.
There is also no mention that Arthur Abba Goldberg, the formerly jailed con artist, is the brains behind People Can Change, JONAH, and Journey Into Manhood. Did the reporter fail to do his research on this obviously important piece of the puzzle?
There is also the issue of citing fake statistics that hold no relation to reality. The story parrots the following non-peer reviewed, unscientific garbage:
In 2007, People Can Change conducted a survey of 497 men who had participated in Journey Into Manhood six months to five-and-a-half years prior. Of the 224 respondents, 79 percent reported a decrease in same-sex attractions and 58 percent reported an increase in heterosexual attractions, according to survey results. Additionally, 50 percent reported an increase in heterosexual behaviors, such as dating women, and 13 percent experienced enough change to consider themselves “straight.”
About 90 percent reported feeling better about themselves, and 83 percent reported feeling more masculine.
Note to reporter Brandon Shulleeta: Before citing this B.S., why didn’t you demand to speak with a several of the alleged participants (not working for these groups) in the pseudo-study who supposedly had “changed”? From what my vast experience on this issue has taught me, most of the people who claim to have transformed are those on the payroll of “ex-gay” groups — such as as ministers and therapists.
In other words, they are “ex-gay” for pay. Brandon, you got played and rolled by the People Can Change PR team. The fact is, there just aren’t many real, live, walking, talking, “ex-gays” to interview, such as the ones who are purported to be in People Can Change’s fake study.
Do you not understand that these profit-making groups are an industry that has a stake in peddling fake statistics and inflated numbers? Dude, you essentially provided free advertising for a group that hurts people. You don’t deserve a Pulitzer – you deserve a Putz Prize for shoddy journalism.
Note to Rich Wyler: I hope you enjoyed your little PR coup with the country reporter in southern Virginia. While the spotlight can be delightful, it can also be quite harsh. I’m sure Mr. Abba Goldberg understands this concept. :)
Here is an excerpt from the article:
From his Greene County home, Rich Wyler has spent eight years organizing private weekend camps throughout the country to rid men of sexual attraction to other men.
“They don’t want us to choose our own path and to live out our lives the way we want,” Wyler said. “They want us to join the gay cause.”
Wyler, the founder of the nonprofit People Can Change, has hosted camps throughout the United States and in England, including several in the Charlottesville area. More than 1,300 men have attended.
Many participants in the Journey Into Manhood camps blame their gay feelings on childhood experiences. Some were molested. Others felt shunned by male adults or peers.
Like Wyler, most of Wyler’s volunteer staff members have fought same-sex attraction.
Some participants believe bad childhood experiences caused a disconnect with men, which sparked homosexual attractions, as a way of filling the need for male bonding.
“Every person needs to identify with their gender and connect with others from their gender, and unconsciously, a way to do that is sexually,” Wyler said.
Many scholars argue there’s little proof gay-to-straight therapy works. They say such programs can, instead, inflict deep psychological wounds.
Dr. Jack Drescher, of the American Psychiatric Association, said setting out to change others’ sexual orientation can be dangerous. When conversion camp participants fail to eliminate gay attraction, participants can conclude they are failures, or that God doesn’t love them enough, which could cause more emotional distress or suicidal thoughts, Drescher contends.
“In a way, they are screwing with people’s heads,” Drescher said. “You have to be more careful, when you’re screwing around with people’s heads or their sex lives.”
But Wyler contends that many critics are ignoring the sexual reorientations for political reasons.
If you ever want to study the actions of a coward, look no further than Rich Wyler (pictured). He is the founder of People Can Change (PCC), which hosts 
NEW YORK – Truth Wins Out (TWO) released an exclusive video statement today from two former clients of “ex-gay” life coach Alan Downing. The clients, Ben Unger and Chaim Levin, alleged that during individual therapy sessions, Downing (pictured) made them undress in front of a mirror and touch their bodies while the significantly older therapist watched. Unger and Levin call the sessions a “psychological striptease” and believe they were harmed by what they consider unprofessional behavior and sexual misconduct.
