The antigay parents group PFOX claimed today that it has won recognition of “former homosexuals” as a protected sexual orientation in a D.C. Superior Court ruling. PFOX said:

“We are gratified that the ex-gay community in Washington D.C. now has the same civil rights that gays enjoy,” said Regina Griggs, executive director of Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays & Gays (PFOX), which had filed the lawsuit against the District of Columbia government for failing to protect former homosexuals in the Nation’s Capital.

In a discrimination complaint filed by PFOX against the National Education Association (NEA) for refusing to provide public accommodations to ex-gays, the D.C. Office of Human Rights (OHR) had agreed with the NEA that sexual orientation protection did not extend to former homosexuals. “By failing to protect former homosexuals, the sexual orientation laws gave more rights to homosexuals than heterosexuals who were once gay,” said Griggs. “So PFOX asked the Court to reverse OHR’s decision, which it did. The Court held that ex-gays are a protected class under ‘sexual orientation.’”

“All sexual orientation laws and programs nationwide should now provide true diversity and equality by including former homosexuals,” said Greg Quinlan, a director of PFOX. “I have experienced more personal assaults as a former homosexual than I ever did as a gay man.”

Not so fast, Greg. The court did not reverse OHR’s decision; it ruled in June 2009 that the NEA was justified in excluding PFOX for its stridently discriminatory, antigay literature, and it chose not to reverse the decision. According to Washington City Paper:

While [Judge Maurice] Ross decided in the NEA’ favor, he also held that ex-gays do, in fact, constitute a protected group under the D.C. Human Rights Act. Judging from PFOX’ eerily celebratory press release, this is kind of a big deal for them.

According to Ross’ decision, the Human Rights Act doesn’t only protect groups defined by “immutable characteristics,” as the Office of Human Rights’ decision claimed. The Act also protects groups defined by “preference or practice” ‚Äîlike people who previously “practiced” gayness, and now “prefer” to practice heterosexuality:

OHR’ determination that a characteristic must be immutable to be protected under the HRA is clearly erroneous as a matter of law. . . . Indeed, the HRA lists numerous protected categories such as religion, personal appearance, familial status, and source of income, which are subject to change. . . . Pertaining to sexual orientation, moreover, the HRA in ¬ß2-1401.02(28) defines sexual orientation as “male or female homosexuality, heterosexuality and bisexuality, by preference or practice.” Thus, the HRA’ intent and plain language eschews narrow interpretation.

But while the NEA can’t discriminate against “ex-gays,” it may legally discriminate against exhibits that are explicitly anti-gay:

The Court affirms OHR’ ultimate determination that PFOX’ application was denied legally. In NEA’ judgment, PFOX is a conversion group hostile toward gays and lesbians. Thus, even though PFOX vehemently disagrees with NEA’ characterization, it is within NEA’ right to exclude PFOX’ presence at NEA’ conventions. . . . Indeed, the HRA would not require NEA to accept an application from the Ku Klux Klan or a group viewed by the NEA as anti-labor union or racist. . . . Similarly, military organizations and the Boy Scotts of America are excluded from renting exhibit space at the NEA Annual Meetings because of the positions those organizations take with regard to gay and lesbian rights.

. . . Thus, PFOX’ arguments miss the point. The NEA did not reject its application because PFOX’ members include exgays, homosexuals, heterosexuals, or members of any other sexual orientation. Rather, NEA rejected PFOX’ application because PFOX’ message and policies were, in NEA’ opinion, contrary to NEA’ policies regarding sexual orientation.

In other words, the D.C. Human Rights Act may protect groups who identify as “ex-gay” based on their mutable, previous and current sexual “practices” but does not — contrary to PFOX’s wishes — protect ex-gay activist groups such as PFOX that seek to use other organizations as soapboxes to spread political opinions and policies that are contrary to those of the host organization.

Unfortunately, the D.C. court has also legitimized a ludicrous claim that sexual orientation can be defined by what one isn’t, rather than what one demonstrably is.

Addendum: Given a great deal of misreporting by various blogs, I wish to reiterate:

Blame for the court’s logic regarding sexual orientation lies with the D.C. Human Rights Act (HRA), which broadly defines orientation as a matter of either “preference” or “practice.” The court observed:

While [Office of Human Rights'] analysis and the Title VII cases cited by OHR speak in terms of immutable characteristics, the HRA clearly does not limit itself only to immutable characteristics. The premise of the HRA is simple: to end all discrimination based on anything other than individual merit. Numerous protected classes listed in the HRA include mutable traits. Furthermore, the definition of sexual orientation defines an individual’ sexuality as a “preference” or “practice.” D.C. Code ¬ß2-1401.01. OHR’ analysis posits that the immutability of a person’ preferred sexual orientation categorizes them as a member of a protected class. In focusing on federal discrimination cases, however, the OHR misses the broad scope of the HRA and the explicit inclusion of the term “practice” in the HRA’ definition of sexual orientation.

If PFOX truly affirms D.C.’s Human Rights Act, then it will not only respect the NEA’s right not to host hostile and discriminatory organizations such as PFOX, but also move to hire “practicing” gay people in accord with PFOX’s claim to represent both “ex-gays” and those who “practice” homosexuality.

It remains the responsibility of the D.C. Council and mayor to reconsider language in the Human Rights Act which misdefines sexual orientation as a matter of “practice” or lack thereof.

By Wayne Besen, TWO Executive Director

There is “no evidence that sexual orientation change efforts work.” This was the American Psychological Association’ verdict on “ex-gay” therapy after an appointed task force of experts studied the issue for two years.

The conclusion did not surprise those of us who work with people who have been harmed by such programs. For example, I just interviewed Patrick McAlvey, who entered therapy to change his sexual orientation at the age of 19. His counselor, Mike Jones, is the director of Corduroy Stone, an affiliate of Exodus International.

McAlvey says that his sessions included prolonged hugs, the suggestion that he use handyman tools to increase his masculinity and questions about the size of his genitalia. There was also an episode of “holding therapy” where he reclined into the lap of his supposedly “ex-gay” counselor for an hour. The goal, according to McAlvey, was to get comfortable with his own manliness by “feeling the strength” and “smelling the smell” of another man.

What Jones and other ex-gay counselors routinely call “therapy” can seem a great deal like foreplay to the rest of us.

“I think it does a lot of damage to peoples’ mental health,” said McAlvey. “If I had had a fair representation (of gay life) I could have avoided a lot of suffering.”

Of course, such therapy and ministry programs can only exist by grossly distorting the lives of gay people. For example, in a recent radio interview, ex-gay activist Charlene Cothran claimed that gay people do not want legal equality and are really only interested in the “freedom to be a homosexual in a park with no clothes on.”

The APA deserves credit for taking ex-gay therapists to task for twisting the truth and holding them accountable for their scare tactics, such as claiming that there are no happy gay people. (Read More)

In recent weeks, Exodus International and Focus on the Family have promoted a report by Focus on the Family activist Jeff Johnston which claims that research supports the ex-gay contention that homosexuality is caused by childhood sexual abuse.

The editors of the book have released the following statement to Truth Wins Out regarding Focus’ portrayal of their publication’s research.

We want to respond to a recent Focus on the Family characterization of scientific findings reported in our book, Unequal Opportunity: Health Disparities Affecting Gay and Bisexual Men in the United States (Oxford University Press) that misrepresented findings in the book to suggest that childhood sexual abuse causes male homosexuality. The Focus on the Family description of the findings reported in Unequal Opportunity is inaccurate and, in our opinion, a distortion of the scientific literature.

Most basically, the Focus on the Family characterization of the literature on childhood sexual abuse among gay men represents a misunderstanding of scientific approaches to distinguishing between correlation and causation. The book chapter in question reports that gay men are more likely to report childhood sexual abuse by men than are heterosexual men. This correlation does not mean that the reported abuse caused the adult sexual orientation. If that were the case, then the fact that some heterosexual men report sexual abuse by women means that sexual abuse by women “causes” heterosexuality in men. It is also worth noting that the argument that childhood sexual abuse causes homosexuality in gay men is undermined by the fact that the vast majority of gay men are not sexually abused as children.

One potential partial explanation for this correlation, and one that makes the most sense when you consider people of all orientations, is that some youth, particularly post-pubertal youth (who still cannot legally consent to sexual activity) have sexual experiences with males or females, depending on their pre-existing orientation. Let’ be very clear that this does not mean that these experiences are appropriate or healthy. However, it also does not mean that these experiences caused the sexual orientation of the youth. The development of a person’ sexual orientation is a complex and multifaceted process. The research into these processes has barely begun, and the development of sexuality is very difficult to study. Mischaracterizations of the scientific literature on the development of sexual orientation is not helpful to science.

Rather than mischaracterize these findings, we would like to point out the harm to health that can be caused by childhood sexual abuse among boys and girls of all sexual orientations. Childhood sexual abuse occurs to far too many young Americans and a large and growing literature supports that this abuse can cause lifelong damage to the physical and mental health and well-being of men and women of all sexual orientations. We suggest that Focus on the Family and other concerned organizations focus on how to work to ensure that all of our children remain safe from unwanted sexual experiences– whether heterosexual or homosexual.

That said, we want to state clearly that the published research does not support the claim that the development of a homosexual orientation is caused by childhood sexual abuse. Furthermore, adult homosexual orientation is no longer considered a pathology or a maladjustment. We urge those who are interested in trying to better understand some of these complex issues from a scientific perspective to read the discussions in our book, as well as the scientific literature on childhood sexual abuse, and not rely on second-hand interpretations.

Ron Stall
Ron Valdiserri

As reported yesterday, several religious-right organizations have falsely claimed this week that the American Psychological Association has changed its position regarding the factors that influence or determine sexual orientation.

The reason for the false claim became apparent today when antigay activists Peter LaBarbera and Matt Barber cited the false claim as a reason for antigay bigots to call their senators and oppose the inclusion of sexual orientation in existing federal laws that punish felony violence against targeted groups of people.

LaBarbera’s reasoning — and perhaps that of his source, NARTH former president A. Dean Byrd — was simple: If Americans can be misled into believing that sexual orientation is readily changeable, then (they contend) there’s no reason for U.S. lawmakers to provide gay people with the same protection from felony violence that other groups already enjoy.

Instead of aiding their readers with a link to the actual federal antiviolence legislation, Senate Bill 909, LaBarbera, Barber, and the American Family Association directed readers to far-right web sites which claim that punishing antigay felony violence punishes free speech and protects pedophiles.

The notion that a single gene might determine sexual orientation was briefly proposed and swiftly rejected in the early 1990s.

That hasn’t stopped antigay activists from circulating the myth that, because numerous researchers in the past decade have found a mix of biological factors and possibly other unknown factors in the formation of sexual orientation, therefore these experts must believe in the existence of a single “gay gene.”

After spending more than a decade hearing and repeating their self-generated lies about a “gay gene,” this week several evolution-denying religious-right groups are crowing over a year-old reiteration of well-known facts by the American Psychological Association.

WorldNetDaily, LifeSiteNews, Virtue Online, and Peter LaBarbera’s Americans for Truth all parroted A. Dean Byrd of NARTH, who repeated his previous false assertions that “activist researchers” have contended anytime in the past decade that there is a gay gene.

The antigay activists (Byrd included) illogically contend that, because there is no single gene that determines sexual orientation, therefore sexual orientation is caused entirely by the environment — lousy parents, in particular — and therefore, they insist, anyone can “change” their sexual orientation with sufficient right-wing Christian brainwashing.

Not so, said the APA last year:

Many [researchers] think that nature and nurture both play complex roles; most people experience little or no sense of choice about their sexual orientation.

Byrd falsely cites three limited studies as proof that anyone can change and that ex-gay therapy causes no harm, even though at least two of the cited studies — by Dr. Robert Spitzer and Stanton Jones and Mark Yarhouse — excluded potential subjects who reported being harmed or who reported that the ex-gay program failed to change them.

Spitzer, in particular, has repudiated the mischaracterization of his study by NARTH and other ex-gay activist groups, saying that he believes change of attraction and orientation are exceedingly rare and that most people cannot “change” their orientation.

More about Dr. Robert Spitzer here at Truth Wins Out.
Hat tip: Good As You

Ex-Gay Watch points out that Exodus International, WorldNetDaily, Focus on the Family, the Traditional Values Coalition hate group, and religious-rightist Liberty Counsel all defy mainstream science — without telling their readers — and redefine sexual orientation in a fashion that associates same-sex-attracted persons with bestiality (which Exodus misspells) and necrophilia (sex with dead people).

At least, Exodus did redefine sexual orientation until Ex-Gay Watch caught them in the act. In the past two days, Exodus silently covered up its fraud.

Here are Exodus’ definitions of sexual orientation, before and after Exodus’ misconduct was exposed:

Until this week, Exodus fraudulently equated sexual orientation with what the American Psychological Association has long called “paraphilias” — not orientations.

Thirty-three years after its creation, Exodus silently changes its definition of sexual orientation. Readers of the corrected definition might mistakenly think Exodus had understood sexual orientation all along.

How is it that an organization of Exodus’ longevity, which claims to teach churches the “Truth” about sexuality, could not tell the difference between orientation — an enduring emotional, romantic, sexual, or affectional attraction toward others — and what the APA calls “recurrent, intense sexual urges, fantasies, or behaviors that involve unusual objects, activities, or situations and cause clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning”?

Why has Exodus refused to tell its churches and supporters that the organization has been lying about such basic information?

Why did Exodus omit the fact that APA policy “opposes any psychiatric treatment, such as “reparative’ or “conversion’ therapy which is based upon the assumption that homosexuality per se is a mental disorder or based upon a prior assumption that the patient should change his/her homosexual orientation.”

And why has Exodus taken no action to correct its allies’ ongoing disinformation regarding sexual orientation?

Why, exactly, does Exodus International — the world’s largest ex-gay organization — allow scientifically inept writers to make the organization’s outreach to youth appear ignorant and irrational?

And why does Exodus commit research fraud just a few months after the reparative-therapy lobbying group NARTH was publicly exposed and criticized for committing fraud with the same research?

I wondered this, again, after reading Emproph‘s latest dissection of a new Exodus Youth article that claims to educate readers about the science of sexual orientation.

Exodus cites 16-year-old research as if it were current; ignores research that has occurred since 1993; mischaracterizes studies regarding the biology of sexual orientation; and overlooks the antigay politics and discredited claims of its main source, reparative therapist Jeffrey Satinover.

Exodus also mischaracterizes the research of Dr. Lisa Diamond, who publicly discredited NARTH last year for mischaracterizing her research regarding sexual fluidity and bisexuality in the same manner.

Exodus concludes by misrepresenting the research of Dr. Robert Spitzer, who in a 2001 study found that few people appear capable of changing their sexual orientation — and that of those who claim to be successful, many remain mostly or fully same-sex-attracted despite their claim to be heterosexual.

In their prolonged search for new labels to describe themselves — and others — U.S. ex-gay activist leader Randy Thomas and British ex-gay activist Peter Ould have recently tested the term “post-gay.”

Post-gay is widely accepted as a description of a social context in which sexual orientation is sufficiently accepted that it is no longer seen as important to psychological self-definition. But ex-gays have no intention of using the phrase in that fashion.

All too often, ex-gay political activists such as Exodus International President Alan Chambers pray that an age of ordinary acceptance will never arrive — for themselves or anyone else. But as Glen Retief and Peterson Toscano explain to Peter Ould:

…However hard you may try to not notice sexual orientation, the reality of diverse patterns of sexual desire in the world–patterns noticed as far back as Plato in his Symposium–will pull your attention back to it. Sorry, but you are not “post-gay” in the slightest. To the extent it’ important to you to react differently to same-sex and opposite-sex attractions, you are in fact deeply, fundamentally, unavoidably focused on gayness vs. straightness. You are right in the middle of the thing you want to move beyond!

In other words, as some ex-gay activists become increasingly obsessed with not being gay, sexual orientation becomes ever-more central to their self-definition.

Unless one is actually bisexual, the only way to authentically become post-gay may be to accept one’s homosexuality — and then move on to more important concerns in life.

Chris Delaney, ex-gay activist and poster boy for P-FOX billboards, admitted last month to the Chattanooga Times Free Press that, as a “gay” man, he sought male affirmation — not sex.

The apparent fact that he did not experience a lifelong, predominant, and unvarying sexual attraction to men — and that he wasted his “gay” years in bars instead of pursuing constructive relationships and hobbies — hasn’t stopped Delaney from boasting for 12 years that he achieved freedom from homosexuality.

His claim is ironic. If anything, he is more deeply addicted to the subject than when he claimed to be gay.

For most of this decade, his picture has appeared on billboards to aid P-FOX in its ongoing campaign to divide families and blame parents for their children’s predominant and unchanging same-sex attraction.

In November, Delaney joined other ex-gay activists and antigay church leaders to strategize against equality and freedom in Tennessee.

And last week, Delaney revealed to OneNewsNow that he is willing to distort science and smear researchers who have discovered signs of a naturally occurring, biological predisposition to same-gender attraction. (Read More)

Exodus President Alan Chambers, Exodus Executive Vice President Randy Thomas, and disgraced evangelical Ted Haggard all claim two things in common: An egocentric evangelical faith, and the notion that molestation at an early age caused them to “battle with homosexuality.”

In an article written for the religious-rightist publication WorldNetDaily, Chambers declared today that “there are some important lessons that the church can learn from Ted Haggard.” Chambers applies his own egocentrism to a disingenuous commingling of sexual orientation with sexual trauma, resulting in an article that intentionally misinforms readers about gay people’s lives, values, and religious beliefs. Readers are expected to illogically believe that, because Chambers is an amoral victim of sexual trauma, all gay people are just like (or anything like) Alan Chambers.

Chambers surmises, “For every gay activist that shouts in the parades, I’m willing to bet that there’s someone in our congregations who painfully struggles with homosexuality, but is afraid to reach out for help. I know because I was that person.”

With this statement, Chambers stereotypes participants in gay pride events, insinuating that anyone who attends a gay pride event — parents, children, choirs, country square-dancers, rollerbladers, music-lovers, and foodies — is a stereotypical, lockstep “gay activist.” He also stereotypes people who are born with a strong predisposition to same-gender sexual orientation, falsely insinuating that — because he, Thomas, and Haggard say so — real gay people share Chambers’ own lonely, lust-plagued “gay life” that is incompatible with religious faith.

Chambers praises freedom-from-sexuality as a virtue:

While there is freedom through the power of Christ….

and then Chambers complains:

… the sad truth remains that there is still something terribly wrong in many of our congregations, something that all of the marriage protection laws and constitutional amendments cannot fix. Many of our churches are not safe places for us to be vulnerable and seek help and so many continue to suffer in silence.

Exodus is not a solution to the antigay violence and unchecked fear that plague churches: It is a cause.

All too often and all too loudly, Exodus defends murder, rape, and battery as religious “free speech” rights. Randy Thomas routinely opposes all efforts to punish hate crimes in which the victim is targeted for one’s perceived sexual orientation or gender identity, going so far as to accuse antiviolence advocates of being thought police. Meanwhile, he and Chambers offer no concrete objections to existing hate-crime laws that punish violence which targets people for their religion or ethnicity. Exodus joins with religious-rightist allies in promoting paranoia and self-pity over non-existent threats to Christian free speech, while each year hundreds of people are brutally and deliberately murdered — and thousands more are beaten and injured — because of their orientation or gender variance.

Exodus promotes the myth that gay people are promiscuous, unhappy, lonely, faithless and amoral. Instead of discussing sexuality, orientation, and mental health honestly, Exodus leaders project their own unhappiness, loneliness, childhood traumas, self-denial, and past or present sexual compulsions onto the gay population. The natural result is a marginalization of gay people within their churches, as Exodus misinforms churchgoers about gay congregants’ “struggles.” Another result is family breakup, as misinformed relatives stigmatize their gay family members.

Given Exodus’ role in making churches unsafe, it’s sad but unsurprising that Chambers’ article offers no concrete solutions to readers — except to place their blind trust not only in Exodus and its psychobabble, but also in convicted (and largely impenitent) Watergate criminal Chuck Colson, who has made a second career out of scapegoating society’s bogeymen for his own sins while curtailing religious freedom and respect toward Jewish and other non-evangelical prisoners.