QueerEd, the LGBTQ Student group at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education, in partnership with the Humanist Graduate Community at Harvard, hosts Ted Cox for his talk, ”What I Learned at Straight Camp”, a humorous and moving examination of gay-to-straight conversion programs.

Ted Cox is a journalist who went undercover to three “therapy” programs geared toward turning homosexual men and women toward a straight lifestyle. As a non-religious man who grew up in the Mormon church, he was interested in “ex-gay” programs as intersections of “religion, subculture, sex, and equal rights.”

Cox has used this experience to develop a lecture that sheds light on the experiences of people who try to change their sexual orientation, and the people who are compelled to change them.

Forthwith, the remaining open tabs in my browser:

1.  Brian at Right Wing Watch points us to the new, garbled, illogical pamphlet from hate group leader Peter Sprigg on the Top Ten Harms of Same-Sex Marriage.  You haven’t become accustomed to thoughtful consideration or intelligence from the Family Research Council and that certainly won’t change today, because they’re still morons.

2.  How do anti-gay forces like the NOM leaders sleep at night?  Towleroad has a heartbreaking story and testimony from a lesbian couple in Rhode Island, one of whom is terminally ill, and who, because of that, have become accidental activists in the fight for marriage equality in that state.

3.  Since anti-gay wingnuts are also anti-choice/anti-woman wingnuts, PZ Myers has one for you.  In Nebraska, a woman was forced to give birth to a baby that they knew would not develop lungs, because her water broke very early in the pregnancy.  These are the kinds of situations that George Tiller specialized in.  The worst, most painful kind.  Because of the misogynistic bastards who pushed through a draconian anti-abortion law in Nebraska, that woman had to carry the pregnancy to term, watch her baby attempt to take one breath, and then die.  Thanks, fundamentalist Christians!  You really help out with things.

4.  Want to go to Mormon Heaven?  Ted Cox will show you how.  Hint:  there are secret handshakes involved!

Music coming up in a few.

(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

I suppose we’ll see whether ABC commits an act of journalism tonight when they profile the laughably weird Journey into Manhood camps, which were notably exposed a while back when journalist Ted Cox went in undercover as an attendee and, as a straight man, experienced what it’s like when a camp counselor  jams his boner into your back.  As it usually goes with these mainstream media reports, sometimes they’re good, and sometimes they’re awful, beholden as the corporate media is to presenting “both sides” of issues, even when there aren’t two valid “opposing sides.” Here’s ABC’s intro:

When Preston met up with a bunch of his friends in New Caney, Texas, for a guys’ weekend at a secluded camp, it wasn’t for hunting or fishing. These men traveled here to attend emotional counseling sessions to cope with unwanted sexual attraction towards other men.

“To be able to connect from one man to another, with no facade, with no you know nothing holding back, it’s just amazing,” said Preston, a 28-year-old from outside of Salt Lake City, Utah. He requested only his first name be used.

The retreat called “Journey to Manhood” offers therapeutic peer counseling over 48 hours to help men like Preston, who voluntarily come to learn how to deal with what they call “same-sex attractions.” For the first time ever, the retreat allowed cameras inside their controversial organization and ABC News was granted exclusive access.

Nightline airs at 11:35/10:35 PM Central.

This is probably the most hilarious thing I’ve ever read from a wingnut making baseless claims about people changing their sexual orientation. Responding to Valerie Jarrett’s poorly chosen words about gay people’s “lifestyle choices,” wingnut Bob Ellis writes:

Yes, what [Jarrett] meant to say was this: “I know that homosexuals are slaves to their lusts and are incapable of allowing their minds or their wills to supersede their desires. Everyone knows that, unlike the alcoholic who can stop drinking or the gambler who can stop gambling, homosexuals are ‘born that way’ and are incapable of free will when it comes to sexual behavior.”

This is what homosexual activists and their “useful idiots” claim to believe, even though countless homosexuals have for thousands of years been leaving the homosexual lifestyle behind.

WOW! I had no idea Richard Cohen was beating pillow with tennis rackets thousands of years ago! Moreover, I bet the Journey into Manhood camps in ancient Greece were even hotter than they are now, what with the little toga things all the guys wore. It’s probably a whole different experience having an “ex-gay” counselor press his boner into your back when he’s dressed in such thin linens!

By the way, in the original piece, Ellis links the word “countless” to a story about 1 [one] guy in the UK who claims he has changed his sexual orientation, but as usual, nobody really knows what gets him sexually aroused but him. For “thousands of years,” he links to a Bible verse which didn’t even include the word “homosexual” in its original text, and for which the word “homosexual” is not only a poor translation, not only a lazy translation, but also just flat wrong. For the word “leaving,” he links to some crap about NARTH, which is funny since one of the “main brains” behind the operation was recently caught coming back from Europe with a male escort, having had his luggage lifted thoroughly whilst on vacation. Etc.

You get the idea. The links are all echo chamber crap which only seems credible to the stupid or easily led.

(Weekly Column)

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.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Monday, July 19, 2010

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.

Ted Cox went undercover into the ex-gay industry for a solid year.

As part of his investigation he attended the secretive retreat, Journey into Manhood (JiM). This experience included getting another man’s erection shoved into his back – in the guise of therapy. By the way, Ted is straight, so kudos for his having to put up with such nonsense. Here is what he also had to say:

While the ex-gay movement has publicly declared that they can bring “freedom from homosexuality,” there’ no evidence that someone can change his or her orientation through these religiously motivated programs. Rather than turning straight, the men and women that I met throughout this project dealt with a cycle of repression, backsliding into sin, then shame, guilt, and repentance. These programs collect hundreds of thousands of dollars each year on a promise they can’t deliver.

These programs are dangerous. Ex-gay watchdog groups document the stories of men who, after years of failed attempts to become straight, resort to suicide. Later I’ll introduce you to Eric, a fellow JiM attendee who would hook up with men on Craigslist and then go home to his unsuspecting wife. For many men in ex-gay programs, often their wives, friends, family, and church members have no idea they struggle with SSA.

What I saw and experienced at JiM both enraged and disturbed me. I had trouble staying in character as I watched one man, as part of his therapy, act out beating his father to death with a baseball bat ‚Äî just one of several “Are you kidding?” moments. How anyone could believe that a JiM weekend could turn a man straight still baffles me.

Make sure you follow the entire series.

Journalist Ted Cox went undercover to explore Journey into Manhood (some call it Journey into ManHunt), a campy “ex-gay” camp that practices bizarre techniques and traffics in outdated stereotypes.

This creepy program sends gay men off into the woods, for a hefty fee, to become more macho (group picture left) and to share each other’s pain. Of course, much of the heartache and suffering is caused by anti-gay teachings, but they won’t tell you this obvious fact as your roast weenies by the candlelight, uh, I mean campfire.

Cox posed as a gay man for two years and attended weekly meetings for several months at two churches in California and a two-day camp at a ranch in northern Arizona in February. Alternet interviews Cox about his experience in these “pray away the gay” programs.

Needless to say, these groups never return the money when the program fails – which it inevitably does. This is why I define “ex-gay” groups as consumer fraud.