Rep. Michele Bachmann’s Wednesday announcement that she is ending her White House bid comes as no surprise. While the Minnesota congresswoman was one of the first GOP candidates to experience a surge in the polls last summer as the party’s base searched frantically for a conservative alternative to Mitt Romney (she even won the Iowa straw poll in August), her campaign had been dogged by a series of high-profile missteps.

They included: suggesting that cervical cancer vaccines cause “mental retardation,” pledging to close the non-existent American embassy in Tehran, reassigning the location of the “shot heard ‘round the world” to New Hampshire rather than Massachusetts, and confusing movie star John Wayne with serial killer John Wayne Gacy.

The withering heat of the presidential vetting process also yielded an embarrassing and disturbing revelation about Bachmann: The “Christian counseling” clinic that she co-owns with her husband, Marcus, offers so-called “ex-gay therapy” that purports to turn clients from gay to straight.

The Bachmanns had long denied that their clinic endorsed this form of “therapy,” which has no basis in research, inflicts substantial harm to patients who are falsely told they can “pray away the gay,” and is denounced by every mainstream professional medical and mental health organization. However, working for the LGBT rights group Truth Wins Out and at the behest of founder Wayne Besen, I conducted an undercover, hidden-camera investigation last summer that provided incontrovertible proof of reparative therapy taking place at Bachmann & Associates.

TWO’s investigation disrupted the momentum of Rep. Bachmann’s campaign, highlighting the congresswoman’s virulently anti-LGBT views and the extent to which those views are out of step with those of most Americans. It helped to define the public perception of Michele and Marcus Bachmann as religious extremists, drew attention to her long legislative record of anti-LGBT bigotry, and made it more difficult for her to recast herself as a mainstream presidential candidate.

Equally important, it cast a glaring spotlight on ex-gay therapy and helped reinvigorate the ongoing national conversation around this issue.

However, we shouldn’t kid ourselves into thinking that today’s announcement will mean we’ve heard the last from Michele Bachmann. She will return to Congress, where she will undoubtedly remain a forceful opponent of any and all efforts to advance LGBT equality. Bowing out of the presidential race allows Bachmann to focus her time and effort on her upcoming congressional re-election campaign in Minnesota, where it’s probable that she’ll lend her now-amplified voice to the effort to pass a proposed constitutional amendment banning any recognition of same-sex marriages or civil unions in that state. And Rep. Bachmann will most likely intensify her homophobia now that she no longer has to concern herself with attempting to appear presidential.

Finally, let’s not forget that the field of remaining presidential candidates is littered with homophobes, including a now-surging Rick Santorum, who most recently stated that his administration would attempt to forcibly divorce legally married same-sex couples.

So while the end of Michele Bachmann’s presidential campaign is undoubtedly a positive development for America’s LGBT community, it’s definitely not cause for complacency. To the contrary, our efforts to protect and expand upon the victories we’ve achieved must intensify, because in this election year, our opponents are just getting started.

Note: this op-ed was written for, and initially appeared at, the Advocate.
Screen shot: Andy Towle

It seems millions of people and most major media now want an answer to our question:  Did Tracy Morgan really say all those awful, hateful anti-gay things at his show in Nashville on June 3?

The Washington Post:

“30 Rock” actor Tracy Morgan has been accused of making anti-gay comments at a recent comedy show in Nashville.

Kevin Rogers, who said he attended the comedian’s June 3 show at Ryman Auditorium, detailed the alleged statements in a Facebook note, “Why I No Longer ‘Like’ Tracy Morgan.” Rogers claims that Morgan said being gay is a choice because “God don’t make no mistakes” and that lesbians are “just pretending.”

[...]

The Ryman Auditorium responded in a statement, saying the theater “regrets that people were offended by statements” Morgan made, adding that it “does not control the content presented by people appearing on its stage, nor does it endorse any of the views of, or statements made by, such persons.” Morgan’s rep issued a statement saying, “There is no comment. Thank you.”

Truth Wins Out, a non-profit that “fights anti-gay religious extremism,” according to its Web site, has called on Morgan to respond .

The Advocate delves a little bit deeper into the chosen venue for this alleged rant — Tennessee. Wayne and I spoke with them this morning:

Morgan’s publicist has so far not returned email or phone messages from The Advocate. Truth Wins Out had the same experience, and it’s using its website to demand an explanation.

“No comment is not acceptable,” said Wayne Besen, the group’s founder. “If someone had accused me of making such remarks in a presentation, I would drop everything I was doing to clarify it. To try and sweep it under a carpet and pretend it doesn’t exist is offensive in itself.”

[...]

Evan Hurst, the group’s social media director, is from Tennessee and knows Rogers from his work with the Tennessee Equality Project, and that relationship gave him enough confidence in the account to warrant attention.

“We are pretty thick-skinned around here because you have to be,” Hurst said of Tennesseans, who have endured a recent spate of antigay legislation. “And for the number of people who were going, ‘I am genuinely offended by this, this is hurtful, and this is meant to hurt,’ I think we are looking at something different here.”

I’m so Southern, even in interviews.

I’ll be updating this post frequently, as I find more and more places covering it.  Here are a few others who have picked it up:

The Hollywood Reporter

The Hollywood Gossip

Business Insider

BlackBook

Jezebel

Plus, I found a hilariously titled article from The Tennessean two days before Tracy’s Nashville show.  The headline? What Will Tracy Morgan Say Next?

More to come…

What I wrote in today’s Advocate:

If a con artist were selling Florida swampland to vulnerable senior citizens, would the media give a sympathetic portrayal of the swindler? If a doctor were selling bogus cancer cures to desperate patients, would a television show try to help the quack by offering an image makeover?

Of course not.

Unfortunately, when it comes to coverage of the “ex-gay” issue, reporters routinely minimize the experiences of the “ex-gay” industry’s victims and provide kindhearted depictions of the cruel and fraudulent victimizers.

The most recent example of such incompetent reporting came from the Oprah Winfrey Network’s Lisa Ling, who produced a segment called “Pray the Gay Away?” for Our America With Lisa Ling. In her zest to appear “balanced,” Ling forfeited the higher journalistic value of accuracy. By doing so, the reporter inadvertently made an infomercial for the “ex-gay” group Exodus International, essentially slapping this group’s many victims in their faces.

Alan Chambers, the president of Exodus, was so happy with the puff piece that he euphorically gushed about Ling on his group’s blog.

“I would like to extend my thanks to Lisa Ling for the courtesy, sensitivity and respect she demonstrated during our interviews and the filming at our 35th annual conference,” wrote Chambers.

Several weeks prior to the airing of this show, I personally offered to fact-check Ling’s segment. She declined by saying that there was nothing to worry about because she had gay friends.

The truth is, Ling had an agenda ­ and not one that was necessarily antigay. What the reporter wanted to do was humanize a group of activists dedicated to dehumanizing LGBT people in an effort to soothe the sensitivities of religious viewers. To accomplish this, Ling had to whitewash the facts and sweep the devastation caused by Exodus under the rug. Better to produce a tearjerker for Oprah than shine a spotlight on the antigay jerks causing tears for their victims.

READ THE ENTIRE STORY HERE

The short answer is “no”. But, we can move on.

I’m not a big fan of the modern concept of forgiveness in that it implies that the slate is wiped clean and everyone acts like they have amnesia and the past never happened. Of course, we are all a product of the past and it actually did happen with consequences that still reverberate.

Contemporary “forgiveness” also lends itself to a syrupy phoniness and opportunistic reinvention that I want no part of.  That is why it is so popular among socially conservative evangelical churches. Those places are often packed with people who made a hash of their lives and hope that if they get new hairdos, quote an ancient book, and throw money into a hat they will be redeemed.

Well, the trouble and tears left behind won’t be easily cleaned up by pious professions of faith.

In the case of Ted Haggard — he spent his entire life promoting the worst face of Christianity and clubbing around with politicians determined to harm LGBT families. He was the ultimate hypocrite who was a lot more intolerant than his current efforts to spin the past lets on. He wasn’t only against gay and lesbian people, but quite hostile to anyone who held different beliefs in his effort to turn Colorado Springs into a fundamentalist Christian paradise. These facts simply can’t be conveniently forgotten — because we are still fighting tooth and nail with the forces he helped elevate to positions of power and influence.

That said, if people legitimately want to become better human beings, they ought to be given the opportunity. Ted Haggard — out of necessity and survival — has created a new project, the St. James Church. It is a somewhat inclusive church (it is still against marriage equality, but for civil unions).

I say we neither viciously condemn nor wholeheartedly embrace Haggard. Let him live his live in peace and prove through his actions that he has changed. While the past will never disappear, Haggard has time to do good work and create an overall legacy that he can one day be proud of. Although he is a man of smooth words — it is his actions over a period of time that are worth watching.

While we should not entirely “forgive” — there is also no point of holding a grudge and living in the past. In the case of Haggard, we should keep one eye on the past and one on the future. If only, because there are bigger fish to fry.

I’m curious what our readers think.

Read the full story by Andrew Harmon in The Advocate magazine. It is a really well-written piece and worth the read.

At Truth Wins Out, we were on the ground protesting long before it was cool.

So, it is with great delight that Get Equal has embraced direct action and vindicated many of our efforts that received undo criticism in stuffier circles.

The bottom line is that no one will give us our rights. We must take them. There is no time to be complacent and expect good things to happen. Paul Yandura, Donald Hitchcock, philanthropist Jonathan Lewis, Kip Williams and Robin McGehee all deserve a lot of credit for their work.

Those who have been arrested, such as Dan Choi, have placed themselves on the line to put a spotlight on our issues. For this, our community should be grateful. I know that I certainly am.

There have been some complaints about Get Equal’s tactics and strategy. But, to tell you the truth, we’ve been strategized to a point of inertia by all the geniuses and smarty pants in DC.

Sometimes, it takes people just getting off their asses and making things happen. Rocking the boat. Shaking up the status quo. Get Equal has accomplished this and propelled our movement forward in the process. They have created genuine pressure, which has benefited the LGBT movement. And, quite frankly, the immediacy of the moment they have fostered is also good strategy.

Recently, I attended a Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell protest in front of the White House. It was an inspiring event. I am so proud of these young activists who are remarkably intelligent and articulate.

Here is an excerpt from The Advocate written by Kerry Eleveld and Andrew Harmon:

…GetEqual appears to have sprung up from nowhere and arrived with haste, the group is an amalgamation of grassroots passion, Beltway savvy, and well-heeled support. Conceived out of a desire to revive the legacy of civil disobedience as exemplified by the civil rights movement and the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP), the group has both directed and inspired a spate of protests by activists nationwide. Its members have taken on the Fred Phelps “God Hates Fags” clan, disrupted congressional committee meetings, and heckled President Barack Obama at Democratic fund-raisers, as Kip Williams, who founded the group with McGehee, did last week, leading to his second arrest since GetEqual’ founding.

Read the rest. It is a well written feature story.

Note to Get Equal: Keep the pressure coming. You are making our jobs as activists much easier. Thank you.

The lead sponsor of Uganda’ controversial Anti-Homosexuality Bill, David Bahati, (pictured) was reportedly disinvited today from The National Prayer Breakfast, which is scheduled for February 4, in Washington, DC. According to The Advocate Magazine, Ambassador Richard Swett, a breakfast spokesperson, distanced the group that hosts the event, The Family, from Bahati and the “Kill the Gays” bill in Uganda.

“The National Prayer Breakfast is an organization that builds bridges of understanding between all peoples, religions and beliefs and has never advocated the sentiments expressed in Mr. Bahati’ legislation,” said Ambassador Swett.

This statement is not only astonishing, but it is inaccurate and dishonest. The Family is intimately tied and directly connected to the politicians who sponsored Uganda’ Anti-Homosexuality bill. As a result of negative publicity, The Family is covering its rear-end and scurrying away as fast as it can. However, it is completely outrageous, totally insincere and remarkably deceitful for The Family to deny the crucial role it played in the introduction of the “Kill the Gays’ legislation.

On November 24, 2009, Terry Gross, host of National Public Radio’ Fresh Air, interviewed Jeff Sharlet, the author of “The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power.” In the interview, Sharlet identified Uganda’ dictator, President Yoweri Museveni, as one of The Family’ “key men” in Africa. He also linked Bahati directly to The Family.

“David Bahati, the man behind this legislation, is really deeply, deeply involved in The Family’s work in Uganda, that the ethics minister of Uganda, Museveni’s kind of right-hand man, a guy named Nsaba Buturo, is also helping to organize The Family’s National Prayer Breakfast,” Sharlet revealed to Gross on Fresh Air. “And here’s a guy who has been the main force for this Anti-Homosexuality Act in Uganda’s executive office and has been very vocal about what he’s doing, in a rather extreme and hateful way. But these guys are not so much under the influence of The Family. They are, in Uganda, The Family.”

The linkage and direct connection is incontrovertible. Swett’s only comeback against such damning evidence might be that the actual National Prayer Breakfast does not promote death bills. Well, maybe not on-stage, but backstage is where this creepy organization recruits it’s “key men”.

Along with eggs and bacon, The Family is serving up extremism at The National Prayer Breakfast – even if the dirty work is done behind the scenes. This is not a benign organization and they have displayed atrocious judgment in selecting “key men” across the globe. The people they have held up as “moral’ have turned out to be monsters and it is time they apologize for the damage they have inflicted on innocent people.”

On February 2, respected religious leaders will hold a press conference to announce the formation of The American Prayer Hour, a multi-city event on February 4, 2010, with primary events in Washington, DC, Dallas, Chicago and Berkeley. Please consider attending one of these events, or hosting your own American Prayer Hour in your town.

An anti-choice group called Live Action* has debuted a new magazine. What are they calling it?

The Advocate.

Really.

Goodness. Don’t these people ever do the slightest bit of research on anything?

Haha, just kidding, research involves facts, and and the anti-choice movement doesn’t use facts!

*Live Action is a particularly insipid and dishonest group, even by the standards of the anti-choice movement, but that’s not my department, or at least it’s not at the moment, but if you’re interested in learning more about this group of geniuses who have named their fetus porn rag after one of the largest LGBT publications in the world, head on over to RH Reality Check.

Earlier in the week, we reported on the harm done by “fondle therapy” and a renegade Exodus ministry in Michigan (at least until this week) that practiced the bizarre technique.

Today, TWO’s Michael Airhart wrote about another strain of “ex-gay” ideology, “death therapy” that is being prompted by British anti-gay activist Stehpen Green. The theory is that if you kill homosexuals, there will be no more homosexuality. Although macabre, it actually works if your not squeamish about mass murder, squashing freedom and state sponsored persecution.

The latest form of ex-gay ideology to emerge is “hooker therapy.”

The Advocate reports today that an Australian father who is accused of forcing his teenage son to have sex with a prostitute — out of fear that he was gay — may face rape charges.

As the rest of the family celebrated Christmas 2007, the father allegedly took his son to a motel in North Rockhampton, where he paid the ho to have sex with his son, according to The Morning Bulletin, a newspaper in Rockhampton. He left the room, demanding that the boy show him a used condom as proof he finished with the prostitute.

A magistrate decided on Tuesday that there was enough evidence to bring the father to trial.

“First [he] didn’t want to say anything to me,” the boy’s mother testified. “Then he told me his father took him to a motel room and there was a prostitute there. He wouldn’t talk, he just started crying.”

Detective sergeant Christine Knapp said police first became aware of the situation when the father tried to report his son to authorities six months later, in May 2008, saying the boy was abusing his younger brother. The father said he “tried to sort it out himself by taking his son to a prostitute” to no avail.

Of course, the official “ex-gay” groups will deny any connection with this incident – and technically they would be correct. However, the discredited idea that one can change from gay-to-straight, if they just try hard enough, keeps mutating into perverse progeny. We saw this insanity with the Anti-Homosexuality Bill in Uganda and now we see it with “ho therapy”.

Attempts to convert gay people rarely have a happy ending – unless one counts those on the payroll of so-called “ex-gay” organizations. However, it is difficult to deny that the noxious notion of “ex-gay” has led to distress, dysfunction and disaster in manifold forms.

Hooker therapy appears is the latest incarnation of the insanity that has blossomed under the rubric of “ex-gay”.

A agree with Mike Airhart that The Advocate piece was a nightmare that glosses over the issues. I also think they mischaracterized the state of the “ex-gay” movement and were factually wrong on many fronts. Not to mention the reporter needs to get a hold of his emotions and not suck up to ex-gays who think he is “perverse” and “sexually broken.” The failure of this article was a shame because the Advocate magazine has traditionally done a terrific job covering this issue. I have confidence they will get it right in the future. Here is a summary of my beefs:

The article: “Exodus encompasses more than 120 ministries in the United States and Canada.”

The Facts: Exodus claims a 59 percent increase in its member agencies, growing from 117 in 2003 to more than 200 in 2008. (although Exodus is prone to exaggeration)

The article: “A growing chorus of such stories, it’ shaken up the usual talk-show paradigm.”

The Facts: Could anything be further from the truth? Telling the story of survivors is not a new phenomenon. Anyone who thinks it is, simply has not been out of the closet very long, spinning the issue or is ill informed.

In the 1990s, there was a key ex-gay survivor group that I worked with in Washington, Dos Equis, that provided me survivors. These courageous individuals were telling their stories in national media while some of today’s leading survivors were sill in ex-gay groups, essentially paying the salaries of Exodus’ leaders. Before this, the documentary “One Nation Under God” told the story of survivors, including John Evans and Mike Bussee. And, Sylvia Pennington articulated their struggles in the book, “Ex-Gays? There Are None?”

While at the Human Rights Campaign, I held several press conferences, beginning in 1998, with ex-gay survivors. These included high profile events at Washington’ famed National Press Club. During this time period, I booked survivors on major talk shows and had their stories told in national media. In 2000, under my direction, HRC produced a groundbreaking publication, “Finally Free” that introduced America to 14 ex-gay survivors.

While I appreciate and greatly admire the current work of our newer survivors, to take sole credit for a survivors movement is unfounded and historical revisionism. Indeed, today, TWO (and BoxTurtleBulletin) are also leaders in this arena — and this is reflected by the cutting-edge videos that fill our website.

The article: The article referred to me as an ex-ex-gay.

The facts: I was never an ex-gay and I appreciate the Advocate correcting this error.
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