Last month, in a declaration that antigay violence is a non-issue, Exodus and Focus on the Family voiced opposition to a national Day of Silence which commemorates antigay violence and seeks to establish specific school policies to reduce violence and harassment. Pro-exgay pundit Warren Throckmorton sought to compete with the Day of Silence through a Golden Rule initiative, while Exodus featured speaker Ken Hutcherson organized a antigay protest purposely intended to disrupt public-school classes at a school in Washington state where the Day of Silence was being observed by some students. Exodus and Focus supported a so-called Day of Truth three days later. The DOT was a national religious-right campaign that sought to:
Since the February killings of California gay student Lawrence King and Florida gay youth Simmie Williams, reports of antigay assaults and killings stretching from Tennessee to Illinois to New Jersey and elsewhere have been met by the ex-gay movement with ongoing silence and a refusal to act — except to silence survivors and hold rallies for bullies.
On April 25, antigay activists — among them, Exodus and Focus on the Family — sought to disrupt antiviolence vigils in schools across the country. They sponsored walkouts and demonstrations in which religious activists, parents, and bullies sought to change the topic of the day from stopping violence in schools to venting prejudices and hostility toward gay youths. They followed up their efforts to shout down antiviolence vigils with a religious-right “Day of (Un)Truth” in schools on April 28; that day was dedicated exclusively to broadcasting religious rightists’ antigay prejudices and arrogant religious judgmentalism in public schools during school hours.
Because of antigay authorities’ refusal to stop antigay violence in schools, support for Days of Silence continues to grow. Plans are afoot for Days of Silence are afoot in Russia, Poland and Slovenia — regions where U.S. antigay pastor and Exodus speaker Ken Hutcherson has fueled antigay violence through his co-leadership of the Slavic hate group called Watchmen on the Walls. (Read More)
In the United States on Friday, Exodus featured speaker and megachurch pastor Ken Hutcherson led Snoqualmie, Washington, students in a school walkout and protest against silent opponents of antigay violence. In other words, he led a student protest in defense of antigay violence, which Hutcherson himself favors.
Exodus followed up today with an endorsement for the April 28 “Day of Truth” protest which supports antigay bigotry and refuses to even acknowledge — much less discuss or oppose — antigay violence in schools.
The moral failure of Exodus and other conservative religious organizations to stand in solidarity with antiviolence advocates is fueling new initiatives in the United States and abroad. (Read More)
At least two antifamily, pro-harassment organizations — Mission: America and the American “Family” Association — continued to lobby antigay parents today to shield their teen-agers from anti-bullying messages by keeping them home from school on April 25, which has been designated an annual Day of Silence by the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network.
The Day of Silence commemorates GLBT youths who were victims of school violence and murder, by reminding classmates that violence and harassment silence GLBT youths and their families.
The boycott against freedom of speech and nonviolence in schools is co-sponsored by the ex-gay Abiding Truth Ministries, American Family Association, Americans for Truth, Concerned Women for America, Exodus Mandate, Illinois Family Institute, Indiana Voice for the Family, Liberty Counsel, Mass Resistance, Mission: America, Parents’ Rights Coalition, the ex-gay Stephen Bennett Ministries, and Exodus conference speaker Ken Hutcherson’s pro-violence group Watchmen on the Walls.
In inland California, anti-tolerance organizations hope the boycott will prove financially costly to public schools and taxpayers, as school funding is said to be determined in part by attendance. A pro-discrimination group, Capitol Research Institute, has organized a counter-event euphemistically called a “Day of Learning” for antigay parents and students that participate in the pro-harassment boycott. What exactly will participants “learn”? According to The Press-Enterprise, they will learn how to gather signatures “to repeal a state law that prevents discrimination in schools based on sexual orientation.” Meanwhile, the antigay Alliance Defense Fund has declared April 28 to be an annual day when antigay students verbally harangue gay classmates with defamatory, egotistical, and hypocritical religious messages.
GLSEN has released the following ad featuring Lance Bass to counter pro-harassment, pro-silence propaganda that is being fed to students by antigay political organizations:
Meanwhile, pro-exgay pundit Warren Throckmorton continues his campaign against the anti-bullying day. Throckmorton’s proposal creates an artificial division between the Golden Rule and explicit opposition to antigay violence and harassment. Throckmorton may view his own campaign to supply students with misinformation as a lesser evil than that of the boycotters. But, in pandering to the worst elements of the pseudo-Christian religious right, Throckmorton trivializes both Christian values and the growing problem of antigay violence and harassment in schools.
Between 1933 and 1945, approximately 50,000 gay Germans were incarcerated and as many as 10,000 were slaughtered in the concentration camps.
But that horrible fact has been declared politically inconvenient by the religious right, and so Kentucky’s General Assembly has removed mention of gay victims from a new law making additional Holocaust-education curriculum materials available to eighth-graders. (Read More)
Become ex-gay — or else: Sydney, Australia, Anglican Rev. Richard Lane once wrote to High Court Justice Michael Kirby, urging him to join an “ex-gay” ministry or face the wrath of God. Lane’s letters were publicized at a Sydney forum on religious tolerance and homosexuality. In response, Kirby accused the churchman of using intemperate language, ignoring modern discoveries about sexual orientation and missing the “central loving message of Jesus and the Gospels.” Kirby stated, “There is not a single word of Jesus that sustains the thesis of animosity in your letter.”
Kern’s double-talk: Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) released recordings of its 40-minute meeting with Oklahoma state Rep. Sally Kern, refuting Kern’s subsequent claims that she did not object to antigay discrimination and that she did not agree to meet again with the families of gay Oklahomans.
Exodus support for Kern?Video is now available of Exodus member activist Stephen Black giving his support to Oklahoma state Rep. Sally Kern and falsely claiming that most gay people are abused or badly parented. Exodus’ national office declined to affirm or condemn Black’s statements.
Door open to future antigay violence: Massachusetts antigay group MassResistance, which has been classified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, has declined to condemn violent threats made against Lexington, Mass., School Superintendent Paul Ash. Antigay parent David Parker, whose campaign against tolerance in Lexington schools has been trumpeted by Exodus, conditions his own opposition to the threats by simply saying that violence is not justified “at this time.”
Shock ‘em straight? Maybe not: Officials of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints have accepted an invitation to meet with Affirmation, a support group for gay and lesbian Mormons. Affirmation wishes to discuss the church’s historical support for ex-gay therapies including electric shock aversion therapy, which prompted some Mormons to commit suicide. (BTB)
Concern is rising about violent antigay mob violence in Jamaica — violence that has been supported by some of the island nation’s antigay Christian pastors.
As a result of authorities’ and churches’ refusal to take action against the violence, the gay-affirming Metropolitan Community Church has called for a possible tourism boycott against that island nation.
While claiming to offer compassion and a cure for homosexuality, Exodus Global Alliance — a worldwide network of ex-gay activists — has offered no public condemnation of the violence.
Indeed, the organization appears to supportcriminalization of homosexuality in the region.
Consider the following Exodus Global Alliance flier for a 2006 conference in Barbados — click the banner to view the full flier.
The Exodus-Project Probe slogan, “Some say decriminalise homosexuality …… we say lets offer solutions” (sic), markets fraudulent ex-gay therapy as an alternative to decriminalization.
Throughout recent media coverage of violence in Jamaica, Exodus Global Alliance has declined to announce an unambiguous public policy opposing antigay violence or reversing its nod to criminalization.
This should not be a tremendous surprise: The organization’s newsletters claim, in country after country, that “sexual freedom” is unilaterally harmful and must be stamped out in places as far-flung as Barbados, Brazil, China and Ethiopia — where Exodus blames sexual freedom for AIDS.
Exodus Global Alliance apparently believes that, even with proper education, people cannot be trusted to manage their own lives — that they need the harsh hand of authoritarian law to control their sexuality. And when Exodus responds to mob violence with silence, it joins Jamaica’s local police in offering a cold shoulder to gay people as mobs bash gay residents and loot their homes.
Prof. Warren Throckmorton, a prominent pro-exgay pundit, has proposed an antigay Golden Rule campaign to compete with local antiviolence advocates’ Day of Silence in various U.S. schools, scheduled for April 25. The ex-gay network Exodus subsequently provided marketing support for the campaign this week through its Exodus Youth “Voice” newsletter.
In the National Day of Silence, students pledge to remain silent for a day at school. Some may carry a card briefly calling upon classmates to actively oppose antigay bullying and thus end the silence.
Antigay industry leaders including the American Family Association have rallied antigay parents to keep their students home from school, in defense of gay-specific intolerance and in opposition to antiviolence programs which explicitly recognize gay and gender-variant victims of violence.
Throckmorton proposes what he considers a fine line that navigates between antiviolence advocates and paranoid parents. Specifically, he advises conservative Christian students to pass out cards in school that quote the Bible:
I pledge to treat others the way I want to be treated.
Will you join me in this pledge?
“Do to others as you would have them do to you.” (Luke 6:31)
But a serious analysis of Throckmorton’s campaign finds little substance: It trivializes the Golden Rule while doing nothing to stop bullying: (Read More)
Against freedom: An antigay Catholic group is upset that many Catholic universities permit freedom of speech and freedom of association among their gay-tolerant students and faculty. Styling itself as “The American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property,” the group claims that, out of 211 U.S. Catholic universities and colleges, at least 96 have pro-tolerance clubs on campus. Patrick Reilly of the Cardinal Newman Society equates tolerance of homosexual persons and their constitutional rights with promotion of homosexual activity, and he insinuates that sexual honesty is incompatible with “students’ moral formation.” Focus on the Family appears sympathetic to both Catholic antigay groups. (Focus)
Freedom from crime a “special right”: In its ongoing war against young victims of violence, the antigay American Family Association of Michigan has targeted state Sen. Valde Garcia, a Republican, for his support of legislation to protect students from bullying. Gary Glenn of AFA/M asserts that protection from bullying amounts to “special rights” if youths’ specific at-risk demographics are acknowledged. But Garcia says he had already threatened to withdraw his sponsorship of the legislation unless a list of protected demographics was removed. However, Garcia then contradicted himself — admitting he would hypothetically support legislation granting explicit anti-crime protections if they were limited to seniors, children and police. According to Sean Kosofsky of The Triangle Foundation, “If it’s not specific, it [anti-bullying legislation] will end up having little impact.” Kosofsky added, “There’s nothing gay about this bill whatsoever. It protects all students.” (Daily Press & Argus)
Gay genetics study: ABC News oversimplifies research into ties between genetics and homosexuality by falsely suggesting up-front that researchers seek a single gene that might explain sexual orientation. That’s not the case. According to the fine print in ABC’s own news story, the hypothesis is more complex:
Dr. Alan Sanders, a psychiatric geneticist at Northwestern Healthcare Research Institute, is currently heading the biggest study ever undertaken on sexual orientation. He’s looking at the genetic makeup of more than 700 sets of gay brothers.
“I think the evidence is pretty convincing already that a substantial contribution to sexual orientation comes from genetics,” he said. “It’s probably the single biggest factor that we know about.”
FRC apologizes: Peter Sprigg of the Family Research Council apologizes for suggesting that America export its gay citizens in lieu of granting legal immigration to their foreign partners. (FRC Blog)
Kern meets with PFLAG: Oklahoma state Rep. Sally Kern still says equality for gay people is a bigger threat to America than terrorists — and further calls her opinion “Biblical.” But she has also met with members of the Oklahoma City chapter of Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays, and stated that she opposes discrimination against gays in the workplace. That should infuriate Concerned Women for America, which defended Kern’s terror talk as something that “reasonable people can debate.” Earlier, Kern debated a gay Christian pastor on KFOR-TV. (Queerty, PageOneQ, Good As You)
Seattle Post-Intelligencer columnist Robert L. Jamieson Jr. visited Exodus speaker Ken Hutcherson at his Seattle-area megachurch recently and today offered observations about Hutcherson’s betrayal of his own victory over discrimination — and Hutcherson’s exploitation of “ex-gays”. (Read More)
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