Box Turtle Bulletin

Peter LaBarbera Joins Stephen Bennett In Ex-Gay Cat Fight

Battle lines are being drawn in the ex-gay cat fight. In one corner, we have Exodus International president Alan Chambers, who questioned the ex-gay party line when he said, “By no means would we ever say change can be sudden or complete.”

In the other corner, we have Stephen Bennett, who demands that Alan Chambers clarify his remarks.. Bennett is now joined by Peter LaBarbera, who calls Alan to task for straying from doctrinal purity [Emphasis LaBarbera’s]:

There are many people – perhaps due to the “weirdness” of homosexuality (after all, this is a lifestyle whose advocates now proudly embrace the moniker “queer”) – who would have us focus incessantly on the “cause” of homosexuality and the “feelings” of homosexuals. They have come to sympathize with people caught up in homosexuality’s embrace in a way that drives them to become de facto apologists for “gayness” – more suspicious of pro-family groups engaged in the uphill fight against homosexual activism than they are of the homosexual activists themselves. (I would put Grove City College psychology professor Dr. Warren Throckmorton, who has emerged as a “Switzerland” of sorts in the culture war over homosexuality, in that camp.)

…But the far more important issue for people trapped in this sin, and especially for our nation’s youth, is that this destructive sinful behavior can be changed and must never be defended by anyone who claims allegiance to a holy, Almighty God. We know Alan Chambers would never do that, but by stepping into this semantic morass and publicly denying “complete change” for practicing homosexuals – in the face of wonderful Christian testimonies like Steve Bennett’s and Dennis Jernigan’s – he inadvertently helped a “gay” lobby that is obsessed with defending the indefensible.

Truth is, despite his good intentions, the “gay” activists will never be Alan’s friend unless he abandons God’s moral law and throws up a rainbow flag in complete surrender.

LaBarbera is being his usual hyperventilating self. I don’t expect Alan to throw up a rainbow flag anytime soon. But this does go to show how quickly some anti-gay extremists will turn and eat their own whenever they see their unquestionable assumptions challenged.

As Alan is finding out, culture wars demand absolute fealty to the party line. Anything less, and you risk lending comfort to a “decidedly evil movement.” Either that, or you become Switzerland, which I hear is quite lovely this time of year.

See also:

Stephen Bennett: Say It Isn’t So!
Stephen Bennett: Alan Chamber’s Got Some Explainin’ To Do
Peter LaBarbera Joins Stephen Bennett In Ex-Gay Cat Fight

Beyond Ex-Gay Asks Exodus Out To Dinner

Peterson Toscano and Christine Bakke, cofounders of Beyond Ex-Gay, point out that an important question is being overlooked in the current ex-gay cat fight: What harms come from pursuing change?

Beyond Ex-Gay, along with Soul Force and the LGBT Resource Center, will be sponsoring the Ex-Gay Survivor’s Conference June 29 to July 1 in Irvine, California, to coincide with the Exodus Freedom Conference taking place just down the road at the same time. Peterson and Christine have issued an invitation to Exodus leaders to attend a small private dinner, without the press and with no recording or filming, to talk about some of the experiences of those who left the movement:

Too often once we leave your programs, you never hear about our lives and what happens to us. Most ministries do not have aftercare programs or any formal means to follow-up on participants. Some stories you do not get to hear… The purpose of the dinner is to give you an opportunity to hear our stories. We do not wish to bash you, attack you or shame you. We simply desire to share our stories with you.

Dream or a dud? We’ll have to wait and see.

New York Assembly Approves Gay Marriage

The New York Assembly approved a bill authorizing same sex marriage Tuesday by a vote of 85-61. The vote is considered largely symbolic because observers believe it has very little chance of passing the Republican-led Senate. This is the first time the Assembly has voted on gay marriage.

Stephen Bennett: Alan Chamber’s Got Some Explainin’ To Do

It looks like Stephen Bennett has gotten over his initial disbelief on discovering that Alan Chambers told the Los Angeles Times that he doesn’t like the term “ex-gay” and that “by no means would we ever say change can be sudden or complete.”

Bennett’s first response was to wail, “I have to say with every breath of my being, I believe Alan COULDN’T have said the things the LA Times claimed he did.” But now it looks like reality is closing in on him, and his shock has turned to anger.

Bennett released an exceptionally long press release, in which he “condemned the irresponsible and disturbing remarks attributed to and made by Alan Chambers.”:

Bennett, along with many others pro-family leaders, were shaken Monday by Chamber’s remarks and are eagerly awaiting Exodus International’s official response to their President’s misguided statements.

…Stephen continued, “What we see here is the public divide of the pro-family movement. One camp believes ‘dialoguing’ with homosexual advocates and activists will bring about a happy middle ground and compromise for all. That, I’m afraid, will NEVER happen. You see, ‘compromise’ is not in God’s dictionary — and of course homosexual activists are loathe to compromise on their core beliefs. The other pro-family camp biblically believes homosexuality is, was and always be a sinful lifestyle that individuals were not born with, yet a lifestyle they CAN experience COMPLETE freedom from. I am in that camp. I don’t believe in encouraging a dysfunctional, dangerous and potentially deadly lifestyle, but COMPLETE liberation from it.”

I’m predicting a very entertaining cat fight coming on.

But in all seriousness, I’m encouraged by Alan’s bravery in making these statements. When I was writing my series of posts about Love Won Out, I left off at Part Four last April, leaving everyone hanging about Alan’s candid talk. I haven’t been able to finish writing Part Five, partly because I wasn’t sure how Alan’s words at that conference could possible fit in the larger picture. With these recent events, I’m glad I hesitated because Alan is now beginning to say publicly some of the things he’s previously confined to a “safe” Evangelical audience.

I think a very interesting picture may be starting to emerge. It’s still not one that I’m at all prepared to endorse. We are many miles apart on so many issues — particularly where Exodus’s political activism is concerned. And truthfully, I think we probably always will be. As I illustrated earlier today, he’s not exactly becoming an ally.

And so it will be interesting to see if this is the beginning of a new evolving message. And if it is, what role will that message fill alongside Exodus’s ongoing political activities? It will also be interesting to see if Focus on the Family and other ex-gay groups pick up on any of these messages. Nuance (yes, I’m using the term loosely) hasn’t been their strong suit.

Stephen Bennett’s broadside brings a movement to an interesting crossroads. The question now is who will epitomize the future of the ex-gay movement? Chambers? Or someone like Bennett? The choice couldn’t be more stark.

Hat tip: Scott.

See also:

Stephen Bennett: Say It Isn’t So!
Stephen Bennett: Alan Chamber’s Got Some Explainin’ To Do
Peter LaBarbera Joins Stephen Bennett In Ex-Gay Cat Fight

Stephen Bennett: Say It Isn’t So!

Stephen Bennett, of the eponymous Stephen Bennett Ministries, is shocked — shocked! — that Alan Chambers could have told the Los Angeles Times that biology may play a role in homosexuality, and therefore “by no means would we ever say change can be sudden or complete.”

Bennett cries “foul!” and rushes to Alan’s defense:

I have to say with every breath of my being, I believe Alan COULDN’T have said the things the LA Times claimed he did.

I would be shocked if he did.

…Our prayers are with Alan and Exodus during this time, and I hope someone will publicly respond to these ludicrous so-called “quotes” the LA Times is claiming.

Well Stephen, wake up, smell the coffee, and read Alan’s book. And the next time a Love Won Out conference appears in your neck of the woods, be sure you catch Alan’s workshop, “Hope for Those Who Struggle.” I imagine it’ll be an eye opener for you.

Hat tip: Joe Brummer

See also:

Stephen Bennett: Say It Isn’t So!
Stephen Bennett: Alan Chamber’s Got Some Explainin’ To Do
Peter LaBarbera Joins Stephen Bennett In Ex-Gay Cat Fight

Alan Chambers on “Biology”

Gay rights advocates have long pushed the argument that homosexuality is inborn, either through genes, prenatal hormones, or other biological mechanisms. There’s the assumption that if homosexuality is inborn, then it is proof that people can’t change. It is also understood that when someone believes that homosexuality is inborn, then that person is more likely to accept gays and lesbians as equal members of society. Conversely, anti-gay activists have almost uniformly denounced the biological evidence, preferring instead to blame parents and other childhood experiences for their children’s outcomes.

When Exodus president Alan Chambers appeared yesterday on CNN’s The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer, he talked very briefly about whether homosexuality was inborn. In that segment, we heard him say:

Certainly we are body, soul and spirit. And a part of being body I believe is wrapped up in genetics and biology and things that are inborn.

This echoes what yesterday’s Los Angeles Times reported:

Chambers and other Exodus leaders talk deliberately about a possible biological basis for homosexuality, in part to explain that no one can turn a switch and flip from gay to straight, no matter how hard they pray.

In Alan Chambers’s 2006 book, God’s Grace and the Homosexual Next Door, he discusses the possibility of a biological origin. In it, he answers whether homosexuality is “completely genetic.” At this point in 2006, he didn’t think so, but he asked what if it were true:

Would that mean that genetic predispositions to behavior are the sole determinant of behavior? For instance, there is reportedly a genetic link to alcoholism. Yet people overcome that battle every day. I know many men and women who once were in bondage to alcohol and now live in freedom from that addiction. The same with drugs, lying, stealing, you name it.

The truth is we are all fallen creatures: genetically, physically, emotionally, sexually, and in every other way imaginable. So even though there is currently no proof — despite numerous studies conducted over the past 50 years — that homosexuality is genetic, let’s suppose that one day such proof is found. What then?

… I wrestled with this question during the early days of my healing and determined that if a gay gene was discovered, it would not alter my course — homosexuality is still not an option.

It has always been naive to think that discovering a “gay gene” or other biological explanations would suddenly bring all the debates to an end. Alan Chambers, like Albert Mohler is anticipating the possibility that the day many come when the evidence becomes too hard to ignore. I personally doubt that such a day will come, but if it does, don’t count on them changing their minds and becoming our allies.

Snopes.com Classifies AFA Claim As An Urban Legend

Those of us in the reality-based community can point out the American Family Association’s lies about the hate crimes bill till we’re blue in the face but a new ally has joined the fray. Snopes.com, the site dedicated to busting rumors, scams and chain-emails that circulate on the internet has taken the AFA to task. The AFA’s claim the Hate Crimes Prevention Act will restrict freedom of speech is now in the company of emails promoting gas-outs and others claiming Bill Gates will pay you a million dollars if you forward an email.

And that’s exactly where the AFA’s emails belong. I’m glad other people are catching on.

Alan Chambers On “Change”

Alan Chambers appeared ever so briefly today on CNN’s The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer. The discussion was concerning whether homosexuality was inborn and whether gays can change. Chambers’s appearance was exceptionally brief, and several observers are now trying to read the tea leaves based on two very terse snippets.

One of those snippets dealt ever so briefly with “change,” and there’s a great deal of excitement over this statement in which, according to CNN reporter Mary Snow, he “speaks out against the term ‘exgay’.”:

For one for someone to simply think that going from straight to gay is like flipping a light switch, that’s something that we want to correct at every turn.

This follows this morning’s Los Angeles Times report, in which Chambers elaborates a little more:

With years of therapy, Chambers says, he has mostly conquered his own attraction to men; he’s a husband and a father, and he identifies as straight. But lately, he’s come to resent the term “ex-gay”: It’s too neat, implying a clean break with the past, when he still struggles at times with homosexual temptation. “By no means would we ever say change can be sudden or complete,” Chambers said.

His personal denunciation of the term “ex-gay” — his organization has yet to follow suit — is just one example of shifting ground in the polarizing debate on homosexuality.

This is very much in line with what he told an audience at Love Won Out in Phoenix last February. Alan Chambers gave a workshop, attended by about seventy-five people out of the 700 total attendance, in which he cautioned about setting realistic expectations for change. He also talked about his own struggles, and he candidly discussed the fact that even though he is happily married, his struggles continue.

I think the message he gave to that audience was brave, candid, realistic and honorable, and stood in sharp contrast to the absolute assurances offered by other speakers at the conference.

Unfortunately, as the LA Times observed, his own organization doesn’t always appear to be on board with this message either. In the days leading up to the annual Exodus Freedom Conference in Irvine, California, Exodus ran a radio spot on local Christian radio stations touting “a sudden, radical, complete change. Through Christ freedom is possible for those who struggle with same gender attractions.”

Is this confusing? I would think so, as did David Roberts at Ex-Gay Watch. After Roberts noted the issues raised by the radio spot, Alan Chambers responded with an update to the Exodus web site, putting “change” in a different context:

Exodus International exists to mobilize the body of Christ to minister grace and truth to a world impacted by homosexuality. As such, we are calling upon the evangelical church to undergo a sudden, radical and complete change in the way it has dealt with the issue of homosexuality in the past.

Chambers also released a statement to Ex-Gay Watch, saying:

Having grown up in church I understand and fluently speak Christianese. The culture at large doesn’t always understand the way we speak. This is something that we are aware of at Exodus and are making a more concerted effort to change.

..Messaging is important as is honesty. Our intention with this ad was simply to call the church to sudden, radical and complete change regarding how we have traditionally dealt with the issue of homosexuality.

As an outside observer, it looks to me as though Alan is trying to walk a delicate balance between what he knows to be true about “change” and the expectations of his more hard line associates. At least that’s what I see in the tea leaves. Sometimes I think I see some very good instincts, but then I see where he’s not even close to being consistent in following them. But I am encouraged whenever I see a step in the right direction. And he’ll have several opportunities to exercise his better instincts in the weeks to come.

Let’s take for this for example. If he’s really serious about calling on the church “to undergo a sudden, radical and complete change in the way it has dealt with the issue of homosexuality,” I hope that he plans on having a heart-to-heart chat with Rev. Ken Hutcherson. Hutcherson, remember, has been working with holocaust revisionist Scott Lively to stir up anti-gay passions in Latvia. He will also be a featured speaker at the upcoming Exodus conference. It seems to me that in changing the way the church deals with homosexuality, this would be one good place to start.

And in the political sphere, I hope he rethinks his strategy and avoids these blatently false arguments against the proposed hate crimes legislation. If he’s going to oppose this legislation, there are honorable ways to do it. But I hope he reads the actual text first before committing an act of False Witness.

Hair Whorls – Another Sexual Orientation Distinction

New York Magazine has article which discusses many of the physical differences that are observable between straight and gay people.  While most of this was familiar territory, there was one thing new:

Richard Lippa, a psychologist from California State University at Fullerton, is one of the leading cataloguers of the many ways in which gay people are different. I caught up with him a few weeks ago at a booth at the Long Beach Pride Festival in Southern California, where he was researching another hypothesis—that the hair-whorl patterns on gay heads are more likely to go counterclockwise. If true, it will be one more clue to our biological uniqueness. …

By the end of the two-day festival, Lippa had gathered survey data from more than 50 short-haired men and photographed their pates (women were excluded because their hairstyles, even at the pride festival, were too long for simple determination; crewcuts are the ideal Rorschach, he explains). About 23 percent had counterclockwise hair whorls. In the general population, that figure is 8 percent.

All of the known distinctions, be they finger length ratio, finger-print density, or left-handedness are averages and do not apply to specific individuals.

My hair grows in a clockwise whorl.

Interview on Sirius OutQ

I will appear on the Michelangelo Signorile Show at about 3:30 EDT (12:30 PDT) on Sirius OutQ 109 to talk about my analysis of Dr. James Holsinger’s 1991 paper, “Pathophysiology of Male Homosexuality.”

Update: What a blast! You can find my analysis of Surgeon General nominee Dr. James Holsinger’s paper here.

I said several times during the interview that he could not have written what he wrote by accident or in error. If you want to know how I know this, it’s simple. Last fall, I wrote an “anti-straight” tract using the same methods he and others use in writing their anti-gay papers. You can read about all the nasty thing those heterosexuals do in The Heterosexual Agenda: Exposing the Myths.

Dueling Ex-Gay Conferences

The Orange County (CA) Reporter Register has an article out about the two ex-gay-related conferences taking place the last week of June in Irvine, California. One conference is a five-day long Exodus Freedom Conference to be held at Concordia University. That conference will go from June 26 to July 1.

The other conference is the Ex-Gay Survivor’s Conference, which will be held just down the road a bit at the University of California at Irvine from June 29 to July 1. That conference is being organized by Soulforce and Beyond Ex-Gay. Yours truly will be hosting a workshop at that conference.

I thought the OC Register article was interesting. Usually, when Exodus puts on conferences like these, the reporting goes something like this: Exodus is in town saying gays can change, and there will be lots of angry gay protesters outside holding up signs and yelling things and singing songs and generally being angry about it.

But not this time. This report is much more focused on the experiences of those who have undergone ex-gay experiences themselves. I think this article does a great job in laying out both sides of the issue.

Sexual Brokenness, Sexual Brokenness, Sexual Brokenness…

Keep saying it over and over and maybe you’ll believe it. From Wayne Besen:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1tJi5Xs-BM
Pretty amazing. A personal favorite from Alan Chambers: “There’s almost a century of experience in ministering to sexually broken people.” Let’s see, Exodus claims to have 130 member ministries. Conservatively, that’s at least 150 people. Divided by a hundred years, that’s about 8 months per minister. How’s that for depth of experience?

You Can Support Hate Crimes Legislation — Courtesy of the American Family Association

Update: Err, Okay. I’ve been punked. This looks like a parody — and a pretty hilarious one. This is the real thing on which it’s based.

This much is true:

The American Family Association’s Don Wildmon sent out an urgent message to his fan base, asking them to go to the AFA web site and sign a petition demanding that Congress defeat the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Act. Wildmon’s email is about as charming as they come:

If pastors and other Christians don’t aggressively oppose a bill now in Congress, in the near future they will be subject to huge fines and prison terms if they say anything negative about homosexuality.

The proposed law would make it a crime to preach on Romans Chapter 1 or I Corinthians Chapter 6. Or even to discuss them in a Sunday School class.

If churches and individuals want to keep the government from telling them what they can and cannot preach and teach about homosexuality, they better get involved now!

House bill H.R. 1592 and Senate bill S. 1105 would make negative statements concerning homosexuality, such as calling the practice of homosexuality a sin from the pulpit, a “hate crime” punishable by law. This dangerous legislation would take away your freedom of speech and your freedom of religion.

Wildmon’s email provides hyperlinks for the text “Senate bill S.1105,” but in an act of abject cowardice, he doesn’t link to the text of the bill. Instead, he links to his own web site. Why? Because if anyone actually read the bill itself, they’d know that everything he says in this email is a bold-faced lie.

But here’s the best part. (And this is where the parody kicks in.) He wants you to take action by signing a petition. But be careful how you do it (as “reported” by Baptists for Brownback):

Christians ONLY Click Here

Only your first and last name and zip code will be included. DO NOT type anything Pro-Homosexual, Anti-AFA, or anything against the Bill in The slot for the FIRST NAME, LAST NAME, or ZIP CODE BECAUSE CONGRESS WILL ACTUALLY SEE AND BE ABLE TO READ ANY Pro-Homosexual, Anti-AFA in formation in that part.

Again, if you CLICK ON THE LINK you CAN SIGN THE PETITION. BUT BE SURE NOT TO ACCIDENTILY TYPE ANYTHING PRO-HOMOSEXUAL, ANTI-AFA in the those spots because it WILL RUIN THE EFFECT OF THE AFA MESSAGE.

Okay, so it’s a parody. But think about it. It could work, couldn’t it?

What Some Politicians Fear The Most

I normally avoid partisan politics, but I couldn’t help being amused by Jon Stewart’s observation that every single GOP candidate for president supports “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”:

The only thing worse for these candidates than another terrorist attack would be a gay hero stopping it.

You can watch it here, after the annoying commercial.

Ministers Commit False Witness About Hate Crimes Bill

When the US House took up the “Matthew Shepard Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2007,” we saw a lot of blatant dishonesty from far-right opponents. We saw them completely make up bogus hate crime statistics out of thin air. We saw them falsely claim that the legislation would “punish some crimes more severely against gay people than they would against any other person.” And we saw them putting forward the “thought crime” canard, even though the proposed legislation deals strictly with actual violence.

The bill passed the House with bipartisan support, and now the Senate is about to consider the measure. And once again, we’re seeing anti-gay extremists cranking up the False Witnessing machine once again. This time, they are renewing their arguments that the proposed hate crime legislation will compromise their freedom of religion. A group of African-American church leaders, including pastor Kenneth Hutcherson of Antioch Bible Church who has been stirring up trouble in Riga Latvia, have appeared in an advertisement featuring a gagged African-American pastor to claim that hate crimes legislation would “muzzle our pulpits.”

Christian clergymen and people of faith are making a stand today for religious liberty. WE OPPOSE S.1105, “The Matthew Shepard Act.” We believe prosecutors and anti-Christian groups will use loop holes in this proposed legislation to muzzle the church. Unnecessary lawsuits will bring a chilling effect to the free speech and religious liberty of our churches and of our members.

No law can usurp the First Amendment, and the sad thing is that these ministers should know that better than anyone. Despite enjoying hate crime protections for a number of years, the African-American community continues to be the target of constitutionally protected hate speech whenever the Klan wins approval to hold rallies on courthouse squares and statehouse lawns. Nothing in the existing hate crime laws has succeeded in muzzling their First Amendment rights to free speech.

And nothing has muzzled anyone’s First Amendment rights to freedom of religion either. There are at least thirty seven racist Christian Identity groups active across America. Some even operate radio broadcasts and “prison ministries.” As patently offensive and dangerous as some of these groups may be, the First Amendment has protected their outlandish religious beliefs despite existing hate crimes legislation on the basis of race.

And like a broken record, I’ll repeat this one again: The law protects everyone equally. If you check the FBI’s latest statistics from 2005, you’ll find there were 935 anti-white hate crime incidents recorded, 58 anti-protestant hate crime incidents recorded, and 23 anti-heterosexual incidents recorded. They all deserve — and receive — protection as well.

Focus on the Family, Exodus, Family Research Council, Traditional Values Coalition, Mission America — all of them have repeated some serious outright lies about what the proposed legislation would do. And several individuals associated with these organizations have done the same.

And so here’s a challenge. I have posted the actual proposed legislation in full on my web site. You will find the text after the jump below. I dare them to do the same. And I challenge them to point to any part of the bill which would usurp the First Amendment. In fact, I challenge them to point to any part of the bill which even comes close to limiting speech. The bill only mentions violence, and it only extends penalties to acts of violence.

Unless placing additional penalties on violent acts somehow limits these pastors’ freedoms of religion, this bill won’t have any affect on them whatsoever.

So where is it folks? Tell us. Is it in the bill or are you lying as God is your witness? Pick one, because it’s either one or the other.

Click here to read the text of Senate Bill 1105