Box Turtle Bulletin

Former Ex-Gay Head Now Says Change In Orientation Is Impossible And Change In Relationships Are Unnecessary

The former head of one of the nation’s most prominent ex-gay ministries now says that homosexuality is something that cannot be “repented,” because “repentance from something means it has to be something you can control, like actions.” John Smid, the former director of Memphis-based Love In Action, the country’s largest ex-gay residential program, now says that homosexuality is “an intrinsic part of their being or personally, my being. One cannot repent of something that is unchangeable.” He also says that in all of his years in ex-gay ministries, he never met a gay man who became heterosexual, and that he now considers himself homosexual “and yet in a marriage to a woman.”

Smid had been the director of Love In Action for nearly two decades when it became the focus of international attention in June 2005. That’s when sixteen-year-old Zach Stark announced on his MySpace blog that his parents were sending him away to an ex-gay non-residential youth program after he came out to them. Zach also posted the program’s rules that he would be forced to live under while enrolled in the program. Advocates protested for several days outside the main offices of Love In Action. That incident has become the basis for Jon Morgan Fox’s documentary film, This is What Love In Action Looks Like. Love In Action announced they had shut down their youth program in 2007.  

Smid stepped down from Love In Action in 2008 after twenty-two year at the helm. He then established a different ministry, “Grace Rivers,” while continuing to cooperate with Fox’s film, all of which coincides wtih what appears to have been a period of introspection over his role in the ex-gay movement. In 2010, Smid reportedly wrote several letters of apology to some of his former clients, and disclosed on Andrew Marin’s blog that he still experiences “erotic attractions to those of the same gender (male).” Smid’s latest blog post on his own web site continues on those themes:

I have gone through a tremendous amount of grief over the many years that I spoke of change, repentance, reorientation and such, when, barring some kind of miracle, none of this can occur with homosexuality. The article today is a great example of how we as Christians pervert the gospel as it relates to homosexuality as though homosexuals aren’t welcome in the kingdom unless they repent (which many interpret to change). But since homosexuality is not “repentable” then we put homosexuals into an impossible bind.

Smid contines bywriting of what he sees as the greater theological imperative, which is for all people to “turn our lives to God’s kingdom and away from the kingdom of the world,” and what that kind of transformation brought about by a religious conversion would mean for gay people:

Yes, there are homosexuals that make dramatic changes in their lives as they walk through the transformation process with Jesus. I have heard story after story of changes that have occurred as men and women find the grace of God in their lives as homosexual people.  But, I’m sorry, this transformation process may not meet the expectations of many Christians. I also want to reiterate here that the transformation for the vast majority of homosexuals will not include a change of sexual orientation. Actually I’ve never met a man who experienced a change from homosexual to heterosexual.

Smid wrote that he has met gay Christians who have gone on to lead celibate lives, and otheers who have entered into heterosexual marriages. He then added, “But, I’ve also met some who experience transformation from sexual promiscuity to  a faithful gay relationship that is truly, in their experience,  a great blessing to their relationship with Christ. Oh, I understand the controversy in all of this.”

Past postings on Smid’s blog reveal an ongoing evolution in his thinking about gay people, starting a conversation he had with Michael Bussee, a co-founder of Exodus International who left the ministry to come out with a gay man and become a strong critic of the ex-gay movement. That conversation took place in 2008, at around the time of Smid’s resignation from Love In Action. Smid’s description of that visit with Bussee sheds considerable light on Smid’s frame of mind when he stepped down. Smid’s reconsideration of his previous work in the ex-gay movement continued with a conference for gay Christians he attended in 2010, where he met a number of couples who shattered his preconceived notions about gay people. In Smid’s latest reflection, he realizes that his own understanding of his faith was clouded by those misconceptions:

My dear friend, this is a very tough issue and I am trudging through some very deep waters trying to better understand God’s heart on this matter. I have now gone around the world listening to Him, listening to the stories, seeing the tears of rejection in some, and the peace of God’s love in others. This is so different than I always thought in my small world of ex-gay ministry. And yes, it was a small world because I made it small. I was completely unwilling to hear anything that didn’t fit my paradigm. I blocked out anyone’s life story or biblical teaching that didn’t match up with what I believed.

When I was at LiA I never taught a session on the scriptures regarding homosexuality that I understood. I know that sounds strange but it is true. I didn’t teach them because I really had never studied them for myself. I merely quoted what I saw that others had written on the issue. I felt an obligation to at least teach something on what the Bible said, but every time I attempted to study it for myself it made no sense to me and I just went back to the writings of others within the ex-gay subculture.

Smid now says that the example of gay people remaining honest with themselves while exploring their spirituality in an orthodox Christian context can lead to an “authentic relationship with Christ”:

In traditional homosexuality it appears that it is intrinsic to a person’s fabric of life. Nature or nurture, it is far to complicated to have a definitive answer for the origin of homosexuality.  However, I hear story after story of men and women who accept themselves as being gay, in Christ, and finally find that life makes sense to them. Many are able to then nurture an authentic relationship with Christ because they are being honest and authentic with themselves and finally are able to accept His love unconditionally which changes the dynamic of their understanding of Him. Far too many homosexuals who are seeking Christ perceive that they cannot come close to Him if they remain a homosexual. In this mindset they search feverishly for change that will not come to them.

As for whether Smid ever really changed his own sexuality in all of the years he devoted himself to ex-gay ministry, he now says:

I am homosexual, my wife is heterosexual. This creates a unique marriage experience that many do not understand.  For many years I tried to fit into the box of heterosexuality.  I tried my hardest to create heterosexuality in my life but this also created a lot of shame, a sense of failure, and discouragement.  Nothing I did seemed to change me into a heterosexual even though I was in a marriage that included heterosexual behavior. Very often when I am in situations with heterosexual men I clearly see that there are facets of our lives that are distinctively different as it relates to our sexuality, and other things as well.

There is no question, I love my wife. God has worked powerfully in and through our relationship.  The fact that she married me in the first place knowing of my past homosexual promiscuity said something quite profound about her love for me. Which, by the way, was not an enabling, “I can fix him” kind of relationship.  My wife has never tried to fix me or change me in that area of our relationship. She truly unconditionally loves me. But this doesn’t change the fact that I am who I am and she is who she is.

[via Ex-Gay Watch]

UK To Cut Aid To Countries Which Persecute Gay People

British Prime Minister David Cameron has warned that countries which persecute gay people will find their foreign aid budget cut. International Development Secretary Andrew Mitchell also told the Daily Mail that Britain has already cut aid to Malawi over it abuse of human right violation, citing the country’s conviction of Steven Monjeza and Tiwonge Chimbalanga, a same-sex couple who entered into a traditional engagement ceremony in violation of that nation’s anti-sodomy laws.

Mitchell’s comments however don’t quite line up with the chain of events in Malawi. The couple were pardoned by Malawi President Bingu wa Mutharika in May, 2010. Earlier this year, a Wikileaks cable revealed that the British ambassador warned  that Malawi’s President was becoming increasingly autocratic and intolerant of criticism. Mutharika responded by expelling the ambassador while violently cracking down on dissent in the impoverished nation, thereby proving the ambassador’s point. Britain began cutting aid to Malawi in July 2011.

Malawi received about £200 million from Britain over the past three years, before Britain announced cuts of £19 million.

Mitchell also cited Uganda (which is due to received £70 million this year) and Ghana (which received £36 million each year) as possible targets for future cuts if they enact further criminal legislation against gay people. No mention was made of Zimbabwe, which received £69 million last year.

The Daily Agenda for Monday, October 10

TODAY IN HISTORY:
Newsweek’s “Queer People”: 1949. In the mid-twentieth century, reactions to homosexuality fell into two camps. On one side were those who held that such “sexual perversion” was a criminal act which should be treated harshly by the courts. The other side, which saw themselves as more enlightened, saw homosexuality as a mental illness which merited pity rather than punishment. On October 10, 1949, Newsweek published an editorial titled “Queer People,” which came down squarely in the first camp:

“The sex pervert, whether a homosexual, an exhibitionist, or even a dangerous sadist, is too often regarded merely as a ‘queer’ person who never hurts anyone but himself. Then the mangled form of one of his victims focuses public attention to the degenerate’s work. And newspaper headlines flare for days over accounts and feature articles packed with sensational details of the most dastardly and horrifying crimes.”

The editorial went on the claim that it was homosexuals who committed “the most dastardly and horrifying of crimes” and “should be placed in an institution.” Newsweek declared, “The sex pervert must be treated not as a coddled patient, but as a particularly virulent type of criminal.”

CT Supreme Court Declares Ban on Same-Sex Marriage Unconstitutional: 2008. In Kerrigan v. Commissioner of Public Health, the Connecticut Supreme Court ruled in a 4-3 vote that the state’s constitution , 289 Conn. 135, 957 A.2d 407, is a 2008 decision by the Connecticut Supreme Court protects the right to same-sex marriage. The decision made Connecticut the third state, after Massachusetts and California, to have its state supreme court declare a constitutional right to same-sex marriage. California’s decision would be repealed by Proposition 8. In accordance with the Connecticut Supreme Court’s order, the state began issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples on November 12, 2008.

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Jamaican Facebook Page Glorifies Violence Against Gays

Gay Jamaica Watch found this disturbing Facebook page that appeared Sunday:

Click to enlarge

The Facebook page is here. Particularly disturbing is the photo, from 2007 of a young man who was surrounded and attacked by a menacing mob, with a title “Bun Batty Man.” Gay Jamaica Watch explains:

Songs such as Capleton’s Battyman Fi Get Boom (gays are to be killed) is posted as captioned in the screen pics above also songs like “Man Nuh Lotion Man” (men do not lotion men – which suggests romantic intimacy between men) as well from Capleton who is deemed the fireman leader against gays with his music as Buju Banton is out of business serving time for his own troubles.

Act now friends but there is a strangeness to this group as many of the members have been accused of being “closet cases” which is a fundamental issue not properly looked into that of downlow accusing others of being gay to the point of outright homophobia to supposedly cover their own tracks or to enact revenge on some person or issue they may have had. This dangerous practice if it is that what obtains here can have disastrous effects

You can report the page to Facebook with this link.

Bryan Fischer: “Homosexual Agenda” is America’s “Greatest Threat”

Bryan Fischer, who followed GOP presidential candidate and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney to the podium during yesterday’s Values Voter Summit, delivered some of that poisonous language which Romney denounced.  Right Wing Watch has posted his entire talk here. During this portion of his speech, Fischer denounced “the homosexual agenda” as the “greatest greatest immediate threat to every freedom and right that is enshrined in the First Amendment”:

I believe we need a president who understands that just as Islam represents the greatest long range threat to our liberty, so the homosexual agenda represents the greatest immediate threat to every freedom and right that is enshrined in the First Amendment. It’s a particular threat to religious liberty….

We need a president who understands that every advance of the homosexual agenda comes at the expense of religious liberty. We need a president who understands that we must choose as a nation between homosexuality and liberty, because we cannot have both. A president who understands that we must choose between homosexuality and liberty, and who will choose liberty every time.

Mitt Romney Mildly Scolds Bryan Fischer

The American Family Association’s Bryan Fischer, who has stated that the First Amendment’s religious freedoms should only apply to Evangelical Christians and not to Mormons or Muslims, was given a very visible speaking slot at yesterday’s Values Voter Summit immediately following GOP presidential candidate and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, Romney just happens to be one of those Mormons that Fischer believes isn’t protected by the First Amendment. Romney took his turn at the podium to call out Fischer on his “poisonous language.”

Our values ennoble the citizen and they strengthen the nation. We should remember that decency and civility are values too. One of the speakers who will follow me today, has crossed that line I think. Poisonous language does not advance our cause. It has never softened a single heart nor changed a single mind. The blessings of faith carry the responsibility of civil and respectful debate. The task before us is to focus on the conservative beliefs and the values that unite us. Let no agenda, narrow our vision or drive us apart. We have important work to accomplish.

A very mild rebuke, given to very mild applause — all of which serves to illustrate Romney’s difficulties in retaining his frontrunner status in the Republican race for the nomination. But as timid as that rebuke was, it certainly elicited a howl from the bully who is now outraged of the “public attack,” and like all bullies who get caught, he responds screaming that someone else started it:

Dr. Robert Jeffress started the fracas on Friday by referring to Mormonism as a “cult” in interviews with reporters after he introduced and endorsed Gov. Rick Perry on Friday.

According to MSNBC, Gov. Romney’s people got in touch with Bill Bennett and they decided to tag team – Bennett would kneecap Dr. Jeffress first and then Mitt would kneecap me right before I took the podium after his speech.

Here’s how Politico reported it:

“Rather than answering Jeffress directly, Romney came to the summit on Saturday and rebuked another hardline social conservative: Bryan Fischer, a controversial official at the American Family Association who has disparaged Mormonism, as well as homosexuality, Islam and more.

And there’s this nice touch:

I spoke immediately after Romney, who apparently was goaded into attacking me by the New York Times, the Boston Globe and other media outlets who wrote eagerly about the anticipated brawl. Here’s the breathless headline, for instance, from the Deseret News: “Mitt Romney vs. Mormon critic Bryan Fischer: Showdown Saturday?”

Ya see? The reference to The Deseret News conclusively proves that the Mormon Church put Romney up to the “attack.”

Bullies typically scream the loudest when they are startled by their target rising up to defend themselves, no matter how tentatively. Romney mildly suggested that Fischer went too far in a timid half-dozen sentences. Fischer’s cri de coeur goes on for more than nine hundred words. That means that Romney’s mild slap stung Fischer pretty hard. And I have a feeling Fischer still isn’t done crying.

The Daily Agenda for Sunday, October 9

TODAY’S AGENDA:

Pride Celebrations This Weekend: Atlanta, GA and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Also This Weekend: Iris Prize Film Festival, Cardiff, UK.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS:
Simeon Solomon: 1840. He was the last child to be born into a prominent Jewish family in London. When he was about ten years old, he began to learn to paint from his older brother, and a few years later he attended Carey’s Art Academy. Later, as a student at the  Royal Academy, he became a prominent member of the Pre-Raphaelite Circle, and he held several acclaimed exhibitions at the Royal Academy between 1858 and 1872. Many of his paintings were drawn from his Jewish background, consisting of scenes from the Hebrew bible and ordinary Jewish life, and he was hailed as the “darling of the Pre-Raphaelits.” His paintings also explored, at the very least, affections between men. In 1871 Simeon Solomon privately published his poem “A Vision of Love Revealed in Sleep.” John Addington Symonds would note that the themes of same-sex love in the poem was “the key to the meaning of his drawings.”

The Sleepers, and the One that Watcheth (1870, click to enlarge)

Solomon’s career though was ruined in 1873 when he was arrested at a public toilet and fined £100 for attempted sodomy. He was arrested again the next year in Paris and was sentenced to three months in prison. He never recovered. From then on, he was hobbled by alcoholism and became destitute. He would pass his remaining years in and out of the workhouse where he continued to paint, but both the quality and quantity of his work was severely impaired by his drinking. He finally collapsed in central London and died of bronchitis and alcoholism in 1905. Poet and critic Arthur Symons, on learning of Solomon’s death, lamented, “There is nothing in this world so pitiful as a shipwreck of a genius.”

Nona Hendryx: 1944. The Trenton, New Jersey-born singer, producer, songwriter, author and actress was one third (with Patti LaBelle and Sarah Dash) of the trio Labelle, whose greatest hit was 1974’s “Lady Marmalade.” Beginning in 1977, Hendryx embarked on a solo career, but struggled to repeat the success of LaBelle. She wasn’t without work though, as she provided background vocals for the Talking Heads and became a part of New York’s underground rock, R&B and dance scene. As the eighties progressed, she collaborated with Keith Richards, Peter Gabriel and Prince for several of he solo release. In 2001, she came out as bisexual in an interview with The Advocate, and became a gay rights advocate. In 2008, she joined Cyndi Lauper for her True Colors tour.

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The Daily Agenda for Saturday, October 8

TODAY’S AGENDA (OURS):
First Openly Gay Ordination for the Presbyterian Church, USA: Madison, WI. Last May, the Presbyterian Church USA became the fourth mainline Protestant Church to allow the ordination of openly gay clergy. Today, that promise becomes a reality as Scott Anderson is ordained at Covenant Presbyterian Church in Madison, Wisconsin. The Princeton Theological Seminary graduate had served as Co-Moderator of More Light Presbyterians before moving to Madison to become the Executive Director of the Wisconsin Council of Churches.

Anderson’s ordination will mark his return to a ministry he was forced to abandon twenty-one years ago. In 1990, while working as a parish minister in Sacramento, he was threatened with exposure by a couple who wanted him to help raise money for a cause they were advancing that he disagreed with. Rather than submit to the couple’s threats, he outed himself instead, and in keeping with the church’s rules he stepped down as minister and embarked on the long process of working to change the church’s stance toward ordination of openly gay people. Anderson will be supported by his partner of twenty-one years at today’s ordination. Anderson is being ordained by the John Knox Presbytery, which consists of 60 congregations in Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin.

AIDS Walks This Weekend: Columbus, OH; Indianapolis, IN and Kent/Sussex, DE.

Pride Celebrations This Weekend: Atlanta, GA; Orlando, FL; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and Tucson, AZ.

Also This Weekend: Iris Prize Film Festival, Cardiff, UK.

TODAY’S AGENDA (THEIRS):
Values Voter Summit: Washington, D.C. Whenever the Family “Research” Council and the American Family Association team up to put on their annual Values Voter Summit, you can pretty much guarantee that they will more than live up to their reputation for being on the Southern Poverty Law Center’s list of anti-gay hate groups. Yesterday, we saw GOP presidential candidate Sen. Rick Santorum give his most bizarre qualification yet for the presidency, when he told the conference that voters should “look at who they lay down with at night and what they believe.” That will be hard to top, although Liberty Counsel’s Mat Staver gave it his best shot by saying that gay equality will lead to the destruction of Western Civilization.

Today’s lineup will be about as crazy as yesterday’s. The AFA’s Bryan Fischer, whose sheer lunacy knows no bounds, will be a featured speaker, along with FRC’s Tom McClusky and Tony Perkins, National Organization for Marriage’s Brian Brown, American Values’ Gary Bauer, AFA’s Ed Vitagliano, Alliance Defense Fund’s Alan Sears, Eagle Forum’s Phyllis Schlafly, Glenn Beck and Bishop Harry Jackson, among many others. GOP Presidential candidates speaking today will be Texas Rep. Ron Paul and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.

If you know of something that belongs on the agenda, please send it here. Don’t forget to include the basics: who, what, when, where, and URL (if available).

And feel free to consider this your open thread for the day. What’s happening in your world?

Mat Staver: Gays Threaten Survival of Western Civilization

Mat Staver, head of Liberty Counsel and dean of Liberty University’s law school, appeared on an American Family Association radio program this morning just before introducing GOP presidential candidate Sen. Rick Santorum at the Values Voter Summit. Staver told AFA Radio that “the sexual anarchy with the agenda of the homosexual movement” threatens the survival of Western Civilization:

Staver: We are facing the survival of western values, western civilization. And I think those survival, whether they win or lose, what will the future of America be will be determined in our lifetime…. One of the most significant threats to our freedom is in the area of sexual anarchy with the agenda of the homosexual movement, the so-called LGBT movement. It does several things, first of all it undermines family and the very first building block of our society, but secondly, it’s a zero sum game as well and it’s a direct assault on our religious freedom and freedom of speech.

Do you really want to know what threatens the survival of Western Civilization? Well, if one of the great pillars of Western Civilization is the rule of law, then Staver’s Liberty Counsel and law school pose a far greater threat to Western Civilization than treating all people equally. Members of Staver’s organizations have been implicated in facilitating the kidnapping of then- seven-year-old Isabella Miller-Jenkins, in defiance of a court order ordering Isabella’s mother, Lisa Miller, to turn custody of the child over to her other mother from a civil union, Janet Jenkins, after Miller refused to follow to previous court orders granting visitation rights. There is considerable evidence that Miller may be following the advice of legal counsel in defying the courts’ rulings. Teachers at Staver’s law school presented a case study that was remarkably similar to the Miller-Jenkins case, and taught students that, as future lawyers, they should encourage their clients to chose “God’s law” over “man’s law” and defy the legal system. Students who responded on an exam that the client should follow the court order were given bad grades, while students who responded that the client should be urged to break the law got A’s.

If there is a threat to Western Civilization, it’s posed by those who would impose legal anarchy to further their narrow religious agenda in open defiance of the law.

The Strangest Pitch for the Presidency So Far

GOP Presidential candidate Sen. Rick Santorum pitched the most oddest reason for voting for a candidate to the Values Voter Conference so far. Get ready for this one:

“When you look at someone to determine whether they’d be the right person for public office, look at who they lay down with at night and what they believe,” Santorum said.

Let’s see if any of the other GOP candidates can top that for wierdness.

By the way, was that a shot at Rick Perry?

Iowa Man Describes the Horrors of Home-Grown Ex-Gay Therapy

Samuel Brinton, a student at Kansas State University, describes growing up under his Southern Baptist missionary father, who beat him, burned him and shocked him with electricity to try to change him from being gay after Samuel came out at the age of twelve. The video is compelling.

We first heard from Samuel about a year ago when he first talked about his experiences for an “It Gets Better” video for the web site I’m From Driftwood.

Update (10/10): Wayen Besen at Truth Wins Out posted this comment yesterday on Towleroad:

Full Page Ad Reminds Voters Who’s Behind “Values Voter Summit”

The Southern Poverty Law Center has taken out a full page ad in the Washington Post reminding readers why the two organization’s sponsoring the event, the Family “Research” Council and the American Family Association, have been included in their very short list of anti-gay hate groups. The ad reads:

SPLC’s full page ad in the Washington Post (Click to view PDF: 132KB/1 page)

Just whose values are represented at the Values Voter Summit?Prominent public figures will attend the Values Voter Summit in DC this weekend.

But what values are they promoting?

The summit is hosted by the Family Research Council and co-sponsored by the American Family Association — organizations that have mounted a long-running campaign of falsehoods that demonize the LGBT community.

They portray gay people as child molesters, deviants, public health threats and more. Their outrageous claims have been thoroughly debunked by numerous scientific authorities and respected professional associations such as the American Psychological Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Their words have consequences: Gay men, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender people are far more likely than any other group to be victimized by violent hate crimes. Many have been driven by relentless demonization to seek a “cure” for their sexual orientation through dangerous therapeutic practices. Many have been driven to suicide by relentless bullying in our schools.

Whose values are these?

Is bearing false witness a “family” value? Is bigotry?

The ad goes on to list several quotes from the FRC and AFA equating homosexuality with pedophilia, criminality, Nazi’s, and Adolf Hitler. The SPLC and Wayne Besen’s Truth Wins Out held a joint press conference this morning to release a report on the AFA and FRC’s “false propaganda that demonizes the LGBT community.” FRC’s Tony Perkins is furious, and equates the SPLC’s exercise of free speech:

Perkins said the SPLC news conference reflected an attempt to prevent free discussion of ideas and noted that he doesn’t show up at SPLC events to protest the civil rights organization’s beliefs.

“Southern Poverty Law Center is obviously desperate to try to shut down public debate,” he said.

The Daily Agenda for Friday, October 7

TODAY’S AGENDA (OURS):
Campus Pride College Fair and Prep Day: Boston, MA. Campus Pride’s College Fair is an opportunity for LGBT students and their families to discuss educational opportunities with participating LGBT-affirming colleges and universities. The fair features expert advice about LGBT-friendly colleges, scholarship resources and even effective tips for campus visits. The Northwest Region College Fair takes place today at Boston’s City Hall, from 1:30 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. More information can be found here. Future College Fairs will take place in Los Angeles (Oct 15) and New York (Nov 4).

AIDS Walks This Weekend: Columbus, OH; Indianapolis, IN and Kent/Sussex, DE.

Pride Celebrations This Weekend: Atlanta, GA; Orlando, FL; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and Tucson, AZ.

Also This Weekend: Iris Prize Film Festival, Cardiff, UK.

TODAY’S AGENDA (THEIRS):
Values Voter Summit: Washington, D.C. The Family “Research” Council, one of only a handful of organizations tracked by the Southern Poverty Law Center for being an anti-gay hate group, kicks off its annual Values Voter Summit in the nation’s capital this morning with a breakfast talk by Mat Staver, Chairman of Liberty Counsel and Dean of Liberty Unversity’s Law School. Members of Staver’s Liberty Counsel and law school staff have been implicated in the Isabella Miller-Jenkins kidnapping case, while teachers have instructed law students to ignore “man’s law” in favor of “God’s law.” And so as you might expect, the Summit just goes straight downhill from there. Other speakers include House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA), Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), and GOP Presidential candidate Sen. Rick Santorum. And all of that is before lunch, when voting begins for the Summit’s straw poll. Afternoon speakers include GOP presidential candidates Herman Cain, Texas Gov. Rick Perry, and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, plus Rep. Steve King (R-IA) and Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO). The evening plenary session features another GOP presidential candidate, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), as well as Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal. The craziness just goes on and on and on through Sunday morning.

Exodus International Florida Regional Conference. Leesburg, FL. Exodus International will conduct a two-day conference with the theme “Chosen for Freedom,” beginning today and continuing through Saturday. The conference’s featured speakers include Exodus International president Alan Chambers, former Exodus president Joe Dallas, and former Exodus vice president Randy Thomas. Also speaking is Dr. Julie Hamilton, a former president of the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH) and whose book, Handbook of Therapy for Unwanted Homosexual Attractions, includes a final chapter by discredited ex-gay activist George Rekers. As we reported in our original investigation of Rekers’s “treatment” of four-year-old Kirk Murphy, Rekers claimed that he had successfully turned the “effeminate pre-homosexual” boy into a straight man. He built his entire career on that supposedly groundbreaking success story. Except there were a couple of problems: Kirk grew up to be gay, and he ultimately committed suicide over the lifelong conflicts he struggled with as a result of that therapy. Yet in Hamilton’s book, Rekers boasted that Kirk “had a normal male identity,” six years after Kirk took his life. Hamilton’s book with Rekers’s boast is still on sale at NARTH’s web site, and I have no doubt that it will also be available at the conference, which takes place today and tomorrow at the First Baptist Church in Leesburg, FL.

Minnesota Anti-Marriage Strategy and Briefing Session: Bloomington, MN. The Minnesota Faith and Freedom Coalition, supporters of the latest proposed constitutional amendment to make same-sex marriage even more illegaler in the Gopher state, will hold a Strategy and Briefing Session at the Doubletree Inn in Bloomington, MN this morning from 10:00 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. Invited speakers include GOP presidential candidate Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) and former Christian Coalition honcho Ralph Reed.

If you know of something that belongs on the agenda, please send it here. Don’t forget to include the basics: who, what, when, where, and URL (if available).

And feel free to consider this your open thread for the day. What’s happening in your world?

Westboro Baptist Announces Protest of Steve Jobs’s Funeral

And they used an iPhone to do it.

[via Towleroad]

Steve Jobs Died

Steve Jobs died yesterday after a long battle with pancreatic cancer. I learned the news on my iPhone. There is now an outpouring of online tributes for him from everyone, from the geekiest gadgethead to the President of the United States of America.

My first thought in discovering that he died was a surprisingly sharp pang of sadness. We all knew he was dying, but I was surprised to feel my stomach tighten when I read the news. My next thought was to wonder whether I would always remember where I was when I got the news, the way my parents did about Jack Kennedy. After that, my thoughts turned to embarrassment over placing Jobs’s death on such a high plane. After all, what was he to me? He was a multi-billionaire who got a lot of money from me for my iMac, my MacBook, my AirPort, my iPod, and, of course, I already mentioned my iPhone. (No iPad yet, but I hear the Sirens’ song.) He wasn’t much of a philanthropist and he had a reputation for being rather mercurial. And more personally, I had never met him. We never crossed paths, not even remotely. He was, literally, nothing to me.

I think what we feel about Jobs really does come down to what he sold us, a lot of very shiny, expensive, cool things that we convinced ourselves we couldn’t live without. But when you look at all the things he sold us, there is one thread that runs through all of them. He didn’t just sell us shiny crap. He sold us connections. When the first Mac came out you could just connect an AppleWriter printer to it and it worked! That feat was miraculous for those of us struggling with DOS drivers and BIOS settings. After his second coming to Apple from his wanderings in the wilderness, he brought us the iMac. You just pulled it out of the box, plugged it in and you were connected to the world. Then it was the iPod, and after I loaded about half of my music collection onto it, its shuffle feature presented me with connections between the Ramones, Cut Chemist, Duke Ellington, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, and Hank Williams that I never would have dreamed existed otherwise. What could those connections be, you ask? Some are obvious when you hear them, but others I can’t explain. Maybe the connections are me.

I think maybe that’s really what Steve Jobs brought to the world. Instead of making the computer the center of all of these connections, the center is me. His products made it easy for an introvert like me (yes, really!) to make the most important connections of all, the connections we make to each other. You didn’t have to use his products to make those connections. Email, instant messages, Facebook, and Twitter run on all kinds of devices. But as an engineer, I can tell you that the best technology is always the technology you stop noticing as you go about your daily life. Jobs’s devices did that. They made connecting so easy and and intuitive that the device itself seemed to disappear and you were simply dealing with the person you were connecting with. (Update: So easy that homophobes could use an iPhone to announce they were protesting Jobs’s funeral with no apparent awareness of the irony.)

Jobs brought the world to me, friends and family as well as people who would do me harm. The latter I can do without, but the former are invaluable. It is easier to keep up with everyone wherever I go. Jobs didn’t make those connections possible, but he certainly made them much easier and more ubiquitous, and in doing so he make it easier for us to do stay connected to each other. That, I think, is his greatest accomplishment. He really didn’t make the world better. He just made it easier for us to do it ourselves.