Box Turtle Bulletin

This Is A Gay Establishment

Last night a friend of mine who’s short on cash asked me to come cheer/vote for him at a $100 amateur strip contest at Club Q in Colorado Springs.  Though I often visit The Springs for activism I’d never been to Club Q before and was immediately struck by this large sign next to their front door.

Click to enlarge

Allow me to offer a translation: “If you come in and bang patrons with your religious beliefs the lesbians will get all worked up and we’ll throw your ass out.”

The experience in many ways reminded me of the 2006 documentary Small Town Gay Bar despite El Paso County having a population of nearly 600,000.  Much like a small town gay bar Club Q serves the entire spectrum of LGBT people and the facility and decor is very eclectic and somewhat pieced together.  The outdoor smoking patio for example contains a garden bench, a living room sofa and a bench that was clearly taken from the back of a mini-van.

But the most interesting part of the evening was the strip contest, open to all patrons regardless of gender.  The voting was narrowed to one guy (my friend) and one gal and in the end the guys were louder but the gals greater in number.

AFA’s Bryan Fischer Proposes Sectarian Cleansing of US Military

AFA's Bryan Fischer speaking at the 2009 Value Voters Summit

This is shocking even by usual American Family Association “standards.”  Here’s what the AFA’s Bryan Fischer is saying:

It it is time, I suggest, to stop the practice of allowing Muslims to serve in the U.S. military. The reason is simple: the more devout a Muslim is, the more of a threat he is to national security. Devout Muslims, who accept the teachings of the Prophet as divinely inspired, believe it is their duty to kill infidels. Yesterday’s massacre is living proof.  And yesterday’s incident is not the first fragging incident involving a Muslim taking out his fellow U.S. soldiers.

Of course, most U.S. Muslims don’t shoot up their fellow soldiers. Fine. As soon as Muslims give us a foolproof way to identify their jihadis from their moderates, we’ll go back to allowing them to serve. You tell us who the ones are that we have to worry about, prove you’re right, and Muslims can once again serve. Until that day comes, we simply cannot afford the risk. You invent a jihadi-detector that works every time it’s used, and we’ll welcome you back with open arms.

Let’s contrast Fischer’s statement to the 1942 US Government propaganda film “Japanese Relocation” (wikipedia / youtube):

We knew that some among them [Japanese Americans] were potentially dangerous but no one knew what would happen among this concentrated population if Japanese forces should try and invade our shores. Military authorities therefore determined that all of them, citizens and aliens alike would have to move.

Near the end of the film:

[This current story of Japanese internment] will be fully told only when circumstances permit the loyal American citizens once again to enjoy the freedom we in this country cherish and when the disloyal, we hope, have left this country for good. In the mean time we are setting a standard for the rest of the world in the treatment for people who may have loyalties to an enemy nation, we are protecting ourselves without violating the principals of Christian decency.  We won’t change this fundamental decency no matter what our enemies do.

via Joe.My.God

GLAAD Asks ‘South Park’ To Dumb Down Show

Here’s a clip from last week’s South Park, titled “The F Word,” in which the boys attempted to redefine the word “fag” to mean inconsiderately loud and attention seeking motorcycle riders:

Fans of South Park, including myself, often view the show as one of TV’s most intelligent outlets for artistic cultural commentary.  “The F Word” episode was no exception as it examined the power of the word “fag,” its constantly changing definition throughout history, and lastly the ability of a community to reclaim an insult into a badge of honor and identity.

GLAAD sees things differently and issued a Call To Acton.  Poor GLAAD couldn’t even bring themselves to using the word “fag” in their Call To Action:

The creators of South Park are right on one important point: more and more people are using the F-word as an all-purpose insult. However, it is irresponsible and wrong to suggest that it is a benign insult or that promoting its use has no consequences for those who are the targets of anti-gay bullying and violence. This is a slur whose meaning remains rooted in homophobia. And while many South Park viewers will understand the sophisticated satire and critique in last night\’s episode, others won\’t [emphasis added] – and if even a small number of those take from this a message that using the “F-word” is OK, it worsens the hostile climate that many in our community continue to face.

Let me establish my credibility as a creative professional;  I’m a licensed architect, I create films and interviews for my gay activism, and I’m a paid blogger for a community events group in Denver.  There are a variety of ways to criticize creative works, some of which are stronger than others.  Here’s how I see things…

Examples of valid and strong criticisms:

• The theme of your work is offensive to gay people
• Your work exploits gay people
• Your work presents ugly stereotypes as truth
• Your work is uninteresting or uncompelling
• Your work failed to make its point
• Your work is unoriginal

Examples of weak criticisms:

• Stupid people won’t understand your work
• You didn’t fit our talking points into your work
• You didn’t articulate your work’s message the way we wanted

It’s like saying contemporary art superstar Damien Hurst shouldn’t create works of art like the image below because someone might not understand the piece and think it’s OK to go out and spear an animal dozens of times with arrows.

The only thing I find offensive about “The F Word” is GLAAD asking other creative professionals to cater to the lowest common denominator in their audience because someone, somewhere might not understand it.  The weak and invalid argument GLAAD presents would dumb-down America’s great cultural landscape for all of us.

The full episode can be viewed on South Park’s website until Wednesday night when the next new episode airs.

CNN “A ‘Congressional Spouse’ Breaks Barriers”

(crossposted on ELEMENT, a Denver gay blog I’m paid to write for)

A few days ago I read an article on CNN.com about what life is like for Jared Polis (D-Boulder) and his partner in Congress. Polis’ spouse writes:

Rarely has anyone seen me for what I actually am. I don my “Congressional Spouse” lapel pin proudly and hope each time not to be questioned, yet I still receive sideways glances and orders to produce an official ID. It is as if my story is too unbelievable to be true, that I am an interloper, someone in a place I do not belong.

I believe the focus of the article is supposed to be about brave dear Polis is for shrugging off dirty looks and overcoming stereotypes. Yet, time after time the article mentions a spousal privilege that Polis should be denied because the Federal Defense of Marriage Act and how special exceptions have been made.

The stench of elitist privilege overwhelmed me by the end of this obnoxious article thinking about all the hassles “ordinary” gays get from their government every single day and how that same government pulls aside the velvet rope for Polis.

I don’t see how we can expect leaders, who aren’t subject to the same laws as the employees in their district, to be motivated to change them in a timely fashion.

Growing Up Gay Attending Coastline Bible Church, Day IV of IV

Here is the final installment of my daily series looking at my childhood church’s harmful teachings which ultimately lead me to seek out ex-gay therapy.

I generally blindly accepted everything I was taught in my church’s youth program but their teaching on gender expression was so blatantly hypocritical I didn’t fully buy into it even at the time.  The way we chose to express our gender is determined entirely by peer pressure.

I’ve talked about the eventual loss of my faith in previous videos and interviews but since it so directly relates to this church I felt the need to include it in this series.  So consider this a bonus video:

Part I, “What My Church Taught Me About My Sexuality”
Part II, “The Harm Of Trying To Fit Into Someone Else’s Mold”
Part III, “Distrusting Science When It Doesn’t Agree With Your Faith”
Part IV, “Gender Conformity And Giving In To Peer Pressure”

Growing Up Gay Attending Coastline Bible Church, Day III of IV

Here is today’s installment of my series looking at my childhood church’s harmful teachings which ultimately lead me to seek out ex-gay therapy.

What does refusing to believe in evolution have in common with ex-gay programs?  A willingness to ignore the vast body of scientific evidence in favor of your faith.

I should add that in middle school youth group we were once shown an apologetics video about creation/evolution.  This inspired me to ask numerous pesky questions during my 7th grade science teacher’s short and basic lesson on evolution to the point where she actually lost her cool and near well yelled at me during class.  Writing this post prompted me to track her down on facebook and apologize and let her know that after additional and more advanced lessons in evolution later in my academic career I came to see how intellectually bankrupt “creation science” is.

Part I, “What My Church Taught Me About My Sexuality”
Part II, “The Harm Of Trying To Fit Into Someone Else’s Mold”
Part III, “Distrusting Science When It Doesn’t Agree With Your Faith”
Part IV, “Gender Conformity And Giving In To Peer Pressure”

Growing Up Gay Attending Coastline Bible Church, Day II of IV

Here is today’s installment of my series looking at my childhood church’s harmful teachings which ultimately lead me to seek out ex-gay therapy.

Churches like Coastline Bible Church like to present a single model for what makes up an acceptable family — this is generally at the expense of single parent households, other family members raising kids, blended families, unmarried partners, people who remain single or don’t procreate, and of course LGBT folk like me.

Today’s video looks at how the church sends the message to non-conformers like me that I am inferior unless I bend my life to fit their model. As you’ll see bending one’s life to such extreme degrees can result in things breaking.

There’s a term for this attitude, Heterosexism: the presumption that straight two-parent households are superior to all other family life arrangements. And in case you haven’t already heard about it, Soulforce, Box Turtle Bulletin, Truth Wins Out and a few other groups are having an entire conference about the underlying heterosexism of exgay programs next in Florida called the Anti-Heterosexism Conference.  Of course I’ll be there.

Part I, “What My Church Taught Me About My Sexuality”
Part II, “The Harm Of Trying To Fit Into Someone Else’s Mold”
Part III, “Distrusting Science When It Doesn’t Agree With Your Faith”
Part IV, “Gender Conformity And Giving In To Peer Pressure”

Growing Up Gay Attending Coastline Bible Church, Day I of IV

When I entered middle school my family switched to Coastline Bible Church (known then as First Baptist Church Ventura) because it had a more active youth program.  What my parents were not aware of were the radical right wing ideas and anti-gay gospel taught at the church which even filtered down into youth programs.

As an ex-gay survivor activist I have spent the last several years telling my story of having gone though ex-gay therapy but have never elaborated much on how my church’s teachings affected my decision to pursue therapy.

This series of short videos will run through the end of the week. Today I present day I, “What My Church Taught Me About My Sexuality.”

Far too many gay youth who grow up attending church are taught horrible, awful, terrible things about their own sexuality. For me to say that 15 years ago I was taught homosexuality was simply “wrong” would be silly. Rather I prefer to illustrate how I learned about homosexuality in church, by recalling specific incidents that would shape the rest of my life.

I believe the years of anti-gay teachings I endured as a minor at this church amounts to psychological child abuse — To not tell my story and how my life was harmed by my church’s teachings would be a disservice to other gay youth currently enduring the same thing.

Part I, “What My Church Taught Me About My Sexuality”
Part II, “The Harm Of Trying To Fit Into Someone Else’s Mold”
Part III, “Distrusting Science When It Doesn’t Agree With Your Faith”
Part IV, “Gender Conformity And Giving In To Peer Pressure”

Focus President Jim Daly Misrepresents Anthropology

This isn’t the first time Focus has misrepresented the entire field of anthropology. Last year Focus staffer Glenn Stanton and Citizenlink claimed:

Glenn Stanton, director of global family formation studies at Focus on the Family, said there\’s a clear consensus among anthropologists.

“A family is a unit that draws from the two types of humanity, male and female,” he said. “Those two parts of humanity join together, create new life and they both cooperate in the legitimization of the child, if you will, and the development of the child.”

Stanton’s claim prompted rebukes from actual anthropologists including Bill Maurer, the anthropology department chair at UC Irvine and Damon Dozier, the American Anthropological Association (AAA) Director of Public Affairs. Dozier reminded us in 2004 the AAA Executive Board issued the following statement in response to President Bush\’s proposal for a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage:

The results of more than a century of anthropological research on households, kinship relationships, and families, across cultures and through time, provide no support whatsoever for the view that either civilization or viable social orders depend upon marriage as an exclusively heterosexual institution. Rather, anthropological research supports the conclusion that a vast array of family types, including families built upon same-sex partnerships, can contribute to stable and humane societies.

But Focus apparently didn’t learn anything about anthropology in the last year since Stanton’s bone-headed remarks. Yesterday, Focus president Jim Daly wrote in the Washington Post’s “On Faith” blog:

And that is why marriage is universally and fundamentally about male and female. Examine how leading anthropologists over the last 80 years – from the Royal Anthropological Institution’s Notes and Queries, to Edward Westermarck, George Murdock, A.R. Radcliffe-Brown, Bronislaw Malinowski, Kathleen Gough, Ward Goodenough and Pierre van den Berghe – define marriage across all cultures – religious and secular – and see how constantly you encounter references to male and female, procreation and off-spring legitimization as the universal and primary qualities of this sacred institution.

It should be noted according to Daly’s bio on Focus’ website, his only degree is a BS in business administration.

But most of all I find it disappointing Daly and Focus are again misrepresenting an entire field of science in their war against gay families.

Focus President Jim Daly may be contacted at: jim.daly@fotf.org
And the Washington Post’s “On Faith” editor can be reached at: onfaith@washingtonpost.com

If You’re Attending The Creating Change Conference This Weekend

The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force “Creating Change” conference is being held in Denver this weekend. Fellow ex-gay survivor Christine Bakke and I will be giving a 90 minute seminar on the ex-gay survivor movement this Saturday at 3pm. Most seminars are on Friday or Saturday and discounted registration for a single day is available. Download a PDF of the full schedule of events here.

Saddleback’s New Definition, Courtesy Of Dan Savage

Gay sex advice columnist and author Dan Savage isn’t known for holding back against people he views as enemies of the LGBT community. Angered by anti-gay comments made by former Senator Rick Santorum, Savage named a rather disgusting and previously un-named phenomenon relating to anal-sex after him. Performing a Google search on “Santorum” turns up Savage’s definition as the top item.

And now we get to Savage’s recent anger with Rick Warren of Saddleback Church. What is a “Saddleback” exactly? Savage wasn’t sure it had any definition so he took it upon himself to create one. After polling his readers Savage has announced his new definition of Saddleback / Saddlebacking:

From the new website Saddlebacking.com

Savage finds this new definition apropos because of Warren’s ideological promotion of abstinence-only programs which not only don’t work, but result in teens substituting anal-sex and oral-sex believing they aren’t “real” sex.

Mel White, Reality TV Star?

Click to view Mel and Mike’s “cast interview”

Soulforce founder Mel White and his son Mike have been cast in the soon-to-start next season of CBS’s Amazing Race. The show premiers on Sunday, February 15th, 8:00pm ET/PT and the usual suspects from the religious right haven’t thrown a tantrum yet so there isn’t much else to put in my post just yet.

You can also view their bio on the CBS website here.

Hat tip to my mom.

ADF Hands “Day Of Truth” Over To Exodus

Those familiar with the ex-gay movement have long known Alliance Defense Fund’s (ADF) “Day Of Truth” is not only a reaction to the “Day Of Silence” but also a thinly veiled effort to push ex-gay programs in public schools. Well ADF has gone and made it official, handing over the Day Of Truth to Exodus via an email and press release dated Jan 20, 2009.

The Alliance Defense is transitioning its leadership of the Day of Truth initiative to Exodus International.

[snip]

the Day of Truth has grown from a handful of students to over 13,000 participants in all 50 states standing for the Truth. As the movement has grown, the focus has continued to broaden…providing students not only with legal assistance when their free speech rights are challenged, but also providing them with information on how to minister and witness to individuals struggling with homosexual behavior.

It’s because of growth in this latter area that this transition is occurring. For more than thirty years, Exodus International has provided thoughtful care to individuals wishing to leave homosexuality and offered support for related families, friends and churches. With 230 member organizations, the Exodus network is mobilizing the body of Christ to minister grace and truth to a world impacted by homosexuality…perfectly positioning them to lead the Day of Truth into the future.

ADF will continue to serve as the legal support arm for this project and represent any student who is silenced or punished for speaking the Truth.

For a little background on the Day Of Truth, how it was founded and it’s troubling ex-gay rhetoric have a look at this video.

(Please note I created this video before Love In Action closed their teen ex-gay bootcamp. Other than that everything in the video is accurate.)

Review: “The Trials Of Ted Haggard”

What’s this, a new author? If you take a look at the left side of this page you’ll see there are three authors listed here at BTB. As a former patient of ex-gay therapist and NARTH founder Joe Nicolosi my specialty is ex-gay issues and video projects documenting ex-gay harm.

I admit I’d grown sick of following Haggard’s most recent media circus when a screener of Alexandra Pelosi’s upcoming documentary fell into my lap so I didn’t have a clue what to expect from it. First let me tell you what the film is not about — it’s not about the initial breaking of scandal in Colorado Springs nor is it about Ted’s ex-gay therapy sessions. Rather it’s about Ted trying to put his his life and the life of his family back together after being banished from Colorado and the effects of his cripplingly harsh severance agreement. This agreement dictated he may never work in any form of ministry or reside in the state of Colorado ever again (the Colorado restriction is dropped after a year). Additionally Ted’s presumably vast Christian social network had largely abandoned him leading Pelosi to ask (while holding the camera at Ted) “Where have all your friends gone?” I found that question so shockingly harsh I let out an audible gasp in sympathy.

That’s very much what this film is about, feeling sympathetic for Ted because of the way his former friends and church have abandoned him. Viewers see the Haggard family move repeatedly between Phoenix area motels and “safe houses,” trying unsuccessfully to put their lives back together. We see Ted try and secure steady employment, and failing at that, take out a loan against their home back in The Springs.

I’m listing all the ways the film makes you sympathize with Ted, but don’t worry about Pelosi presenting it in an overly sentimental way. The film’s very raison d’être is to look at Ted’s unglamorous new life in Arizona and give him a fair chance to tell his side of the story. Of note is Ted’s explanation that he never claimed to be “completely heterosexual” after three weeks of therapy, a claim which he says originated with a member of his “restoration team.” Also of note are a couple of very brief interviews with his wife, which are some of the most profound and telling scenes in the entire film. With those two exceptions the film focuses far more on Ted’s alienation from his old social networks than what’s going on in ex-gay therapy or his marriage.

Pelosi does an excelent job shooting compelling footage to illustrate how far the Haggard family has fallen and how much of a trial their lives have become. She pulls no punches with her questions for Ted, who answers them with the most genuine thought and emotion of any of his public statements since the scandal broke.

I still have a great deal of criticism for Ted and personally would liked to have seen Pelosi focus on other aspects of his life and behavior, but as I’ve made it pretty clear this film is about the trials which Ted Haggard’s family endured after being banished to Arizona. For succeeding in that I absolutely recommend spending 41 minutes of your life watching this film and possibly feeling human emotion for someone you’d previously felt nothing but loathing and disdain for.

“The Trials Of Ted Haggard” premiers on HBO January 29th at 8pm “HBO East” and 11pm “HBO West” with multiple re-broadcasts (all times Eastern). View a full schedule here.

Hair You Can Straighten, Gays Not So Much

Colorado-area and national groups Beyond Ex-Gay, Soulforce, Truth Wins Out, the Colorado Queer Straight Alliance, PFLAG, the GLBT Center of Colorado, Our Savior’s Lutheran Church, the Religious Society of Friends and more have been working the past few months to organize a public response to this weekend’s NARTH conference.

NARTH, the National Association for the Research and Treatment of Homosexuality, is an anti-gay “secular” group that believes that being gay is a sickness that can and should be cured. Wait, have we traveled back in time to the 19th Century???

We have planned a series of events under the banner, “Ex-Gay Exposé: Exploring Practices and Harm in Reparative Therapy.” As former clients of NARTH and NARTH-inspired ex-gay therapy, we speak directly to destructive nature of theories and therapies designed to change and suppress gay and lesbian orientation and gender differences.

In addition to standing up as public witnesses to counter the false and misleading messages of NARTH, we will meet with ex-gay survivors to explore our ex-gay experiences and look at ways in which we have creatively sought to recover from them and integrate our sexuality as part of our healthy development. We will also convene a team of mental health experts for a summit to consider treatment plans and best practices designed to help ex-gay survivors overcome from the harm we have experienced at the hands of anti-gay practitioners.

Lisa M. Diamond, Ph.D., an Associate Professor of Psychology and Gender Studies in the Department of Psychology at the University of Utah, speaks out in this video about how NARTH distorted and misrepresented her work in order to push their anti-gay agenda. (hat tip to Wayne Besen and Truth Wins Out)

Weekend Schedule

Friday, Nov 7th

7pm: Doin’ Time with Peterson Toscano. Well-known ex-gay survivor Peterson Toscano, as seen in The Advocate and LOGO’s “Be Real,” will be on hand to perform excerpts from several plays inspired by his years spent in the ex-gay movement. Location: Our Savior’s Lutheran Church (915 E 9th Ave, Denver. An affirming congregation)

Saturday, Nov 8th

8:45-10am: Rally at NARTH Conference site, Renaissance Hotel (3801 Quebec St, Denver). Meet outside to the south of the hotel.

11-4pm: Ex-Gay Exposé Gathering. Gathering for ex-gay survivors as well as allies who wish to learn more about the ex-gay movement. Location: Moutain View Friends Meeting. (2280 S Columbine St, Denver)

6-8pm: Mental Health Professionals workshop, part 1 (What is the ex-gay movement? What are common needs of ex-gay survivors?). Location: GLBT Community Center. (1050 Broadway, Denver)

Sunday, Nov 9th

9am-12pm: Mental Health Professionals workshop, part 2 (Exploring best practices for treating ex-gay survivors). Location: GLBT Community Center (1050 Broadway, Denver)

7 pm: Transfigurations: Transgressing Gender in the Bible. Written and performed by Peterson Toscano. Location: Our Savior’s Lutheran Church (915 E 9th Ave, Denver. An affirming congregation).

If you’re interested in attending any of these events, please fill out the information on this signup page and we’ll email you as needed.