Box Turtle Bulletin

LaBarbera rants on like… well, LaBarbera

Timothy Kincaid

May 13th, 2008

In response to our criticism of his alliance with racists, Peter LaBarbera has lashed out in his usual way, ranting and frothing and void of all reason or accuracy.

Pete doesn’t rebuke his allies David Duke and Ted Pike for their racism and anti-Semitism. He doesn’t admit that he is fearful of the story that might come out in court if VanAdslen is prosecuted. He doesn’t allow that “the homosexual”, the witnesses, and the police just might be telling the truth. He doesn’t acknowledge that his language contrasting Velasquez with the “strapping, clean-cut, All-American looking young man” lends itself to racism.

Ah, but if he did any of that, he wouldn’t be Peter LaBarbera.

No, instead Pete identifies me as “the Left”, accuses me of hate, and calls me an anti-Christian bigot like Barney Frank (I don’t know why he brings up Barney Frank, but I’m guessing it’s because he’s Jewish and we know what Pete’s allies think about those radical homosexual Jews).

Oh, and to prove that LaBarbera is not a racist he posts a picture of a Black ex-lesbian (yes, he capitalizes “black”). If it wasn’t so tragic it would be funny.

OK. Sure I question the theology of exclusion and condemnation. Yeah I point out when conservatives twist Scripture, logic, and truth to fit their anti-gay agenda.

But “the Left”?

Anti-Christian?

Now that’s what I call irony.

So we have a challenge for LaBarbera: Hey, Pete, give us an example of how our writings here at Box Turtle Bulletin show that we hate Christians. Provide us an example of the anti-Christian bigotry that you think is so prevalent on this site.

APA Symposium’s Critical Flaw: What About The Ex-Gay Survivors?

This commentary is the opinion of the author and is not necessarily the opinion of other authors at Box Turtle Bulletin.

Jim Burroway

May 13th, 2008

Don’t you hate it when you know that people are talking about you and you’re not there? And don’t you hate it even more when they’re talking about something that’s directly relevant to your experience, and that the whole point of their conversation is to arrive at conclusions about how to deal with you in the future? And you’re not invited to be a part of the conversation?

I know I do. But the now-canceled American Psychiatric Association Symposium “Homosexuality and Therapy: The Religious Dimension” was about to do just that.

The symposium, as the title suggests, was intended to discuss the intersection of faith and therapy, with special consideration to issues surrounding homosexuality. One particular topic was likely to dominate the discussion: efforts to change sexual orientation through therapeutic means. After all, this panel’s formation came as a response to the APA’s decision to form a working group to review its stance on ex-gay therapy.

The panel was organized by Dr. David Scasta, past president of the APA’s Association of Gay and Lesbian Psychiatrists. Also participating would have been Dr. Warren Throckmorton, who defends sexual reorientation therapy for those who want it, while recognizing that some forms can be harmful. Together they were to have covered the “therapy” aspects of what might have been a interesting exchange (although it would have been grossly incomplete for reasons I’ll get into in a moment).

But the panel was doomed from the start with the participating of two starkly polarizing figures representing the “religious dimension” of the panel. Southern Baptist Theological Seminary president Rev. Albert Mohler was to be one participant. He has been a stridently vocal advocate for sexual reorientation therapy, so much so that he even approved of prenatal therapy if such a thing were to exist — which, of course, it doesn’t. What contribution he might have had to a symposium which was supposed to bring “scientists and clinicians” together is very unclear.

Providing “balance” for the other side would have been Bishop Gene Robinson, the first openly gay bishop in the Anglican community. He too is a very odd choice. Bishop Robinson may be famous for his groundbreaking position in the church, but there’s no indication that he has any background for speaking about sexual reorientation therapy. Against Dr. Throckmorton and Rev. Mohler (who often speaks in support of reorientation therapy), Rev. Robinson would have been very much out of his element. No wonder Focus On the Family was so excited to mischaracterize the event as a “debate” between Robinson and Mohler to validate their position on sexual reorientation therapy.

That would have left Dr. Scasta as the only one who would have had even a remote possibility of speaking knowledgeably about reorientation therapy as an LGBT-affirming advocate. But unlike Throckmorton, Scasta has not published anything himself concerning sexual reorientation therapy that I’m aware of. With his background as editor of the Journal of Gay and Lesbian Psychotherapy, he may have been able to hold his own just fine, but I’ve not been able to find anything which speaks to his knowledge on this particular subject.

We were about to hear a lot of people talking about people who tried to change their sexual orientation, but it wasn’t clear that we were going to hear a lot of informed people talking about them. And worse, in setting up the symposium they left out the most important perspective: ex-gay survivors. This seems to happen all too often. Christine Bakke, ex-gay survivor and a Beyond Ex-Gay organizer, put the problem this way:

What got lost was the actual people who were doing [the ex-gay ministries]. It’s like a kid in a custody battle.

Well they’re definitely not kids anymore. Over the past year, we’ve seen hundreds of former ex-gays come forward in something that is beginning to resemble a movement. Before now, we all knew they existed — we certainly talked about them a lot — but we are just now starting to hear from them directly in pretty significant numbers — as well as from former ex-gay leaders and spokespersons. The days when they were seen but not heard are clearly over. Their experiences in ex-gay therapy are far too compelling to ignore, and their rapidly growing numbers in just a few short years suggests that many more will follow.

But so far, their existence was been largely overlooked or, worse, dismissed as a stunt. When survivors organized their very first conference in Irvine, California, more than two hundred people showed up. But Exodus International president Alan Chambers responded with snide comments while Focus On the Family spread bold-faced lies about the gathering. Even Dr. Throckmorton cast doubts on the ex-gay survivors motives during their historic, first-ever meeting.

Clearly this new movement has touched a nerve. Before now, the ex-gay movement and their defenders have had a free hand in defining the parameters of debate with very little effective opposition. Beginning in the 1990’s they embarked on a massive television and billboard campaign to convince the world that “ex-gays do exist” and “change is possible.” Exodus International took out full-page ads in national newspapers, and ex-gay ministry leader Michael Johnston appeared in television commercials. This, of course, was before his downfall in 2003 when it was learned that he had been hosting orgies, taking drugs and practicing unsafe sex without disclosing his HIV status.

Dr. Throckmorton himself has contributed to this publicity effort. In 2004, he produced the video “I Do Exist,” which he encouraged churches and schools to show as a counter to National Coming Out Day. In it, he described studies which he claimed documented cases “of people who had changed from completely homosexual to completely heterosexual.” The video featured several ex-gays including Noé Gutierrez, Sarah Lipp, Joanne Highley, and Cheryl and Greg Quinlan. All of these were presented as though they were ordinary, run-of-the-mill ex-gays who had an interesting story to tell.

But Sarah Lipp certainly isn’t an ordinary humble ex-gay picked at random. Her segments were filmed in Chattanooga, where she happens to be the women’s ministry coordinator for the Harvest USA ex-gay ministry, having founded several ex-gay support groups throughout the mid-South. Joanne Highley also leads an ex-gay ministry in New York. She’s an especially interesting character. She describes her lesbian past as having been “under demonic oppression.” She has also said that she heard a voice telling her that she would be “ministering to homosexuals and Jews.” That, of course, is not on the video, where she instead appears as a nice, kindly, and perhaps even a timid older lady.

Also not on the video is Greg Quinlan’s exuberance for manufacturing public confrontations while representing PFOX. He does that when he’s not acting on behalf of his own Dayton-based Pro Family Network. He and his wife Cheryl were very active in promoting Ohio’s anti-marriage constitutional amendment, which is just one example of how ex-gay leaders routinely leverage their own marriages for political causes against LGBT citizens.

In fact, of the five ex-gays appearing in that video, four of them had a personal vocational stake in promoting ex-gay ministries. Not surprisingly, this fits a well-known pattern. In Spitzer’s famous 2003 ex-gay study of people who claimed to have changed, he reported that “the majority of participants (78 percent) had publicly spoken in favor of efforts to change homosexual orientation, often at their church,” and that “nineteen percent of the participants were mental health professionals or directors of ex-gay ministries.” Exodus president Alan Chambers and vice-president Randy Thomas were just two of those participants.

The only person featured in ”I Do Exist” who was not an anti-gay activist was Noé Gutierrez. He proclaimed himself to be “entirely heterosexual” in the video, but after the video’s release he announced that he regretted that his story became a part of “the divisive message of the ex-gay movement.” In a later update to his web site, he described how quickly Exodus International banned him from their annual conferences after he expressed doubts about ex-gay ministries, and some of the harms that he experienced as a fallout from his participation in ex-gay ministries — harms that are remarkably familiar to many ex-gay survivors I’ve talked to over the past year.

Nevertheless, “I Do Exist” is still available for sale on Dr. Throckmorton’s web site.

So yeah, we’ve all heard a lot from ex-gays. They’ve had free reign for nearly two decades to use their lives as examples to argue against advancing the civil rights of their fellow LGBT citizens. And until now, they’ve enjoyed something of a monopoly on the public square. Sure, there have always been activists who argued against sexual reorientation therapy, but many of them — as well-intentioned as they may have been — were often demonstrably uninformed about the movement, and that has diminished both their credibility and their effectiveness.

But now we have real live former ex-gays who, in concordance with their faith, tried to change their lives to fit the only mold their faiths allowed them — only to find themselves outside the false promise of “change” and, worse for some of them, feeling as though they were beyond reconciliation with God. These are people who really tried to bring their lives into congruence with their faiths, and yet this is where their ex-gay experiences left them. Ex-gays and their supporters have been speaking for decades now; it is way past time now for survivors to have a place at the table.

Talking is good, but this forum would not have included the very people who most needed to be heard. Ex-gay survivors really do exist, to borrow a phrase. And until these survivors are invited to speak to those who would presume to speak about them, a critical part of the conversation will remain unheard. And that won’t do anyone any good.

Straight Convention Workers An Epicenter For Potentially Deadly Norovirus

Jim Burroway

May 10th, 2008

It was just last January when the San Francisco Chronicle stoked fears over a new “gay plague” in their article about methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MSRA), a bacterial staph infection that is resistant to certain antibiotics. An article published in the Annals of Internal Medicine documented an outbreak of MRSA in the Castro, which lead anti-gay activists to falsely accuse gay men of spreading MRSA from the gay community into the straight community. The only problem with that charge is that MRSA had been making its rounds among heterosexuals for several decades. Ironically, athletes are at particularly high risk.

The Chronicle headline that started that hysteria read:

S.F. gay community an epicenter for new strain of virulent staph

Today, San Francisco activist Michael Petrelis noticed that this morning’s Chronicle headline about an outbreak of a potentially deadly norovirus among straight workers is very different:

Moscone Center workers sickened by norovirus

San Francisco public health officials are warning of an outbreak of a virus that has sickened dozens of people at Moscone Center.

About 70 people who fell ill had been at the Moscone Center between April 30 and Thursday, authorities said Friday. All but three were staff members working at the convention center, said Moscone spokesman David Perry.

Michael Petrelis observes that while the MRSA story in January hyped fears of a dreaded disease in the gay community infecting the “general population,” this story is being treated by some news outlets as a light-hearted, low-key tech story (this norovirus epidemic started during a JavaOne tech conference) aimed at calming fears rather than stoking them. He noticed that CNET’s coverage was downright adolescent:

To clarify, this is a virus that makes you barf and gives you diarrhea. It’s not the kind of virus that sends Viagra-pitching e-mails to all your friends or treats you to a Rick Astley sing-along every time you turn on your computer.

No, you won’t drop dead from it. Norovirus is better known as one of the viruses that causes a nasty stomach flu. Symptoms only last about a day or two, but it’s highly contagious. Just to up the gross-out factor: Norovirus is found in the fecal matter or vomit of people who are infected. If they don’t wash their hands properly, they spread it when they handle food or drinks.

What a difference. When it was gays coming down with MRSA, headlines screamed, “New Superbug Hitting Gay Men” or “Flesh-eating bug spreads among gays.” This time, it’s “Did you get infected? Virus runs amok amid JavaOne.”

The norovirus is passed exactly the same way as MRSA — by people who don’t wash up. And get this: fecal matter is a culprit. That detail is an anti-gay activist’s wet dream. I wonder when Matt Barber and Peter LaBarbera will exploit this latest danger coming from the heterosexual community.

Hat tip: Michael Petrelis.

Focus On the Family’s Familiar New Logo

Jim Burroway

May 1st, 2008

Focus On the Family has finally retired its old, tired logo in favor of this new one:

Right away, I thought that logo looked familiar:

So there you have it: more evidence of their total embrace of their sinister agenda.

See also:
The Heterosexual Agenda: Exposing the Myths

Heterosexual Incestuous Sex Slave

Timothy Kincaid

April 30th, 2008

In the Box Turtle Bulletin’s The Heterosexual Agenda: Exposing The Myths, Jim Burroway satirically illustrates how heterosexual militant activists are destroying society.

Here’s yet another example.

Josef Fritzl locked his 18 year old daughter in the basement so he could continue having sex with her… in 1984. She, and the children he subsequently fathered, have been there since. Upstairs, his wife never noticed.

Which all goes to show just why you can’t trust heterosexuals with marriage or children.

Colorado Springs Gazette Defends Paul Cameron

Jim Burroway

April 28th, 2008

This was shocking. Two weeks ago, the Colorado Springs Gazette defended Paul Cameron against the Southern Poverty Law Center’s naming his Family Research Institute a hate group:

The story about elevated hatred included a list of Colorado hate groups, as identified by the Southern Poverty Law Center - a thoroughly discredited organization that labels organizations with opposing political philosophies as hate mongers.

The new Colorado list includes the Colorado Springs-based Family Research Institute. The conservative fundamentalist organization is headed by Paul Cameron, a psychologist and reviewer for the British Medical Journal, Psychological Reports and the Journal of the Canadian Medical Association. The organization’s mission is “to generate empirical research on issues that threaten the traditional family, particularly homosexuality, AIDS, sexual social policy, and drug abuse.”

There’s no question about it: The Family Research Institute opposes homosexuality, and goes out of its way to discourage and besmirch it. It’s controversial, ideological, politically incorrect and unpopular. But is it a hate group, like the Ku Klux Klan or a Nazi skinhead club? Far from it.

Far from it? Really? Cameron has more in common with a Nazi skinhead club than the Gazette seems to realize. Perhaps the editors of the Gazette needs to look over his 1999 article in which he admires how Nazi Germany (and specifically Rudolph Höss) “handled homosexuals” in Dachau and Sachsenhausen.

Instead of casting aspersions against the Southern Poverty Law Center and coming to the defense of a man who proposes similar draconian “solutions” for homosexuality in this country, the Gazette ought to consider engaging in a practice we like to call journalism. A hate group like a Nazi skinhead club? It’s exactly like a Nazi skinhead club. 

The editorial board of the Colorado Springs Gazette is the latest to join our growing list of Cameron supporters. And I’ll once again ask the question I ask everyone who joins the list: Do the Gazette’s editors agree with Cameron’s draconian agenda?

Hat tip: Mike Airhart.

Janelle Hallman Cites Paul Cameron

Jim Burroway

April 26th, 2008

Also joining the list of Cameron supporters is Janelle Hallman. She’s the ex-gay therapist who reached for discredited “researcher” Paul Cameron in her brand new book, The Heart of Female Same-Sex Attraction: A Comprehensive Counseling Resource.

Hallman is a frequent speaker at NARTH and Exodus conferences. When social conservatives like Hallman reach for Cameron, they breath new life into his Nazi sympathizing agenda. At the very least, when they confuse his unethical and illegitimate faux “research” for the real thing, it rightly calls into question their own judgment as professionals.

LifeSite Continues to Cite Paul Cameron

Jim Burroway

April 26th, 2008

The unofficial Roman Catholic LifeSiteNews is an amazing piece of work. They managed to turn a study about large families into an anti-gay tract. And Paul Cameron was right there to help them:

While the UM study shows the health benefits of the traditional large family, other recent studies have revealed the health dangers of non-traditional social relations.

A recent study found that individuals taking part in legal same-sex “marriages” in Norway and Denmark lived 24 fewer years than individuals in traditional marriages, Drs. Paul and Kirk Cameron reported at the 2007 annual Eastern Psychological Association convention.

The man has no shame whatsoever. Not only was his so-called “study” completely bogus and easily refuted, Cameron is still repeating the lie that he “reported” his study at the 2007 annual Eastern Psychological Association convention. You may remember we obtained a statement from EPA president Dr. Phil Hineline exposing Cameron’s boldface lie just a little over a year ago.

But LifeSite really seems to like Cameron. This is the eighth time they’ve turned to him. Like I said, they’re a real piece of work.

The Real Threat Of Same Sex Marriage

Jim Burroway

April 26th, 2008

The New York Times Magazine has a very illuminative story on young gays getting married. It turns out that they have a lot of goofy and ordinary similarities to their straight counterparts. They meet, fall in love, and then they start to figure out what that means to them. For many, that means “settling down,” which comes as a surprise to those who had no intention of settling down — just like a lot of straight couples.

And I think that this the real “threat” that social conservatives find in same-sex marriage: it humanizes us.

They’ve established a massive multi-million dollar industry to convince Americans that gays and lesbians are evil monsters threatening western civilization. Focus On the Family has 1300 employees. Think of it: that’s larger than many factories. And they use their massive resources — their broadcast outlets and their print publications — to portray us as being a part of an evil agenda bringing America to its knees. And until now, they’ve had free reign to say whatever they want about gay people. When few Americans were able to see real world examples to counter their false stereotype, it represented a very powerful wedge.

But gay couples getting married and setting up households couldn’t be more conventional. It is tangible evidence that we’re not all that different in many important ways. We get together for all the same reasons — good and bad — that straight couples do. Some of our relationships are long lasting and monogamous (something that social conservatives say is impossible) and some fall apart or experience a series of affairs (just like straight couples’ marriage.) Some should never have gotten together in the first place.

But for many of us, we are yet another household on the same block with dozens of other families. We’re attending PTA and homeowner association meetings. We go to block parties and neighborhood Christmas parties. We go to each others’ homes and play cards or have barbecue. We send graduation gifts, we wave goodbye when people move away, and we call on our neighbors to offer condolences when tragedy strikes.

And nothing could be more threatening to social conservatives than that.

The Golden Rule Day: Just What We Need — Another Platitude

This commentary is the opinion of the author and is not necessarily the opinion of other authors at Box Turtle Bulletin.

Jim Burroway

April 24th, 2008

The authors at Box Turtle Bulletin do not share consensus on this issue. For another perspective, please see Timothy Kincaid’s commentary.

Tomorrow is the much-talked-about Day of Silence, a commemoration organized by students across the country to illustrate the pressure that many LGBT kids feel to remain silent in the face of violence, torment and general hostility. This year’s Day of Silence is dedicated to the memory of Lawrence King, the 15-year-old Oxnard, California student who was fatally shot twice in the head by a classmate because he was gay.

Anti-gay activists are clamoring for a strong response to the Day of Silence, but all of their suggestions ignore the very real problem of violence against LGBT students. Instead, they’ve turned their outrage over merely bringing up the subject into a political attack against all things gay, threatening to pull their kids from classroom, stage walkouts, and organize noisy protests in front of schools. They say that calling attention to the fact that kids can actually be murdered is “disruptive,” presumably more disruptive than their own disruptions. But I wonder: how disruptive was Lawrence King’s murder to his classmates and family?

There is one response to the Day of Silence which is unique and notworthy. It is Dr. Warren Throckmorton’s call for a simultaneous Golden Rule Day. The idea behind the Golden Rule Day is that “Christian students” should grab the spotlight by handing out cards printed with the Golden Rule. The cards read simply:

This is what I’m doing:
I pledge to treat others the way I want to be treated.
“Do to others as you would have them do to you.” (Luke 6:31).

The Golden Rule is one of Christendom’s highest tenets. It’s how we all should seek to live. And the Golden Rule represents everything that all of us have ever asked for in our lives, gay and straight alike.

And I am happy to see that one of the expressed statements offered by Dr. Throckmorton in promoting his Golden Rule idea is that

GLBT students and peers as well as other who appear different have been the target of harassment, violence and scorn. We believe this is wrong. The church should lead the way in combating violence and harassment in schools. [Emphasis his]

I’m glad to see that that Dr. Throckmorton has gone straight to the heart of the problem. I believe that he is sincere in his motivation for proposing the Golden Rule Day. I agree that the church should lead the way in combating violence and harassment. And I am happy to see that a few groups are truly taking his suggestions to heart by reaching out to LGBT groups on campus to address this very issue.

I’m glad that Dr. Throckmorton and a few very specific groups have taken on the challenge of discussing anti-gay intimidation and violence. But if people of good faith are willing to talk about anti-gay violence, the Day of Silence was already there as an invitation.
But I am concerned that the Golden Rule Day will go forward without those direct conversations far more often. And under this more likely scenario, I believe there are four critical problems with the Golden Rule Day as it is conceived right now.

A Tool of Division
First, the proposed Golden Rule Day is to be held on the very same conflicting day that LGBT kids are trying to raise awareness to the problems they face, including violence, ridicule, and even death threats. By doing this, the Golden Rule Day too easily becomes a competing counter-event which draws attention away from the very problem that LGBT kids are trying to highlight. At least the organizers of the horribly misnamed “Day of Truth” have the courtesy of holding their event on a different day so as not to appear to infringe upon the Day of Silence. With the Golden Rule Day, LGBT kids don’t even get that.

Second, because the Golden Rule Day is a competing counter event as a response motivated by opposition to homosexuality, it places the Golden Rule itself — one of Western Civilizations most cherished precepts — in opposition to homosexuality. If the Christians are “for” the Golden Rule, then it follows that those who are participating in the Day of Silence aren’t following it. It’s appalling see the Golden Rule become a tool of division, but this is precisely the implications of using the Golden Rule this way.

And this leads directly to my third objection. By framing the Golden Rule Day as a “Christian response” to the Day of Silence, it perpetuates the false Christian vs. Gay dichotomy. I know that it galls a lot of people to suggest that it’s possible to be gay and Christian, but thousands of gay Christians are doing it anyway. But in several parts of the country where Christian identity is paramount and everyone else is worse than terrorists, this can set up a very dangerous dynamic with gay kids caught in the middle — the very dynamic that Dr. Throckmorton seeks to prevent.

And finally — and this, I think, is the biggest problem — the Golden Rule card doesn’t address violence at all. It’s very open ended, allowing it to be exploited in any number of ways. And I do believe it will be exploited because there is a long history of positive sounding messages being turned against us. There is no mention of violence and harassment anywhere on the card, and there is no expectation that such a specific conversation will actually take place.

We’ve heard the “love the sinner, hate the sin” being used to justify the notion that because I really love you, I must condemn your sinful ways, tell everyone you’re caught up in an evil agenda, repeat all sorts of slanders about people like you, and even make harassing phone calls while uttering the most vile accusations.

Too many people believe this is how the Golden Rule works. Incredibly, I’ve even heard non-gay people say that if they were gay, they’d want someone to do everything possible to force them to “stop being gay.” I’m sure Sally Kern believes that pleas to follow the Golden Rule needn’t be directed toward her.

The Golden Rule is one of those wonderful aphorisms which serve more as a Rorschach test than a standard. It can mean whatever anybody wants it to means, allowing it to a provide a “nice” cover for those who have no intention of changing their attitudes or behavior. It’s too easy for the Golden Rule Card to become a sanctimonious, self-righteous and passive-aggressive reaction to the Day of Silence. It allows them to claim the moral high ground — a high ground which by their definition is not a level playing field.

Days and Days of Silence
More than a year ago, I attended a Love Won Out conference in Phoenix put on jointly by Exodus International and Focus On the Family. That’s where I heard Focus’s Mike Haley address anti-LGBT violence in a Q&A session:

I think, too, we also have to be just as quick to also stand up when we do see the gay and lesbian community being come against as the Body of Christ. We need to be the first to speak out to say that what happened to Matthew Shepard was a terrible incident and should never happen again. And that we within the Body of Christ are wanting to protect that community and put our money where our mouth is…

That was a real “Wow!” moment for me. I thought finally, someone gets it. I can’t tell you how encouraged I was to hear Mike Haley say that. It was an ultimate Golden Rule moment. And I can’t begin to describe how disappointed I’ve been since then.

One year later, Lawrence King was killed in cold blood on February 12 in front of his teachers and classmates. Since then, conservative Christians leaders have celebrated seventy-three consecutive Days of Silence.

I’ve searched for Lawrence King’s name on Focus On the Family’s web site and CitizenLink. Guess what? There’s nothing but silence. I’ve searched the Family Research Council’s web site. More silence. Same with American Family Association’s OneNewsNow, the Christian Post, Christianity Today, the Christian Newswire and the Baptist Press. Nobody has raised their voice. Instead, we’ve had days and days of silence all around.

Exodus International, one of the principal sponsors of the so-called “Day of Truth,” has joined this perverse Days of Silence observation as well. I haven’t been able to find any statements of concern or condemnation from Exodus president Alan Chambers, vice-president Randy Thomas, or youth assistant Mike Ensley.

Believe me, I’ve been looking for it because I’d love nothing better than to be able to write a post and say, See? They really are concerned. But none of them could be bothered to put down their instruments of cultural warfare to say, “This was a terrible incident and should never happen again.”

But we do we hear from those who profess to follow the Golden Rule that we are part of an evil agenda, that there is a war between us and them, and that protecting LGBT youth is “worse than the holocaust.” We even hear preachers make light of anti-LGBT violence from their pulpits and threaten teachers who provide a safe place for gay kids to meet.

Oh yes, these people we hear loud and clear. No silence from them at all. And you can bet that each one of them thinks they’re following the Golden Rule.

So forgive me if I see this whole Golden Rule Day in a cynical light. A whole trainload of well-designed cards with yet another scripture quote won’t paper over the problem of anti-LGBT harassment and violence. And using Christianity’s highest ideal as a salve for Golden Rulers’ consciences won’t cut it either. Based on my past experiences with others passing out similar messages, if someone handed me a card like this today I would just throw it in the trash and roll my eyes. I’ve seen too many wonderful statements like this that have turned out to be empty platitudes, and I now find myself suffering from yet another case of déjà vu.

My question is this: what happens the day after everyone has handed out their Golden Rule cards and gone home? Will a conservative Christian leader somewhere suddenly decide to remember Lawrence King? Because I’m still waiting.

If you really want to know how I would have you do unto me, there’s my answer.

Heterosexual Agenda: Sex-Crazed Principal Targets Christian School Moms

Jim Burroway

April 18th, 2008

I wish I had the imagination to make stuff like this up, but I don’t. Thankfully, real life is good enough, and Houston’s ABC13 has the scoop in all of its trashy, hidden-camera glory:

The founder of a Christian school is confronted after 13 Undercover catches him soliciting sex from a parent, who’s trying to get her daughter a high school diploma.

That’s right. LaVern Jordon, founder of Parkway Christian School offered to allow a mother’s daughter to enter the private school. The mother had contacted the school after her daughter failed the state mandated TAKS test. But by paying a fee school and doing some some course work, students can graduate from Parkway Christian School without passing the required state test — which leaves one to wonder what Parkway’s accreditation status is.

But the most unique feature of Parkway Christian has to be its rather unique scholarship program:

Mother: “Yeah, what, I mean what, what, you gonna wipe out all the fees?”

Jordan: “All the enrollment fees.”

Mother: “All the enrollment fees?”

Jordan: “Three hundred dollars.”

Mother: “So you gonna wipe everything if me and you get together?”

Jordan: “The enrollment fee, yeah.”

Mother: “Ok.”

Jordan: “If you and I get together.”

Mother: “What you mean? I mean, what?

Jordan: “Excuse me and I don’t mean to be so blunt but I am talking about f—— you.”

Mother: “You talking about what?”

Jordan: “F—— you.”

But for $300, it’s not just a one time thing:

Jordan: “For the $300 I would expect maybe we could get together several times, you think?”

Mother: “Several times, whatcha mean several times?”

Jordan: “Well I don’t know, you might like whatcha getting.”

That’s one classy sweet-talking heterosexual. CitizenLink, Porno Pete, Concerned Women everywhere, are you watching?

Almost Getting It

This commentary is the opinion of the author and is not necessarily the opinion of other authors at this site.

Timothy Kincaid

April 17th, 2008

I can’t report every homophobic rant that comes out of Jamaica. We’d hardly have time and space for anything else.

However, one letter to the editor illustrates not only the mindset of this island nation but also the thinking process of a great many anti-gay Christians in the United States as well.

I am replying to a letter by one Patrick Harding in which it was stated that one did not choose to be gay. I cannot conceive how a loving God would create someone with a gay gene and then have it stated in the Bible that it is an abomination.

I once came to the same question as Elaine McDonald wrote to the Jamaica Gleaner. But my questioning came to a different conclusion.

Elaine, like so very many Christians, believes that her religious beliefs define the world around her. If “God said it”, or more realistically, if her prejudices are confirmed by her interpretation of Scripture, then it really doesn’t much matter what is factual; she’s already knows what is “true”.

But this statement of hers has three assumptions: 1) God is loving, 2) homosexuality is stated in the Bible to be an abomination, and 3) a loving God would not create someone only to declare them abominable. From this she concludes that God didn’t create someone gay.

McDonald, in her unwillingness to look at all of the variables of her logic, comes to the wrong conclusion. But at least she sees the inconsistency.

I agree with her point 3 as a matter of definition. Although some religious folk believe that God predestines some to eternal torture, I cannot fathom that such a deity could be described as “loving”. Such a god, though an object to fear, would not be worthy of adoration or praise.

Thus either God is not loving, gay people become so of their own volition, or the condition of being homosexual is not an abomination.*

I knew, unquestionably, that neither I nor other gay people made a conscious decision to be same-sex attracted. God had, whether by means of genetics, environment, or some other method, created us irrevocably gay.

So I then had to determine whether or not He condemned me for the way he created me, thus earning my eternal derision and scorn. As I began to study, it became clear to me that being homosexual is not in any place condemned in scripture.

This is where I think much anti-gay and ex-gay theology falls apart. There is an insistence that recognizing or accepting one’s attractions is sinful. But the rather simple-thinking Elaine McDonald has put her finger on the logical inconsistencies of their argument. In order for a “homosexual identity” (which is, of course, nothing more than a recognition of the direction of ones own attractions) to be “a sinful lifestyle”, then one must believe that God is capricious and cruel.

And sadly, reorientation is not the answer. In almost no instances do same-sex attractions change, leaving those who continue to struggle with little hope of redemption. All that the anti-gays and ex-gays can do is to play semantics games about “identity” and “change”.

As for whether specific sexual acts are universally condemned, that is a matter of great debate between various theologies. And I do respect those who, for religious reasons, live celebately and yet dismiss both the games and the condemnation as contrary to gospel.

Personally, I believe that it’s rather unlikely that the correct interpretation of Scripture is one that condemns a specific subset of the population to a life without love. This seems rather odd from a God that places little importance in the distinctions of race, sex, personal situation or political power.

But, as McDonald clearly illustrates, there is no practical distinction in society or the church between those who are same-sex attracted and those who express such an attraction with a partner of the same sex. Rampant anti-gay discrimination and homophobia do not distinguish between the two.

So the next time you hear someone insisting that “there is no gay gene”, just realize that they are acting out of their understanding of the nature of God. And as the preponderance of evidence as to the biological basis of orientation becomes more evident, their internal dissonance will become stronger.

And although some may then argue their newfound distinction between orientation and behavior, they all know that this is a losing argument so most will either become ever more shrill or will quietly go away.

So although the ‘no gay gene’ers may seem the most hateful, it’s probably because they really almost get it. And it’s tearing them apart.

* The atheists among us could argue that another alternative is that God does not exist. I concede that logic but this does not add much to the point of my commentary and is not a subject of this thread.

Certified Cameronite: Sally Kern

Jim Burroway

March 29th, 2008

One thing you can say about Oklahoma State Rep. Sally Kern is this: She doesn’t give up. And the more she talks, the more she embarrasses herself and the good citizens of Oklahoma’s District 84. Today, the Bethany Tribune published a letter to the editor (A permanent copy is available here as PDF.) Kern’s letter contains the usual misinformation from the usual sources.

Kern’s very first paragraph cites a study titled, “The Lifespan of Homosexuals,” immediately following a sentence which references the CDC. The way it’s written, casual readers may assume that “The Lifespan of Homosexuals” was a CDC study, but they’d be wrong. That so-called “study” is actually from none other than Paul Cameron, the discredited “researcher” who has been censured and/or kicked out of virtually every professional association he’s ever been associated with for repeated ethics violations and gross professional misconduct. Most recently, he was censured by the president of the Eastern Psychological Association for misrepresenting his participating at their 2007 conference. In 1999, Paul Cameron wrote “Gays in Nazi Germany,” in which he whitewashed the treatment of gays in Nazi concentration camps, and he has advocated similar draconian measures throughout his career here in the U.S.

Sally Kern will reach for anything to demonize gay and lesbian citizens of her district and beyond, including the rantings of a Nazi sympathizer and holocaust revisionist. We first awarded Kern the LaBarbera Award for her outrageous fear-mongering comments, saying that gays were “the biggest threat our nation has, even more so than terrorism or Islam.” As a Certified Cameronite, Kern has completed her own evolution to the lowest depths of extremist rhetoric. She now joins the ranks of so many others who care neither for the truth, ethics, or simple human decency in their zeal to render LGBT citizens as second class — or worse.

Hat tip: Alvin McEwen

See also:
Sally Kern’s Meeting with PFLAG on Tape
Exodus’ Local Ministry Aligns with Sally Kern
Certified Cameronite: Sally Kern
Kern Speaks to College Republicans
Sally Kern: Out of Context? The Complete Transcript
We Be Jammin’
Muslims and Gays United
OK State Rep. Sally Kern’s Son is “Straight and Not Gay”
Sally Kern Exaggerates Death Threats
A Letter to Sally Kern
LaBarbera Award: Oklahoma State Rep. Sally Kern

Arthur C. Clarke

Timothy Kincaid

March 27th, 2008

On March 19, 2008 Arthur C. Clarke died at the age of 90.

Even if you never read science fiction, there are a handful of household names that are synonymous with the genre, and Arthur C. Clarke is prominent among them. His classics include Childhood’s End, The City and the Stars, and of course, 2001: A Space Odyssey.

I plowed through a good chunk of Clarke’s fiction in my teen years.

But not only was Clarke a contributor of classics, a television host, and a promoter of space exploration, he was also among that class of early sci-fi writers who imagined technology that we take for granted today, including geostationary orbit for satellites in what is now called the Clarke orbit, cell phones, and the internet.

But what I did not know about Clarke, and what was not in most of his obituaries, was his sexual orientation. According to one of Clarke’s correspondants, author Toby Johnson,

He demurred about coming out publicly as gay, he wrote, because he felt this fact would be used to discredit his ideas. He was 61 at the time of Stonewall, already past the sexual prime in which it’s meaningful to identify oneself as gay.

He had a cute quip about not being gay: “At my age now,” he said, “I’m just a little bit cheerful.”

He wrote that he was quite fascinated with the role homosexuals have played down through time as revolutionary thinkers. (In our correspondence, he expressed great interest in C.A. Tripp’s book about Abraham Lincoln as gay.) He kept a private collection of writing which is not to be published until 50 years after his death. I’d wager the world is going to receive the open acknowledgement of his homosexuality and of his theory about gay consciousness as revolutionary come 2058.

Johnson’s story is confirmed by Clarke’s friend, Kerry O’Quinn, publisher of Starlog:

Yes, Arthur was gay – although in his era that wasn’t the term. As Isaac Asimov once told me, “I think he simply found he preferred men.” Arthur didn’t publicize his sexuality – that wasn’t the focus of his life – but if asked, he was open and honest.

It is sad that this luminary was not more open about his orientation, though not surprising considering his generation. And it is discouraging that newspapers couldn’t get beyond his “cheerful” quip to report accurately on his life.

But to those who think that gay people should be exported because “homosexuality is destructive to society” I present a man whose life enriched the world. Now give back your cell phone.

Peter Sprigg Apologizes

Jim Burroway

March 27th, 2008

Current immigration laws deny the foreign partners of gay Americans the ability to immigrate to the U.S, unlike their heterosexually-married counterparts. A bill is stalled in Congress which would address this problem. Last week, we awarded the LaBarbera Award to the Family “Research” Council’s Peter Sprigg for suggesting that instead of uniting gays and lesbians with their partners, we should export gays instead:

I would much prefer to export homosexuals from the United States than to import them into the United States because we believe homosexuality is destructive to society.

Today, Peter Sprigg issued an apology:

In response to a question regarding bi-national same-sex couples who are separated by an international border, I used language that trivialized the seriousness of the issue and did not communicate respect for the essential dignity of every human being as a person created in the image of God. I apologize for speaking in a way that did not reflect the standards which the Family Research Council and I embrace.

Of course, the Family “Research” Council’s standards still allow him to cite the discredited “research” of holocaust revisionist Paul Cameron. No apology or retraction for that. Nevertheless, a start is a start.

Sex-Crazed Heterosexuals Defile Church Altar

Jim Burroway

March 22nd, 2008

Can you imagine the headlines over at Porno Pete’s if this couple had been a gay couple?

Police: Couple broke into church to have sex

SANDERSON, Florida — Deputies in Baker County arrested a couple caught having sex in a church.

Baker County Sheriff’s Deputies say they received a call about a suspicious person outside the Mount Zion Primitive Baptist Church, on the night of March 11th.

Deputies say they found a red Toyota pick-up truck and went inside the church.

“Her drawers [were] in the stands. Her brazier (sic) was over on the outside the stands,” Deacon Lonzie Altman recalled from his conversation with deputies.

According to the offense report, deputies found Crystal Rowland, 24, behind the altar.

Rowland was taken into custody. She told deputies that Matthew Pearce, 28, was still inside.

Deputies found him underneath the church, partially dressed.

Red tea candles were also collected from the church. Deputies say there was splattered red wax all over the altar.

You know, every culture that has completely embraced heterosexuality has eventually come to and end. Is this a sign that ours is doomed?

Hat tip: Pam Spaulding.

LaBarbera Award: Peter Sprigg

Jim Burroway

March 20th, 2008

These awards ave been coming fast and furious lately. It must be spring fever or something. Or Sprigg fever.

Current immigration laws which deny the foreign partners of gay Americans the ability to immigrate to the U.S. A bill is stalled in Congress which would address this problem which forces families apart. The Family “Research” Council’s Peter Sprigg was asked about it and said this:

I would much prefer to export homosexuals from the United States than to import them into the United States because we believe homosexuality is destructive to society.

This “kick them out” kind of sentiment is definitely worthy of the LaBarbera Award. And today, we get a two-fer. Spriggs is also a Certified Cameronite for citing Holocaust revisionist Paul Cameron’s discredited research in his and Timothy Dailey’s 2004 book, Getting it Straight: What the Research Shows About Homosexuality.

See also:
Family Impact Summit: A Lesbian Shows Peter Sprigg How To Debate

Certified Cameronite: Mary Frances Forrester

Jim Burroway

March 17th, 2008

Mary Frances Forrester, the wife of a conservative North Carolina state senator James Forrester (R-Gaston County) published an incredible anti-gay screed in the Christian Action League web site. Mrs. Forrester led off her piece with “evidence” for what she calls “the real homosexual agenda” — you know, the one that begins:

“We shall sodomize your sons, emblems of your feeble masculinity, of your shallow dreams and vulgar lies. We shall seduce them in your schools, in your dormitories, in your gymnasiums, …”

And so on. Anti-gay extremists love quoting this essay, but when they do, they always omit the preface:

This essay is an outré, madness, a tragic, cruel fantasy, an eruption of inner rage, on how the oppressed desperately dream of being the oppressor.

That’s right. This “agenda” is a complete work of fiction — a satire, more specifically — and the author said so when it first appeared in 1987 in the now defunct Gay Community News. In fact, the anonymous writer used the pseudonym “Michael Swift,” which is an obvious tip of the hat to the English language’s most famous satirist, Jonathan Swift. Unfortunately, Forrester, like so many anti-gay extremists, aren’t swift enough to pick up on the obviously satirical nature of the work.

But that’s not why Forrester has been branded a Certified Cameronite. It’s this:

Did you know that the average life span of a homosexual is 39 years as opposed to 78 for heterosexual women and 76 for heterosexual men?

This statistic comes straight from Paul Cameron’s 1994, “The Longevity of Homosexuals: Before and After the AIDS Epidemic” (Omega 29, no. 3: 249-272), which in turn was based on Cameron’s laughable “Obituary Studies.” Nick Eberstadt of the American Enterprise Institute said Cameron’s study was “just ridiculous.” The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were similarly unimpressed with Cameron’s work. And yet this statistic, more than any other, is the one that refuses to die.

And then there’s this one:

Read your social history and you will find that most societies that condoned homosexual behavior did not survive past one generation.

Which society is she referring to? Certainly not Greece — they managed to last for centuries. Maybe she’s getting her information from Sally Kern.

Mary Frances Forrester can’t seem to distinguish satire from fact, or “research” from the crazed imagination of a holocaust revisionist. And for that, she joins a long list of those who have lined up behind Cameron’s Nazi-admiration society.

Sally Kerns Exaggerates Death Threats

Jim Burroway

March 13th, 2008

Oklahoma state rep. Sally Kern’s homophobic rant earned her several thousand emails and phone calls, most of which I’m sure aren’t very civil. Tuesday, Kern alluded to some of them containing death threats, prompting an investigation by the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigations. What did they find?

[OSBI spokeswoman Jessica] Brown said Tuesday, “There are a lot of e-mails to the representative that say, ‘You ought to die,’ rather than, ‘I am going to kill you.’

“I wouldn’t characterize them as death threats,” she said.

A LaBarbera Award winner exaggerating? Who’da thunk?

Update: Never mind what law enforcement officials say. Our friends from Focus on the Family’s CitizenLink are undeterred. It’s like they just can’t help it.

See also: