Box Turtle Bulletin

How ‘Love Won Out’ Is Promoted Through Local Churches

The most visible sign Love Won Out is coming to your town is the billboard that generally goes up about a month before the conference date. I’ve long suspected LWO is also promoted from within local churches and now have confirmation of that. LWO’s website has undergone considerable re-tooling in response to the paradigm shift caused by the emergence of the Ex-Gay Survivor’s Movement.

It’s not part of that response but the LWO site now includes resources for local churches that wish to put together groups to attend/promote the event. See “Church Resources” on the LWO site here. Most interesting is a PDF checklist titled “Promotional Plan.” Checklist items include:

-“Put LWO information in your bulletin” on four consecutive Sundays prior to the event. A sample bulletin text is provided.

-“Dates to make introductory announcement from your pulpit” again on four consecutive Sundays prior to the event.

-“Let Dr. Dobson assist you in introducing LWO to your congregation by playing the promotional CD.”

-Brochures Focus will provide to put on information tables.

-At your next church staff meeting choose 5 staff/lay leaders “who need to hear this message.” [There’s something about that phrasing I find creepy.]

-Discounted group rates for organized groups of more than 10 people ($40/person, the regular advance rate is $50).

-Recruit members of your church to volunteer at the conference.

The most comical part is LWO’s continued paranoia about security. Following the item about recruiting volunteers is a note that reads:

“*PLEASE recruit only volunteers that you or your pastoral staff can personally recommend”

Video: Inside “Love Won Out”

Today we present two contrasting messages found at Love Won Out, one celebrated publicly and the other disclosed more privately. In the first video Jim looks at Mike Haley’s speech (in a general session) in which he proudly displays his marriage photos having achieved successful change. Then Jim contrasts this with Alan Chambers small breakout session in which he discusses frankly the life of struggle all ex-gays can expect.

“Mike Haley – The Hope For Marriage”

Alan Chambers: “I live a life of denial”

Video: Inside “Love Won Out”

Attention Towleroad Visitors: The video you’re looking for is the second one on this post.

Healthy Expectations For The Prospect Of Change
The whole point of the Love Won Out conferences, put on by Exodus International and Focus On the Family, is to convince parents, loved ones, pastors, teachers, gays, and anyone else that “change is possible.” They often do this without defining what change means, and they often sugarcoat the likelihood of change for everyone. But if you’re lucky enough to attend the right breakout session given by just the right speaker, you just might catch the most honest assessment for the possibility of change you will ever hear.

Who Seems To Be The Most Genuine?
That’s a tough one. Does being genuine require that one be consistently honest?

See also:

The “Love Won Out” Series:
Prologue: Why I Went To “Love Won Out”
Part 1: What’s Love Got To Do With It?
Part 2: Parents Struggle With “No Exceptions”
Part 3: A Whole New Dialect
Part 4: It Depends On How The Meaning of the Word “Change” Changes
Part 5: A Candid Explanation For “Change”

Soulforce “Focus On The Facts” Action Over The Weekend

Since moving to Denver I’ve been involved with the very active chapter of Soulforce here. Over the weekend as part of their ongoing “Focus On The Facts” campaign a group of LGBT individuals, led by music-artist and hottie James Roy, paid a visit to Focus’s HQ. This video of the action I created addresses everything else you might want to know about the event.

Focus on the Family Policy: When All Else Fails, Lie

Jennifer Mesko, associate editor at Focus on the Family’s CitizenLink had this to say about the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA):

ENDA would prevent employers from taking sexual orientation into consideration when hiring, promoting or firing. That could spell trouble for Christian business owners, churches and faith-based groups, which could be obligated to hire people who don’t share their beliefs. ENDA also could silence religious speech in the workplace.

The problem with that? Churches and faith based groups are specifically excluded from ENDA. Even though protections were in place in the original language, the House reinforced religious organization exclusions by means of an amendment.

Does Jennifer know that? I think you know the answer to that.

Dobson’s NYT Op-Ed: We’re Not Splintered. Honest.

Focus On the Family’s James Dobson wrote an op-ed in today’s New York Times in which he discusses some of the outcomes of the uber-secret Council on National Policy meeting that took place in Salt Lake City last Saturday. While saying that the conferees aggreed that “If neither of the two major political parties nominates an individual who pledges himself or herself to the sanctity of human life, we will join others in voting for a minor-party candidate,” support for forming a third party was mixed.

While media reports suggest that the religious right is fractured over who to support for president, Dobson contends “if the major political parties decide to abandon conservative principles, the cohesion of pro-family advocates will be all too apparent in 2008.”

But if that’s true, it may be another example of trying to win a battle while loosing a war. If the religious right really wants to build a coalition for the ages, they need to figure out how to address the plummeting drop in the esteem for Christianity among the next generation.

One area they might want to address is the uber-secret conferences (whose name and membership must not be mentioned) which lend support to the notion of a “vast right-wing conspiracy” — and one that includes Paul Cameron as one of their members.

Private Citizen James Dobson Doesn’t Support Thompson

Says the AP:

James Dobson, one of the nation’s most politically influential evangelical Christians, made it clear in a message to friends this week that he will not support Republican presidential candidate Fred D. Thompson.

James Dobson, one of the nation’s most politically influential evangelical Christians, made it clear in a message to friends this week that he will not support Republican presidential candidate Fred D. Thompson.

Focus was unable to comment for the AP story because again, Dobson was speaking as a private citizen (even though Dobson makes what I do in my bedroom his own public business).

Gary Schneeberger, a Focus on the Family spokesman, confirmed that Dobson wrote the e-mail. Schneeberger declined to comment further, saying it would be inappropriate because Dobson’s comments about presidential candidates are made as an individual and not as a representative of Focus on the Family, a nonprofit organization restricted from partisan politics.

Layoffs At Focus – Group’s Nonprofit Status Resolved

Says the Colorado Springs Gazette:

Focus on the Family announced Monday that it is laying off 30 employees and reassigning 15 others.

It also announced that founder James Dobson had been cleared of accusations that he jeopardized the group’s nonprofit status by endorsing Republican candidates.

Most of the layoffs are in the organization’s Constituent Response Services department that answers mail and telephone requests.

A drop in projected revenue played a part in the layoffs, and the growth of e-mail and Internet-based communications is behind the reassignments, said Gary Schneeberger, vice president of communications.

Farther down in the article the IRS’s ruling is explained:

The IRS ruled that Dobson was acting as an individual and not on behalf of Focus in his endorsement of political candidates.

Hat tip Newspeak

Religious Conservatives Ignore One Of The Judiciary’s Primary Purposes

Predictably from James Dobson:

Once again, we see an activist judge handing liberal activists what they have not been able to achieve legislatively or at the ballot box…

Dobson again conveniently ignores an extensive body of political philosphy on which our government is based from Plato to Thomas Jefferson stating one of the judiciary’s primary purposes is to protect the rights of unpopular minorities from a tyranny of the majority.   

A Question of Company

See Update below 

A “pro-family” crowd is gathering in Florida next month at something called the Family Impact Summit to “inform and empower involved Christian citizenship”. They’ll be talking about religious freedom, racial reconciliation, global warming (is it global whining?), and life issues. Oh yes, and homosexuality.

Lots and lots and lots and LOTS of homosexuality. In fact, there isn’t a panel period that doesn’t have at least one discussion on homosexuality including:

• Homosexual Agenda
• Homosexuality and Youth
• Homosexuality and Ministry
• On the FL Marriage Amendment and how to do a petition drive in your community or church
• New and relevant research on homosexuality

And who will be there? The speakers list includes some of the most strident homophobes in the conservative movement. Let me be clear – these are not just people who oppose homosexuality or same-sex couples for religious reasons. No, these are people who actively seek to dehumize gay persons by using derogatory language, lies, and false accusations. These are people who regularly campaign to exclude gay persons from the civil liberties and freedoms that they demand for themselves.

Let them speak in their own words:

Tom Minnery (Focus on the Family): There has been a recent attack on the freedoms of gay citizens in Poland. News reports indicate that many gay Poles are so fearful of the increasing violence and homophobia that they are leaving the country. In May, Minnery told a Polish “family” gathering, “[A]t this conference, we have taken great encouragement from the determination of the Polish people to honor the definition of the family. It is your strength that we have taken great hope from.”

Tony Perkins (Family Research Council) – “homosexual men are more likely to abuse children than straight men” and “homosexual behavior is a “death-style” that is sending young people to an early grave.”

Gary Bauer (American Values) –”Homosexual activity is not a civil right, it is a lethal and immoral behavior, and opposition to homosexual behavior is not a discrimination issue, but a moral one.” Bauer supports sodomy laws and not only opposes anti-discrimination laws because of “threats to religious freedom” but actually supports anti-gay hiring and renting practices. Bauer is believed to be one of the principal reasons that the Reagan administration was not proactive in combating AIDS.

Ken Blackwell (failed Ohio gubernatorial candidate) – Homosexuality “is a lifestyle, it’s a choice, and that lifestyle can be changed. I think it’s a transgression against God’s law, God’s will.” Blackwell also compared same-sex marriage to barnyard animals, saying “I don’t know how many of you have a farming background but I can tell you right now that notion even defies barnyard logic … the barnyard knows better.”

Don Wildmon (American Family Association) – this is the guy who lead the boycott against Disney for allowing gay people to organize Gay Days (an unofficial event) and against Ford for advertising in gay magazines. In the process he makes wild exagerations and unsubstantiated claims. His group also publishes the highly fictional and virulently anti-gay OneNewsNow. They push the video, “It’s Not Gay“, a rant about the evils of homosexuality masked as an ex-gay presentation. This video featured Michael Johnston who was later exposed as engaging in unsafe drug-fueled orgies while claiming to have overcome his same sex attractions.

Catherine Harris (Failed Florida Senatorial Candidate) – claimed the separation of church and state is “a lie”. “Civil rights have to do with individual rights and I don’t think they apply to the gay issues. I have not supported gay marriage and I do not support any civil rights actions with regard to homosexuality.”

Bob Knight (Media Research Center) – for many years Knight was the voice of Concerned Women for America. There was never an anti-gay position too extreme or a notion to ridiculous for Bob Knight to spout it out in the press. “They are luring kids into a homosexual behavior” and “There is a strong undercurrent of pedophilia in the homosexual subculture.”

Linda Harvey (Mission America) – “Professed homosexuals should not be allowed to teach or lead groups of youth” and “Open or suspected homosexuals should never be elected” and “The vast majority of people involved in homosexuality are projected by many studies to be people that are employed sporadically, because of their lifestyle. They are more unstable.”

Bill Federer (author) – “statistics show[] 300% greater incidents of child abuse in homosexual households versus traditional marriage homes” and “There would be no way to protect children from sexual predators if homosexuals were allowed to marry and adopt”.

Mike Heath (Christian Civic League) – this is the guy who tried to get others to help him identify elected officials who were suspected of being gay. “Homosexuality is a sin that arouses God’s anger in a special way” and “Individuals who speak out against the homosexual agenda often lose their livelihoods. Worse, gay activists have attacked, beaten, and spat upon individuals who protest their politically-correct celebrations of ‘diversity.'”

Peter Sprigg (Family Research Council) – “research clearly shows that homosexual behavior specifically and the homosexual lifestyle generally are associated with serious threats to the physical and mental health of those who engage in them”. His book, Outrage, reveals “the tangible harms and significant costs to society wrought by homosexuality — including higher rates of promiscuity, sexually transmitted diseases, mental illness, substance abuse, domestic violence, and child sexual abuse” and “Homosexuality is harmful to society, and young people have no business committing to a sexual identity until they’re adults.”

Get the idea?

Along with this virtual Who’s Who of Homophobia there are a number of other speakers who seem to have been selected due to the one thing they have in common – extremist credentials. Surely, no one who is seeking to reach out to same-sex attracted people would want to have anything to do with this hate-fest.

Yet into that mix are added Scott Davis, Mike Ensley, and Alan Chambers of Exodus International and Dr. Warren Throckmorton.

Wait!! Really??

But aren’t these the same guys who claim over and over and over that the church needs to welcome homosexuals and help them reclaim their heterosexuality? Don’t they say that anti-gay language and bigotry have to go?

Huh? How does that fit with joining in a conference of noted homophobes which seems obsessed with a political agenda against the rights of gay people?

What do you have to say, guys?

UPDATE:  Dr. Warren Throckmorton has responded indicating that he will not be attending the Summit.  See his comments below.

Part 5: “Love Won Out”: A Candid Explanation For “Change”

As I said in previous posts, most of the people who attended the “Love Won Out” ex-gay conference in Phoenix on February 10 were not gay or lesbian “strugglers” seeking change. That audience was mainly made up of concerned parents, family and friends of gays and lesbians. In fact, the whole purpose of the all-day “Love Won Out” conference was to introduce people to the world of ex-gay movement and the idea that “freedom from homosexuality is possible.”

But the very people most affected by this message — gays and lesbians themselves — were largely absent. There was just a small smattering according to one show of hands. And so most of the concerned parents, family members, and friends of gays and lesbians who made up the bulk of the audience were typically unaccompanied by the very people everyone was talking about. This meant that as these people heard speakers from Exodus, NARTH and Focus on the Family (some of whom described themselves as “former homosexuals”) talking about what it meant to be gay, but most of these audience members didn’t have their own children or loved ones with them to talk about the things they heard. So the speakers were free to characterize these loved ones’ lives without fear of contradiction.

And this, I believe, was one of the worst shortcomings of the whole experience. During breaks between sessions, I heard several parents project what they heard onto their own children — sometimes without any evidence that what they heard actually applied to their child’s experience. I personally witnessed one parent break into tears with the new-found certainty that her son must have been molested. “You heard her. That lady (Melissa Fryrear) said so,” she said between tears. I also heard other parents who had already had these conversations with their children but didn’t believe them because what they heard from the “experts” at the conference. “Well, she said nothing ever happened, but…”

And if the abject fear that one’s child might have been molested wasn’t bad enough, there were the fathers who blamed themselves for their sons’ homosexuality. My heart sunk when I heard them groan on hearing NARTH Presdient Joseph Nicolosi saying, “We advise fathers, if you don’t hug your sons, another man will.” I talked to quite a few fathers who seemed to take Nicolosi’s theory quite personally, and they were greatly burdened by it. More recently, I spoke with a father who attended a different Love Won Out conference. He referred to Nicolosi’s talk and confided, “I can only hope that someday Jesus will forgive me.”

The other main focus of the conference — when it wasn’t focused on the presumed “causes” of homosexuality — was on the meaning and nature of “change.” As speaker after speaker promised a “complete and radical change,” these parents pinned their hopes on each of these promises. And for every one of the featured speakers in the general sessions, the nature of change was simple: a very specific change in sexual attractions or orientation.

Joseph Nicolosi was the keynote speaker that morning, and he described a succession of clients who had “no more homosexual attractions” and whose homosexuality became “nonexistent.” Immediately following Nicolosi’s talk, we heard Exodus Board Chairman Mike Haley give his life story as a former homosexual, complete with pictures of his beautiful wife and children on the large multimedia screen behind him. Soon after that, we heard Focus On the Family’s Melissa Fryrear declare her infatuation with red-headed men who would look good in a kilt. (She jokingly declared, “That movie Braveheart changed my life!”) And later that afternoon, we heard Nancy Heche, actress Anne Heche’s mother, describe a special blessing that delivered her daughter from a “lesbian affair” with Ellen DeGeneres.

A Candid Exception

While I believe most of the descriptions of change were either misleading or unrealistic, there was one candid exception that I wish more of these parents could have heard. It would have given them a better idea of what their sons and daughters would be up against in pursuing “change” — especially the sort of change promised by the featured speakers.

During the first set of breakout sessions just before lunchtime, Exodus president Alan Chambers gave a talk titled, “Hope for Those Who Struggle.” As the title suggests, this workshop was targeted towards the few who were struggling with their sexuality — although undoubtedly there were a number of parents and family members there as well. But only about 75 people attended his session, a tiny fraction of the 800 attendees at the conference overall. So generally speaking, this was a relatively “safe” audience, safe enough for Alan to try to set realistic expectations for change and describe what change really means.

Alan began his talk by describing his own unrealistic expectations for “change.” When he first began to attend an Exodus-affiliated ministry at the age of eighteen, he thought that his sexual attractions would change from gay to straight in pretty short order. But after a few years in the ministry, he learned that his goals were unrealistic, and he warned his small audience that they needed to adjust their goals as well:

And I’m going to shatter your world here: heterosexuality shouldn’t be your number one goal. Whether that’s for yourself or for your kid or for your loved one or your friend or your family member. Heterosexuality shouldn’t have been my number one goal. The opposite of homosexuality isn’t heterosexuality. It’s holiness.

And I think we in the church often get that wrong. We think, okay, the best thing for this person who’s involved with homosexuality or involve with lesbianism is that they come out of that lifestyle and go into heterosexuality. If that’s all we think is necessary, we’re setting people up for a terrible fall. The opposite of homosexuality isn’t heterosexuality. It’s holiness.

Part of this statement reinforces a larger theme of the conference, that homosexuality is incompatible with Christianity. Here, he sets it as being “opposite” of holiness, which only adds to the burden of those who were there. After all, wickedness is more commonly understood as being the opposite of holiness. So casting homosexuality on the same side of the spectrum as wickedness is a terribly damaging way to characterize the lives of gays and lesbians everywhere. Besides, heterosexuality is not, in and of itself, holy either. But that went unsaid, which was pretty much on par for Love Won Out.

But most of this statement represents a dramatic departure from the rest of the conference in terms of the nature and likelihood of change. It certainly stands at the polar opposite of Dr. Nicolosi’s absolute confidence that homosexuality becomes “nonexistent” once an emotional connection is made. According to Allan, same sex attractions may not necessarily diminish no matter how hard one tries or how many prayers are said. Instead, the “change” that takes place is not a change in sexual orientation; it’s a change in faith. The “conversion” is not sexual orientation conversion, it’s a religious one.

“I Deny What Comes Naturally To Me”

More specifically, this change is actually the exchanging of one’s identity from gay to Christian, since the two identities cannot coexist in the worldview of Exodus or Focus On the Family. This emphasis on a change in identity is at the very heart of the ex-gay message. But even with this new identity as a Christian, merely forsaking the old identity of gay or homosexual doesn’t mean that one’s homosexuality will actually go away:

… Second Corinthians 5:17 says those who are in Christ are a new creation. The old is gone and the new has come. And again in the Christian community — I’m pointing my finger at myself too — we often hijack that verse to mean those who come to Christ, those who come to Jesus are perfect. Everything’s gone, the old life is gone, and the new has come and it’s all going to be wonderful from here.

And I think again, we do a disservice to people that we share that Scripture with, that we explain that Scripture to when we say that once you have a relationship with Jesus Christ that it’s all going to be better and you’re never going to struggle again. And the truth is, you’re going to dash your expectations that way. If that’s what we expect of ourselves and what we expect of other people, we’re going to be endlessly disappointed.

And this is where Alan’s talk turned very personal. He cited Matthew 16:24 (“Then Jesus said to his disciples, ‘If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.'”) before getting to the very heart of the matter of “change” in his own life:

…In the early days of when I started speaking and debating and doing all sorts of things related to the issue of homosexuality and took my position with Exodus, people used to say, “Oh Alan, you’re just in denial.” I used to get so mad when they’d say, “You’re just in denial. You’re just denying who you’re really are.” And I’d say, “No I’m not. I’m not in denial! I’m not in denial!”

And then I came to the place where I realized, you know what? God calls us as Christians to a life of denial. I love that today I realize that I do live a life of denial. Not denial of who I used to be, not denial of who I could be today, but I deny what comes naturally to me.

…And so every single morning — this is a ritual for me — I wake up and I say, “Dear Lord, I can’t make it today without You. I choose to deny what comes naturally to me. I choose to submit my will to the Lordship of your Son, Jesus Christ. And I choose better. I choose to follow You, I choose to allow Your Holy Spirit to walk before me, to guide me, to speak for me.”

… And if we think we can get up one day and decide we don’t have to pray about it anymore, then we’re mistaken. So expect a life of obedience. Expect a life of denial.

Only 75 people heard this message that day, which is a terrible shame. This was, I think, the most honest, honorable, and vulnerable talk I heard the entire day. It seems to me that this was the message that everyone should have heard at Love Won Out.

Two Audiences, Two Messages

But it appears that this reservoir of truth and vulnerability is rationed only to safe, like-minded listeners. How else to explain this talk talking place in a small breakout session instead of one of the main plenary sessions?

If everyone had heard that talk, they would have understood without question what “change” was all about. So why was this talk reserved for a small, safe audience of “those who struggle”? Were they afraid that parents would become disillusioned on hearing what the reasonable expectations for change should be? Did Love Won Out organizers not want the larger audience to know that their sons and daughters faced a lifetime of struggle? Were they afraid of shattering those parents’ dreams of weddings and grandchildren?

One thing’s for certain. If most of the Love Won Out audience wasn’t safe enough for Alan’s message, then the general public certainly isn’t. Four months before the Phoenix conference, Alan Chambers appeared on NPR’s “Fresh Air” and told Terry Gross:

I have talked with and met people who say that they have walked completely away and will never struggle with that again or have never struggled with that again. I believe it’s …. there’s everyone on the continuum. I often like to use the phrase that I will never be as though I never was. I can’t forget where I used to be and I can’t deny the fact that I’m still human and that I could be tempted in every way.

But today where I live my life, and I believe this is true of those who would say they have successfully left homosexuality, homosexuality isn’t something that controls them anymore. Where at one point in our lives, in my life, I could not resist homosexuality. I could not resist the urge. I could not get those thoughts out of my mind. I was exclusively attracted to members of the same sex and acted out on that on a regular basis. Today I have what I would describe as a Garden of Eden relationship with my wife and that she is the object of my desire. She is who I am attracted to…

Then, just a few days before this Love Won Out conference took place, Alan Chambers appeared on CNN where he denied trying to control his thoughts, while at the same time repeating the oblique phrase, “I will never be as though I never was.”

But just a week before the 2007 Exodus Freedom Conference, in Irvine, California, it appears that Alan decided to test the waters by giving the larger world an explanation more consistent with what he had been telling his much smaller Love Won Out audience. The Los Angeles Times reported:

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

And yet this small concession — which focused mainly on what sort of language to use for describing “change” — appeared to be too much. After mounting pressure from fellow anti-gay activists, Alan issued a partial retraction through an American Family Association web site:

“[‘Ex-gay’ is ] something that comes across as confusing,” he says. “And while I understand why people have used it over the years — it’s easy to use in a soundbite — to say that someone is primarily described by the behavior that they used to be involved in I think is a disservice to the people who have found freedom from homosexuality.”

And that includes himself, says Chambers. “[R]eally, more accurate labels for me would be, ‘I’m a man. I’m a Christian. I’m a husband. I’m a father. I’m a son.'” Chambers says he is considering whether to ask the newspaper to issue a clarification of his remarks.

Exodus and Focus On the Family appear to provide two distinct faces when they talk about change. There is the public face, the one that is given to the general population through billboards, radio commercials and web sites which promise that “change is possible.” A radio commercial promoting the Exodus conference in Irvine promised a “sudden, radical, complete change.” At Love Won Out, parents, friends and family members heard specific, clinical language in which homosexuality becomes “nonexistent.” And whenever Exodus and Focus On the Family speakers appear before the cameras and microphones of major media outlets, they are very careful to leave the definition of change to the assumptions of the audience: a change in sexual orientation, even if they rarely say it explicitly.

But in a small workshop targeted specifically to “those who struggle,” we get to see a far more private message about “change.” And Alan repeated and expanded on this message during the opening night of the Exodus Freedom conference in June. There, before another “safe” audience of more than eight hundred people (unlike at Love Won Out, the overwhelming majority of this audience was “strugglers”), Alan repeated and expanded upon the remarks he made during that tiny breakout session at Love Won Out. And here, he challenged his audience to think about how they might respond if their orientations didn’t change:

And the truth is, what if circumstances never change? I think you have to ask yourself that question. What if your circumstances never change, like my friend that I said her feelings haven’t changed much in twenty years? What if your feelings don’t change? What if your circumstances don’t change? What if it’s still difficult in a year as it is today? Are you going to stand on the promises of God? Are you going to choose to fight? Or are you going to give in?

Michael Bussee was one of the original founders of Exodus before leaving the organization and later becoming one of its sharpest critics. He described one current ex-gay Exodus leader as saying they were just “Christians with homosexual tendencies who would rather not have those tendencies.” Alan appears to be inching towards that candid assessment.

But I have to wonder if he can maintain this message for larger audiences while still holding out hope for a “complete, radical change.” And I have to wonder if he can sustain that message when Exodus’ political lobbying on Capital Hill depends on the assertion that if “real change” is possible, gays and lesbians don’t need equal rights. It seems that too much is at stake to allow too many doubts to creep in on what change really means.

We already saw the howls of protest when Alan made his comparatively innocuous remarks to the Los Angeles Times. While we can hope that the two-audiences, two-messages may fall by the wayside, only time will tell whether abandoning that approach will be compatible with the broader cultural and political goals of Exodus and Focus On the Family.

See also:

Prologue: Why I Went To “Love Won Out”
Part 1: What’s Love Got To Do With It?
Part 2: Parents Struggle With “No Exceptions”
Part 3: A Whole New Dialect
Part 4: It Depends On How The Meaning of the Word “Change” Changes

Focus On the Family Jumps On the “Lesbian Gangs!!!” Bandwagon

CitizenLink is now working the Lesbian Gangs!!! theme, pumping a lurid sweeps-week report by a Memphis ABC affiliate from last February. Focus claims this story is being suppressed by gay activists:

Peter LaBarbera, with Americans for Truth, said the station manager told him the group [GLAAD] definitely did not want the story to air.

“A senior staffer told him several times, ‘We’re going to take you to court if you air this report,’ ” he said.

Similar gang activity is reported in New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C. Linda Jernigan, a former homosexual, said that’s why GLAAD is making such an issue of the Memphis story.

“They don’t want this type of information to get out,” she told Family News in Focus, “because then they know people’s eyes will be opened, they’ll begin to see this whole situation for what it really is.”

Here’s the situation for what it really is: Memphis police have no police reports or arrest records to substantiate this story. That’s why the station manager, after reviewing the report, finally admitted that they had no independent confirmation that anything had happened.

You’d think CitizenLink would understand the importance of independent confirmation in journalistic practices. After all, they claim to have professional editor, don’t they? But even with professional editors CitizenLink still has difficulty understanding journalistic standards.

But what about the other cities?

• New York? Nope. Just a group of women who overreacted to a street vendor coming on to them.
• Philadelphia? Hardly. That turned out to be a bunch of eighth graders at one middle school.
• Chicago? Consider the source.
• Baltimore? Nope. At least I can’t find any evidence for it. If you can, leave it in the comments.
• Washington, D.C.? Okay, found one.

I’m sure that out of the many thousands of gangs across the nation, some are bound to be gay or lesbian. And insofar as we do have a serous gang problem that needs to be addressed at all levels, and there are likely to be gay and/or lesbian gangs among them, I don’t want to minimize anyone’s efforts to highlight the problem of criminal activity among youths.

But really. An epidemic of Lesbian Gangs!!!? Hardly.

Let’s go back to what Rod Wheeler said. He’s the guy who appeared with Fox New’s Bill O’Reilly and started all of this nonsense. He’s also the guy who retracted the whole thing:

Lastly, I mentioned in the segment that there is this “national epidemic” of lesbian gangs. A better choice of words would have been to say that there is a growing concern nationally, and especially in major urban areas, of increased gang activity, which includes some lesbian gang activity.

Unfortunately, it’s hard to make a compelling headline out of that.

Truth, CitizenLink and “Reliable People”

We reported last week about Focus on the Family’s strange ability to see into the future when they reported — using the past tense — about the Ex-Gay Survivor’s Conference when it hadn’t occurred yet.

Well, they don’t like being called out as liars, so they are trying to defend their report. But CitizenLink associate editor Jennifer Mesko ends up digging the hole even deeper:

The article I wrote on Thursday included this line about the Exodus conference: “The meeting, which began Tuesday and wraps up Sunday, has drawn close to 1,000 people – and no protesters so far. Across town, a counter-conference drew about 100 people.”

Apparently miffed at the reference to “100 people,” [Ex-Gay Watch’s David] Roberts accused me of “supplying attendance figures seemingly out of thin air.” But I got the numbers from reliable people who attended both conferences – although their thinness is not a matter of record. [emphasis mine]

You see, she’s lying again. She admits that she wrote the article Thursday. That’s June 28th by my calendar. The conference didn’t start until Friday June 29th. I should know. I actually did attend both conferences, but I couldn’t say that until the evening of the twenty-ninth — more than twenty-four hours after her miraculous past-tense reporting.

That’s the same point David Roberts made at Ex-gay Watch, a point that Mesko utterly ignores.

So yes, she’s outright lying. Her “reliable people” simply couldn’t have “attended both conferences” when she wrote her story because the second conference hadn’t ocurred yet. Either she’s lying or her “reliable people” are lying, in which case they aren’t terribly reliable.

And so you see, since the conference hadn’t occurred yet, there is only one source her attendance figures could have possibly come from — thin air. Any associate editor who doesn’t have the simplest ability to check her facts should reconsider her occupational choice.

Ah, but it doesn’t end there. Click here for more. >>

Focus Seeks to Deceive about NYT Poll

What do you do if a poll releases information that you don’t like? Well, if you are Focus on the Family, you spin yourself in circles.

The New York Times issued a poll on June 27 revealing some attitudes of America’s youth. The survey of 659 adults ages 17 to 29, dealt with social and political issues and indicated that youth are currently more liberal than are the population as a whole. Let’s compare Focus on the Family’s reporting with the results shown from the poll.

FotF Headline: Young Americans Hold Conservative Views
NY Times Headline: Young Americans Are Leaning Left, New Poll Finds

Focus: Sixty-two percent said abortion should be outlawed or restricted.

Actual poll results:

37% – Abortion should be generally available to those who want it
38% – Abortion should be available but under stricter limits than it is now
24% – Abortion should not be permitted

Focus: Fifty-four percent of young adults expressed opposition to same-sex marriage.

Actual poll results:

44% – gay couples should be allowed to legally marry
24% – gay couples should be allowed to form civil unions but not legally marry
30% – there should be no legal recognition of a gay couple’s relationship

Now Focus on the Family can argue that the words they put down on paper are technically true. But the message they tried to convey is completely dishonest.

There is no point at which Focus believes that holding “conservative views” includes support for civil unions. Nor is 68% support for recognition of gay couples cause for Focus to triumphantly declare that young Americans “hold conservative views”.

But the worst example in the Focus article of deliberate misinformation is the secondary heading:

A majority opposes abortion and same-sex marriage.

That’s just an outright lie.

(hat tip to Scott H.)

Focus on the Family Predicts the Future

CitizenLink is just making things up. It’s like they’re not even trying to be credible anymore. I got a laugh out of this one, about the two competing ex-gay and ex-ex-gay conferences:

The [Exodus Freedom Conference], which began Tuesday and wraps up Sunday, has drawn close to 1,000 people — and no protesters so far. Across town, a counter-conference drew about 100 people. [Emphasis mine]

Drew? Past tense?

The Ex-gay Survivor’s conference doesn’t begin until this evening. The main events don’t start until tomorrow. Conference organizers haven’t released pre-registration figures, and of course we don’t know how many walk-ups will show.

But thanks, Focus, for the prediction. We’ll see how good it turns out to be.

And let’s bring a little perspective into this little bragging war. This is Exodus’s 32nd conference, but only the first Ex-Gay Survivor’s conference. When Exodus held their first conference in Anaheim in 1976, sixty-two people attended. They broke a hundred in 1977 at their second conference in Oakland.

So I figure if the Ex-gay Survivor’s Conference meets Focus’s past tense reporting of a future event, the Survivors will be off to a great start.