Box Turtle Bulletin

Cayman Police Detain Gay Tourist For Kissing

An American tourist from Amherst, Massachusetts was detained by the Royal Cayman Islands Police after kissing his boyfriend on the dancefloor of the Royal Palms last Wednesday.

Aaron Chandler, 23, was visiting the Caymans with his partner, along with his partner’s sister and brother-in-law last week. While dancing with his partner at the Royal Palms, Chandler kissed him. A man then approached the couple and told them to stop displaying affection in public. They kept dancing and kissed a few times more.

At about 11:00 pm, a woman approached the couple and asked Chandler to follow her. She took him to an off duty police officer, who then detained him and took him to the police station. Chandler was made to wait at the George Town police station to speak to an inspector who never showed. The original officer eventually came back and gave him a stern lecture. He tried to make Chandler promise not to kiss his partner in public again, and then released him.

Chandler was never officially placed under arrest, according to an RCIP spokesperson. As British territory, the Caymans were ordered to rescind their laws against homosexuality in 2000. A ruling is expected later this week to determine whether any local laws against public displays of affection between two people of the same sex were broken. Chandler has written a letter to the Ministry of Tourism and filed a complaint with the RCIP.

How I Convinced Myself That I Was Changing My Sexual Orientation

Oftentimes when I meet someone who’s been through ex-gay therapy I ask them if they ever reached the point where they believed they were beginning to change — It’s how I gauge just how deeply they got into the whole “ex-gay thing.” Ex-gay leaders often assert, “change is possible and I’m proof because I changed.” In my opinion the strongest response is “I too once believed I had changed.” Here’s my own explanation of how I believed I had changed:

Nicolosi: Gays Would Be “Jerking Off In Hamburgers All Over”

Earlier this week, Daniel Gonzales provided his reaction to the recent Byrd, Nicolosi & Potts paper that appeared in Psychological Reports. Daniel’s comments were based on his own experience as a former patient of Dr. Nicolosi’s:

In my first session of therapy with Dr. Nicolosi he repeatedly pressed myself and my father, who was there with me, asking us if I had been molested as a child — which I hadn’t. In fact, much of that first session was focused on “digging around” for the supposed cause of my homosexuality.

Gabriel Arana, a Cornell University grad student and columnist for the Cornell Daily Sun, has come forward to write about his remarkably similar experience with Dr. Nicolosi in a recent column:

For three years I had weekly sessions with Dr. Joseph Nicolosi, president of the National Association for the Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH). Dr. Nicolosi thought that homosexuality was a pathology, a sublimated desire to reconnect with one’s lost masculinity. The theory: under-attentive fathers and over-attentive mothers create gay children. The purpose of therapy was to put me in touch with my masculine identity and thereby change my sexual orientation.

…

Years after I stopped therapy, I requested the case notes, knowing they would be destroyed after seven years. They provided an annotated collection of long-forgotten events. Next to the description of an argument with a male friend, Dr. Nicolosi scribbled “needs to look at the real source.” This was code: whatever the problem, it would be traced back to my lost masculine sense of self; I was angry because my friend had not paid attention to me as my father had not. Much of therapy also involved uncovering the numerous ways in which my parents had cheated me (as a teenager, I was more than happy to blame things on them).

According to Arana, Dr. Nicolosi didn’t try to conceal his utter disgust with gay people:

Disgust with what was termed the “gay lifestyle” was implicit in therapy. I remember Dr. Nicolosi telling me, in response to the question of whether one could easily contract HIV from semen, that if this were the case then gays would be “jerking off in hamburgers all over” to infect people.

That is was passes for ethical professionalism at NARTH. As does this:

…I know Dr. Robert Spitzer’s study well. Dr. Nicolosi asked me to participate in it, but instructed me not to reveal that he had referred me; while he wanted his organization’s views represented, he did not want to bring into question the study’s integrity.

The Spitzer study is the famous ex-gay study that purported to show that people can change their sexual orientation. However, the study was stacked with people who had a vested interest in demonstrating change. According to Dr. Spitzer, “the majority of participants (78 percent) had publicly spoken in favor of efforts to change homosexual orientation, often at their church,” and “nineteen percent of the participants were mental health professionals or directors of ex-gay ministries.” Among that 19% was Alan Chambers and Randy Thomas, Exodus International’s president and vice-president.

By the way, this is not the first time we’ve seen allegations that Nicolosi advised his clients to lie to Spitzer. Daniel Gonzales described a very similar conversation with Nicolosi nearly three years ago:

Nicolosi told me it would be great if I could represent the positive/success side of ex-gays in this study. Joseph Nicolosi asked me to lie to Spitzer when I called in for my study interview by denying Nicolosi had referred me. Turned off by this attempted manipulation, I never went through with taking part in the Spitzer study.

Hat tip: Ex-Gay Watch

Is Maggie Gallagher a Marriage Protector or Obsessively Anti-Gay?

Maggie Gallagher, President of the Institute for Marriage and Public Policy and Board Member of the Marriage Law Foundation, is always careful to present her arguments against marriage equality in terms of what is best for families and children. She does not rail against the evil sodomites or make bizarre claims about mortality statistics or invented diseases.

And because of her demeanor and her scholarly presentation, Maggie is regularly relied upon as a source for logical sounding soundbites and quotes in opposition to civil equality. She was even secretly paid to promote George Bush’s “marriage initiative”.

In fact, if one were not careful, one might think that Maggie’s objection to same-sex marriage is not based in an obsessive animus towards gay persons at all but rather in her devotion to children and family. One might think that this marriage champion was not seeking just to thwart gay couples, but was interested in all matters that could improve the family.

Thank God we’re careful.

Maggie has just distributed the Marriage Law Digest (edited by Bill Duncan of the Marriage Law Foundation) for April 2008.

Three of the eight cases discussed relate to issues about non-married same-sex couples:

• A German case in which a pension institution refused to provide pension to the survivor in a same-sex couple.
• An inmate in a state mental hospital who demanded that same-sex couples be grated the same conjugal visitation rights as opposite-sex couples.
• A New Jersey couple sought dissolution of their domestic partnership on grounds of irreconcilable difference.

Four of the cases dealt with other sexual orientation issues.

• A lesbian employment discrimination case.
• An transexual employment discrimination case.
• The Elane Photography case.
• The “Be Happy, Not Gay” anti-gay t-shirt case.

Only one case discussed in the digest, a public nudity issue, was not specifically gay related. And not one single case was directly about marriage.

A quick review of other recent editions of the Marriage Review illustrate that this focus on ‘all things gay’ with only token attention to other marriage matters is a consistent pattern for the Marriage Law Foundation’s digest.

Maggie Gallagher may present herself as an advocate for the protection of marriage. But a closer look reveals her association with an institute only tangentially interested in marriage but instead obsessed with gay people and how to deny them equality.

Christianity Today Recaps Response to the Day of Silence

Derek Keefe wrote a recap in Christianity Today of the various responses to the Day of Silence: boycott, protest, Day of Truth, and Golden Rule initiative. His final comments offer much-needed wisdom to conservative evangelical Christians.

Evangelicals are by definition a gospel-proclaiming people. Part of our becoming a wise people is learning to match our proclamation both to the manner of the Christ we proclaim, as well as to the occasion before us. Gospel wisdom, then, means not just learning when to speak, but what part of God’s good news to speak first, and how that news should be delivered. On occasion, we may even find the best way to begin to “speak” this marvelous news is to remain silent.

Memphis School Board Supports Homophobic Principal

It would be nice to believe that school board members would defend the children they are elected to protect. Sadly, when it comes to gay students they too often choose to circle the wagons around the misbehaving principal instead.

This was the response of the Memphis School Board towards the reports of homophobic and inappropriate behavior on the part of Daphne Beasley, principal of Hollis F. Price Middle College High School.

Beasley is accused of compiling a list of potential romantic couples and then using the list to harass and discriminate against two male students who were dating. When the students and their parents could not come to resolution with the principal the ACLU became involved.

Now one would think that a principal calling a parent to out a student – and then telling that parent that she would not allow homosexuality on her campus – would result in a serious questioning of the principal’s judgment. But rather than admit the glaring inappropriateness of her behavior, the board instead sought to defend Ms. Beasley.

Eyewitness News reports that the School Board’s attorneys issued the following letter:

Memphis City Schools is committed to providing its students with the best possible learning environment. Hollis F. Price Middle College is an accelerated high school, which is located on the historically black LeMoyne-Owen College campus. Eligible students may enroll in college classes in pursuit of completing the first two years of college while attending this high school.

Because we have high school students on a college campus, we have to carefully monitor the activities of our students. We are at all times proactive in assuring that our students are provided a safe, nurturing and disciplined learning climate. Unfortunately, in fall 2007, we received numerous complaints from LeMoyne-Owen College faculty and staff that some of our student couples were involved in explicit sexual behavior in public view on the college campus.

In light of this information from LeMoyne-Owen faculty and staff, the principal of Hollis F. Price made several general announcements to the student body that this behavior would not be tolerated. Regrettably, the improper behavior continued. Therefore, the principal felt it appropriate to notify the parents of those children she knew to be involved romantically. This was done in an effort to gain the support of the parents in reinforcing the message that such behavior is in violation of Memphis City Schools’ Student Code of Conduct. The principal did not list any information other than students’ names on her personal call list, and she certainly did not specify the sexual orientation of any student. Additionally, the list was never posted publicly anywhere at the school.

It is the position of Memphis City Schools that the principal did act in an appropriate manner in order to correct a serious issue at the school and that Memphis City Schools has not subjected either of these students to discriminatory treatment.

In the coming days, we will submit a formal response to the ACLU. We look forward to working with them to amicably resolve this matter.

While this letter purports to address the situation, what is most obvious are the things that are missing.

For example, the principal admits that the two boys never behaved inappropriately or ever exhibited any public display of affection, a fact missing from their letter of defense. Nor does it discuss the hostile statements made to Nicholas’ mother. The board’s argument that Beasley appropriately outed and punished the gay students for the misbehavior by straight students is unlikely to hold up to legal scrutiny.

Further, this letter makes no effort to explain the trip denied to one student because his orientation may “embarrass” the school. It simple states that “Memphis City Schools has not subjected either of these students to discriminatory treatment”, as though stating their position makes it so.

The letter pretends that the list “certainly did not specify the sexual orientation of any student”, while ignoring that listing two boys together as a couple most certainly DOES specify their sexual orientation. Was this an attempt at a joke, or just woeful ignorance? And pretending that the principal’s office – which in the small school setting was open to teachers and students – was not “publicly anywhere” is laughable.

This letter insults the intelligence of the reader.

While this sort of double-speak is the regular and preferred form of communication for most anti-gay organizations, they need only to confuse the uninformed and those inclined towards soft thinking on issues. This letter, however, is the official response of a governmental entity and will be subjected to scrutiny. It will not fare well.

If this is the best that the Memphis School Board can do, they should start budgeting right now for a large legal settlement. They would also do well to contact outside counsel to learn of their exposure and the flimsiness of their position. I’m guessing that the Memphis School Board’s attorneys were hired because of their connections and not for their logic or their knowledge of the law.

And if this is to be indicative of the quality of support she will receive, Ms. Beasley may wish to either hire her own separate counsel, or perhaps update her resume.

Controversial Ex-Gay Symposium Cancelled

Gay City News confirmed from Dr. Jack Drescher that the controversial symposium, “Homosexuality and Therapy: The Religious Dimension,” planned for May 5 has been canceled. That confirmation follows earlier reports that one of the panelists, Bishop Gene Robinson, had pulled out of the event.

The symposium was organized by Dr. David Scasta, former president of the Association of Gay and Lesbian Psychiatrists, and was planned to coincide with next week’s American Psychiatric Association conference in Washington, D.C. Controversy over the panel centered around the participation of Dr. Warren Throckmorton, who has been an active proponent of sexual reorientation therapies.

Also scheduled to be part of the panel was Dr. Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. He has previously supported the use of a prenatal test to undo an embryo’s homosexual orientation.

Arizona Anti-Marriage Amendment Still Held In the House

As we reported earlier, the Arizona House of Representatives has not yet formally passed the proposed anti-marriage constitutional amendment. The measure requires approval from the House and the Senate before it can be sent on to the voters.

At issue is what exactly the proposed amendment would ban. The new proposal reads, “Only a union of one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in this state.” Opponents say that the word “union” could be applied to more than just marriage, opening up the state to lawsuits over domestic partnerships.

Peter Gentala, general council for the Center for Arizona Policy (CAP, Focus On the Family’s official state policy council for Arizona), said proponents have no plans to target domestic partnerships with this new effort. Lambda Legal warns however that a similar measure in California resulted in years of litigation there, and that CAP used the language of Arizona’s current law to argue against the state expanding benefits to domestic partners in Arizona.

The measure has been placed on the House calender every day since last week’s preliminary approval, and every day the delay has been delayed. This means there is still time to let your representative know what you think about the proposal.

Remember: there are two representatives for each legislative district. If you don’t know who your representatives are, the Equality Arizona web site can find them for you and provide you with their phone numbers and contact information. You can call then directly, or you can even send a message via Equality Arizona.

Congratulations Amanda Simpson

I have the distinct pleasure of knowing Tucson’s own Amanda Simpson. She is not only a truly amazing, dynamic woman, but she’s a genuine trailblazer as well. She’s as been a local activist and former member of the City of Tucson Commission on GLBT Issues, and she was the first transgender nominee to run for the Arizona House of Representatives.

So I was tickled pink to learn that she was selected to be an at-large delegate to this year’s Democratic National Convention in Denver, Colorado. She will be there as a delegate for Sen. Hillary Clinton, and she “will fully support and work to elect” whoever wins the nomination.

Please indulge me as I give a personal shout out to Amanda. Congratulations!

Another Researcher Blasts Focus On the Family

Focus On the Family has a long history of misrepresenting legitimate social science research, and researchers are starting to raise their voices in protest. The latest to join the chorus of outrage is Dr. Gary Remafedi, M.D., M.P.H., a professor of pediatrics at the University of Minnesota. When he discovered that Focus On the Family was misrepresenting his 1992 paper, he wrote an open letter to Focus on the Family’s James Dobson to stop misrepresenting his work. That open letter has been posted at Truth Wins Out:

I want to draw your attention to a gross misrepresentation of our research at the website of “Focus on the Family” In the third paragraph of the article, “Myths and Facts,” our research is cited in support of the statement: “During early adolescence, many children experience a period of sexual-identity confusion when they can easily be influenced in either direction.”

First, please note that the citation itself is incorrect. The original article was published in Pediatrics, not Journal of Pediatrics. … More important, had the authors of “Myths and Facts” actually read the article, they would have found no support for their contention that “many children experience a period of sexual-identity confusion when they can be influenced in either direction.” The word confusion does not appear in our article; nor did we find that anyone can influence a young person’s sexual identity.

Tel Aviv to Build Monument to Gay Holocaust Victims

Tomorrow is Yom HaZikaron laShoah ve-laGvura (יום הזיכרון לשואה ולגבורה; “Remembrance Day for the Holocaust and Heroism”), otherwise known as Holocaust Remembrance Day. It’s a national holiday in Israel, where the people of that nation remember the six million Jews who perished during World War II.

Jews, of course, weren’t the only victims of the holocaust, although they were the principle ones. Others caught up in the Nazi’s reign of terror included a quarter of a million gay men and women, tens of thousands of whom were murdered by the Nazis. Those numbers may be a drop in the bucket out of the twelve million victims of all races, creeds and nationalities, but the Nazis did set aside a special category of treatment for them, including medical experiments involving castration and hormone injections. Gay men were forced to wear a pink triangle, while lesbians were made to wear a black patch.

Tel Aviv mayor Ron Huldai has announced that a monument honoring those gays and lesbians who were persecuted and murdered will be built in the Meir Garden. It will be the first of its kind in Israel, joining monuments in Sydney, Copenhagen, Berlin, and Amsterdam.

The Dishonesty of Elaine Donnelly

Elaine Donnelly has made it her life’s mission to return the military to the 1930’s. Through her Center for Military Readiness, she agitates against gays in the military and women in combat.

While gay people make her shudder, women are grudgingly acceptable in the service – as long as they don’t fight. It’s just not very lady-like, ya know.

But while Donnelly actively campaigns to reduce equal opportunities for women in the Military Service, you’d never know that from her new anti-gay campaign. On her new website established “build an online army” to fight against “gay activists”, there’s no reference to Donnelly’s hostility towards “Pentagon feminists” or any other anti-woman policies she espouses.

Instead, Donnelly states her purpose as “Support for Military Men and Women“. [emphasis mine]

Perhaps she realizes that being both anti-woman and anti-gay may seem just a little too hateful even for those who might support her agenda of restricting the Military to heterosexuals.

And like so many anti-gays, Elaine Donnelly has given up even the slightest shred of integrity she may have ever held. To Donnelly truth is subjective and honesty inconvenient.

See Also:
Personal Cruelty
Time Magazine Relies on Non-Representative Poll Pushed by Anti-Gay Activist
More Evidence that DADT is Dead
American Family Association Picks Up The “Ailing General” Theme

Methodists Reject Inclusive Theology

Last night the delegates to the United Methodist Church’s General Convention voted to reject a proposal from their committee to be more inclusive of gay Christians. Instead they voted to accept a minority recommendation with harsher language.

The Rev. David McEntire, pastor of First United Methodist Church in Lakeland, said he was not happy with either alternative presented to delegates.

“It was a very painful decision. I had hoped we would reject the minority report so we could return to the present language. The minority report is a little harsher,” he said. “In the church in Lakeland, there are gay persons and families of gay persons. This statement is not going to change my actions. I’m still going to be a loving, inviting pastor.”

However, conservatives in the United States were strongly supported by Methodists from Africa and Asia to push through the more prohibitive wording.

Delegates from Africa spoke several times, strongly supporting the position against homosexuality.

One man from Africa said that “we love homosexuals, but we detest what they do.”

The Convention did, however, take one tiny step forward.

They also approved a new resolution opposing homophobia and heterosexism. In a separate resolution, the General Conference asked the United Methodist Board of Church and Society, the church’s social advocacy agency, to develop educational resources and materials on the effects of homophobia and heterosexism, the discrimination or prejudice against lesbians or gay men by heterosexual people.

Yet, interestingly, a third of the delegates voted against opposing discrimination and homophobia.

I believe that the vote of the Methodist Convention illustrates a problem that exists and will continue to grow within international religious movements.

I think it likely that had the delegates all been from within the United States, there would have been significant change to the policy. While there may not have been a change in policy on marriages or civil unions, the declarations about immorality and the proud exclusions of gay persons would have disappeared.

But conservative elements within the American church ally with Africans and play upon cultural biases to force their views on their fellow American Methodists. And while they play on African homophobia, they do nothing to address the murder and violence against homosexual persons on the African continent. Rather than condemn brutality, they reject the message of Christ so as to entrench their political alliances and continue their assured success in the politics of their church.

We see this also in the Episcopal / Anglican debate. Conservative Episcopalians looked away when their allies in Nigeria advocated jailing those who even met to discuss discrimination against gay persons. They never objected when Anglican allies in Zimbabwe propped up strongman Robert Mugabe and his campaign of terror against homosexuals.

And it gives us a warning of what is likely to happen within the Methodist Church. Conservative Methodists are just as likely to place victory over the faith of their more liberal brothers as more important than upholding human rights and decency. Sadly, the battles within the churches have become less about the gospel of Christ and more about the gospel of coercive and restrictive power.

But I believe that American Methodists will, within the next decade, become both aware of and disgusted by the treatment of gay men and women in Africa. They will see the violence, hear the dehumanization, see the discrimination, and begin to empathize with their gay brothers and sisters. This will become more pronounced as younger people grow into positions of authority and as traditionalists retire and the churches as a whole become more liberal.

And they will begin to resent that their church’s policies of discrimination and condemnation are being dictated by foreign delegates who are operating from within a culture of bigotry.

However, the current growth of most Christian churches is from Africa and Asia. And with growth comes influence and power.

I think it is nearly inevitable that there will be scism and division in most American mainstream churches, especially those who are part of a larger international body. The minorities within those American churches that seek to hold to tradition and rejection of gay persons will align with African and Asian movements and those who believe in an inclusive theology will find fellowship with European affiliates.

Further, it is likely that there will be consolidation of the divided churches, with the liberal branches melding into a united protestant Christian church. Evidence of such a direction was visible even within this Methodist Convention by the vote for a full communion agreement with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

The ELCA already has five full communion relationships with The Episcopal Church, the Moravian Church in America, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), Reformed Church in America and United Church of Christ.

I believe that within the next decade or so, the face of religion in America will be far different than it has been for the past few centuries. We live in interesting times.

The Votes:

• Approved, 517-416, keeping the statement that the practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching.
• Rejected, 574-298, a measure that would have changed the church’s definition of marriage to include same-sex unions.
• Approved, 544-365, a resolution opposing homophobia and discrimination against lesbians or gays.

News Sources:
The Christian Post
The Ledger
The Ft. Worth Star-Telegram

Focus On the Family’s Familiar New Logo

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

NARTH Builds An Echo Chamber

The April 2008 edition of the pay-to-publish vanity journal Psychological Reports features a new report from NARTH. Written by NARTH president A. Dean Byrd, past president Joseph Nicolosi, and Richard W. Potts, the report carries the unwieldy but self-descriptive title, “Clients perceptions of how reorientation therapy and self-help can promote changes in sexual orientation.” While the title describes what the authors meant to show — how clients describe the benefits of reparative therapy — the report itself actually illustrates something very different: the ex-gay movement’s ability to instill an almost robot-like parroting of ex-gay rhetoric among their clients.

In ordinary surveys in the real world, there are always respondents whose answers don’t fit the authors’ hypothesis. In Stanton and Jones’ recent ex-gay study for example, there were those who claimed to have changed and those who didn’t (i.e. the “failures”). Both were represented in the paper because that’s just how the real world works. Absolute and total conformity to any hypothesis is virtually impossible.

But NARTH doesn’t operate in the real world. Not one of the 142 responses in the 26-page article deviated even slightly from the NARTH party line. The only responses appearing in this paper fully supported NARTH’s therapeutic framework.

Perfect outcomes like this may be found in the world of politically repressive regimes where dictators win “elections” by near-unanimous votes. But it is absolutely unheard of in scientific literature. Did the authors discard the responses that didn’t fit their preconceived theories? Or was their echo chamber so fully sealed that no dissent could even enter?

You can read more about it in our latest report, “Repeat After Me”: The Reparative Therapy Echo Chamber.