Box Turtle Bulletin

Code Analysis Of Miami Mayoral Candidate’s Huge Anti-Gay Banner

Being an intern architect I was curious about the legality of this banner erected at the Miami Beach home/campaign headquarters of mayoral candidate Bill Smatt. If you can’t make out the above photo a section of the banner reads “God created Adam + Eve, not Adam + Steve.” What follows is my analysis of how the Miami Beach municipal code applies to said banner…

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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. >>

My Thoughts on the Conversion of a Previous Gay Activist

Michael Glatze was quite young when he became involved in gay activism and the gay community. And the gay world applauded him. He wrote for XY and then became the executive editor for GYA. He spoke on panels and received awards. He was a roll model and a young hero.

But time went on and his 20’s ended. And something changed. Michael began to see his life as empty and meaningless and, not unlike many before him, he looked for what set him apart from others whom he thought had better lives. Michael decided that it was because he was gay, and so he discovered himself “leading a movement of sin and corruption” and came out “from under the influence of the homosexual mindset”.

And today, Michael has done that which others who suddenly find a religious conversion have done. He wrote an article decrying the evils of homosexuality.

In looking at Michael’s column, printed in WorldNetDaily, some observations came to mind:

First, Michael has adopted the peculiar language of anti-gay activists. Although he lived for many years as gay, he cannot now use the word without quotes and instead must use “homosexual” instead. Other examples – of which there are many – include “the grip of homosexuality”, “the homosexual agenda”, and our old favorite “the Truth”. This article is not written to be understood by Michael’s previous audience, nor by the secular public. It is a “testimony” written in Christianese for a purpose.

Michael also hints at the “causes” that are favorites of the ex-gay and anti-gay movement: weakness, a missing father.  He even tries for Sickness! and Disease! – though the most he can come up with is intestinal cramps and an upset stomach.

Second, Michael provided some clues as to what his future plans are:

Homosexuality allows us to avoid digging deeper, through superficiality and lust-inspired attractions – at least, as long as it remains “accepted” by law. As a result, countless miss out on their truest self, their God-given Christ-self.

Poland, a country all-too familiar with the destruction of its people by outside influences, is bravely attempting to stop the European Union from indoctrinating its children with homosexual propaganda.

I think we can safely assume that Glatze will soon become the public face of some political anti-gay action.

I do not know Michael Glatze and perhaps it is unfair to speculate about the motivations for his conversion. Nonetheless, I think I have a guess as to why some, if perhaps not Glatze, find themselves leaving gay activism for anti-gay activism. It is because activism on its own is not fulfilling. And when you face a disappointment – or when you are no longer getting the attention that you once had – bitterness and anger can set in. 

Many of us have been fortunate to have been able to craft a life that involves many different components – professionalism, activism, spirituality, friendships, and much more. When we face a disappointment in one area, there are other things for us to do. But unfortunately, I have seen those who build their life around just one aspect, be it work or religion or politics, and when things sour – as they always will – there was no balance to give their life meaning.

And I think too often activists make this mistake. They have no life outside their insular world. There is no religion or faith to give perspective. There is no non-activist friend network, or family backup or other forms of getting away and seeing your life from the outside. And when a blow comes along that shakes your perspectives, there’s no one to turn to who isn’t part of the problem – so instead they turn to that which gives substance and validation to their bitterness and anger.

I don’t know if that is what happened to Michael Glatze. But I do know that we’ve seen conversions like his before. We’ve seen those who quite publicly “left the homosexual lifestyle” to step up anti-gay efforts… only to later quietly recant their anti-gay media blitz.

I wish Michael Glazte much happiness. If his conversion gives him meaning, then I am happy for him. But from what I’ve seen before, I fear he’s abandoned one cause for another. And when this new cause disappoints, I hope he will be able to reconsider his focus and his base and find a way to give his life a breadth of experience and meaning and find pillars that can hold him when he sees his new friends for what they are.

Holsinger Confirmation Hearing Is Scheduled

I’ve learned through Bible Belt Blogger (the pre-eminent source for all things Holsinger) that Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-MA), chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, has scheduled a hearing for Dr. James Holsinger’s Surgeon General nomination for Thursday, July 12 at 10 a.m. (EDT) in the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

I’m sure part of the hearing will delve into Holsinger’s 1991 white paper “Pathophysiology of Male Homosexuality.” Perhaps some of the points in my analysis of that paper might be useful to members of the Senate committee. This might be a good time for you to make sure your Senator knows what kind of “scientist” is being considered for the job.

Soulforce Posts Pics Of Conference

Soulforce has posted some nice photos of the Survivor’s Conference on their website here.

Video – Soulforce Survivor’s Initiative – NARTH Action

Earlier today I wrote about Soulforce’s action at NARTH. Here’s video of the event in two parts.

Special thanks to Esteban Rael for shooting this and all the local community groups that came to support us.

Soulforce Begins ‘Survivor Initiative’ At NARTH Headquarters

This morning Soulforce kicked off the Survivor Initiative with an action and press conference outside NARTH’s headquarters in Encino, CA (aka “The Valley”). Present were Paige Schilt, Shawn O’Donnell, Darlene Bogle, and myself. NARTH is officially headquartered at Dr. Nicolosi’s clinic in an office tower on Ventura Boulevard. We assembled on the sidewalk in front of the building entrance along with a news crew from the local Fox affiliate and about two dozen supportive community members. Formal statements were made and then Darlene and Shawn took collages representing our exgay journeys and delivered them to NARTH’s office on the 13th floor.

This event announces the beginning of the Survivor Initiative campaign which will continue through the month of July and highlight the stories of people affected by exgay programs.

Update: Video of today’s action has now been posted.

Hat tip James Mills for the photos. 

Tucson’s “Cool Church” Promotes Paul Cameron

The Arizona Daily Star, my adopted hometown newspaper, has a front-page article this morning on Tucson’s “Cool Church,” a franchise of four churches spread around the city which tries to be hip and relevant to young people. But pastor David McAllister seems to think that aligning himself with a holocaust revisionist is part of what makes his church “cool.”

The church’s web site sports an article called “Facts on Homosexual Sex,” in which they repeat Paul Cameron’s lifespan statistics:

A study of 6,714 obituaries in gay newspapers across the U.S. revealed that 3% of 6,574 gays and 20% of 140 lesbians had died violently:

• 1.4% of gays and 7% of lesbians were murdered (rates over a hundred times those of non-gays);
• 0.6% of gays and 5.7% of lesbians committed suicide (rates dozens of times those of non-gays); and
• 0.6% of gays and 4.3% of lesbians died in motor vehicle accidents (over 17 times the rate of non-gays)

These events, coupled with various STDs (especially AIDS) gotten from other gays, resulted in a median age of death of 40 among gays and a median age of death of 45 among lesbians. In the same study, comparison samples of married men had a median age of death of 75 and married women a median age of death of 79. Dr. Paul Cameron of the Family Research Institute.

I have already dealt extensively with Cameron’s Obituary Study. Remember, this is a man who was not only kicked out of the American Psychological Association and censured by three other professional associations, he thinks that the Nazis’ concentration camps were effective in changing gays to straights. He once told an audience that exterminating gay men in America might be “a plausible idea.” While he has backed away from that, he has nevertheless proposed draconian measures against gays and lesbians in his own manifesto published on the Family Research Institute web site.

So, um, yeah. How cool is that?

Darlene Bogle Responds to Alan Chambers’s Blog Post

Last Wednesday, Darlene Bogle was among three Exodus and Exodus-affiliated leaders who apologized for the harms they brought to those who survived the ex-gay experience. Alan Chambers responded with a childish post “accepting” Darlene’s apology. Box Turtle Bulletin contributor Daniel Gonzales asked Darlene to comment on Alan’s remarks:

Exodus’s “Dialogue” Turns Ugly

Peterson Toscano and Christine Bakke, two of the organizers of the Ex-Gay Survivors Conference repeatedly invited several Exodus leaders to use the opportunity for their all being in town at the same time to begin a dialogue between ex-gay ministries and the survivors of those ministries. Despite tremendous pressure, a very few Exodus-affiliated ministry leaders were brave enough to engage in that private and confidential dialog.

I’m not privy to those conversations. But I’m pretty sure no minds were changed and no arguments were won. But I’m also happy to see that there are those who dedicate themselves to ministering God’s Word, and who trust in Him while reaching out to those with whom they disagree. I personally saw a few people wearing Exodus conference wristbands at the Survivor’s conference. They were respectful and respected.

But as that was going on, Exodus president Alan Chambers turned up the volume with an unusually snarky and sarcastic response to the apology issued by former Exodus-affiliated leaders:

In the early 1990’s I was a participant in an Exodus Member Ministry and was negatively affected by Darlene Bogle’s decision to go back into homosexuality. To have a leader who had written a book, led a ministry and spoken at conferences make such a decision was challenging for me in those early days. I was disappointed and mad. But, I also understood as an adult that we all make mistakes and that just because Darlene went back didn’t mean that I couldn’t make it. I appreciate the apology she made, but I don’t think she was apologizing to people like me.

Chambers’s statement goes on like this. He thinks Michael Bussee, one of the original co-founders of Exodus should “move on” and (apparently) just go away.

This is a very surprising response to be coming from Alan, but he has been under some pressure lately. He took a lot of flack for his brave stance in a recent LA Times article. When Chambers delivered his opening remarks to the Exodus conference, he promised that he wasn’t going to back down from that position.

And on top of that flack, maybe the Ex-Gay survivor’s conference was just too much for him. Alan is more accustomed to dealing with protesters who, frankly, know very little about the ex-gay movement. But this time Exodus was met not with protesters but with ordinary people who know very well what the ex-gay movement has meant in their own lives. This clearly put the Exodus leadership in a situation they hadn’t seen before, and they handled it poorly.

Exodus vice-president Randy Thomas is quoted as saying, “We are always in ongoing communication with people who disagree with us, people with similar testimonies… We definitely will be in communication with them.” But the response so far has been to treat this “communication” as yet another battle in the culture war.

There may be many reasons for Alan to lash out the way he did, but there really aren’t any excuses. When one person apologizes to another, a third person doesn’t act like a jerk in reaction. Alan met heartfelt sentiment with snark and sarcasm. This behavior is beneath him. I find this response to be particularly disappointing because I know that Alan is a much better man than this. I’m sure this won’t be the last chance for dialogue, and maybe next time Alan will be more free to respond according to his better nature.

Update: Darlene Bogle Responds

Love In Action “Refuge” Youth Program Shut Down

Remember Zach, the 16-year-old whose MySpace blog revealed that he was about to be involuntarily committed to Love In Action’s youth live-in program “Refuge” in 2005? He was committed to a two-month stay in the residential program, and his plight spawned international outrage along with unprecedented protests in Memphis. It also inspired filmmaker Morgan Fox to begin filming the documentary, “This Is What Love In Action Looks Like,” set for release in January 2008.

This evening at the Ex-Gay Survivor Conference in Irvine, California, we screened short excerpts of several documentary films including Fox’s unfinished work. Just before Fox’s extended trailer was shown, we learned that he had to make a very quick last-minute change to the ending today. And when we saw that ending, the crowd erupted in both cheers and tears as we saw that Love In Action Director John Smid confirmed that the “Refuge” youth program has been “dissolved.”

There were many cathartic moments at the Ex-Gay Survivor Conference, but for me at least, this surprise announcement was the most satisfying. I hope this will finally bring to an end any ideas that holding youth against their will for counseling they neither need nor desire is acceptable in a civilized country. This is a great step forward.

Peterson Toscano shares his personal thoughts here.

Communication Begins

Peterson Toscano and Christine Bakke of www.BeyondExGay.com and the organizers of the Ex-Gay Survivor’s Conference invited leadership of Exodus International to dinner.  Although no one from the Exodus Board was available (Alan Chambers expressed interest in meeting at a separate time), three leaders in affiliated ministries were able to attend.  Peterson blogs:

Three leaders of Exodus member ministries joined four of us ex-gay survivors for dinner. No one from Exodus International senior leadership or from the Exodus board attended the dinner, and those present for the dinner stressed that they do not represent Exodus International.

We commend those leaders who chose to take time away from their very busy schedule to listen to former ex-gays express their concerns. We hope that this is a first of many steps taken to open communications between those ex-gays seeking to live lives consistent with their faith and those former ex-gays who have reconciled their faith and their sexuality.

Gay Catholics Meet in Austin

This weekend ex-gay evangelicals and ex-ex-gay survivors are meeting separately in Irvine, CA to discuss either how to walk away from homosexuality or how to survive the damage caused by the effort if that walk doesn’t work.

Next weekend in Austin, TX, the gay and lesbian Catholic organization, Dignity USA, will be meeting to discuss pastoral care needed for those who seek to live a life consistent with both their sexuality and their spirituality.

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.)

Ex-Gay Survivor’s Conference Responds to CitizenLink Report

Peterson Toscano and Christine Bakke responded to the CitizenLink’s false characterization of the Ex-Gay Survivor’s Conference:

Our purpose is to serve the needs of former ex-gays, their families, friends, and supporters. The experiences of former ex-gays and their allies have often been mischaracterized and their needs misunderstood. Identifying those needs and moving forward together as a community will happen on its own terms, not as a reaction to or a protest of Exodus.

In response to our attempts to be transparent about our plans and intent, we have been mischaracterized as a protest movement, as seeking to steal hope from ex-gays, and now had our attendance quantified more than a day prior to the conference opening.

We look forward to sitting down with a small handful of Exodus leaders to share a meal and tell our stories Friday evening.

We look forward to hearing a specific affirmative response to our invitation for dialogue with senior Exodus leaders. We continue to challenge ourselves to move carefully, respond humbly, and not bear false witness as we interact with Exodus. We look forward to a similar effort in response from Focus on the Family and Exodus International.