Box Turtle Bulletin

Briefly Noted

• Joe Brummer stays on Guy Adams’ case (of “gays having sex with infants” fame). Read this series of emails and you can see the kind of truly unhinged people we’re dealing with. Good work, Joe.
• With the spate of hate crimes this week, Mike Ditto at Janus Online tipped me to another one Wednesday of last week in the Liberal Bastion of Boulder, CO. “I fight faggots… I kill faggots… Are you a faggot?” Folks, if it can happen in Boulder, it can happen anywhere.
• Meanwhile, we learn that the assailants who beat a gay man all night long in New Mexico were trying to “scare him straight.” The victim’s family continues to receive threats since the beating.
• The New York Times has as story about gay men in heterosexual marriages. “Even after a pained awakening or acknowledgment of their sexual orientation, these men want to save their marriages… Yet, such arrangements succeed for only ‘a small percentage’ of couples…” The article’s clever title is “When the Beard Is Too Painful To Remove.”
• Just a month after the Arkansas Supreme Court knocked down that state’s anti-gay adoption policy, Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R) urged a crowd in South Carolina to support a proposed amendment to ban gay marriage in that state’s constitution.
• Ex-Gay Watch takes up Warren Throckmorton’s discussion of the The End of Ex-Gay.

Briefly Noted

Anti-gay activists often say that gay people are prone to depression. With news like this, is it any wonder?

• San Diego again. A security guard was attacked by about fifteen teenagers who shouted anti-gay epithets at him. They scattered when police arrived, but three were later arrested when they tried to attack him again.
• Meanwhile San Diego Police identified a second “Lowlife” accused of beating six men as they were leaving Saturday night’s gay pride festival. Charged are Lyon Tatum, 18 and James Allen Carroll, 24. The third is a 16-year-old male whose name is not being released.
• And by now, you may have heard about the vicious kidnapping and all-night beating in New Mexico.
• Perry McGuire, the GOP candidate for Georgia Attorney General compares Gay Straight Alliances in schools to “allowing a pedophile club or a gambling club to meet at school.” With rhetoric like that, it’s no wonder we’re getting beaten up.
• But it gets worse, with this from Renew America’s Guy Adams: “The newest thing in Chicago, it’s becoming a trend, and you’re gonna find this hard to believe… sex with infants.” Infants? Exactly how low can these extremists get?
• But there’s a glimmer of hope back in San Diego, where Tracy Jarman has become a role model as that city’s first lesbian fire chief. “I have been overwhelmed by the support from the rank and file. It’s just been incredible.”

A Hate Crime in New Mexico

What happened last weekend? First it was a gay bashing in San Diego, and now comes another report of terror from New Mexico:

The woman said she and the gay man left the party and had walked halfway down the driveway before the others caught them, knocked them to the ground and took them to an adjoining yard that contained “several large barking dogs” the warrant says. Smith told them they should get ready to be thrown to the dogs, but instead he and others took them to the camper parked in the mobile home’s front yard, the warrant states.

While some of the partygoers tied up the gay man with rope and began hitting him, “Uriah told them that this was a kidnapping and they were not going to die yet,” according to the warrant. A female from the party lifted the woman’s head and kicked her in the face, the warrant says. The woman said she felt her nose break, the warrant says.

“(The woman) was not tied up, but was held in the camper for most of the night while all of the male subjects kept hitting, kicking, slapping and knocking (the gay man) down,” the warrant states. “The male subjects would knock (the gay man) down and if he did not get up off of the ground within a certain count or if he would make any noise, they would jump on him, hitting and kicking him.

“This continued all night until the sun was about to come up.”

This is terror, pure and simple.

Three men have been accused in the crime. Uriah Smith, 17, and William York, 21, were arrested and each charged with two counts of kidnapping, aggravated battery, false imprisonment and conspiracy. Police are still looking for Leroy Segura, age and hometown unknown.

The unidentified 18-year-old male victim suffered bleeding on the brain, concussion, and facial lacerations and bruising. He has since been released from the hospital. The woman’s injuries did not require hospitalization.

Til Death Do You Part

The next time anti-gay activists claim that the love that gay couples feel for one another isn’t really love, but is instead some sort of counterfeit imitation of it, I’d like for them to take a good hard look at this photograph.

The two men in the photograph are Ray Vahey and Richard Taylor. For nearly forty-nine years, they were devoted partners who did not speak openly about their lives, neither to their family nor to their friends at work. But when Wisconsin extremists proposed an amendment to the constitution banning gay marriage, Ray and Richard decided it was time to end the silence. Last December, they testified at a state hearing on the proposed amendment.

Richard and I met and fell in love in 1956. For 49 years, we have yearned for a marriage recognized in America. Yet until this year, we had never come out in a public way. We decided this cause is not only worth it to us but to millions of others…

Richard was a World War II veteran, having served on a navy tanker on convoy duty in the North Atlantic and the Mediterranean. Later, his tanker was moved to the Pacific where it operated in the battle of Iwo Jima. It later came under kamikaze attack at Okinawa.

Richard voluntarily put himself into harm’s way to protect his country and the rights of all Americans of that day, and all of the generations that have followed. Now there is an attempt to separate Richard from society and take away his right to equality under the law.

Richard and Ray had planned a religious wedding ceremony for September 16, which would have been their fiftieth anniversary together. But Richard became ill, so they moved the date up to last Memorial Day. Richard died last Friday at the age of eighty-one.

The next time someone claims that gay couples are incapable of stable, long-term relationships, I’d like for them to take a good hard look at this photograph. This is the very picture of love and dedication. Nearly fifty years ago, they met and fell in love, and they remained together throughout those decades in the face of tremendous obstacles and discrimination, yearning for their relationship to be acknowledged and recognized. The next time someone claims that gay couples are a danger to marriage, I’d like for them to know about Ray and Richard.

My thoughts and prayers go out to Ray Vahey in his time of loss.

Briefly Noted

A break in the case in San Diego, a gay priest is rejected for missionary work among South Africans with HIV/AIDS, and hard questions in New York and at the United Nations:

• Three suspects — one 24-year-old and two teens — are in custody for the beating of six gay men in five separate attacks at San Diego’s Pride festival. The three are part of a group known, very appropriately, as the “Lowlifes.” One victim remains in the hospital with a fractured skull; he has undergone a tracheotomy to help him breathe.
• Father Fred Daley of Syracuse, NY, one of the few openly gay priests in the Roman Catholic Church, volunteered to serve with Catholic Relief Services in their mission in Lesotho, South Africa, where nearly a third are living with HIV or AIDS. But Fr. Daley, who has extensive foreign missionary experience, was rejected from the program. “They said I was an openly gay priest with a high profile. They said a controversial figure would not be in their best interests… I interpret that as, ‘It’s OK to be gay as long as you’re in the closet.'”
• Are the U.S. Park Services trying to halt New York’s Black Pride event Pride in the City? Keith Boykin has the details.
• A report from the United Nations Human Rights Committee cites the U.S.’s failure to protect gay citizens from discrimination and abuse, especially in the areas of employment discrimination and hate crimes.

Briefly Noted^{TM (Not!)}

Where the gray matter sees only black and white, and not actual shades of gray.

• A study finds that the brains of partisan true-believers really don’t let the facts get in the way.
• An editorial this month in the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology recommends that the new vaccine for HPV (which is linked to cervical cancer, penile cancer and anal cancer) be given to both sexes, not just women and girls.
• “Clearly, these animals wanted to push these men back into the closet.” San Diego Police chief responds to the attacks against five men leaving that city’s Pride festival, calling it a hate crime. One victim remains hospitalized with a fractured skull and faces possible reconstructive surgery. Three suspects are being held.
• Meanwhile, on the other side of the continent, vandals attacked a home shared by two gay men in Loudoun County, Virginia, a Washington, D.C. suburb. Virginia, you may remember, is debating an amendment to the constitution to ban gay marriages. States which debated similar bans in 2004 showed a rise in hate crimes motivated by sexual orientation. (For more info on the relationship between hate crimes and same-sex marriage debates, see When Words Have Consequences.)
• European companies have discovered the magic of advertising tailored for gay audiences.
• Can Pride^TM really be trademarked?

Dan Savage’s Silver Lining

I’ve always agreed with conservatives when they say that protecting marriage is in children’s best interests. It’s partly why I want to protect — or more properly, extend — marriage to everyone, including gay and lesbian couples, because their children deserve these same protections.

But marriage isn’t just about children; people who cannot procreate get married all the time. But if opponents to same-sex marriage insist on putting all their eggs into a single child-filled basket, they’re bound to find more than a few of their eggs crushed.

Columnist Dan Savage has an excellent op-ed piece in last Sunday’s New York Times about the recent rulings on same-sex marriage in New York and Washington. He believes that both courts’ reliance on arguments about procreation is the key to turning these setbacks into future victories:

A perverse cruelty characterizes both decisions. The courts ruled, essentially, that making my child’s life less secure somehow makes the life of a child with straight parents more secure. Both courts found that making heterosexual couples stable requires keeping homosexual couples vulnerable. And the courts seemed to agree that heterosexuals can hardly be bothered to have children at all — or once they’ve had them, can hardly be bothered to care for them — unless marriage rights are reserved exclusively for heterosexuals. And the religious right accuses gays and lesbians of seeking “special rights.”

Even if you believe that marriage plays a special role in the lives of heterosexuals with children (another point I’m happy to concede), can it not play a similar role in the lives of homosexual couples, whether they’re parents or not? Marriage, after all, is not reserved for couples with children. (Perhaps it will be soon, if courts keep heading in this direction.)

Read the whole thing while it’s still available.

Briefly Noted

They were against it before they were for it. Time is not on my side, not for any prolonged writing pleasures anyway. So let’s try this out as a new feature between features.

• Fifty-six percent of Virginians support amending the state constitution to ban same-sex marriage, but only 46% support it when the text of the proposed amendment is actually read to them. (via GoodAsYou.org)
• Eureka! Vacationing gays are descending on the beautiful Ozarks in Arkansas, and the locals aren’t quite sure what to make of it.
• First we had the book The End of Gay. Is it now The End of Ex-Gay?
• A British court refused to recognize a lesbian couple’s Canadian marriage as a full marriage in Britain, although it can be recognized as a civil partnership.
• Two men were beaten in the head with baseball bats and a third was stabbed by three assailants as they were leaving San Diego’s Pride festival at Balboa Park late Saturday night.
• Imagine having a neighbor who constantly hurls anti-gay and anti-AIDS threats at you. A Rhode Island judge puts a stop to it.

A Study in Holland

There has been a noticeable increase in the number of visitors to this web site using search engines to learn more about the famous “Dutch Study.” I suspect the recent spike in visitors may have something to do with an article that appeared in the American Family Association’s AFA Journal this month. Ed Vitagliano notes that in countries and states where marriage or civil unions are allowed, the number of same-sex couples tying the knot is relatively low. Why do you suppose that is? Ed thinks he has the answer:

Even when they couple, homosexual relationships are relatively short-lived. A study of homosexual couples in Holland found that same-sex unions lasted an average of 18 months and included an average of eight additional sex partners outside the “monogamous” relationship.

Well we’ve been down this familiar road before. The AFA is relying on cooked statistics for this. This was a non-representative study based on AIDS patients who were all under the age of thirty. This is hardly a pool where you’d expect to find many couples celebrating their golden anniversaries. But these statistics have reached urban-legend status. You can read more about it in Straight From The Source: What the “Dutch Study” Really Says About Gay Couples.

The AFA thinks that the low number of same-sex couples getting hitched shows that gays aren’t really interested in marriage, but are only interested in advancing their nefarious plot to win “the cultural victory that legalized same-sex marriage would represent.” But as I said before, I think the answer is much simpler — and much more conservative and family-valued than that.

Being Gay Leaves You Open to Blackmail After All

Or at the least, revenge. But that’s only because of the US military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy.

A decorated sergeant and Arabic language specialist Bleu Copas was dismissed from the Army, even though he never was asked, and never told. His accuser has not been identified. Instead, the Army relied on a stream of anonymous e-mails sent to his superiors. So much for the accused’s right to confront his accusers.

This brings up a disturbing possibility:

The policy is becoming “a very effective weapon of vengeance in the armed forces” said Steve Ralls, a spokesman for the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, a Washington-based watchdog organization that counseled Copas and is working to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”

The US military has been engaging in an anti-gay witch hunt recently. Dismissals are up 11% from 2004, and the army has no compunction about dismissing anyone regardless of how critical their skills may be. Arabic translators are in extremely short supply, but fifty-five have been dismissed under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” costing American taxpayers nearly $369 million (not to mention unknown lives due to the shortage of translators).

One historic argument against granting gays and lesbians security clearances is that they were presumed to be susceptible to blackmail. But proponents of gays and lesbians have noted that blackmail is only possible if the individual is closeted. Ironically, the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy forces gay and lesbian military personnel back into the closet, which leaves them vulnerable to blackmail attempts or acts of revenge. Because of this, “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” ends up weakening our security, not strengthening it.

Sgt. Copas, however, showed the kind of integrity that should have made the Army proud:

On Dec. 2, investigators formally interviewed Copas and asked if he understood the military’s policy on homosexuals, if he had any close acquaintances who were gay, and if he was involved in community theater. He answered affirmatively.

But Copas declined to answer when they asked, “Have you ever engaged in homosexual activity or conduct?” He refused to answer 19 of 47 questions before he asked for a lawyer and the interrogation stopped.

Since the Army violated its own policy in asking Sgt. Copas “the question,” he was right to refuse to answer. But that wasn’t enough to keep him in the army. Apparently, knowing gay people and being involved in theater is enough to get kicked out these days.

That is a standard that neither Ronald Reagan nor Charlton Heston could meet.

After Exodus

The Advocate has a heartbreaking story by David Luc Nguyen, a former ex-gay (an “ex- ex-gay,” you might say) who emerged from a very difficult attempt to go straight. He was forced by his parents to undergo counseling after he came out to them. When he finally dropped out of Portland Fellowship, an Exodus affiliate where he underwent counseling, his parents kicked him out.

Many of the damaging aspects ex-gay ministries comes from the fact that they are not certified competent counselors:

But even they admit they’re not really counselors. Before writing this, I contacted Ron Shaw, who works with Metanoia Ministries, an Exodus group in the Pacific Northwest. A disclaimer at the bottom of Shaw’s e-mails states: “Ron Shaw is NOT a state-licensed counselor. All advice given is based on spiritual principles contained in the Bible.” …

The advice Shaw gives sounds a lot like science. One of the more dangerous aspects of “reparative therapy” is that it often uses pseudoscientific language, says Matthew Brooks, a mental health professional in Seattle. “This can make it appealing to young people,” Brooks says. “This therapy is based on religious and political prejudices. It robs people of the chance to strive for happy productive lives, friendships, and families as healthy gay men and lesbians.”

Not only do these ministries rob people of the chance to strive for happy and productive lives, their persistent message is that it is impossible to be gay and happy. Virtually all of the ex-gay testimonials speak of sexual addictions, prostitution, violence, drugs and alcohol, and promiscuity. All of these are blamed on homosexuality itself, and not on the poor life choices that these individuals made. Blaming it on homosexuality allows them to dodge the hard questions about their own responsibility for their poor choices in behavior.

Fortunately — and perhaps miraculously — David has come out the other side to offer a very poignant look inside the ex-gay experience and what it does to many of those who go through it.

Still, Exodus is with me. I know this may sound crazy, but somewhere deep inside I felt like God was going to punish me if I wrote this piece and spoke out against the church. Fortunately, I’m a lot like my parents. I’m stubborn and determined.

You can read David’s story here.

Welcome Out, Lance Bass

Lance Bass, of popular boy-band ‘N Sync came out in the most recent edition of People Magazine. With all of the rumors floating around, why did he wait so long?

“I knew that I was in this popular band and I had four other guys’ careers in my hand, and I knew that if I ever acted on it or even said (that I was gay), it would overpower everything,” says Bass, referring to bandmates Joey Fatone, Chris Kirkpatrick, JC Chasez and Justin Timberlake.

“I didn’t know: Could that be the end of ‘N Sync? So I had that weight on me of like, ‘Wow, if I ever let anyone know, it’s bad.’ So I just never did,” he says speaking about his sexual orientation for the first time with PEOPLE.

Now, after years of keeping his personal life private, the Mississippi-bred, Southern Baptist-reared Bass, 27, is publicly revealing what he first shared with his friends, then his shocked family.

Coming out is a deeply personal decision. Speaking as one who came out late in life, I know the pressures and the expectations that keep so many in the closet. But, I also know the joy of sheer liberation that comes from not hiding any more. And apparently so does Lance:

“The thing is, I’m not ashamed — that’s the one thing I want to say,” he explains of his decision to come out. “I don’t think it’s wrong, I’m not devastated going through this. I’m more liberated and happy than I’ve been my whole life. I’m just happy.”

People hits the newstands Friday. Welcome to the sunlight, Lance.

Unfocused on the Family

Glenn Stanton, of Focus on the Family, finally got around to responding to the American Academy of Pediatrics’ report on why same-sex marriage is important to children of gay and lesbian couples. (I reviewed that article here.) Unfortunately, he seems to have missed the entire point of the report:

“This report essentially says that research shows that gay and lesbian parents can be as loving and caring as heterosexual parents,” he said. “That is not the same as saying that children who grow up in homes in two-female or two-male adult homes do as well as kids who live with their mother and father in important outcome measures.”

The AAP is skirting some very important issues, he said. For example, the study claims “there are more similarities than differences in parenting styles and attitudes of gay and non-gay fathers.”

While sexual orientation does not seem to affect whether parents prefer their kids to eat healthy snacks, get plenty of exercise, read books, limit television viewing and be kind to their friends, Stanton said there are other important factors the study tries to play down or simply ignores.

Those who try to work with this line of reasoning miss a very important point, the very point that prompted the American Academy of Pediatrics to commission the report in the first place. Gay and lesbian couples are parents. They have always been parents, and they will always be parents. There is simply nothing anybody can do which will ever change that. Like it or not, these children exist, they are growing up, and they will soon become adults themselves. This report is focused on their needs and how best to address them:

This analysis explores the unique and complex challenges that same-gender couples and their children face as a result of public policy that excludes them from civil marriage. In compiling this report it became clear to the contributing committees and section that the depth and breadth of these challenges are largely unknown to the general public and perhaps even to many pediatricians. As such, the AAP Board of Directors approved the broad dissemination of this analysis to assist pediatricians with addressing the complex issues related to same-gender couples and their children.

That’s why they wrote the report: To inform everyone what those challenges are, and why marriage is so important:

In all its work, the AAP is committed to calling attention to the inextricable link between the health and well-being of all children, the support and encouragement of all parents, and the protection of strong family relationships. This analysis was prepared to bring to light the legal, financial, and psychosocial ramifications of recent and proposed public-policy initiatives affecting same-gender parents and their children.

Civil marriage is a legal status that promotes healthy families by conferring a powerful set of rights, benefits, and protections that cannot be obtained by other means. Civil marriage can help foster financial and legal security, psychosocial stability, and an augmented sense of societal acceptance and support. Legal recognition of a spouse can increase the ability of adult couples to provide and care for one another and fosters a nurturing and secure environment for their children. Children who are raised by civilly married parents benefit from the legal status granted to their parents.

You can’t find a stronger endorsement of family values than that.

So, given the very real existence of these children in gay- and lesbian-led families, what exactly would Focus on the Family suggest we do to remove the many roadblocks that these parents face every day so they can provide the best care for their children? We know that Focus on the Family would like gays and lesbians to go away — that’s why they promote and finance ex-gay ministries. Do they have something in mind to make their kids go away too?

What does Focus propose for the children who are already being raised by gays and lesbian couples now and in the future? Don’t these children count? Was Glenn Stanton’s boss really serious when he backed extremely limited domestic partnership benefits in Colorado? James Dobson sure seems to have lost his voice since then. Maybe he took too much heat from fellow conservatives.

Or maybe Focus on the Family can only focus on one kind of family?

Therapy in the Wild, Wild West

By now this is all very old news. In the online world, anything more than a few weeks old is ancient history, but I experienced a sort of deja vu this weekend as I re-read Richard Cohen’s 2000 book, Coming Out Straight. Interesting reading, I know. Let’s just say it’s what I do on my afternoons off.

You may remember ex-gay activist Richard Cohen, president of PFOX (Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays), who was featured on CNN’s Paula Zahn Now on May 23rd demonstrating his unusual methods for “curing” homosexuality. He advocates some very unorthodox therapeutic exercises — many of them drawn from pop-psychology fads of the 1970’s and 1980’s.

One technique involves the client beating a pillow with a tennis racquet while screaming at his parents. Remember when that was all the rage? Beating a pillow while screaming about how angry you are at your parents presumably allows you to work through your feelings about your remembered “abuse” which, according to Cohen, you weren’t allowed to express as a child. There’s a lot of recycled “adult children” talk sprinkled throughout his theories, and they’re all described in his book from six years ago. Not much has changed here.

But his most controversial therapy involves “holding” or “touch” therapy, where he takes a male client onto his lap, holds him gently, and repeats affirming words to him. Cohen claims that this recreates the father-son bond in the “adult child,” which, according to the distant father/domineering mother theory which he favors, is supposed to be the key missing component in the lives of gay men. He went on to demonstrate this technique on-camera with a client identified as “Rob.”

This raised quite a few eyebrows among professional therapists. Among those shocked by this display was Dr. Warren Throckmorton, a professor at Grove City College in northwestern Pennsylvania, who himself is very active in the ex-gay movement:

When my wife watched the clip (I taped it), she said she couldn’t get past the “ick factor” to even evaluate what was said. We discussed which was the ickiest, the tennis racket slamming the pillow while screaming at mom; or the client-cuddle technique where Richard holds his client like a baby in a kind of nursing position. We couldn’t decide.

Dr. Throckmorton had worked closely with PFOX in their attempts to force the Montgomery County (Md.) school system to revise its sex-education programs to include information about ex-gays. This “information” from PFOX includes, for example, a reading list for teachers and students which promoted the idea that gays are diseased and need to be “healed” — a position that is incompatible with modern psychology.

I don’t know to what extend Dr. Throckmorton was bothered by these actions. But he has clearly decided that the sight of a colleague who is a well-known figure in the ex-gay movement embarrassing himself on national television would be the last straw:

Since viewing the “Paula Zahn Now” segment, Throckmorton has notified PFOX that, although he supports its mission and its belief that people are not born homosexual, he will not represent the group as long as Cohen remains its board president.

So why do I bring all of this up now? Well, I was reminded of it as I was reading Cohen’s book. And there it was, exactly what I was looking for: the same detailed descriptions of his “holding therapy” in pages 207 through 211 that he demonstrated on CNN. This book isn’t exactly obscure. It comes with a glowing foreword written by that other famous non-therapist therapist, Laura Schlessinger.

Cohen’s enthusiastic endorsement of this holding technique is found throughout his book (along with pillow-beating, or “bioenergetics” as it is termed). This nationally-televised demonstration may be shocking, but it’s not new. It’s been a part of Cohen’s practice for several years, and no one can accuse him of hiding it.

And there’s another thing that’s no longer hidden: Cohen’s permanent expulsion from the American Counseling Association in May 2002 — although he’s doing his best to hide that. You certainly won’t find any mention of it in PFOX’s website.

While we disagree strongly in many points, I’ve come to respect some of Dr. Throckmorton’s recent actions. He’s one of the few ex-gay proponents to recognize that biological factors can play a role — in possible combination with environmental and developmental factors — in the sexual orientation of many gays and lesbians. This position, more or less, is generally in agreement with those held by most serious researchers, although Dr. Throckmorton places more emphasis on environmental factors. But at least it’s a start. More specifically, he recently criticized Joseph Nicolosi’s “reparative” theory of homosexuality (which is essentially the “distant-father” half of the weak-father/strong-mother theory), declaring “I am not a reparative therapist.” Nicolosi (with the late Charles Socarides) is often looked to as a father of the ex-gay movement, and this theory is the operative theory among almost all of the most prominent ministries. (Ironically, it is this “reparative” drive that Richard Cohen’s techniques are supposed to “heal.”)

And despite his enthusiastic participation in Exodus conferences and other ex-gay activities, he has offered draft guidelines for the practice of what he calls ‘sexual identity therapy” which seeks to establish an ethical framework by emphasizing the actual needs and aspirations of the client, and not the political, religious or moral ideals of the therapist. For example, the draft states, “Therapists should be open to the possibility that embracing same-sex attractions may place other vital aspects of identity at risk. It is also important for therapists to take a neutral stance toward the client’s worldview.” There are areas in these guidelines which can stand improvement, but this effort is certainly a welcome departure from NARTH’s draft guidelines which simply regurgitate the customary anti-gay rhetoric.

Besides, I have to believe that anyone who grew up just a few blocks away from me — a fellow River Rat from Portsmouth, Ohio — can’t be all bad.

But like any specialty in which standard practices, ethical guidelines, certification, and official oversight are all absent. and especially where the distinction between religious ministry and clinical practice is often obliterated, the field of sexual reorientation therapy can resemble the wild west, complete with charlatans and snake-oil salesmen. When one makes it his life work to enter into this kind of work, one must be very careful when choosing those with whom one associates and makes common cause.

See also:

Richard Cohen Shifts Gears
Richard Cohen Is “Disappeared”
Fallout From Richard Cohen’s “The Daily Show” Appearance
Therapy In the Wild, Wild West

The Best Message?

Yesterday was the one year anniversary of the hanging of two Iranian youths, Mahmoud Asgari and Ayaz Marhoni, who were accused of having a gay affair. They were seventeen years old when they were murdered by the Iranian authorities. Several vigils and protests marked the occasion in cities around the world.

[Update: San Francisco activist Michael Petrelis, who, more than anyone, organized the vigils worldwide has a complete roundup of those vigils. And the Washington Post today has an excellent article on the mainstream media’s silence about Mahmound and Ayaz.]

The picture for gays is very bleak in the Middle East. In addition to ongoing active persecution in Iran, the situation is deteriorating rapidly in Iraq. According to the United Nations:

16. UNAMI HRO has received several reports indicating that, since 2005, homosexuals have been increasingly threatened and extra-judicially executed by militias and “death squads” because of their sexual orientation. It is believed that such incidents are underreported, because families are unwilling to admit that targeted members were homosexual for fear of further abuse. It has been difficult to independently verify the information received due to the fact that members of this group maintain a low profile, preferring instead to go into hiding or leave the country.

17. From October 2005 to 30 June 2006 at least twelve homosexuals were reportedly killed in targeted attacks. Militias are reportedly threatening families of men believed to be homosexual, stating that they will begin killing family members unless the men are handed over or killed by the family. In March 2006, a 29-year-old man was kidnapped in Baghdad and his family threatened for allowing him to lead a homosexual lifestyle. The family paid a ransom for the man’s release but the mutilated body of the kidnapped victim was instead found dead a few days later. In another case reported a homosexual man was allegedly victim of “honour crime.” It was reported in the press that the man’s father was released without trial once he explained that he had hanged his son after discovering that he was homosexual.

An editorial in The Advocate also notes pervasive persecution inside the Palestinian Authority:

Tarek, a young Palestinian gay man suspected of homosexuality, was sentenced to a “reeducation” camp run by Muslim clerics under Palestinian Authority jurisdiction. He said that for a period of two months he was “subjected to beatings with belts, clubs, and was forced to sit on bottles which were inserted into my rectum. I was hanged by the hands, I was deprived of sleep, and when I finally did sleep, my limbs were tied to the floor.”

Meanwhile, just one day earlier the House of Representatives turned back an attempt to amend the constitution to ban same-sex marriage. But supporters of the amendment were not daunted, nor were they apologetic over the fact that while Beirut burns, the House fiddles. After the vote, House floor leader Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-Ga.) commented:

This is probably the best message we can give to the Middle East in regards to the trouble we are having over there right now.

Message received. Unfortunately.