"Ex-Gay" Rally Heats Up Alaska Churches
Recently, the media made note of the fact that the Anchorage, Alaska church attended by GOP Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin had promoted an "ex-gay" conference.
On Sept. 13, the group Love Won Out, which is a branch of the anti-gay organization Focus on the Family, made its appearance in Anchorage, with one speaker joking that a similar program, Homosexuals Anonymous, has "fourteen steps instead of twelve, because homosexuality is such a huge sin."
A Sept. 18 article in the Anchorage Press examined the meeting in detail, noting that while the speakers at the event claimed to be "ex" lesbians and "ex" gay men, most of the crowd who attended the event were heterosexual--and the testimony they were hearing was playing to their preconceptions of homosexuality as a choice, rather than an innate characteristic.
That is a potentially dangerous trend for the civil rights of GLBT Americans, the article observed, because voters who believe that gays and lesbians are who they are as a matter of choice tend to vote against legal parity and legal protections for the gay community.
The meeting of Love Won Out took place at Abbott Loop Community Church; meantime, outside, a small crowd protested the "ex-gay" group with rainbow flags and carried placards with slogans such as "God loves me just the way he made me," the article said.
When the media got hold of the story that Wasilla Church, which has been Sarah Palin's church for years, had announced in a news letter that Love Won Out was coming to town, the story was that Palin's church supported the "ex-gay" movement; by extension, some wondered whether Palin herself might be a supporter of an approach to homosexuality denounced by most mental health professionals as risky at best.
Palin did not dispel such suspicions when she failed to issue a statement in a timely manner clarifying her position on the "ex-gay" movement.
But Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG), a group that supports gay kids whose parents might respond to the sexuality of their offspring by forcing them into "ex-gay" programs, held back from making any such assumptions, reported Gay News Blog in a Sept. 18 article.
Said PFLAG in a statement, "It is unfair, at this point, to assume that Governor Palin endorses so-called 'ex-gay' therapy like that espoused by Love Won Out."
The group added, "Saturday's event in Anchorage provides an important opportunity for the first GOP mom on the party's presidential ticket to make clear that she, as a mother and a public servant, will not condone, either explicitly or implicitly, such attempts at dividing our families and hurting our kids."
Continued the PFLAG statement, "Palin, and lawmakers of both parties, should seize that opportunity [to] stand up as boldly and outspokenly for all of our kids as much as they do for their own."
PFLAG had gathered to protest the Love Won Out rally. Said the president of the Alaska chapter of the group, Jane Schlittler, "Families never win at Love Won Out."
Added Schlittler, "The conference's organizers maliciously target often well-meaning parents who are dealing with a difficult issue in their lives, and in the process put their kids' well-being at risk.
"Make no mistake: There is far more 'preying' than 'praying' taking place at these meetings, and far more harming than healing in the doctrine of Love Won Out."
Agreed the group's national executive director, Jody Huckaby, "Programs like Love Won Out are dangerous for kids and divisive for families."
Added Huckaby, "Every bit of evidence available suggests that children who grow up in homes that accept them--and not try to change them--are far happier and healthier than those subjected to these anti-family tactics.
"It is nothing short of extremist to imply that families should do anything other than love their children as they are, and nothing short of outrageous to infer that LGBT kids aren't fine just the way they are."
The Anchorage Press article noted that the American Psychiatric Association has reported on the so-called "ex-gay" movement, finding that, "There is no published scientific evidence supporting the efficacy of reparative therapy as a treatment to change one's sexual orientation."
The article also cited The American Psychological Association, which found that attempts to "covert" gays into straights is liable to "do more harm than good."
The American Medical Association also weighed in on on the issue, the article said, warning that, "aversion therapy... is no longer recommended for gay men and lesbians."
Focus on the Family staffer Melissa Fryrear, who serves as the director of the group's Gender Issues Department, said, "We exist to help men and women dissatisfied with living homosexually understand that same-sex attractions can be overcome."
Added Fryrear, a speaker at Love Won Out rallies who claims to be a "former" lesbian, "It's not easy, but it is possible, as evidenced by the thousands of men and women--like me--that have walked this road successfully."
Another Love Won Out speaker, Joe Dallas, who is the program director at Genesis Counseling in Calif., offered his interpretation of the scientific notion that gays and lesbians are born to be who and what they are; the article reported that Dallas compared homosexuality to alcoholism, saying that even if there were a genetic factor involved, "You have the capacity to make decisions."
The article also said that Dallas identified specific attributes that can make a person vulnerable to becoming gay, including a preference for creative pursuits and bookishness rather than the vigor of athletics.
Dallas also referred to homosexuality as being the result of gays making the "decision" to identify themselves in that way.
Not that Focus on the Family only condemns gay sex; the group also condemns sex outside of marriage (with marriage being strictly defined as one man and one woman).
Otherwise, according to Fryrear, "We don't condone anything [sexual] outside of that [definition of marriage]."
Added Fryrear, "The foundation for understanding Focus on the Family constituents is that everything they hold morally is viewed through that biblical lens, including ethics they'd hold regarding sexual behavior."
And the group seems to have a desire for their faith-based tenets to inform how the secular laws of the land are cast.
"Christians certainly have a right to be a part of the public dialogue and cast their votes regarding policy and legislative issues," Fryrear was quoted as saying.
The article cited the Southern Poverty Law Center's Mark Potok, who analyzed the stances of groups like the Focus on the Family, saying, "By and large, these so-called ex-gay ministries are really on many levels a propaganda operation aimed at convincing the public that homosexuality is a choice."
Potok, who heads up the SPLC's Intelligence Project--an initiative to keep tabs on extremism of all sorts--added that the SPLC "got into [the "ex-gay" debate] in part because we've followed the Christian Right for a number of years, based on its attacks on gay people and homosexuality in general."
Explained Potok, "We don't look at the Christian Right over issues like separation of church and state, but when it comes to demonizing a large section of the population, that's right up our alley, that's what we study.
"Whether it's demonizing black people, Jewish people, or gay people, that's really the same for us."
Potok theorized that in the beginning a sincere desire to help, and heal, gays motivated such programs. But that has changed, he said; the article quoted him as saying, "I think that is less true every day.
"Every single one of these programs is based on a fundamental lie, which is that homosexuality is a mental disease."
Added Potok, "This kind of propaganda from the Christian Right has the effect of demonizing individuals and damaging them in serious psychological ways."
Love Won Out, in particular, is "really noxious," Potok said.
Countering Love Won Out is "ex-ex-gay" activist Wayne Besen, who founded Truth Wins Out.
Besen was in town the day after the Love Won Out rally, and he spoke at Anchorage's Metropolitan Community Church.
The article cited Besen as sharing an incident of job-related bias from his past: Besen had a career as a TV news reporter, covering political issues for a station in Bangor, Maine. Then his colleagues saw him at a gay bar--with the result that he was first removed from covering political stories, and then fired outright.
"This is what we face," Besen told the crowd.
Added Besen, "This industry is out there to keep discrimination strong."
"They do everything in their power to make us miserable. They ask you to lie to God, and have lust in your heart forever, while you bury your head in the sand.
"They need to open their eyes to the damage they're doing, destroying families in the name of family values."
Besen added that "ex-gay" ministries are "just a smokescreen for political action and to elect right-wing politicians and to pass anti-gay laws," and saying of Love Won Out that it "sugarcoats the discrimination and makes people feel better about keeping others down," the article reported.
Said Besen, "If Focus on the Family really believed there was a ministry that was changing gay people, they'd give millions of dollars to it."
Besen continued, "What I find fascinating is, they're really not talking about being straight.
"They want you to be celibate and miserable and lonely, from the cradle to the grave."