Day: November 11, 2011

He said this in the context that he would not bow to British pressure. However, he seems to be saying live and let live.

The President of Uganda Yoweri Kaguta Museveni says he is not moved by the threats issued by the British Prime Minister James Cameroon regarding the reduction of foreign aid to countries that have laws punishing homosexuality.
Museveni, while meeting the Togolese President Faure Gnassingbe at State House Entebbe says Uganda shall not promote such acts of homosexuality under any circumstances.
Early this week, the U.K Government stated that it will deduct the aid to Uganda because of its intention to pass a law that will be against homosexuals’ rights.
Museveni however says his government shall not harass homosexuals because they have lived well in Uganda for ages even before colonization. He says they should practice their acts in private and not in the limelight.
Meanwhile, the Togolese President Faure Gnassingbe says Togo is a homosexual free state.
Gnassingbe has ended his 4 day state visit to Uganda by hailing Uganda for its economical development.

Yesterday, I spoke with a Parliamentary Spokesperson who told me that the Business committee had not met to decide the agenda for the Anti-Homosexuality Bill.

In 2000, I presented a paper at the annual conference of the American Psychological Association outlining studies which referred to ex-gays, i.e., people who rejected gay as an identity for religious reasons. That presentation was part of a larger symposium organized by Mark Yarhouse and Doug Haldeman on religious and GLB issues. In 2002, that paper was published in the APA journal Professional Psychology: Research and Practice.* That was the same year I was given the Freud Award at the NARTH conference.
In that paper, I summarized a study by psychiatrist E. Mansell Pattison and his wife Myrna Loy Pattison, titled “‘Ex-gays’: Religiously Mediated Change in Homosexuals.” The Pattisons interviewed 11 men in the Melodyland church in Anaheim, CA who claimed to have changed from gay to straight. One of those men was frequent commenter here Michael Bussee. Another was Gary Cooper, the man who left that ministry and Exodus with Bussee when they both acknowledged that they had not changed their orientation. In other words, two of the 11 had not changed at all.
Today, on the Religion Dispatches website, I describe that study in more detail and interview Michael Bussee about his participation. I encourage you to go read it and comment here or there.
The study continues to be used by NARTH as well as other groups to claim sexual reorientation works. The problems with the study provide more evidence that NARTH’s use of old data (125 year landscape review) is flawed.
*Throckmorton, W. (2002). Initial empirical and clinical findings concerning the change process for ex-gays. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 33, 242-248.