The Mankind Project has been off my radar for months. However, UK journalist Tom Mitchelson put it back on with his eyewitness account published in Saturday’s UK Mail Online.
I first heard about the MKP’s New Warriors Training Adventure at a NARTH (National Association for the Research and Therapy of Homosexuality) conference in 2003. Various members, including then President Joe Nicolosi, were recommending it to those in attendance as a way to support healthy masculinity. A few same-sex attracted men who tried it thought it was great and a few others thought it made no sense to be naked in the woods with other guys. New Warriors is still recommended on the NARTH website. In view of the current critiques of the sexual identity therapy framework (SITF), it is worth pointing out that the SITF discourages experiences like NWTA. More about that after I review Mitchelson’s weird weekend.
The next time I recall thinking much about MKP was when I read Chris Vogel’s Houston Press article about the suicide of Michael Scinto. You can read all of the articles on MKP and NWTA here.
For veteran NWTA watchers, these experiences will seem familiar. Mitchelson grabs your attention out of the gate:
How our man found himself with 65 naked men chanting, drumming – and screaming their rage against women to ‘reclaim’ their lost masculinity…
The temperature has plunged to freezing. I am deep in a remote English woodland outside Exeter.
I have been blindfolded and I am standing, holding hands, with a long line of men – who, until about 24 hours ago, I’d never met before.
Together, we are stumbling through the scrub as beating tribal drums guide our way. Oh yes, and we are naked. Totally naked.
Abruptly, my blindfold is ripped off and I see we have been led to a shadowy candle-lit room. There are about 65 of us in a double horseshoe formation.
This is a ceremony where we are to become ‘new warriors’. And then the dancing begins.
I wish I were somewhere else. Anywhere else. So why on earth am I here?
Why indeed? On its website, MKP proclaims:
We’re redefining mature masculinity for the 21st Century – and we want your help!
Along the way Mitchelson seems amused that the NWTA is viewed as a path to redefined masculinity.
A leader holding a wooden staff decorated with feathers rambles on about the mission of the weekend, using the pompous jargon that would later become very familiar: words like ’shadow’, ‘warriors’, ‘masculine’, ‘commitment’ and ‘responsibility’.
He tells us how to be a man. It’s hard to take from a man wearing face paint, carrying a feathered stick.
Whatever healthy masculinity is, it seems to involve making the world into a giant man-cave, free from those pesky women.
Everything I read from them is baffling non-speak. They claim the weekend is a ‘process of initiation and self-examination that is crucial to the development of a healthy and mature male self’.
They claim they help move men away from the ‘comforting embrace’ of their mother – something, on the face of it, some wives might even encourage. Then I am told I will ‘confront’ my ‘dependence on women’, to help me move into the ‘masculine kingdom’.
The fun begins when they arrive at the camp. [Read more →]
Writing in defense of unnamed NARTH leaders, Julie Hamilton recently said on the NARTH (National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality) website:
NARTH will continue its mission as a scientific organization despite the propaganda, and the research will continue to speak for itself.
However, then just across the page, one encounters a ”NARTH Research Report” titled, Health Risks: Fisting and other Homosexual Practices. NARTH authors Michelle Cretella and Philip Sutton suggest that gay advocacy group GLSEN is currently teaching high school kids that fisting is safe practice. However, the authors fail to say that the incidents provoking their article happened 9 and 10 years ago. The NARTH article begins by framing the concern over those incidents as being in “recent weeks” but the incidents are old news. I am no fan of GLSEN’s conferences or reading list, but why use old news as a hook?
Furthermore, the article is a clear effort to associate risky practices with gays in a way similar to that being used now by Martin Ssempa in Uganda. However, the title and tone of the article overlooks an important fact – some heterosexuals also engage in those practices. In fact, if you go on Amazon.com and look up the practices referenced in this article, you will find how-to books written for straights (actually just take my word for it). Would a scientific organization claiming to provide science on sexuality overlook such things?
Now after a brief selective review of opinion and some studies, the authors determine that all things gay are harmful and lead to dysfunction. The studies don’t actually say that but most studies do find that homosexuals as a group report more psychiatric problems than straights and that there are risks associated with some sexual practices. However, the scientific train goes off the track with the conclusion.
Conclusion: An adolescent’s desire to prevent or cease experiencing serious medical, psychological, and relational health risks is sufficient reason for him or her to seek and receive competent psychological care to minimize or resolve the desires, behaviors and lifestyles associated with such increased risks.
Translation: If you experience same-sex attraction, better get some reparative therapy quick so you can avoid all the nastiness.
A scientific organization would then offer research the benefit of reparative therapy for mental health outcomes. The claim in the conclusion above is that changing orientation will allow you to avoid the problems NARTH finds with being gay. However, the problem with the claim is that those studies have not been done. To evaluate Cretella and Sutton’s conclusion, one would want to assess the mental health of ex-gays and gays and see who has the best outcomes.* Or one would expect to see large gains in mental health outcomes as the result of the therapy NARTH proposes. Where are the studies?
An author Cretella and Sutton quote is David Fergusson. Last year, Fergusson had this to say about a similar NARTH review of homosexuality and health risks:
While the NARTH statement provides a comprehensive and accurate analysis of the linkages between sexual orientation and mental health, the paper falls far short of demonstrating that homosexuality should be classified as a psychiatric disorder that may be resolved by appropriate therapy. To demonstrate this thesis requires an in depth understanding of the biological and social pathways that explain the linkages between homosexual orientation and mental health. At present we lack that understanding. Furthermore it is potentially misleading to treat what may be a correlate of mental disorder as though it were a disorder in its own right.
Fergusson also told me that studies designed to demonstrate positive changes in mental health via reparative therapy have not been done. In other words, there are no guarantees that changing orientation, if it could be accomplished in the manner suggested by Cretella and Sutton, would alter the mental health differences currently observed between gay and straight groups.
Julie Harren-Hamilton says the scientific research will speak for itself. However, just across the page, we have two authors providing a conclusion without adequate research. Apparently, on the NARTH website, the research needs a little help to speak in advance.
*There was a study which found better mental health outcomes among a sample of gays than an Exodus sample but this has not been replicated to my knowledge. Nottebaum, L. J., Schaeffer, K. W., Rood, J., & Leffler, D. (2000). Sexual orientation—A comparison study. Manuscript submitted for publication. (Available from Kim Schaeffer, Department of Psychology, Point Loma Nazarene University, 3900 Lomaland Drive, San Diego, CA 92106).
Another study of some relevance is the study of Exodus participants from Jones and Yarhouse. They found that their entire group of participants experienced enhanced mental health over the study period. Inconvenient for the NARTH claim is that the entire sample, whether gay or ex-gay, experienced improved health from Time 1 to Time 6.
The NARTH conference wrapped up today. A local television station covered a protest in West Palm Beach with NARTH taking the stance they are fine with people identifying as gay.
However, the conference theme was ““Preventing & Treating Sexual Identity Confusion in the Lives of Children, Adolescents, and Adults.” One talk was on encouraging heterosexuality in your child. While I am all for great parent-child relationships, there is very little evidence that same-sex attraction derives from faulty parent-child relationships. I think NARTH is also about a particular view of SSA causation in addition to helping people who believe homosexual behavior is not for them. Just say so.
UPDATE 2: The statement below has now been removed from the NARTH website. The first interview with Glatze is still available. Not sure what happened, the statement of regret was pretty shortlived (not quite a full day).
UPDATE: This statement has replaced the Glatze interview on the NARTH website:
Following the counsel of our friends at Exodus and others in the ex-gay community we have removed the Michael Glatze interview from our site. Some of his public comments have been found to be offensive to NARTH and hurtful to others. It is never appropriate to make some of the comments attributed to Mr. Glatze and we at NARTH wish to make our disapproval public.
You can see below what was there this morning. The first interview from 2007 is still available.
This is the second interview with Mr. Glatze that is on the NARTH website, and it is easy to see that their leaders believe he is someone who should be emulated. Given the philosophy of masculinity that he espouses with the approval of NARTH, one wonders why evangelicals continue to look to NARTH as a credible group.
While it is proposed by many in the NARTH camp that toughening up as a stereotypical male will eliminate same-sex attractions, there is little evidence to support the idea. It is not far from the “man-up” approach to the ideas of Glatze that one can “grow up” from bullying.
Here is another reminder of the real life consequences of such ideas. I call on NARTH to rethink this reparative notion, and take an unambiguous stance against bullying.
Please see the left column icon, Bullycide in America. All money from the sale of this book go to creating more awareness surrounding the need for schools to take a zero tolerance toward bullying for any reason.
Just over three years ago, I decided not to make a planned presentation to the annual conference of the National Association for the Research and Therapy of Homosexuality. At the same time, friend and colleague Dr. David Blakeslee resigned from the NARTH Scientific Advisory Board. We decided to take these actions in response to NARTH’s slow and, in my opinion, inadequate response to statements by NARTH members and advisers, Joseph Berger on bullying of gender variant kids and Gerald Schoenewolf on racial politics.
Three years later, NARTH is about to open another conference in Florida. No advisers have made offensive comments but the organization has in recent days featured an interview with Michael Glatze on their website. The interview is quite positive and promotes Mr. Glatze as a successful role model for others and particularly same-sex attracted kids. However, Mr. Glatze has made statements recently which raise the same sad red flags raised by Berger and Schoenewolf three years ago.
Glatze has indeed gone through a series of changes (change is not just possible but apparently frequent). Of concern here however, is his views on race and bullying. The blog where he wrote the following is down now (that changes too so perhaps it will come back), but there is no indication that his views have changed since they were written.
Have I mentioned lately how utterly *disgusting* Obama is? And, yes, it’s because he’s black. God, help us all.
This was retracted when I asked Glatze if he had any comments about it. He wrote
Yes, I can. I was talking with some friends about Jimmy Carter’s recent comments along the lines of that anybody who disagrees with Obama is a racist. My friend posted that on my blog, as sarcasm.
Warren, I am about fed-up with the “race card” being pulled, any time someone so much as *suggests* that Obama may not be doing something right. It’s getting to the point, where people are literally losing their minds trying to speak up, trying to have their voices heard. You don’t know how many friends I have who feel crippled, in a country that has its foundations in the notion of freedom and – more importantly – liberty.
You’ll see a quote on my little blog – now – that says, “If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.” It’s a quote by George Orwell. I’m trying to do my small part, in the midst of all this insanity, to find integrity.
No, I’m not happy with the current administration. No, I don’t hate Obama because he’s black. What I do hate is evil, and many of the things he has done I would consider evil.
Although he backed away from his earlier comment, the words were still careless as was his explanation. Making or allowing a friend to make a racist statement on your public blog is playing the “race card” which he said in his explanation he was tired of others doing.
On bullying, Exgaywatch quoted from an entry on Glatze’s blog just before it was removed, where he said:
We live in a culture that hopes to destroy manhood, by promoting policies that shame men, and make them out to be villians. “Patriarchy is bad! Down with patriarchy!” What is “patriarchy”? Patriarchy is the idea that men exist. There is nothing more. People invent “matriarchy,” otherwise known as a more emotional approach, a more flowy approach, to doing things, as though men have no emotions or desire to have a happy existence. The false duality created by non-“patriarchy” thinking leads to the corrosion of humanity, as exhibited by political correctness, Liberalism, and embodied by The One … a.k.a., Barack Obama, the world’s first official girl-man President.
Even so much as uttering the statement in the previous paragraph gets the victim-minded whiners, those lacking a backbone, those denying their manhood, to heights of hysteria and indignation. “That’s the very type of behavior that leads to bullying in schools.” Bullying in schools is a part of life, a part of growth. Every time somebody needs to grow up, even just a little bit, the process will be painful and probably not the first choice for what that individual might want to do. Take away every one of these instances in the name of “compassion,” and you will tear out the souls and spirits of everyone you hope to control with such insidious policies.
While this is a bit hard to follow, he appears to be saying about the same thing Joseph Berger said three years ago when he said:
I suggest, indeed, letting children who wish go to school in clothes of the opposite sex – but not counseling other children to not tease them or hurt their feelings.
On the contrary, don’t interfere, and let the other children ridicule the child who has lost that clear boundary between play-acting at home and the reality needs of the outside world.
Being bullied is a growing experience? If they miss out on the bullying then their “souls and spirits” are torn out? Is this the kind of masculinity it takes to leave the gay behind? No, on the contrary, bullying can tear out souls and spirits.
Nicolosi didn’t hear this kind of thing in the interview and so he wants to make Glatze a role model for youth. From the interview:
Joe Nicolosi: Do you think you could be of help to young people who are struggling?
Michael Glatze: …Do you think I could?
JN: I think so.
I don’t.
If you need a soundtrack for this post, try this. Here’s some better guidance about how to be “of help to young people who are struggling.”
The lyrics to the rap at the end of this song are:
Little Mikey D was in the one class
Who everyday got brutally harassed
This went on for years
Until he decided that never again
Would he shed another tear
So he walked through the door
Grabbed the 44 out of his father’s dresser drawer
And said I can’t take life no more
And like that life can be lost
But this ain’t even about that
All of us just sat back
And watch it happen
Thinkin’ it’s not our responsibility
To solve a problem that isn’t even about me
This is our problem
This is just one of the daily scenarios
Which we choose to close our eyes
Instead of doing the right thing
If we make a choice
And be the voice
For those who won’t speak up for themselves
How may lives would be saved, changed, and rearranged
Now it’s our time to pick a side
So don’t keep walking by
Don’t wanna intervene
Cause you just wanna exist and never be seen
So let’s wake up
Change the world
Our time is now
UPDATE: This statement has replaced the Glatze interview on the NARTH website:
Following the counsel of our friends at Exodus and others in the ex-gay community we have removed the Michael Glatze interview from our site. Some of his public comments have been found to be offensive to NARTH and hurtful to others. It is never appropriate to make some of the comments attributed to Mr. Glatze and we at NARTH wish to make our disapproval public.
You can see below what was there this morning. The first interview from 2007 is still available.
Minister blames gay on parents
MUKONO – Ethics and integrity minister James Nsaba Buturo has blamed homosexuality in Uganda on failure by parents and guardians to bring up their children in an upright manner. He made the remarks on Sunday while attending the fundraising ceremony for the expansion of St. Luke Anglican Church at Seeta. Buturo asked parents to join the battle against homosexuality by bringing up their children well.
Minister Buturo has been supporting the crack down on homosexuals from at least the Spring when he promoted the ex-gay conference, involving Don Schmierer, Caleb Brundidge and Scott Lively. I wonder where Buturo heard this concept? Could it have been here or here?
Next month, you can go here to hear similar things.
Michael Glatze is back and according to one of the blog posts he left up, he is ready to “rumble.”
Glatze caused quite a stir in July, 2007 when he announced that the former Young Gay America editor had gone straight. He was interviewed by NARTH’s Joe Nicolosi in addition to being featured by various socially conservative groups.
If you clicked the first link above, you went to a WorldNetDaily article by Glatze where he gives an update of his life since he first left his work as an advocate for gay youth.
The second link is to his blog which is a recent effort. However, he has already removed most of the posts prior to today. ExGayWatch early this morning posted a link to the blog where inflammatory statements were posted. The most troubling was the one titled, “I really can’t stand that man” (see below):
In case it is difficult to read the picture, here is the quote: “Have I mentioned lately how utterly *disgusting* Obama is? And, yes, it’s because he’s black. God, help us all.”
I asked Glatze if he wanted to offer comment. He said the following in an email response:
Yes, I can. I was talking with some friends about Jimmy Carter’s recent comments along the lines of that anybody who disagrees with Obama is a racist. My friend posted that on my blog, as sarcasm.
Warren, I am about fed-up with the “race card” being pulled, any time someone so much as *suggests* that Obama may not be doing something right. It’s getting to the point, where people are literally losing their minds trying to speak up, trying to have their voices heard. You don’t know how many friends I have who feel crippled, in a country that has its foundations in the notion of freedom and – more importantly – liberty.
You’ll see a quote on my little blog – now – that says, “If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.” It’s a quote by George Orwell. I’m trying to do my small part, in the midst of all this insanity, to find integrity.
No, I’m not happy with the current administration. No, I don’t hate Obama because he’s black. What I do hate is evil, and many of the things he has done I would consider evil.
Even with his explanation, this is still very troubling. Readers can decide if they feel the explanation is sufficient. There was no apology, no recognition that the “sarcasm” was incredibly offensive and incendiary. I suspect that WND did not know about this and will be interested to see if they leave the Glatze articles on their site.
UPDATE: Glatze added the previous posts he deleted back to his blog.
