“Opinions expressed on this web site are the views and sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of NARTH. However, NARTH values diversity of opinions and freedom of speech, and encourages individual writers.”

Maybe Wayne Besen could write an article for them since they are so interested in “diversity and freedom of speech from individual writers”? How are the readers to determine who represents NARTH’s views and who doesn’t?

Here’s the plot: “Jeremiah Johnson (1972) is a film about the mountain men who hunted for furs, primarily beaver, during the first part of the 19th century. It was directed by Sydney Pollack, and starred Robert Redford as Jeremiah Johnson and Will Geer as Bear Claw. This movie is said to have been based in-part on the life of the legendary mountain man Liver-Eating Johnson. It is also based on the novel Mountain Man by Vardis Fisher.”

Looks like “jjohnson” is a just a pseudonym for another cowardly NARTH member, like “sojourneer”.

No one takes responsibility. How can anyone take NARTH seriously, when the person who retracts the offending article hides behind a screen name? Isn’t anyone in charge at NARTH? Shouldn’t an official retraction come from someone in authority who is willing to be named? Does Jeremiah Johnson have the authority to speak for NARTH and retract articles by official NARTH advisors?

I can think of at least two more reasons.

First, and unfortunately I can’t give direct quotes since the article was pulled, in at least two places the author states his frustration that anyone who brings up the kind of viewpoints he does is denounced as a bigot or a racist. There is a very good reaon for this. People who espouse bigotry tend to get called bigots. More than an emotional response, it’s a matter of definition. Schoenewolf repeatedly talks of “the Civil Rights Movement” and “the Feminist Movement” and “the Gay Rights Movement” as if they are all monolithic entities bowing at the alter of Marxism. He claims that the entire gay rights movement can be summed up in one radical leftist publication he read on a website somewhere. This would be analogous to me saying the entire ex-gay movement can be summed up by, well, Gerald Schoenewolf. NARTH claims it exists to help homosexual individuals. Are homosexuals individuals helped by NARTH having an individual on their Advisory Board who makes sweeping claims about entire classes of people and movements being “Marxists” based off of… well, other than the one article he read on a website, he had no evidence whatsoever for any of the three movements he criticizes being influenced by Marxism. Are homosexual individuals helped by placing responsibility for their psychological care in the hands of someone who is predisposed to view them this way? If someone wants to change their orientation but still believes homosexuals individuals are entitled to protection from workplace discrimination, does Schoenewolf still view them as a Marxist?

Second, this article was put up on their website in 2005. This never would have come up if I hadn’t happened across it and brought it to the attention of exgaywatch and Wayne Besen. This wasn’t some off the cuff remark, this is a lengthy article that was drafted, revised, edited, and published. Presumably, some person or persons is responsible for the content of NARTH’s website. Not only did Schoenewolf show, at the very least, remarkably poor judgement in writing this, but one or more persons of authority at NARTH read it and liked it enough to put it on their website. You’d at least think that after the Berger embarassment, someone would have gone through the site to make sure there was no more dirty laundry. To his credit, Dr. Throckmorton saw serious problems in this thing immediately. Why didn’t anyone at NARTH?

This was on the NARTH webpage today.

David Blakeslee

Good to here from you.

David Blakeslee

First, it contains false information about history. As Warren Throckmorton has written, there is no evidence that the abolitionist movement had Marxist influences. The overwhelming majority of these mid-nineteenth century activists had a substantial religious and specifically a Christian motivation and world view.

Second,in line with David Blakeslee’s comments, Schoenewolf incorporates sloppy reasoning. For example, he equates the civil rights movement, which among other things advocated for the enforcement of existing law, with political correctness which seeks to deprive people of their legal rights to free speech. His analogies seem to border on the absurd.

Third, Schoenewolf’s comments come across as just plain hateful, discriminatory, perhaps even as racist. I am sure that this was not his intent. However, he seems to lack any appreciation of the extremely emotional responses generated by the controversies that NARTH addresses. Pieces that invite readers to cool their passions and engage their powers of reasoning are most needed here. Unfortunately, by defending outdated and totally unjust institutions such as slavery, he is inviting our critics (and perhaps even our friends) to associate their images of oppression and the anger it provokes with NARTH’s message. In my opinion, this is sheer folly.

NARTH’s message is an important one which deserves to be considered separately from other controversies of our time. The web site certainly is worthy of articles that represent carefully constructed analyses and sound arguments based on verifiable historical information. Schoenewolf’s work fails to meet any of these criteria.

“In the 1950s, the Civil Rights Movement went into high gear, and the leaders of the movement, just like Marx and Engels, began to punish anybody who was in any way critical of the movement or had any other point of view with respect to solving racial discrimination by labeling them “racists” and “bigots” and attempting to isolate and ostracize them.”

So, according to Schoneewolf we (1) SHOULD ostracize gender variant kids (those dangerous “boys in dresses”, because they pose a threat to the “survival of the species”) but (2) we should NOT “isolate and ostracize” those we perceive as “bigots” or “racists”?

Would someone PLEASE explain how boys in dresses are more dangerous to society and need to be ostracized more those we percieve to be “racists” and bigots????

“Subsequent to Marx, various human rights groups began using his ideology to rationalize their movements, primarily in America. First came the Civil Rights Movement, which began in the 1850s and was one of the causes of the Civil War. In this case, European-Americans (Caucasians) became the oppressors and African-Americans became the oppressed; European-Americans were demonized, and African-Americans were idealized; European-Americans who had practiced slavery or segregation were viewed as all-bad and African-Americans were seen as all-good.

African-Americans were urged by various leaders to unify and rebel against European-Americans and to demand special privileges as compensation for their suffering at the hands of the latter. Civil rights leaders, like Marx and Engels before them, believed that their way, and only their way, was the valid way to look at the issue. In the 1950s, the Civil Rights Movement went into high gear, and the leaders of the movement, just like Marx and Engels, began to punish anybody who was in any way critical of the movement or had any other point of view with respect to solving racial discrimination by labeling them “racists” and “bigots” and attempting to isolate and ostracize them.”

Note the first sentence of the second paragraph. African-Americans were being “urged by various leaders to unify and rebel against European-Americans” and to demand “special privileges.” Just prior to this he refers to the Civil Rights movement of the 1850s and just afterward to the movement of the 1950s, so which one was this sentence referring to? If it refers to the 1850s, then he’s just said freedom for African-Americans is a “special privilege.” If he’s referring to the 1950s, then he is saying that European-Americans are the masters of African-Americans even after slavery was abolished. Either way, this is an exceptionally racist statement, and not one that can be explained away by someone simply being too blunt or unclear in trying to make a point.

I’m sure I also hardly need to point out that it is extremely disingenuous to reduce the entire gay rights movement to a “Gay Revolution Party Manifesto” he read on some website, and that he would be extremely hardpressed to find any gay rights organizations who claim that straight people per se are “evil.”

“In a dramatized version of one of his earliest cases, psychotherapist Schoenewolf reveals the complicated relationship that developed between himself as an inexperienced therapist and “Jennifer”, a beautiful young patient with multiple personality disorder.

Schoenewolf admits to “occasional literary enhancements” and “a degree of license in order to heighten the impact” of his account; this may be an understatement. Liberties have definitely been taken with form–

Part III of the story is presented as a diary kept by Jennifer and her alter personalities during the final month of her brief therapy with Schoenewolf–and perhaps with substance, as Schoenewolf insists that as Jennifer’s different personalities emerge, “not only is her personality different, but even the shape of her body and face.”

Jennifer, the core personality, is a suicidal and depressive dancer whose other selves are frightened six-year-old Jenny; angry ten-year- old Tom; promiscuous Jess; hostile, competitive Margaret; mature, confident Mildred; and formal, stiff Mary.

Schoenewolf quickly learns how each is a response to a specific traumatic event in Jennifer’s life, and in an astonishingly short time encourages them to become part of Jennifer’s conscious mind as a first step toward integration. He attributes this amazing outcome to his “unusually intimate working alliance” with his patient.

As Jennifer moves toward health, however, Schoenewolf finds himself out of his depth, spending days fantasizing about her, even imagining marriage to her, yet finding her an unbearable burden.

Ultimately, he recognizes that he lacks the skills and objectivity to continue and refers her to another therapist”.