National Public Radio aired interviewsof Journey into Manhood’s Rich Wyler and ex-ex-gay Peterson Toscano this morning on the subject of sexual orientation change.
The segment omitted some key details of Rich Wyler’s involvement in gay change therapy. I posted my quick thoughts on the subject over at Religion Dispatches.
Most troubling to me about the portrayal of what Rich advocates is the omission of the touch therapy and highly provocative, ball bat wielding elements of JiM. The NPR reporter Alix Spiegel made Rich’s work sound like calm cognitive therapy. Hardly.
Here is a Nightline segment about JiM:
As I pointed out at RD, JiM is fringe even in ex-gay circles.
Month: August 2011
Office of Ugandan LGB advocacy group vandalized
Ghanaian prof says homosexuality not a US import
Two Saturdays ago, I interviewed Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr by phone about the recent upsurge of anti-gay rhetoric in Ghana. Dr. Okoampa-Ahoofe is a Ghanaian who now lives in the US and is a college professor at Nassau Community College. I intend to incorporate his input in future articles on Ghana. For now, I am just going to refer to a column he wrote for Myjoyonline about our interview. He included just about everything we discussed so it is a pretty efficient way to get across his views.
In short, he is concerned about the level of anti-gay sentiment in Ghana and hopes the country does not move toward a Ugandan approach. Please note, this is a Ghanaian observing Ghana and making this comparison.
John Adams to Rick Perry: Don't meddle in religion
This morning, Religion Dispatches published my article with advice for Rick Perry from our second President, John Adams.
David Barton is right about one thing: John Adams was a religious person. Adams twice called for national days of prayer and fasting during his presidency and attended many churches of different views. Although Adams had no patience for Calvinists or Catholics, Adams had immense respect for Jesus as an enlightened teacher.
Knowing this, Benjamin Rush lamented to Adams in an 1812 letter, just prior to war with Great Britain, that his Presbyterian church voted down a petition to call on the government for a day of fasting and prayer. Rush must have expected Adams to agree. Instead, Adams did not and said that his national fasts had caused the loss of the presidency.
Essentially, Adams said meddling with religion by political leaders can lead to all sorts of mischief, including people worrying that the leaders favor one religion over another in national affairs. Adams wrote to Rush:
That assembly has allarmed and alienated Quakers, Anabaptists, Mennonists, Moravians, Swedenborgians, Methodists, Catholicks, protestant Episcopalians, Arians, Socinians, Armenians, &c, &c, &c, Atheists and Deists might be added. A general Suspicion prevailed that the Presbyterian Church was ambitious and aimed at an Establishment as a National Church. I was represented as a Presbyterian and at the head of this political and ecclesiastical Project. The secret whispers ran through them [all the sects] “Let us have Jefferson, Madison, Burr, any body, whether they be Philosophers, Deists, or even Atheists, rather than a Presbyterian President.” This principle is at the bottom of the unpopularity of national Fasts and Thanksgiving. Nothing is more dreaded than the National Government meddling with Religion.
Note to Rick Perry and the AFA: the opposition and criticism you are getting over The Response is not of necessity the sign of an America in moral decline. Complaints about government leaders meddling in religion go back to the beginning of the nation.
Go over to RD and read the entire piece.