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.
On race, Glatze had this to say about President Obama:
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This was retracted when I asked Glatze if he had any comments about it.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.