Category: Uncategorized

This morning, LA Times’ Stephanie Simon reports on the controversies with NARTH. Alan Chambers is quoted and draws a distinction between how NARTH has handled things and how Exodus would.

Here is a portion: One of NARTH’s scientific advisors has quit in protest, and a prominent therapist has canceled his presentation at the group’s annual conference next month. Alan Chambers, who leads the nation’s largest support group for “ex-gays,” urged NARTH’s members to “think long and hard about the mission of the organization.”

UPDATE: The Miami Herald, The Olympian (WA), Monterey County Herald and the Daily Dish (among numerous other blogs) picked up this story today. Stories have also been filed by AgapePress and the USA Radio Network (10/17/06).

UPDATE: 1/17/07 – The Southern Poverty Law Center included the article by Brentin Mock in their print and online magazine, The Intelligence Report under the title, One More Enemy. I noticed that bloggers, including The Daily Kos are picking it up again.

Unless you are just returning from Antarctica, you have heard of the Mark Foley page scandal. Here are some possible questions to discuss?

-Is the closet to blame?
-Did gay staffers and congressmen cover up his activities?
–Blogactive blogger, Mike Rogers, thinks the answer is to out all closeted gay Republicans. Is this a good thing?
-Will this scandal impact the November elections?
-Does this scandal have any relevance to pedophilia and/or homosexuality in general?

Suggest others and talk loud. I’ll be reading more than writing here this weekend as I am on deadline with an article but this feel free to post links to news and opinion around the blogiverse.

In light of Dr. Schoenewolf’s accusations that Brentin Mock, reporter for the Southern Poverty Law Center twisted his words in the SPLC article, Mr. Mock wrote to tell a little more about his interview with Dr. Schoenewolf.

Mr. Mock asked Dr. Schoenewolf this question: “What exactly did you mean by the paragraph in which you say Africans were better off as slaves in America?”

Dr. Schoenewolf replied, “The point I made is what I was trying to say. I don’t know that there’s any other way to say it. I expected people to take issue.”

Dr. Schoenewolf is welcome to come on here and dispute this. However, this exchange paints a somewhat different picture than Dr. Schoenewolf presents in his newest NARTH article.

UPDATE: 1/17/07 – The Southern Poverty Law Center included the article by Brentin Mock in their print and online magazine, The Intelligence Report under the title, One More Enemy. I noticed that bloggers, including The Daily Kos are picking it up again.

It has now been nearly a month since the beginning of the controversy over the article by Gerald Schoenewolf (Gay rights and political correctness: A brief history). Apparently, NARTH is finished with the issue since they issued what they are calling an apology.

I have continued to research one of the central tenets of the article and that is that Marxism informed the abolitionist movement and the subsequent civil rights movement. This appears to be revisionist history. Christianity was at the heart of this movement and indeed most likely even of the early feminist movement. Wilberforce in England became invested in abolishing slavery after his conversion to Christianity. We are not talking about a difference of opinion here; this is simply bending facts to reduce complexity to a simplistic theme – the very thing Schoenewolf accuses human rights advocates of doing. There are several other significant problems that could be raised again but I will leave it at that.

There is much troubling about all of this but what continues to escape whoever authorized the apology statement is that the credibility of any movement or organization can be severely compromised by the inability to self-correct. By issuing a statement saying that some readers misconstrued the article, they ask those same readers to suspend rationality. The “apology” feels more like a slap at those who found significant errors and expect a scientific organization to be accountable for them.

A specialty organization devoted to sexual identity issues could provide a significant public service. An organization that I would join or help develop would:

-Develop research-based guidelines to inform clinical practice
-Focus on integrating all research relating to sexual orientation and sexual identity
-Avoid policy/political statements not in keeping with the organization’s mission, and then only when supported by a significant program of research
-Have a much broader focus than homosexuality (e.g., sexual identity)
-Have elections by members for the officers of the organization

Other suggestions?

Took one of the chillens to the U of Pitt this weekend for the free Nintendo Fusion Tour concert with Hawthorne Heights, Relient K, Emery, Plain White T’s, and the Sleeping. They all had their good moments, but Relient K stole the show, in my opinion. Here are some pics:

Relient K’s Matt Theissen

Hawthorne Heights (above right)

Relient K (left)