Category: Warren Throckmorton

For the last couple of weeks, Kevin Jennings has been at the center of controversy over his handling of a high school boy who came to him for advice about involvement with an older man. More recently, conservative bloggers have been attempting to make connections between Kevin Jennings and Harry Hay. Harry Hay was the founder of the Mattachine Society, the first gay rights organization in the country.

The reason Jennings’ critics want to make this connection is because Harry Hay was a supporter of the North American Man-Boy Love Association (NAMBLA). NAMBLA is widely regarded as a front group for those with sexual interest in children and teens. Currently, NAMBLA has a feature on Hay linked on the front page of the website titled, “Harry Hay and the roots of the gay movement.” As these links document, Hay spoke at their conferences and supported their aims.

Jennings has spoken positively about Hay and wrote about him in a book titled Becoming Visible, which is a gay history book for teens and college aged adults. In this book, Jennings referenced a biography of Hay (The Trouble with Harry Hay, by Stuart Timmons) which mentioned Hay’s support of NAMBLA but Jennings did not disclose this to his readers. Anyone seeking to learn more would find the reference but then learn that Hay was an advocate of boy lovers. Is it fair to fault Jennings for this? Watch this video from Scott Baker at Breitbart.tv where this is laid out in detail.

Below is the picture Scott Baker is referring to with Hay supporting NAMBLA in 1986: 

Harry Hay clearly supported NAMBLA even though he said he was not a member. Here (part one, part two) you can read the section of the book by Timmons which references the event where Harry Hay attempted to wear this sign.

This seems to establish that Jennings was aware of Hay’s involvement with NAMBLA. Now the question: is it fair to criticize Jennings for lauding Harry Hay when he knew Hay was a supporter of NAMBLA?

Some related questions come to mind. When is an icon not an icon? In the Timmons book, it seems clear that Hay viewed the gay establishment who tried to silence his support of NAMBLA as “self-righteous.” Was it? Should gay leaders speak out about this now, especially during gay history month? When conservatives refer to someone like Paul Cameron or Scott Lively, they are criticized (and rightly so, to my way of thinking). Should those who laud Hay be questioned about their support for someone who walked with NAMBLA?

Discuss…

Harry Hay describes his coming out as his “child molestation speech.” Describing his sexual debut at 14 with a 25 year old young man, Timmons wrote about Hay (Read it in context here):

When in later years he told his favorite coming-out story, he referred to it ironically as his “child molestation speech,” to make the point of how sharply gay life differs from heterosexual norms. “As a child,” he explained, “I molested an adult until I found out what I needed to know.”

This same story was told in a 1983 speech in support of NAMBLA and is archived on the NAMBLA website.

The point is that I was perfectly capable of handling myself and knowing exactly what I wanted.  But this year I knew that I wanted to find a man to tell me what I wanted to know.  So, at fourteen, you realize, I’m a child molester.  I’m a child, and I’m molesting an adult till I find out what I want to know.  And I found him, and he was shocked. Then he discovered that, rather than being a man, as he suspected that I was from the way I looked—my callouses on my hands, and the way I handled myself, and my clothing—that I was only a fourteen-year-old kid, and if anybody found out about it he’d be in jail for life, or, at least in California twenty-three years in that period.

I’m telling you this story, and I’m saying it tonight, in memory of a man—all I can remember is that his name was Matt. And I send to all of you my love and deep affection for what you offer to the boys, in honor of this boy when he was fourteen, and when he needed to know best of all what only another gay man could show him and tell him.

I also would like to say at this point that it seems to me that in the gay community the people who should be running interference for NAMBLA are the parents and friends of gays.  Because if the parents and friends of gays are truly friends of gays, they would know from their gay kids that the relationship with an older man is precisely what thirteen-, fourteen-, and fifteen-year-old kids need more than anything else in the world.   And they would be welcoming this, and welcoming the opportunity for young gay kids to have the kind of experience that they would need.

So, again, as I said, my offering is not as a member of NAMBLA, but in memory of that fourteen-year-old boy who was handled by Matt so long ago.  And in memorial to Matt, I offer you my love.

Harry Hay is one of the icons celebrated this month by GLBT History Month. His day was October 8th.

President Obama wins Nobel Peace Prize

OSLO – The Nobel Committee stunned the world today by awarding US President, Barack Obama, the Nobel Peace Prize.

Committee chair, Thorbjoern Jagland, said it was kind of a consolation prize since Chicago didn’t win the 2016 Olympic games.

“We just all felt sorry for Obama,” Jagland said. “He was all sad and stuff, you know, over the Olympic thing, so we thought it would be a nice pick-me-up.”

Hearing the news, Nobel Laureate, Al Gore said, “What the…? What has he done? At least I invented the Internet.”

The White House had no comment.

 

(The second part is lame parody; the first part, strangely, is not.)

UPDATE: Comedians give the event two thumbs up!

Best Obama-Nobel Jokes

October 09, 2009 10:09 AM

Courtesy of conservative activist Keith Appell:

Barack Obama’s Teleprompter: Big Guy says Bill Clinton called and was gracious in defeat; offered to fly Kanye West over 4 the Nobel awards ceremony.

Erick Erickson: Obama is becoming Jimmy Carter faster than Jimmy Carter became Jimmy Carter.

Ana Marie Cox: Apparently Nobel prizes now being awarded to anyone who is not George Bush.

Headline over AP analysis by White House correspondent Jennifer Loven: He Won, But For What?

Kathryn Jean Lopez, National Review: I want to buy the world a coke.

Ezra Klein: Obama also awarded Nobel prize in chemistry. “He’s just got great chemistry,” says Nobel Committee.

Adam Bromberg, CRC: Nobel Prize Committee must be staffed by out of work comedy writers.

Kristina Hernandez, CRC: It was the Beer Summit that put Obama over the edge.

– George Stephanopoulos

Various Blog Additions:

Cecil: Miss America was robbed. She was for world peace way before Obama was for it.

Tony Ramirez: The Cook County Democratic machine ain’t what it used to be. They were supposed to bribe the Olympics Committee.

Mesquito: Was he, like, the tenth caller or something?

Ron: I thought I should have won, I haven’t fought with my wife in more than a year.

US Veteran: Obama Wins Heisman Trophy After Watching Football Game

Add Your Own!

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.

The current American Psychological Association Monitor briefly reports on the August report from the Task Force on Appropriate Therapeutic Responses to Sexual Orientation. Not much new here for regular readers of the blog. The big news in my view was the treatment of religion which did not get as much coverage as the discouragement of change therapies.

The article ends with quotes from NARTH’s Julie Hamilton and me.

Warren Throckmorton, PhD, an associate professor of psychology and fellow at the Center for Vision and Values at Grove City College in Grove City, Pa., described the task force’s work as a “well-done effort.”  

“I felt the treatment of religion was very respectful, and in doing so, it created space for clients of conservative religious faith to explore the reality of their sexual orientation, while maintaining their faith commitments,” said Throckmorton, who researches sexual orientation and homosexuality and writes about such issues from a Christian perspective.

Julie Harren Hamilton, PhD, president of the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH), said she appreciated what she described as the task force’s recognition that clients have a right to self-determination, and its respect for religious diversity. But she disagreed with the task force’s main conclusions, and charged that the task force was composed only of members opposed to sexual orientation change efforts. 

“We believe that if the task force had been more neutral in their approach, they could have arrived at only one conclusion, that homosexuality is not invariably fixed in all people, that some people can and do change,” she said.

 Some people may change something but there is little evidence which would allow more than guesses about what the potent elements in any such change might be. The NARTH review found that all kinds of approaches reported some degree of change. Can they all be right? In such a situation, a more plausible guess might be that there was some common element of the clients and/or the therapy that could be involved. And as Jones and Yarhouse suggested in the discussion section of their APA report, perhaps sexual identity is a better concept to consider when discussing categorical change. If someone shifts a Kinsey point or two, one might feel satisfied with this and justified in considering themselves to have changed.

As I have noted, the distance between opposing views may be narrowing significantly.

At least, I think Alfie’s Home is the book meant by the following PFOX (Parents and Friends of Exgays) news release:

“Ex-gay books are also not made available in many community public libraries,” said Griggs. “The libraries in West Bend and Beaver Dam, Wisconsin will not accept our donation of an ex-gay book for children, although these libraries circulate several picture books with gay themes for children.”

I wrote to ask PFOX if Alfie’s Home by Richard Cohen is the book they tried to donate. They have not answered as yet. I do know that they have donated it elsewhere. It was offered to the Ex-gay Educators Caucus during the 2004 National Education Association convention as a possible giveaway to people who stopped by the booth. However, all involved refused to provide it and gave the books back.

Classically Liberal has an expose of the book with most of it in pictures. Essentially the book depicts the reparative view of how people become and un-become gay. It also contains a creepy and unnecessary drawing of a boy in bed with a man. I would not want my son to read it.

The book is offensive on at least two levels. For gays, it reduces their experience to bad fathers and sexual abuse. For those who have been sexually abused, it makes becoming gay the real tragedy of the book, not the abuse. There may be a sensitive way to tackle these issues, but this is not it.

I think any number of ex-gay books could be made available simply for information and research purposes. But please, not this one.