Over the weekend, Peter LaBarbera (President of Americans For Truth) released an unbelivable article aimed at Wayne Besen and his efforts to debunk the so called 'ex-gay' movement. To give a bit of background, the 'ex-gay' organization is supposedly comprised of men and women who have decided to stop being gay and now encourage others to do the same. What jumped out at me when I went to their site was their opening statement:
You are not alone.
If you are struggling with gay, lesbian,
bisexual or transgendered feelings, you need to know that there are millions of
us who have shared your journey.
You do not have to believe what are you
being told about yourself in your counseling or restorative
therapy.
The funny thing about that statement is that it's missing a disclaimer about the veracity of it's own content...something Wayne Besen and Ex-Gay Watch have been so good at pointing out. He's right, a person doesn't have to believe what they're told in therapy, just as I don't have to sit and swallow this anti-gay drivel. But I'm left wondering how someone with nothing in his credentials bank except for some insane desire to vilify anyone who has a differing opinion can sit there and tell a person to ignore what their health professionals are telling them and embrace some self-loathing philosophy based on his ideology instead. Mr. LaBarbera (I'm just gonna call him Babs, lol) launched this ridiculous article after Besen pointed out that Mike Johnston, an Ex-Gay 'success' story, had lost his ministry due to a homosexual 'relapse.' Babs lashed out with this...
Besen and his fellow homosexual activists have everything invested in the
politically correct idea that people are naturally (born) “gay” -– and that
“sexual orientation” (another misleading term inspired by homosexual activism)
is unchangeable. They are downright cruel in hoping for and exploiting failures
in the ex-“gay” movement.
It seems that Babs, himself, is so overly invested in demonizing the GLBT community that he refuses to see anything else. Besen isn't hoping for or exploiting anything, but he is intent on debunking the false 'science' on which the Ex-Gay movement has based their entire ideology. Johnston and the others that Besen has written about are simply examples of the fact that one's sexual orientation is something that is encoded within an individual's genetic make-up and isn't something a person can just decide to ignore or walk away from.
The next little tidbit is even more mind boggling...
Why do “gay” advocates celebrate failure? Because sadly, like the
pro-abortion lobby, they are on the side of sin and against God and nature,
having convinced themselves that homosexuality (“being gay”) is a big part of
“who they are.”
Ah, but you protest: homosexuality is so complex. How can we judge it?
Why would a person “choose” that lifestyle with all the hardships that come with
it? Well, why does a man or woman “choose” to embrace any wrong
lifestyle/behavior: bulimia, porn addiction, alcoholism? We can sympathize with
the person who faces intense personal struggles, but it is not our right to
normalize and celebrate homosexuality or ANY aberration/sin just because we
don’t fully understand its genesis. Doing so runs counter to several millennia
of understanding of humanity as fallen beings whose hearts tend toward
wrongdoing.
Damn right, we protest! How Babs can equate bulimia, porn addiction or alcoholism with a person's sexual orientation is beyond me. I suppose that during his extensive education, none of which is listed on AFT's site, Babs never learned how to make valid comparisons.
*Shaking my head*
Come on, Babs!!! A person's genetically determined sexuality...APPLES. All that other stuff you listed...ORANGES.
If the Ex-Gay organization and AFT want to continue floating these feeble arguments then people like Wayne Besen will have no choice but to be incredibly vocal in quashing them. With enough practice, maybe...just maybe...Babs will learn how to respond with some degree of intelligence.
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