JONAH and NARTH's Ex-Con Director/Exective Secretary Plays the Victim

This past Monday I wrote a post about the disclosure of the fact that Arthur Abba Goldberg, the co-founder of JONAH and Executive Secretary of NARTH - both purveyors of the gays can change myth - is a convicted felon who did prison time for mail and securities fraud offenses. Now that his past has caught up with him, Goldberg seems to be trying to peddle the spiel that he's the victim. The victim of the big bad gays. Since (a) I was part of the research team that connected the dots and confirmed that Goldberg had an unsavory past and (b) I have a background in municipal securities law, I find Goldberg's disingenuous crocodile tears more than a little bit disgusting. Somehow, I do not find a $2 Billion fraudulent bond deal to be a small thing. Likewise, deliberately marketing the lie that sexual orientation is a choice and can be changed for monetary and political gain is not a small thing. Ex-Gay Watch has a detailed story on Goldberg's efforts to discount his past wrongs and somehow pretend us mean gays are treating him unfairly. Here are some highlights:

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Arthur Goldberg’s damage-control campaign has begun. His strategy is to portray himself as an innocent man who made a mistake, and is now the victim of a ruthless personal attack by the purveyors of the much-feared gay agenda. Arthur A Goldberg, Executive Secretary of NARTH and a co-founder and co-director of Jewish ex-gay group JONAH, was exposed earlier this week as convicted felon Arthur Abba Goldberg, the Wall Street investor fined $100,000 and sentenced to 18 months in 1989 on three counts of mail fraud and one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States of America.

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Goldberg has yet to respond publicly to the reports. He appears, however, to have written to his fellow board members at NARTH, in a letter obtained by Ex-Gay Watch. . . . This suggests that he had not disclosed his criminal past to NARTH. This is further supported by XGW’s conversation with David Pruden, NARTH’s Vice President of Operations. While freely identifying Goldberg as Arthur Abba Goldberg, Pruden denied knowing anything of the charges made in Monday’s article. This is very concerning. Who neglects to disclose criminal convictions – especially a felony of this nature – to organizations for which they work, unless quite deliberately?

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According to this account [by Goldberg], he pleaded guilty as a concession because it was in his own best interests, as well as the best interest of his family and the company. Yet he claims he accepted full responsibility. Which is it, Arthur? Goldberg wants to have it both ways. He holds his hands up to accept the blame, while suggesting it was only technically fraud, not morally. This is doublespeak. And it is contradicted by the reports we have from the time.

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Essentially, Goldberg asks his fellow NARTH board members to take his word over the word of the attorney who successfully prosecuted him for fraud, the judge who found him guilty, and the court that disbarred him from practicing law in New Jersey.

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He does go to great lengths to pin responsibility on homosexuals, however. His proven past crimes, which so far we have every reason to believe have been deliberately kept out of the public eye, are not to blame for the spotlight on him now, according to Goldberg. To demonstrate this, he resurrects the familiar myth that his gay critics are simply following the gay agenda set out by Kirk and Madsen in 1989: Of course, the strategy employed by those who wish to dig around for dirt in someone’s past . . . They stated in the book that those perceived as opponents of the gay movement were to be attacked and vilified. . . . . So, if you are able to do a character assassination of the proponents, so goes the theory, then you can kill the message they represent.

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Finally, having absolved himself of responsibility, Goldberg portrays himself as a martyr to the cause of anti-gay activism and reparative therapy: [I] understand that there are individuals out there with myopic bigotry on the SSA issue and I need to be prepared to take my lumps for anything I have done in the past or the present, and indeed in the future. . . . Many thanks to you all for standing with me, for being there, and for maintaining the fight for accurate science, truth and justice.

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Unfortunately, Goldberg is the norm among the professional ex-gay advocates. Truth and honesty mean nothing. It's all about making a buck off of the ignorant and uninformed and keeping the choice myth alive to harm LGBT citizens and keep them second class citizens under the civil laws. Wayne Besen also has more here at Truth Wins Out. Oh, and it's nice to know that I am a "purveyor of the much feared gay agenda."