Let's Talk Honestly About America's Gun Crisis

As regular readers know, I am a strong advocate of drastic changes to America's insane gun laws.  No other advanced nation has the number of guns in civilian hands and no other advanced nation has the gun violence and carnage seen regularly in America.  America is exceptional alright, and not in a good way. Indeed, America's inundation with guns is nothing less than a public health crisis which requires drastic action to address.  While in Charlottesville recently, Beto O'Rourke (family members met him) spoke honestly about the extent of the problem and what needs to be done to address it.  A column in the New York Times looks at O'Rourke's statements and the need to implement actions that will challenge the lies disseminated by the NRA and gun manufacturers and the politicians - mainly Republicans - who parrot the lies.  Here are column excerpts:

Beto O’Rourke has easily emerged as my favorite presidential candidate on the issue of gun control. 

I long ago tired of hearing politicians who are supposed to be in favor of smarter gun laws and reducing American gun deaths and injuries pull their punches so as not to upset the gun lobby and gun lobbyists.

Among other things, O’Rourke’s “gun safety” plan includes declaring gun violence a public health emergency, creating a national gun licensing system and registry, requiring universal background checks, implementing red flag laws and banning “the manufacturing, sale and possession of military-style assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.”

Other candidates agree with some of these proposals, and others have additional ones, but I like the full-throated way O’Rourke responds to being challenged on this front.

This week in Charlottesville, a reporter asked O’Rourke, “How do you address the fears that the government is going to take away those assault rifles — if you are talking about buybacks and banning?”

O’Rourke didn’t skip a beat: “I want to be really clear, that that’s exactly what we’re going to do. Americans who own AR-15s, AK-47s, will have to sell them to the government. We’re not going to allow them to stay on our streets, to show up in our communities.”

This was not the first time O’Rourke’s buyback plan has been challenged. Two weeks ago, the USA Today editorial board complained, “Anything smacking of confiscation would breathe life and energy into the not-from-my-cold-dead-hands crowd, endangering law enforcement and likely putting a full stop to any further gun safety measures.”

When asked this week on CNN about that criticism, O’Rourke responded, “This triangulation, calculation, poll-testing every move — that’s what got us here in the first place.”

Finally, a breath of fresh air. . . . we have to start taking deliberate and thoughtful action to deal with this problem. For instance, a mandatory buyback could be met with a constitutional challenge. A voluntary buyback might be most doable.

The scope of the problem is enormous.

According to a Washington Post report in 2018: “There are more than 393 million civilian-owned firearms in the United States, or enough for every man, woman and child to own one and still have 67 million guns left over.”

Furthermore, The New York Times reported in December:

“There were 39,773 gun deaths in 2017, up by more than 1,000 from the year before. Nearly two-thirds were suicides. It was the largest yearly total on record in the C.D.C.’s electronic database, which goes back 50 years, and reflects the sheer number of lives lost.”

We must reduce the overall number of guns in the population, especially those considered weapons of war; we must shrink the market desire for new weapons; and we must set a course to not only pass a new law in a moment but build in the expectation that federal legislation around guns will be the never-ending, ever-adjusting reality.

People interested in reducing gun violence in America have to stop lying about what that would require. Opponents of new gun legislation will accuse its supporters of seeking the worse no matter what they do.

The point is to see a reduction in all shootings. And that argument actually reinforces a need to aggressively fund studies to figure out which measures would work best.

They are right when they say that restrictions on new purchases would place a burden on responsible gun owners — the overwhelming majority of gun owners — when only a tiny fraction participate in shootings. To that I say: AND?! Nearly 40,000 people in 2017 were killed by guns in this country. If a reduction in that number comes with more red tape for you, then so be it.

This is a public health crisis, as O’Rourke points out, and anything we can do to prevent guns from being used in a crime, to prevent a child from accidentally shooting a sibling, to prevent a depressed person from putting a barrel in his or her mouth, must be a consuming priority for all of us.

Even in the radical District of Columbia v. Heller Supreme Court decision in 2008 that established the right to bear arms as an individual right, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in the majority opinion:

“Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited. From Blackstone through the 19th-century cases, commentators and courts routinely explained that the right was not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose.”

Guns can be effectively and constitutionally regulated in this country. People who want to do so should be upfront and honest about how far they truly hope to go in that regard.

Another "Ex-Gay" Leader Admits Conversion Therapy is a Fraud

While far right groups held a pitifully attended "straight pride" event in Boston (the counter protesters far out numbered the few dozen participants), the far right and Christofascists groups continue to peddle the lie that "conversion therapy" can change one from gay to straight. Why?  Three reasons, in my view: (i) its very lucrative financially to the charlatans who operate the "ministries," (ii) it provides an excuse to oppose LGBT non-discrimination protections, and (iii) it allows proponents to avoid admitting that homosexuality is a normal, god-given characteristic for a certain portion of the population and that their corruption of the Bible is flat out wrong.  Depending on the quack involved, the particular motivation will vary. One thing that has not changed is the continuing cavalcade of former "ex-gay" leaders who are admitting that the programs they lead - sometimes for many years - were and are frauds.  A long piece in the Charleston Post Courier looks at the latest individual to admit that the entire conversion therapy industry is a fraud.  It also looks at who right wing religion pushed him to try to "change," plus the other casualties of these fraudulent programs: the straight spouses these "ex-gays" marry.  Here are excerpts:

McKrae Game is gay.  He was gay when he received counseling from a therapist who assured him he could overcome his same-sex attractions. He was gay when he married a woman and founded what would become one of the nation’s most expansive conversion therapy ministries. He was gay when thousands of people just like him sought his organization’s counsel, all with the goal of erasing the part of themselves Game and his associates preached would send them to hell.

For two decades, he led Hope for Wholeness, a faith-based conversion therapy program in South Carolina’s Upstate. Conversion therapy is a discredited practice intended to suppress or eradicate a person’s LGBTQ identity through counseling or ministry.

In June, Game publicly announced he was gay and severed his ties with the organization. Now, the man once billed as a leading voice in the conversion therapy movement is trying to come to terms with the harm he inflicted while also learning to embrace a world and community he assailed for most of his adult life.

Game is one of many former conversion therapy leaders who have left the movement and come out as LGBTQ.

In 2014, nine founders and leaders from some of the country’s most prominent programs and ministries wrote an open letter calling for a nationwide ban on the practice.

“As former ex-gay leaders, having witnessed the incredible harm done to those who attempted to change their sexual orientation or gender identity, we join together in calling for a ban on conversion therapy,” they wrote in the letter. “It is our firm belief that it is much more productive to support, counsel, and mentor LGBTQ individuals to embrace who they are in order to live happy, well-adjusted lives.”

“Conversion therapy is not just a lie, but it’s very harmful,” Game told The Post and Courier. “Because it’s false advertising.”

Nearly 700,000 LGBTQ-identifying adults have undergone conversion therapy treatments or counseling, according to a 2018 study by UCLA’s Williams Institute. The various forms of conversion have been tied to emotional and psychological trauma for many, including depression, anxiety and thoughts of suicide. It’s been condemned by virtually every major medical group in the United States, including the American Psychological Association and the American Medical Association.

Eighteen states and Washington, D.C., have laws on the books banning the practices on anyone younger than 18. South Carolina is not one of them. Whether or not there’s a ban in place, there’s nothing to prevent a religious organization from offering such counseling.

“I was a religious zealot that hurt people,” Game said in an interview. “People said they attempted suicide over me and the things I said to them. People, I know, are in therapy because of me. Why would I want that to continue?”

Game recently published a written apology to his personal Facebook page in which he called for the dissolution of any conversion therapy practice or ex-gay ministry.  Game said he realizes that for many an apology won’t be enough. And that he’ll likely be apologizing for the rest of his life.

While I never participated in a formal "conversion therapy" program, I tried many of the techniques they advocate.  I never "changed" but I surely experienced increased levels of self-loathing and self-hate, none of which made me a better person or parent to my children.  Yet believing the lie that "change" was possible I married - like Game did - and cheated my former wife from the type of marriage she deserved. She has remarried and I hope she is truly happy. Will she ever forgive me for believing the lie and marrying her?  Probably not. Of course, the proponents of conversion therapy care nothing about the spouses of gays or their children.  All that matters is the money to be made, furthering their political agenda, and/or avoiding the truth about their false faith system.

The Post Courier has another good piece entitled "Taught to Hate Myself" that is  worth a read. Sadly, these fraudulent ministries continue to do severe harm on a daily basis.

Exposing the Ugly Horrors of "Conversion Therapy"

Focus Features - In “Boy Erased,” the son of a Baptist minister is forced into
a “conversion therapy” program after he’s outed to his parents.

For the record, I never was subjected to the nightmare of so-called "conversion therapy" which promises to "cure" gays and make them heterosexual.  Instead, I did my own version of "praying away the gay" for decades and it did not work and only resulted in anger, self-hatred and suicide attempts.  I know others who were forced into conversion therapy programs and some still carry the emotional and deep psychological scars many, many years later all because their families believed the lies promoted by unethical licensed therapists, but mostly by religious "ministries" that often have no legitimate experts in the areas of mental health or medicine.  These witch doctor like programs can inflict severe harm, yet they persist and the Trump/Pence regime and an increasingly sectarian Republican Party are likely poised to protect them.  For the Christofascists, these fraudulent ministries achieve several goals: (i) they allow the lie that sexual orientation is a choice and not a God endowed characteristic, (ii) they back the lie that LGBT citizens do not need non-discrimination protections, and (iii) they make a lot of money for practitioners/"ministries." Two new movies hopefully will help shed light on the evils of these bogus therapies.  A piece in Huffington Post looks at these films and the hideous history of conversion therapy.  Here are excerpts:

Two new movies are shining a much-needed spotlight on the practice of gay “conversion therapy,” also known as the attempt to change the sexual orientation or gender expression of LGBTQ individuals.

In “The Miseducation of Cameron Post,” released earlier this month, Chloë Grace Moretz plays Cameron, an 11th grader whose parents send her off to a boarding school that claims it will “cure” her same-sex desires after they catch her with another girl.

“Boy Erased,” coming out this November, stars Lucas Hedges as Jared, the son of a Baptist minister who is forced into a “conversion therapy” program after he’s outed to his parents.

“Miseducation” is set in the now-distant year of 1993, long before “Will & Grace,” “RuPaul’s Drag Race” and the legalization of same-sex marriage. And “Boy Erased” takes place in the world of small-town South, fundamentalist Christianity.

But the subject of both films is neither a historical artifact nor a rare event. Quite the opposite. As the Williams Institute at UCLA outlined earlier this year, about 700,000 American adults have undergone “conversion therapy” at some point in their lives, half of whom endured the experience as adolescents. Despite the opposition to “conversion therapy” by leading professional health organizations (including the American Medical Association and the American Psychological Association) and the widespread evidence that such treatments do not work and, in fact, can cause emotional and psychological harm. Thirty-six states still permit “conversion therapy” for underage minors; according to the Williams Institute, nearly 80,000 LGBTQ youth will receive the discredited therapy before they reach the age of 18.

“Conversion therapy” dates to the late 19th century, when the German psychiatrist Albert von Schrenk-Notzing claimed he’d turned a gay man straight through hypnosis sessions and several trips to a brothel. The practice accelerated through the 20th century even as the techniques remained crude and often barbaric. Historian Chris Babits, for instance, has found evidence of the widespread use of ice pick lobotomies performed on homosexual children in the 1940s and 1950s. Other techniques involved forced castration of homosexual men and electro-convulsive therapy. After the American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from its manual of psychiatric disorders in 1973, the medical establishment largely abandoned these practices. But efforts to turn gay people straight continued, carried out mostly by less-reputable counselors and religious organizations. Their methods tend to focus on talk therapy, but some, especially the so-called “ex-gay” ministries, often employ aversion treatments that amount to physical torture, including stimulating nausea and vomiting, inflicting electric shocks and subjecting patients to ice baths or extreme heat ― all while viewing homosexual photographs or videos.  In 2012, California became the first state to ban such treatment for minors. (California is currently considering outlawing the practice altogether for people of any age in the state.) Thirteen other states have followed suit, with five doing so just this year.

That trend may seem to indicate encouraging progress, but it could also have inspired a powerful counterresponse. Conservative groups have mobilized in defense of gay “conversion therapy” programs for minors. Just this year, anti-gay forces have helped to successfully defeat legislation that would ban the practice therapy for minors in Maine and Massachusetts. They have also helped keep similar measures from passing in New York for more than five years. That this is happening in these states – far from the Bible Belt – suggests the widespread nature of these programs.   

Yet even in states that have declared “conversion therapy” for minors illegal, those laws usually only cover licensed mental health care advisers. Religious and spiritual advisers generally remain exempt from the bans. Since religious-affiliated counselors and clergy form a significant portion of “conversion therapy” programs, state bans may actually do little to curtail the practice. [N]ow, in the era of President Donald Trump, the outlook appears even grimmer. The 2016 Republican Party platform called for “the right of parents to consent to medical treatment for their minor children,” which many interpreted as coded support for “conversion therapy.” The Trump administration includes several “conversion therapy” advocates in high-ranking positions, none more so than Vice President Mike Pence.

And while the Supreme Court previously turned down three challenges to California’s 2012 law, experts have pointed out that the current Supreme Court ― particularly if Judge Brett Kavanaugh is confirmed following next month’s scheduled hearings ― will likely rule to protect “conversion therapy” programs.

This is devastating news for the real LGBTQ teens living in unaccepting families and communities, not just those portrayed in movies.

[T]he shame and horror of gay “conversion therapy” must also be brought into the open so that it can be further shunned if not outlawed altogether. The very lives and well-being of thousands of LGBTQ Americans may well depend on making this often-hidden practice much wider known.

Nicole Kidman and Russell Crowe to Star in Expose on Conversion Therapy "Ministries"

One of the biggest lies - although, there are so many lies, that ranking can be challenging - disseminated by Christofascists and many evangelical Christians is that sexual orientation is a "choice" and that gays can "change" and become heterosexual.  As noted in a number of previous posts, there are several reasons for the insistence that sexual orientation is a choice: (i) if being gay is not a choice and is "how God made" some of us, then questions arise as to what other aspects of evangelical Christian dogma is untrue; (ii) the choice myth is employed repeatedly to argue that LGBT citizens need no non-discrimination protections, and (iii) so-called conversion therapy "ministries" are cash cows with families often paying small fortunes to "change" their children.  Every legitimate medical and mental health association in America condemns conversion therapy and states that it doesn't work and is dangerous. Indeed, a growing number of states ban the practice on minors by licensed therapist.  The result is more fraudulent, dangerous and damaging "Christian ministries" peddling the ex-gay myth.   Now, as Rolling Stone reports a new movie, Boy Erased, starring Russell Crowe and Nicole Kidman will be released in November, 2018 (a trailer can be found here). The movie is based on a 2016 book of the same name and will likely paint a very negative picture of the frauds and harm being committed by these "ministries."  This from Rolling Stone:

Boy Erased stars Hedges as Garrard, while Kidman plays his mother and Crowe his father, who also happens to be a Baptist pastor. The trailer offers a glimpse into the psychological and sometimes physical abuse such conversion programs inflict on those forced to attend. . . . The film is based on Garrard Conley’s 2016 memoir of the same name about his experience at a gay conversion therapy program, which he attended at 19 at the behest of his religious parents.

A piece in the Washington Post looked at the book upon which the movie is based.  Here are highlights:

In 2004, when Garrard Conley was 19, he entered a Christian fundamentalist program, Love in Action, to cleanse himself of homosexuality. 

Conley, the only child of his devoutly Baptist parents in small-town Arkansas, had been dramatically outed by a fellow student during his first semester at a small liberal arts college. The timing couldn’t have been worse. His decision to enter the fundamentalist group (known as LIA) came as his father was becoming an ordained Baptist minister.

 [A]although he paints a convincing picture of why the foundation of his loving parents’ religious faith made his fight against homosexuality vital, he leaves the reader wondering why an erudite and intellectually curious young man didn’t find more cracks in that foundation. He does find cracks in the foundation of LIA, which uses a warped version of a 12-step program that replaces addictive behavior such as alcoholism with “sexual deviance,” lumping homosexuality with bestiality and pedophilia. Conley’s close relationship with his mother, who sits vigil with him in a depressing hotel room as he tries to weather the ordeal of LIA, is a tender portrait of that special bond so many gay men and their mothers have: “For the moment, it seemed like the two of us could go on this way forever, living only for literature and each other.” As for Conley’s father, he remains abstruse, despite Conley’s explorations of his abusive childhood. Ultimately their paths diverge. His father is ordained, and Conley rejects LIA.

“God’s voice is no longer there,” Conley writes. “My ex-gay therapists took Him away from me, and no matter how many different churches I attend, I will feel the same dead weight in my chest.” God erased. Let’s hope that the parents still reading “Where Does a Mother Go to Resign?” start reading “Boy Erased” instead.

Parents contemplating placing their child in one of these "ministries" or listening to they false propaganda would be better served - if they truly love their child and are not more focused on themselves and "what will people think" - to find a new religious denomination.  One that is not homophobic and obsessed with selectively cherry picking phrases from the Old Testament to malign and denigrate others.

For the record, I was never placed in a "ex-gay ministry" although I tried more or less for 37 years to pray away the gay and tried some of the conversion therapy gimmicks.  None of it worked.  All I experience was self-hate and psychological and emotional harm that ultimately lead to two serious suicide attempts.  The propaganda that these ministries peddle is very, very dangerous.

Kudos to Kidman and Crowe for taking these roles and hopefully exposing the "change myth" lie. 

The Continued Fraud of "Ex-Gay Conversion Therapy"

UPDATED:  As LGBTQ Nation reports, the  Christofascist backed "Freedom March" in Washington, DC, for those who "escaped the gay lifestyle" by praying away the gay, drew a whopping total of 36 participants.   To say that the turn out has humiliating is far too kind for these frauds.

In my view, "conservative" religious traditions cause the world at large great harm, especially in light of the divisiveness of their message that relies on fear of a horrible, vengeful god, and hatred towards those who are different or who reject their toxic dogma.   Few groups have borne the hate and wrath "conservative Christians" and patriarchal religious institutions over the last thousand years more than LGBT individuals.  Why such hatred?  In my view, it boils down to the fact that we challenge their Bronze Age beliefs on sexuality.  Sadly, the Roman Catholic Church remains stuck in a 12th century understanding of sex and sexuality (37 years of my life were damaged by this institutional ignorance).  Other traditions cling to a few cherry picked passages in the Bible that are taken out of historical context and weaponized against those deemed others.  While these "conservatives" can no longer burn gays at the stake - the origin of the derogatory term "faggot"  - they nonetheless continue to do their utmost to make lives of LGBT individuals a living hell.  In this quest, they use the myth that gays can "change" as part of their propaganda campaign against recognition of LGBT civil rights, and marriage in particular.  So-called "conversion therapy" is nothing short of child abuse when inflicted on minors.  No legitimate medical or mental health association supports its use.  Fortunately, eleven states now ban licensed professionals from subjecting minors to the fraudulent practice.  39 states, however, allow it and worse yet, no state bans religious "ministries from inflicting incalculable harm on minors and adults.  A column in the New York Times looks at the myth still being peddled and the damage that it does.  The practice needs to be banned everywhere and there should be no religious exemption from the ban.  Here are column highlights: 

On Saturday, a group of Christians will gather in Washington for the Freedom March, an event that organizers describe as “a celebration of freedom from homosexuality and transgenderism.” . . . . In the national conversation about conversion therapy, people often focus attention on the 10 states (plus Washington) that have banned the practice for minors. But these laws, and this conversation, address conversion therapy only as it’s practiced by mental health professionals with minors. That’s not where most conversion therapy is happening, though. I know, because I spent the better part of my 20s involved in it.

Most conversion therapy occurs not with mental health professionals but in conservative Christian communities. Numbers are hard to come by, because the communities usually don’t come out and say they’re doing conversion therapy; in fact, they’re often skeptical of therapy in general. Groups that help people “leave homosexuality” are usually nonprofit ministries, and the counseling is facilitated by pastors and lay leaders who are not trained professionals. These groups are protected by religious freedom laws, so laws banning conversion therapy for minors do not apply to them.

The numbers of minors exposed to some form of conversion therapy is already staggering: In January, the Williams Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles, School of Law released a report that estimates that 57,000 youths between 13 and 17 will receive conversion therapy from religious advisers before the age of 18 and 20,000 will receive conversion therapy from a licensed mental health professional before the age of 18 in the 40 states that still allow it.

These communities will urge countless more adults to take a similar path. And while adults have the power to leave or remain in those communities, my heart still goes out to them. They face intense pressure to rid themselves of desires that research has shown will never go away.

I was taken to an “ex-gay” organization when I came out at the age of 17, and I spent almost 10 years involved in a member ministry of Exodus International, an umbrella organization that promoted conversion therapy and that shut down in 2013. From that experience, here are a few things to consider as we think about the future of conversion therapy in Christian communities.

First, it’s important to know that the people in conversion therapy don’t actually become straight. If you listen to their testimonies, they say they decided to “find their identity in Christ” rather than in their sexuality. . . . . They try not to engage in sex with people of the same gender, and some even date and marry people of the opposite sex. But very few in the videos say their attractions changed.

I attended several of my gay friends’ weddings to people of the opposite sex, and I sat across from them years later when they grieved over the end of their marriage. They might have changed the way they identified, but they felt a longing for intimacy with someone of the same sex that simply could not be met by their spouses. Some white-knuckled their way through the rest of their lives in these marriages, often with secret hookups that left them deeply ashamed, sometimes suicidal. Others eventually ended their marriages, and they despaired over the pain they caused their spouses and children.

These stories never show up in the short videos on ex-gay ministries’ websites.  Ex-gay organizations create emotional short films with earnest young people who talk about hope and redemption, and then they quietly remove the videos when these very same people come out years later with the truth about themselves that they tried to suppress. In fact, that’s what happened to me.

While many conservative Christians actively work against the flourishing of L.G.B.T.Q. people, they don’t represent all Christians.

I feel compassion for the people who will attend the Freedom March on Saturday. The videos on their Facebook page feature young people who say they left a lifestyle of anonymous sex, drug addiction and despair. But I have a lot of L.G.B.T.Q. friends, and I don’t know any who would describe their lives in that way.

I can’t help wondering whether the young people in the videos found themselves in destructive cycles because of the shame they carried from the teaching they heard growing up. It’s hard for me to believe they would seek to rid themselves of their God-given desire to love someone of the same sex if it weren’t for the leaders in their communities who fail to consider the possibility that they’re wrong about the value and dignity of L.G.B.T.Q. people made in the image of God.

As several Christian leaders have already said: If the gospel someone preaches is not good news for the marginalized — for people of color, those with disabilities, immigrants and L.G.B.T.Q. people — then it’s not good news for anyone. The message the organizers of the Freedom March preach is certainly not good news for people like me.

The author "hit the nail on the head" when she notes that so many featured in the ex-gay programs cite destructive behavior that I believe comes from the poisonous religious dogma that they try to escape through drugs and alcohol.  It has nothing to do with their sexual orientation in and of itself.  Remove the toxic religious dogma and I believe most would have had no reason to try to escape from themselves. It took several years of legitimate therapy by licensed professionals to undo the damage done to me by my Catholic upbringing.  If any type of therapy should be promoted, it is they type that aided me, not a fraudulent practice largely practiced by quacks and charlatans.

UK Considering a Ban on Fraudulent "Gay Conversion" Therapy

One of the biggest lies - out of so very many - that Christofascists organizations continue to peddle is that on can "pray away the gay" and/or be cured of homosexuality through fraudulent "therapy" typically administered by quacks and charlatans, often hiding from regulation behind the pretense of being "Christian ministries."  Lunatic Michelle Bachmann and her closeted husband run such a program under the guise of being a "Christian counseling" center. The lie serves two purposes: (1) it rakes in lots of money, and (2) it is used to bolster the Christofascist claim that since sexual orientation is a "choice," no legal protections are needed for LGBT individuals.  True, some gays suffering from internalized homophobia and religious brainwashing will pretend - both to themselves and others - that they are "cured," but the list of those who have later admitted the lie is a long one.  The practice needs to be banned and thankfully, the United Kingdom is poised to do just that, a nationwide ban.  Here are highlights from Gay Star News:

A UK Government survey could lead to making the controversial ‘gay cure’ practice illegal, Gay Star News can reveal.

The Home Office will publish the results of a National LGBT survey later this year. It includes an analysis of how much conversion therapy is happening in the country. Previously the Government rejected calls to make the practice illegal, saying it had done enough to stop the practice. But now the Home Office will use the results to explore new measures, to stop the practice.

A government spokesperson calling ‘gay cure’ therapy ‘bogus’ tells GSN: ‘This Government is absolutely clear that being LGBT is not an illness to be cured. The practice of conversion therapy is wrong. . . . . We have already been working with the main registration and accreditation bodies for psychotherapy and counseling practitioners, including the UK Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP), to develop a Memorandum of Understanding to put a stop to this bogus treatment."

Paul Twocock, Director of Campaigns, Policy and Research, Stonewall UK says: ‘It is good that the Government is so clear in recognizing that more needs to be done to tackle the bogus, deeply harmful practice of conversion therapy. All forms of “therapy” that attempt to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity are unethical and unacceptable. Lesbian, gay, bi and trans people are not ill.

Malta became the first country to ban ‘gay cure’ therapy in 2016. And now eleven states in the US have banned the cruel so-called ‘therapy’, including in Washington and Hawaii last week.

Raymond Buys was left starving after torture where he had to eat his own feces. Severely malnourished, dehydrated, with burns and wounds all over his body. He lay in intensive care for four weeks until he died.  He was just 15. Just 10 weeks before, the teen’s parents signed him up in 2011 for the Echo Wild Game Rangers course in South Africa in perfect health with the intention of ‘making him a man.’

Writing for Gay Star News, editor-at-large Joe Morgan says: ‘Many people believe ‘gay cure’ camps are basically full of repressed gay dudes sitting around praying all day. And then going into each others bunks to have sex. But even if you are not murdered in the attempt to make you ‘manly’, the vast majority of the people sent to these camps are vulnerable teens. ‘I shudder to think about the LGBTI teens whose families sent them to find a ‘cure’. Leaving traumatized, and later committing suicide. The number is countless.

Of course, the third reason Christofascists support these awful programs is because it helps them avoid admitting that the Bronze Age beliefs on human sexuality are simply untrue and wrong.  Harming others is preferable to threatening the fantasy world beliefs.

Deeds Family Tragedy - Virginia's Broken Mental Health Care System

Creigh Deeds and son Gus in happier times

The Virginia - and national - news media is awash with coverage of the horrific events that occurred this morning which have left Virginia State Senator Creigh Deeds in fair condition after multiple stab wounds and his 24 year old son dead by apparent suicide.  As a parent myself, I cannot imagine the anguish that the entire Deeds family is experiencing at present.  The Daily Progress looks at the day's tragic events and provide this summary:

The horror unfolded at a secluded farmhouse at the end of a long gravel driveway in rural Bath County.

Repeatedly stabbed by his son in the head and torso, state Sen. R. Creigh Deeds, 55, made his way to a road, where his cousin picked him up, police said. His son Austin Creigh “Gus” Deeds, 24, killed himself with a gunshot, police said.

The senator was transported to the University of Virginia Medical Center, where he was listed in fair condition Tuesday night.

Thirteen hours before the 911 call came in at 7:25 a.m. reporting an altercation at Deeds’ home tucked deep in the woods of Millboro Springs, Gus Deeds was released from Bath Community Hospital following a mental health evaluation. An effort to find a hospital where he could undergo further evaluation failed, said Dennis A. Cropper, executive director of Rockbridge Area Community Services.   State police are investigating the case as an attempted murder-suicide.

The Richmond Times-Dispatch learned that an emergency custody order had been issued for Deeds' son, Austin Creigh “Gus” Deeds, 24, on Monday, which allowed mental health officials to hold him for up to four hours to determine if he should be held under a temporary detention order. That order would have allowed him to be held for up to 72 hours.

Yes, this sad story is a horrible personal tragedy for the Deeds family and their friends.  But sadly, it is symptomatic of a larger tragedy: Virginia's utterly pathetic mental health system.  Had the Virginia General Assembly - controlled by the Virginia GOP - deemed mental health care even a minor priority, Gus Deeds might have been able to have been placed in a mental health unit of observation/treatment and the entire night mare avoided.  Unfortunately, the Virginia GOP (and its puppet masters among the Christofascists/Tea Party) deems the poor and the sick and the mentally troubled to be little better than disposable garbage to be thrown aside.  Funding for mental heath care has been slashed.  It's the same mindset that motivates the Virginia GOP's drive to block Medicaid expansion in Virginia.  A piece from two months ago in the Virginian Pilot looked at just how poor the mental health care system is in Virginia.  Here are excerpts:

Our country is once again in mourning over a devastating mass shooting, this time at the Navy Yard in Washington. As the founder and president of The Chas Foundation, a new nonprofit dedicated to help the mentally ill find appropriate treatment and immediate resources, I plead with my fellow citizens to consider the mental state of the young man who committed this atrocity.

His symptoms prior to the shooting - hearing threatening voices - clearly indicate he was disturbed. According to E. Fuller Torrey, one of our nation's top psychiatrists and founder of the Treatment Advocacy Center, he was most likely a paranoid schizophrenic.  Yet, even though this young man sought help for his mental condition, he received none, . . .

Virginia's mental health system is tragically broken, shattered into hundreds of unmanageable pieces.  This poor system results in many mentally ill persons needlessly losing their lives, or ending up in jails, or homeless, or in the care of families who do not know where to turn for resources.

Sadly, in a 2006 report, Virginia was given a "D" ranking for its mental health system by the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill.

NAMI Virginia, the state chapter, reports that after the 2007 tragedy at Virginia Tech, when $42 million in new funding was allocated to the mental health system, the General Assembly took away $37.7 million of that funding within a two-year period.

Statewide, in the last decade, the number of inpatient hospital beds for the mentally ill has declined while the population has increased by 13 percent. According to NAMI Virginia, there are currently 1,136,000 Virginians with severe mental illness and 330,000 each year need urgent treatment.

Chas, my middle son, spent 10 years seeking treatment and diagnosis from various mental health professionals. He was prescribed lithium but, despite taking his medications, he became more paranoid and psychotic. In the fall of 2011, at age 34, he suffered a nervous breakdown.

His wife and I went with him to the emergency room at Senatara Norfolk General Hospital for voluntary commitment. We spent 32 hours before a psychiatric bed was found on the 8th floor.

Chas, who had private insurance, stayed at the hospital for three weeks and was released before his medication proved effective - while he was still psychotic. He attempted suicide. This time, we went to the emergency room at DePaul Hospital. After 12 hours, the staff at DePaul sent him to Virginia Beach Psychiatric Hospital.

He stayed at Virginia Beach Psych for two weeks. The staff worked very hard to find a long-term bed for him at Eastern State. There were no beds, so he was released.

He had gone through the revolving door of mental health services for the last time. On Nov. 14, 2011, he hanged himself in the home he shared with his young wife. His father found him.
[I]f mentally ill people are not on medication, they can be an extreme risk to themselves, like Chas, or to others, like Seung-Hui Cho, who committed the horrific crimes at Virginia Tech.

Unless there are more state and federal funds for hospital beds, long-term treatment and community programs and resources, I fear that Virginia's ranking as 39th in the country for mental health services will worsen.

Not to make light of the personal tragedies of the members of the Deeds family, but Gus Deeds' apparent mental health problems and inability to secure proper treatment/hospitalization are not unique in Virginia.  If the Virginia GOP put any sort of premium on mental health care  - or health care in general - instead of looking for ways to cut taxes and slash the social safety net, Gus Deeds and many others might be alive as I write this post.   As I have noted many times, I find it most damning that the political party that feigns fealty to Christian values is the party that  makes the Biblical Pharisees look like upstanding and compassionate people.  My thoughts are with the Deeds family and other families who have experienced horrors and loss because of the misplaced priorities of our legislators, especially the members of the Republican Party.

Ex-Gay Awareness Event Demonstrates Few Ex-Gays Actually Exist

One of the big lies that has been funded by Christofascist organizations and marketed by charlatans like Michele Bachmann's husband "Marcia" is what I call the "ex-gay myth."   In their battle to deprive gays  equality under the civil laws and deny us marriage in particular, the Christofascist have struggled to convince the public and legislators in particular that sexual orientation is a choice and that this damaged condition can be changed through prayer and voodoo like therapy.   Thankfully, more and more of the public has seen through the lie as shown by the growing number of people who believe one's sexual orientation is something you are born with - i.e., the same position held by legitimate medical and mental health experts.  Yet the Christofascists and their "ex-gays for pay" continue to try to convince the world that there are "hundreds of thousands of former homosexuals" despite their invisibility outside of paid positions in ex-gay "ministries" and snake oil merchants seeking to make a buck at the expense of religiously tormented gays and their families.  To try to further market their lie, "ex-gay" marketers held an "Ex Gay Awareness" event in Washington, D.C.  Only 15 "ex-gays" showed up and at the gala dinner, a total of 60 folks attended, most with ties to marketing the ex-gay myth.  Think Progress looks at the debacle.  Here are highlights:

Tuesday night, the ex-gay group Voice of the Voiceless finally held its Ex-Gay Awareness dinner, having been delayed from July because of supposed “security threats.” Ironically, it accomplished the opposite of its supposed awareness-raising goals.

Earlier in the day, all of 15 ex-gay activists went to Capitol Hill to lobby on behalf of ex-gay therapy and its profiteers and victims. It’s unclear who they were able to talk to on the first day of the federal government’s shutdown, and the measly turn-out mirrored the dismal turnout at July’s “ex-gay pride” press conference.

The dinner, which was held at an undisclosed location, was supposedly attended by some 60 people, though it’s unclear who any of them are. The only people who spoke were either people who are not ex-gay, like the Liberty Counsel’s Matt Barber and Bishop Harry Jackson, or those who profit from their ex-gay identities and are already established pundits on the topic, like Voice of the Voiceless founder Christopher Doyle and PFOX president Greg Quinlan. The event was closed to the press — and to anyone who doesn’t support ex-gay therapy — so only the Christian Post and WORLD Magazine articles shed any light on what was said.

According to Doyle, ex-gays “need to scream and yell for equality and justice for all.” Indeed, it seemed many of the speakers highlighted the need to be visible — at an event designed to not be visible. It’s unclear what its organizers hoped to accomplish by hiding in the dark. If anything, they proved that ex-gay therapy is based on shame, that there are very few success stories, and that only those who profit from the harmful, ineffective treatment are willing to be visibly associated with it.

But for the harm and misery these frauds cause, they'd be laughable.  As for the "ex-gays for pay" themselves, tawdry whores have more virtue and decency.

Virginian Pilot Begins Charging for Digital Access - A Step Toward Suicide

Virginian Pilot publisher David Mele

Writing a blog and being contacted by would be advertisers I know one thing:  to get paid for advertising online, the number of page views a blog or publication receives determines advertising rates and ultimately long term viability if making money is the main motivation.  The folks at the Virginian Pilot don't seem to get this reality and/or suffer from the delusion that they are in the same league as the New York Times (10 free articles a month) or Washington Post (20 free article a month).  Hence, going forward, Pilot online readers will get only 10 free articles a month.  

The Daily Press was even more draconian and allowed no free articles.  The result?  I don't even bother to look at the Daily Press and don't link to it at all anymore.  The Daily Press was always an inferior paper, and since sifting to charging for online access there has been a parallel further decline in its content.  Hence, the boyfriend and I dropped our 3 day a week print subscription.  The Daily Press frankly seems headed toward extinction.  The Virginian Pilot seems headed for a similar fate in my view.  Readers should expect a marked drop in this blog's references to and links to the Virginian Pilot.  I hope that helps decrease its page views.  Here's the Pilot's bullshit reasoning:

Our next change begins today, as we implement a new membership model which will require subscriptions for unlimited access to our journalism and content online.

Current subscribers to The Virginian-Pilot will receive membership and full access to our digital content as part of their existing subscriptions, at no additional charge.

For nonsubscribers, we will allow some sampling of our content on a monthly basis, with a system that will require membership to gain access to our digital content after 10 articles are read. Some sections of our websites will remain freely available, including home pages, obituaries, and online marketplaces for jobs, autos, and real estate.

There are plenty of free news outlets where one can find better quality coverage.  Truth be told, the Pilot only cares about selling advertising.  Quality journalism has always been a secondary concern.  Online traffic will seek these out and one can hope that the Virginian Pilot meets the end it deserves as readership declines further and advertisers balk at paying for inferior coverage.

Lawsuit Seeks to Hold Catholic Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph Liable For Teen Suicide

While Pope John Paul II and his successors - and liars like Cardinal Timothy Dolan - we busy worrying about the Catholic Church's "reputation" and about hiding Church assets, real lives were being damaged and/or destroyed.  Not that these horrid narcissistic men gave a damn about the countless children and youths who were sexually assaulted and raped.  A lawsuit in Independence seeks to hold the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph liable for the suicide death of one teen sex abuse victim.  Hopefully, the lawsuit is successful and better yet, I hope it is the first on many such lawsuits.  Here are highlights from the Kansas City Star:

A civil trial begins Monday in a wrongful-death lawsuit alleging that a boy took his life 30 years ago because of repeated sexual abuse by a Kansas City priest.

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2013/07/07/4334143/trial-begins-monday-for-lawsuit.html#storylink=cpy

The trial, in Jackson County Circuit Court in Independence, could be notable for the Catholic Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph, some say.

“This is an especially significant case,” said Timothy Lytton, a legal scholar at the Albany School of Law and author of “Holding Bishops Accountable: How Lawsuits Helped the Catholic Church Confront Clergy Sexual Abuse.”  “One reason is that it’s rare for any of these cases to go to a jury; most of them are settled. The other reason is that it’s possibly the first high-profile case on the watch of the new pope.”

Brian Teeman, 14, died of a gunshot wound in November 1983 at the family’s home in Independence. His parents, Donald and Rosemary Teeman, filed the lawsuit in September 2011 after a man who had served as an altar boy with their son told them of the alleged abuse.

The lawsuit, which seeks unspecified damages, says the diocese shares responsibility for Brian’s death because church officials knew that Monsignor Thomas J. O’Brien was sexually abusing boys but covered it up.  O’Brien is also named in the suit. His attorney, Gerald McGonagle, did not respond to a request for comment.  O’Brien, now 86, has been the subject of more than two dozen sexual abuse lawsuits since 2004.

Jackson County Circuit Judge Michael Manners held as valid the Teemans’ argument that the statute of limitations should be suspended because of what they said was the defendants’ coverup, fraud and concealment of O’Brien’s alleged abuse of their son and other children. The diocese unsuccessfully appealed Manners’ ruling to the Missouri Supreme Court.

The lawsuit says O’Brien forced Brian and three other boys to perform sexual acts in the sacristy at Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary Church in Independence. The abuse began when Brian was 11 and continued until he graduated from eighth grade, the lawsuit alleges. It says O’Brien warned the boys that if they ever told, they would be kicked out of the church, be disowned by their parents and go to hell.

“The reason they (dioceses) avoid trials is because so much stuff comes out during them,” McKiernan said. “Another dynamic is that if they do take this to trial and they get punished, that may have major implications for all the other cases that are in play.”

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2013/07/07/4334143/trial-begins-monday-for-lawsuit.html#storylink=cpy

The Ugly Truth About American War Crimes

As noted before, one of my biggest disappointments with Barack Obama is that he has refused to open the lid on American war crimes and torture that were official policy under Bush/Cheney.  The provisions of the Geneva Conventions were knowingly and deliberately ignored and violated and in the process America lost all moral standing to ever criticize other nations for human rights abuses.  Worse yet, war criminals such as George W. Bush and Dick Cheney have been allowed to go free of any consequences.  Andrew Sullivan sums the situation up this way:

The country still won’t come to terms with the fact that the US perpetrated a global campaign of war crimes, torture, dehumanization and cruelty for seven years, and its impact is still being felt. It is felt not simply among all those dictators – from the master-torturer, the King of Jordan, to the Chinese and Russians, beaming broadly, knowing that the US has now no moral legs to stand on, especially since Obama’s decision to ignore binding Geneva Convention laws that require prosecution of the guilty.

But there is a human toll as well: not just among those still living with PTSD from the brutal torture sessions, but from the perpetrators as well. Many did so with qualms, under orders; others, given the signal from the commander-in-chief that torture was now an American value, took to it with relish and occasionally desperation. One reluctant participant soldier, just killed himself – yet another one – because he couldn’t live with what he had actually been ordered by his president to do.

Sullivan is referring to the suicide of  Daniel Somers who was a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom.  In his suicide note, Somers gives an indication that things that were done are far worse than most Americans realize.  Somers and others like him simply found it impossible to go on living knowing what they had done under orders.  Here are portions of Somers' suicide note via Gawker:

On June 10, 2013, Daniel wrote the following letter to his family before taking his life. Daniel was 30 years old. His wife and family have given permission to publish it. 
 

I am sorry that it has come to this.

The fact is, for as long as I can remember my motivation for getting up every day has been so that you would not have to bury me. As things have continued to get worse, it has become clear that this alone is not a sufficient reason to carry on. The fact is, I am not getting better, I am not going to get better, and I will most certainly deteriorate further as time goes on. From a logical standpoint, it is better to simply end things quickly and let any repercussions from that play out in the short term than to drag things out into the long term.

You must not blame yourself. The simple truth is this: During my first deployment, I was made to participate in things, the enormity of which is hard to describe. War crimes, crimes against humanity. Though I did not participate willingly, and made what I thought was my best effort to stop these events, there are some things that a person simply can not come back from. I take some pride in that, actually, as to move on in life after being part of such a thing would be the mark of a sociopath in my mind. These things go far beyond what most are even aware of.

To force me to do these things and then participate in the ensuing coverup is more than any government has the right to demand. .  .  .  .  And for what? Bush’s religious lunacy? Cheney’s ever growing fortune and that of his corporate friends? Is this what we destroy lives for

The fact is that any kind of ordinary life is an insult to those who died at my hand. How can I possibly go around like everyone else while the widows and orphans I created continue to struggle?

 Bush and Cheney in their megalomania and religious insanity simply did not care what was done to others.  The same holds for many in the "Christian" Right who view non-Christians as not even human.  And, apparently, Obama is little better.  How else to explain his refusal to see that war criminals be brought to justice.  Americans need to know the horrors done in their name.  By doing nothing, we all end up with blood on our hands.  I find myself less than proud to be an America as any decent moral person should be.

Early Morning Doldrums - Does It Ever Really Get Better?

It's 5:00 AM and I can't sleep thanks to anxiety issues over work, what I am going to do with my house in Norfolk now that my daughter and her family have moved out to escape the lawlessness seemingly escalating around the ODU campus while the City of Norfolk remains indifferent, and a host of other things.  I know that I have depression issues and maybe this is just a low point. Or maybe it's just a realization that my life has been one succession of disasters after another which makes me wonder what's the point of going on.  Any happiness seems to be negated ten fold by the bad.  I've been in this place before.  

Once I addressed this kind of low point with a bottle of Xanax.  Another time with lots of alcohol in a running car in a closed garage.  Would it have been better if those attempted solutions had succeeded?  I honestly don't know.  The "It Gets Better" campaign argues that things are improving for gays.  It's an outlook that is hard to hang on to living in a state like Virginia where progress isn't happening.  And where the Virginia GOP just nominated the most frightening anti-gay ticket in the history of the state.  Congressional Democrats throwing gays under the bus on immigration reform doesn't instill confidence for the future either.  It is exhausting waiting for things to get better - especially when deep down you know they won't.  Not for you, not in Virginia.

We are supposed to be heading to Washington, D.C., for a wedding this weekend.  I don't even want to go any more.  I had thought it would be a great get away.  Now, with the house and other things hanging over me, the prospect of fun and happiness are gone.  A cloud hangs over everything.  I feel like a swimmer swimming against the current and wonder if I shouldn't just end putting on a brave facade and let the current sweep me away. 

Far Right Catholic Extremist Commits Suicide in Notre Dame Cathedral to Protest Gay Marriage

Believe me, I do not want to sound mean spirited or judgmental, but I am increasingly coming to equate fundamental religious belief with some form of mental illness.    How else to explain the uncontrollable hysteria that the prospect of gay civil marriage creates in Christofascists.  Their fragile, artificial house of cards world simply cannot survive anything that suggests that their beliefs might not be true.  And anything - and anyone - that threatens their artificial world view construct will be met with hate and violence.  In Paris today, we saw this insanity/hysteria in full display when a far right Catholic committed suicide at an altar in Notre Dame Cathedral in reaction to the passage of same sex marriage into law in France.  Think about it.  Civil law gay marriage does NOTHING to heterosexual marriages.  It forces nothing onto religious denominations that oppose gay marriage.  It takes no rights away from heterosexuals.  It only means that Christofascist religious beliefs on marriage can no longer be forced on all of society.  And that alone was enough to cause Dominique Venner (pictured above) to blow his brains out standing at an altar in Notre Dame Cathedral.  Here are highlights from The Independent:

A far-right French historian shot himself in the head beside the altar of Notre Dame cathedral in Paris today apparently in protest against the legalisation of gay marriage in France.

Dominique Venner, 78, a former member of the nationalist terrorist movement, OAS, placed a pistol in his mouth and shot himself dead in front of scores of tourists inside the most visited building in France.

Mr Venner, a presenter on a Catholic-traditionalust radio station and controversial historian and essayist,  posted an essay on his website earlier in the day calling for "new, spectacular and symbolic actions to shake us out of our sleep, to jolt anaesthetised minds and to reawaken memory of our origins".

His long essay was a tirade against gay marriage but also a warning that the "population of France and Europe" was going to be "replaced" and brought under "Islamist control" and "sharia law".

Mr Venner placed a sealed letter on the altar of the cathedral before shooting himself. His choice of the altar - associated  with religious marriage ceremonies -appeared to be a symbolic gesture of protest against the law permitting civil gay marriages in France which took effect last weekend.

The "marriage for all" law has provoked a powerful movement of middle class, conservative, religious and right-wing protest in the last four months. Another large demonstration is planned in Paris on Sunday.

Mr Venner, a prolific author of books and tracts on extreme nationalist themes, has been one of many vociferous critics of the law. Some of his work as a historian has been well-received, incuding a 1981 book on the Red Army which won a prize from the Académie Française. Much of his work has been steeped in the racist ideology of the far-right, apologising for the pro-Hitler regime in Vichy in the Second World war and warning of conspiracies to destroy European civilisation and to swamp the white race.

Note how similar Venner's paranoia was to that which we hear from American Christofascists and Tea Party members.  Are we seeing mental illness on display on a broad scale?

Coming Out: Being Able to Say "I Am Who I Was Born To Be"

Many readers have been followers of this blog from the early days toward mid-2007 when it began in earnest and I was still struggling to come to terms with being gay, the end of my marriage, a horrible divorce, being forced from a law firm for being gay, and rebuilding my entire social world.  There was plenty of deep depression along the way and two serious suicide attempts for good measure.  But now, a full ten years after I moved out and began my journey to self acceptance, I feel that I have reached a place where lines from a song I sometimes listen to on the commute to work have special meaning:

 

Though I may not know the answers, I can finally say I am free. And if the questions led me here, then I am who I was born to be. I am who I was born to be.

 

Obviously, the Christofascists and professional Christian set would greatly dispute this reality.  Truth be told, it is they, not us in the LGBT community who have serious problems.  

 

For those damaged by religious and societal bigotry who are still in the coming out process, I have two messages based on my own experience.  First, it does get better.  Moreover, I truly believe that God, the creator, nature or whatever power one may want to cite  made some of us LGBT.  As in the song lyrics, we may never know the answer as to why, but we are who we were born to be when live out and proud.  No one among us can allow our enemies - and yes, they are enemies, in my view - to ever take this truth away from us.

And my second message for those still struggling to achieve self-acceptance is to get involved in the LGBT community.  It is what saved me.  And it can lead to good things.  Tonight, Hampton Roads Business OutReach ("HRBOR")- a gay and gay friendly chamber of commerce that I helped found - is holding a gala networking event that could well have 200 people in attendance, including the mayor and most of city council for a local cities and prominent members of the business community, both LGBT and straight.  Involvement brought me friends and colleagues and ultimately the boyfriend who I first seriously got to know through HRBOR. 

 

 Get involved and make a difference while making your own life more fulfilling.