A Portrait of Selfish, Privileged, White Gays

Bill White and Bryan Eure - selfish, self-centered gays who have betrayed the LGBT community.

I frequently lament privileged white gays who willingly throw the rest of the LGBT community under the bus in exchange for what they perceive as personal advantage and self-promotion, all the while believing that their wealth and whiteness will protect them from the discrimination and abuses others in the community regularly endure.  We have such white, privileged gays locally who support Republicans working to deprive LBGT Virginians of civil rights and non-discrimination protections.  These amoral individuals exist at the national level as well as illustrated by a piece in the New York Times that profile Trump supporters Bill White and his husband, Bryan Eure who seem motivated not by principles but rather by what perks they can land and who will most kiss their asses.  What the Times article glosses over is the fact that White abruptly resigned from his job when confronted with a corruption investigation  (details his resignation are here and his $1 million settlement payment are here).    The latter link states at outset:

The former head of the Intrepid Sea-Air-Space Museum has agreed to pay a $1 million settlement for his role in a massive state pension fund pay-to-play scandal. . . . "The state pension fund, which should be safeguarded for taxpayers, was instead served up to fixers, finders, and fund-raisers like Bill White, who used his access to fill his pockets," Cuomo said.  . . . Amid the probe, White last May suddenly quit his job with the Intrepid museum, which he had held since 1992.

Perhaps most telling is that this pair of opportunists only switched their allegiance to Trump after it was obvious Hillary Clinton was going to lose the 2016 presidential election.  Not surprisingly, they could care less about Trump's war on the LGBT community and his regime's efforts to allow Christofascists to discriminate at will and ignore state non-discrimination and public accommodation laws.  Here are highlights from the Times piece about these two who sound as amoral as trump himself:

In some ways, they are a typical political power couple seeking to “Make America Great Again.”

They are throwing a $5 million fund-raiser for President Trump this winter, and are quick to make it known that they have the president’s sons’ cellphone numbers on speed dial. They have poured more than $50,000 of their own money into supporting the president, who smiles in photos on the bookshelves of their home.

But Bill White and his husband, Bryan Eure, are not red state evangelicals or die-hard right-wingers. In fact, for years, they were key players among a cohort that Mr. Trump loathes: Manhattan’s liberal elite. . . . Mr. White and Mr. Eure used to back strident, anti-Trump Democrats, but now dine with Fox News anchors and plan rounds of golf at Mar-a-Lago.

The two men were not only longtime backers of left-wing causes, but firm supporters of Hillary Clinton who put their clout and cash behind her two White House bids. President Barack Obama was the guest of honor at a $39,500-a-plate truffle risotto fund-raiser dinner they hosted once in their Chelsea townhouse.

The couple say they have been condemned not just for hypocrisy, but for what has been seen as a betrayal of their own community, by backing a man who has scaled back L.G.B.T. protections.  They dismiss such concerns.

As they have risen in the Trump pantheon to attending cocktail parties with Trump acolytes, they’ve lost friends, the couple said, from liberal politicians they once lavished with campaign contributions to a former employee of Mr. White’s who sent excoriating Twitter messages.

Their former allies offer a succinct view on who Mr. Eure and Mr. White are now: craven turncoats.

“They ran to the other end of the spectrum and then walked off the ledge,” Nick Merrill, a spokesman for Mrs. Clinton, said. “This president is degrading our institutions. He is racist, he has no respect for women, he has no respect for minorities or for any community, including the L.G.B.T. community — it makes you wonder.”

The genesis of the couple’s reversal can be timed to about midnight on Nov. 8, 2016. Inside the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in Manhattan, at Ms. Clinton’s election night event, Mr. White stood watching the returns in an increasingly funereal atmosphere. He got in his Chevrolet Suburban and drove to the New York Hilton in Midtown, where Mr. Trump was celebrating his win. 

“I didn’t want to be part of that misery pie; I’m not a wallower in self-pity,” said Mr. White, who now runs Constellations Group, a strategic consultancy firm. “I really believe that once that decision is made, you have to get behind your president.”

Since 2016, the couple has made a gradual shift from life in the liberal enclaves of the Hamptons and Manhattan, where they had long flipped homes as a hobby, to Atlanta, where they recently purchased property.

They now split their time between New York and Georgia. In the South, they are closer to Mr. Eure’s parents and found that they can wear red pro-Trump hats in peace.

Chatting inside their latest project, in the Buckhead neighborhood, they described a litany of slights by Democrats as motivation for switching sides.

There was the time, earlier this year, at Ralph Lauren’s Polo Bar in Midtown Manhattan, when Mr. White spotted Chelsea Clinton across the dining room.  Offended that she failed to acknowledge him, Mr. White said, he whipped out his phone and dialed Donald Trump Jr. “He said, ‘Do you want me to come over? I’m at the office, do you want me to?’”

“Some people give their time and resources to causes and candidates for the right reasons, some don’t,” Mr. Merrill, Ms. Clinton’s spokesman, said. “No better indication of which case this is than to watch a guy decide to embrace Trump and all he stands for because he couldn’t get his picture taken one night.”

Since boarding the Trump Train, as they call it, for every morsel of recognition the Trumps have offered, the couple has responded with a feast — sometimes literally.

In my opinion, these guys make tawdry whores look virtuous.  They are, in my view, cut from the same cloth as Trump.  Moral and decent people cannot support and continue to claim to moral.  It is truly that simple. White and Eure have shown their true selves and after the days of Trump are past, I hope decent remember.

'Alternative Facts': The Needless Lies of the Trump Administration

It seems that with every passing minute we are increasingly discovering that in Trump world, the "truth" is whatever Der Fuhrer wants it to be.  Never mind that it is demonstrably false.  Hence the new double speak of "alternate facts" as espoused by Kellyanne Conway who seemingly is striving to make Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels look like a pillar of honesty in comparison. The take away form all the lies: do not believe ANYTHING that is said by Trump or his propagandists.  If they lie about small things easily shown to be lies, why believe them on anything?  A piece in The Atlantic looks at the Orwellian world of Trump/Pence.  Here are highlights:

One of the many things that is remarkable about the Trump administration is its devotion, even in its first days, to a particular variety of pointless falsehood.

Mendacity among politicians and the spokespeople hired to spin for them runs across eras and aisles, though it is true that some are more honest than others, and Donald Trump was a historically dishonest presidential candidate. But the Trump administration has displayed a commitment to needlessly lying that is confounding to even the most cynical observers of American politics.

No incident better summarizes this than a bizarre briefing by White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer on Saturday. Speaking in the Brady Briefing Room, Spicer laid into the assembled reporters.

Then came the big whopper: “This was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration—period—both in person and around the globe.”

Spicer’s statement required dismissing all available evidence: ridership count, eyewitness testimony, independent crowd-counts, and Nielsen television ratings. Spicer cut his teeth at the Republican National Committee as the combative voice of a body often at odds with the media, but even by those standards, his furious insistence on assertions at odds with the evidence were peculiar.

They are, however, emerging as a hallmark of the administration. 

Ahead of the inauguration, Trump threw a concert in front of the Lincoln Memorial. “This started out tonight being a small little concert, and then we had the idea maybe we’ll do it in front of the Lincoln Memorial,” Trump said in brief remarks. “I don’t know if it’s ever been done before. But if it has, very seldom.” That claim was also ridiculous, whether it was intentionally misleading or simply badly misinformed. There was a huge, widely covered concert at the memorial to kick off Obama’s inauguration festivities eight years ago.

But how is anyone to view Spicer’s statement as stemming from anything other than a deliberate intent to mislead? The facts are clear, and given that Spicer did not take questions, his main purpose on Saturday must have been to spread falsehoods about crowd size.

Top Trump aide Kellyanne Conway appeared on Meet the Press Sunday morning, where Chuck Todd grilled her on the incident. “The presidency is about choices. I’m curious why President Trump chose yesterday to send out his press secretary to essentially litigate a provable falsehood when it comes to a small and petty thing like inaugural crowd size,” Todd asked. Conway first tried to deflect, saying, “I don’t think presidents are judged by crowd sizes, they’re judged by accomplishments.” Fair enough, Todd said—so why lie?

“You’re saying it’s a falsehood, and Sean Spicer, our press secretary, gave alternative facts,” Conway responded.

Todd was flabbergasted by the Orwellian turn of phrase: “Alternative fact are not facts. They’re falsehoods.”

There’s still no good explanation for Spicer’s statement, but it fits with a long-running mantra from Trump aides and supporters that there’s no such thing as an objective reality. The question for Trump and his aides is simple: If you’re willing to lie about stuff this minuscule, why should anyone believe what you say about the really big things that matter?

Perhaps there is a solution to Trump's lies provided the media has the backbone to be responsible: When Trump and his administration make clearly false statements, simply do not give the statement coverage.  Take away the podium and do not disseminate the lies.   

The North Carolina GOP's Descent into Insanity is Now Complete

As a former Republican and party activist, never in my wildest dreams did I ever anticipate that the party could/would ever descend into total insanity. In the nearly two decades since I resigned from the GOP over the party's increasing hostility to the concept of the separation of church and state, up until now, I never believed that the self-prostitution of GOP elected officials would become so blatant and disgusting that a tawdry whore would appear honest and virtuous compared to the average Republican elected official.  Now, however, the North Carolina GOP has taken the concept of self-prostitution to a heretofore unknown level.  Indeed, North Carolina Senate Majority Leader Phil Berger (a Republican) says he absolutely will not repeal HB2,  Never mind that the state is facing a federal lawsuit that it cannot win in light of yesterday's 4th Circuit ruling on transgender rights, never mind that North Carolina could now lose billions in federal funding, never mind that  the state's tourism and convention business is getting slammed, never mind that the UK has issued a travel advisory against visiting North Carolina. No, the only thing that matters to the North Carolina GOP is prostituting its members to Christofascists who seek to impose a Christian version of Sharia law on America.  The New Civil Rights Movement looks at the insanity and swamp fever that now controls the North Carolina GOP.  Here are excerpts:

Republican Senate Majority Leader Phil Berger says he absolutely will not repeal HB2, North Carolina's anti-LGBT law that legal experts have labeled unconstitutional. The GOP state senator called it "the bathroom safety bill," at a press conference Wednesday afternoon.

"My job is not to give into the demands of multi-millionaire celebrities pushing a pet social agenda, liberal newspapers like The New York Times, or big corporations who have every freedom to set whatever policies they wish under this law," Berger said, as the News & Observer reported. "My job is to listen to the people who elected us to represent them, and the vast majority of North Carolinians we've heard from understand and support this reasonable, common-sense law."

Sen. Berger claimed that "many are relying on the spin of far-left interest groups, instead of the facts," WRAL reported, despite the fact that Gov Pat McCrory has delivered comments on HB2 that fact-checkers rate some degree of "false."

In the latest news on the economic impact HB2 has had on North Carolina, the Greater Raleigh Chamber of Commerce announced a tech company has scrapped plans to move into the area, and with that the 1000 jobs it would have added. That follows a report last week that found HB2 has cost the Tar Heel State well over a half-billion in revenue.

I truly hope that the Obama administration will notify Berger and his fellow political whores that federal education funds are going to be forfeited and overnight school systems will be facing bankruptcy. Hopefully, the North Carolina populous will lay the blame for the economic disaster at the feet of the North Carolina GOP and take retribution on them at the polls in November and vote them out and return control of the legislature to the Democrats.

Meanwhile, the cynic in me wonders how long it will be before we hear that Mr. Berger has been caught in an extra-marital affair or has been arrested in a restroom sting after soliciting gay sex from an undercover officer.  Frankly, it cannot happen soon enough. 

 

Rubio Further Prostitutes Himself to Christian Extremists

President Obama spoke this evening with an aim of calming a nervous American public after an apparent Muslim religious extremist terrorist attack last week in California.  Meanwhile, a desperate Marco Rubio, faced with Donald Trump soaring in the GOP polls and purported "momentum" in favor of Ted Cruz, decided he needed to further prostitute himself to the Christofascist GOP base by pledging to undo all of Barack Obama's pro-gay executive orders.  Once again. Christian extremists are given deference and praise by Republican political whores even as they seek to demonize all Muslims.  The hypocrisy is stunning.   The New Civil Rights Movement looks at Rubio's desperate self-prostitution.  Here are excerpts:

Staunch right wing conservative Catholic Marco Rubio says protecting LGBT people from discrimination forces Christians to "sin," so as President he would reverse President Barack Obama's policies. President Obama has signed several executive orders mandating that government contractors not discriminate against LGBT people, thus preventing corporations or organizations that choose to do business with the federal government from refusing to hire LGBT people, or firing them because they are LGBT.

"There’s no doubt that we need to be extra vigilant now about protecting the religious liberties of Americans and that includes having a justice department that’s vigilant about ensuring that those who hold traditional values are not being discriminated against," Rubio told Christian Broadcasting Network reporter David Brody last week in the video above that was just published Saturday. The Florida GOP Senator seemed to be concerned only with the religious liberties and traditional values of Christians, not people of other faiths, or of no faith. 

[A] President Rubio would give anti-LGBT religious businesses special rights.

Rubio singled out LGBT people, and transgender people in particular, stating he would "reverse the executive orders the President has made on things like gender equality in restrooms."

In addition to ensuring that religious organizations and even major corporations, like Hobby Lobby, for example, be allowed to discriminate against LGBT people specifically, Rubio would go even farther by ensuring the Supreme Court would be comprised of people who hold Justice Antonin Scalia's obscure vision that the Constitution is not a living document, but a text that is to be applied as written and under the same mindsets as when it was written.

Rubio stopped short of applying a litmus test, but slammed the five majority Supreme Court justices who, he said, "wanted to reach a certain policy outcome and so creatively manipulated the Constitution to discover a right that for over two centuries, some of the most brilliant minds and legal history didn’t find.

If Rubio is willing to say and do anything to win the support of Christian extremists who want to ultimately overthrow the U.S. Constitution in order to get elected, what would he do in office?  The prospect is frightening.

PS - One outlet is claiming that Rubio has a mistress who is about to come forward.  I can't vouch for the claim, but it would certainly be in keeping with the sex scandals that endless involve "family values" Republicans.  Some think Jebbie Bush is behind the rumor. :)

Mark Regnerus Attacks New Study on Children of Gays - Is He Out for Career Suicide?

With the Christofascists and their paid whores - both in the realm of politics and faux experts - who make sex workers look forthright and virtuous in comparison, objective facts simply do not matter.   It is all about trying to maintain an increasingly discredited ideology without which the Christofascists seemingly would go into psychological melt down.  Just as some of the most untethered from reality far right evangelicals are in denial that they are losing the war against same sex marriage, so too some of the faux experts favored by the Christofascists are so obsessed with supporting the anti-gay evangelical agenda that they seem to be willing to destroy what's left of their already careers.  A case in point?  Mark Regnerus who, after a lambasting in the Michigan gay marriage ban lawsuit, seems heel bent to become little more than a quack relegated to securing a position at some small extreme Christian college.  As noted before, one has to wonder how long it will be before the Universality of Texas finds an excuse to remove Regnerus from the faculty.  A piece in Slate looks at Regnerus' latest insanity.  Here are highlights:

You might think that a researcher who was repudiated by his own department, caught lying about the role of funding in his research, and generally made the laughing stock of serious scholars in his field would lay low for a while. If this researcher had any desire to rehabilitate his career, you might assume, he would avoid repeating the same line of ungrounded, politicized, and harmful claims about LGBTQ families that badly marred his career in the first place.

But if you were speaking of Mark Regnerus, you’d be wrong. A young, conservative Catholic professor at the University of Texas at Austin, Regnerus gained renown in recent years for getting through peer review a fundamentally flawed study that claimed children of same-sex parents fared poorly, when the study didn’t even examine, well, children of same-sex parents. Numerous investigators from within and outside academia showed definitively that the study—from conception to design to funding to execution and roll-out—was a conservative PR campaign meant to influence court cases to block same-sex marriage by denigrating LGBTQ families with false claims about child outcomes. And all of this with no regard for the stigmatizing impact on those families, particularly children, in whose names conservatives have famously waged their anti-modernist campaigns.

In the wake of yet another study showing the kids are all right, Regnerus has again taken up his pen, this time trying to skewer the latest data by hurling at them the same criticisms that discredited his own study. Yet the facts are simple, and they’re not remotely on his side. 

[O]f the 15,000 people Regnerus screened, only 248 even had one parent who had had a same-sex relationship, and of those, only two were actually raised for any significant period of time by a stable same-sex couple.  

Regnerus’ sample size was two. Two children with same-sex parents. Which gives new meaning to the phrase, “unusual sample size.”

By contrast, the Crouch study that Regnerus condemns looked at 500 children with a gay parent, more than twice as many as Regnerus found. And even though they were not all in stable, two-parent homes, the children fared better on several measures.

It’s no surprise that a federal judge in Michigan earlier this year dismissed Regnerus’ testimony against same-sex marriage as a farce, saying: “The Court finds Regnerus’s testimony entirely unbelievable and not worthy of serious consideration.” Hopefully the rest of the world will follow suit.

Again I ask the question: when is the University of Texas going to send Regnerus packing?  His very presence combined with more batshitery is only harming the university's reputation. 

Inside George W. Bush’s Closet

Like myself, a number of LGBT activist and bloggers are former Republicans who finally reached a point where we could no longer live a lie and/or be involved in a political party that held us in contempt at best in terms of official party platform.  Yet others were willing to live a closeted life for advancement and/or political opportunities.  In my view, they basically were willing to sell their souls.  Now, Politico Magazine has a length piece that looks at the closet that existed in Chimperator George W. Bush's failed regime.  Here are some highlights, although one needs to read the entire article:

It was a slap in the face.” Steven Levine is remembering that day in 2006 when President George W. Bush took the stage in a small-town school gym in Indiana. It was October 28, right before the midterm elections, and Levine was a 22-year-old White House advance aide. He’d been camped out in Sellersburg all week, working to get the details just right for Bush’s campaign rally. The flags hung just so, the big presidential seal on the podium. Then Bush started talking, his standard stump speech about taxes and supporting the troops. But a new applause line took Levine by surprise. “Just this week in New Jersey,” the president said, “another activist court issued a ruling that raises doubt about the institution of marriage. We believe that marriage is the union between a man and a woman, and should be defended. I will continue to appoint judges who strictly interpret the law and not legislate from the bench.”

The crowd loved it. Levine was crushed.

He was gay and working for a Republican and convinced it was possible to be both at the same time.

Like dozens of other gay colleagues in the Bush White House, many of them closeted, Levine had been sure that Bush himself was personally tolerant even if the GOP was not—and uncomfortable with gay-bashing as a way to win elections. But this was a rebuff, and it was hard not to take it personally: “To be working extraordinarily hard with all of your energy, working through many nights for somebody that you believe in, and to hear that person that you work so hard for come out against something that you are.”

Levine stayed with Bush right upuntil the president hopped into the armored presidential limo for the ride to Barack Obama’s inauguration 27 months later. As the taillights disappeared down Pennsylvania Avenue, Levine left town. A few months later, one of his gay friends who had also worked in the White House sat down in front of Facebook and counted the Bush White House staffers he knew to be gay. He came up with at least 70 (only two of them women).

That number—and after speaking with two dozen sources I have no doubt it was an incomplete tally—has surprised almost everyone I’ve told.

“Did we have a lot of people in the closet in the administration?” says one former senior official in the Bush White House whose office included at least three gay staffers. “I used to say we had an entire warehouse.”

In recent months, I’ve reported extensively on life in the closet of the Bush White House, and a number of his former aides are quoted on the record in this story for the first time about their experiences as gay Republicans in an administration that was perhaps the last of the era when institutionalized discrimination against gays and lesbians was still legal, if increasingly frowned upon. Their accounts offer a time-capsule view of a Republican Party—and a president—at war with itself over an issue on which public opinion and the law have now changed dramatically. At the time, it seemed to be great politics for Bush

For some of his [George W. Bush's] gay aides, it was a struggle to reconcile the decency they usually saw up close with the frequent reminders, both large and small, that theirs was a party very publicly committed to the view that they were not entitled to the same legal protections as other Americans.

Personally, I cannot grasp the mindset of someone who would sell his/her soul to such a regime and imagined advancement. In my case, when the GOP in Virginia welcomed in the Christofascists and began to intertwine religion and the civil laws, I left the GOP and cited my disgust in my resignation later.  Since that time I have endeavored to see the GOP defeated whenever and wherever possible,  I am convinced that the GOP cannot be changed from within and that only repeated electoral defeats may, and I stress the word may, lead to change.

Newsweek's Devastating Piece on the Vile Ex-Gay Myth

1998 Newsweek cover - all of which was a lie

 Back in 1998 while I was still in the closet trying valiantly to convince myself that I wasn't really gay, Newsweek magazine did a front page cover piece on the "ex-gay" ministries and suggested that sexual orientation was in fact changeable.  The piece featured John Paulk and his then wife on the cover - see the image above - and went into great detail about how conversion therapy was supposedly turning gays into heterosexuals.  In retrospect, we all know that the entire storyline was and is a lie, but one has to wonder how many individuals redoubled their efforts to "pray away the gay."  I know that I certainly did, all to no effect, of course.  Only after an unplanned encounter did I finally admit reality to myself.  Now, a lengthy article in a new issue of Newsweek looks at John Paulk, who is no once again living as an openly gay man (the article also notes the exposure of Michael Johnston as a fraud thanks to the efforts of Wayne Besen and yours truly), that basically drops an atomic bomb on the snake oil merchants who continue to peddle the ex-gay myth.  These charlatans include Paulk's former wife who continues to market the ex-gay myth in a manner that makes a tawdry prostitute look down right virtuous.  Here are article excerpts:

On a Tuesday evening nearly 14 years ago, John Paulk walked into a gay bar in Washington, D.C. At another time in his life, Paulk would have fit right in. But in 2000, Paulk’s life as an openly gay man was far behind him. He was then one of the most prominent so-called ex-gays in the country, only two years removed from appearing on the cover of Newsweek, posing with his smiling wife for an article about gay conversion therapy.

At 37, Paulk had spent the prior 13 years involved with Exodus International, one of the largest and most influential ex-gay organizations in the world. He married another ex-gay, Anne, and together they rose through the ranks, becoming leaders and eventually the faces of a movement that attracted thousands with its message that, if they tried hard enough, gay and lesbian people could become happy heterosexuals. “Change is possible” was their rallying cry. You just needed to surrender yourself to God. Look at us, they said to rooms of thousands. Look how happy we are.

Today, Paulk is openly gay again, divorced and running a catering business in Portland, Oregon. But in the late 1990s and early 2000s, he was trying hard to keep the closet door closed, while preaching a message of ex-gay deliverance from within it.

Far-right groups including the Family Research Council and the American Family Association pooled $600,000 to place ads promising the effectiveness of reparative therapy in The New York Times, USA Today, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Chicago Tribune. Anne and John Paulk smiled from full-page newspaper spreads.

In front of the crowds and cameras, Paulk was the image of certainty. But backstage, he was faltering. More than that, he knew he was lying.

“It’s funny, for those of us that worked in it, behind closed doors, we knew we hadn't really changed,” he says. “Our situations had changed—we had gotten married, and some of us had children, so our roles had changed. I was a husband and father; that was my identity. And the homosexuality had been tamped down. But you can only push it down for so long, and it would eke its way out every so often.”

[B]y 2003, he was burned out.  “I would be in hotel rooms, and I would be on my face sobbing and crying on the bed,” he says. “I felt like a liar and a hypocrite. Having to go out and give hope to these people. I was in despair knowing that what I was telling them was not entirely honest. I couldn’t do it anymore.”

Even in its earliest days, Exodus’s philosophy—that same-sex attraction meant a person was “broken” and could be “fixed”—was undermined by the reality of its members’ actions. Michael Bussee and Gary Cooper, two of the co-founders, left the movement in 1979 to be in a committed relationship with one another. (Bussee has spent the decades since actively fighting Exodus’s message.) John Evans, one of the founders of Love in Action (LIA), an early ex-gay ministry that helped establish Exodus in 1974, left LIA after a friend committed suicide over his distress at being unable to change his sexual orientation. "They're destroying people's lives,” Evans told The Wall Street Journal in 1993. “They're living in a fantasy world.” (LIA has since changed its name to Restoration Path.)

But all the far-right funding and rapid expansion did little more than prop up a withering institution. A series of scandals chipped away at the ex-gay movement’s veneer of success. 

First came the photo of Paulk in the gay bar. Then in 2003, Michael Johnson, founder of “National Coming Out of Homosexuality Day,” was revealed to have infected men he’d met on the Internet with HIV through unprotected sex. John Smid, who joined LIA in 1986 and eventually became its executive director, left the organization in 2008. Three years later, Smid wrote on his blog that he "never met a man who experienced a change from homosexual to heterosexual," and that reorientation is impossible, because being gay is intrinsic.

Then it crumbled further. In 2012, psychologist Robert Spitzer . . . . retracted a controversial study, published in 2003, often cited by the ex-gay community that had concluded some “highly motivated” individuals could change their sexual orientation. Spitzer wrote an apology to LGBT people who “wasted time and energy” on reparative therapy. 

By that time, policy within Exodus began to genuinely shift. “We renounced and forbid reparative therapy,” in 2012, Chambers tells Newsweek. “And there was an enormous split inside Exodus. Many who were more fundamentalist in approach had already broken off and formed Restored Hope Network.” Anne Paulk, John’s ex-wife, was one of those who left.

Lastly, there’s the National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH), . . .  In 2007, NARTH therapist Chris Austin was convicted of sexually assaulting a client, and sentenced to 10 years in prison; in 2010, NARTH board member George Rekers was found to have employed a male prostitute as a companion for a two-week European vacation; and in 2012 the Internal Revenue Service revoked NARTH’s nonprofit status for not properly filing its paperwork.

Today, Paulk strongly believes that no child or teen should be put through any type of “treatment” for their sexual orientation. On the other hand, he says adults should have the right to pursue any therapy they choose. “If I go see a therapist because I am uncomfortable with homosexual feelings or attractions and I do not feel that those are compatible with who I see myself to be, [I] should have the right to determine the course of [my] therapy,” Paulk says. “However, I completely draw the line when it comes to minors.”

The tragedy that Paulk lives with to this day is that organizations like JONAH often specifically target minors, with summer camps and teen programs. “For 25 years I felt guilty and filled with self-loathing, trying to reject this part about myself. I’m culpable—I spread the message that my sexuality had changed, and I used my marriage as proof of that,” Paulk says.

Paulk’s story echoes those of many others whose lives were damaged by the shame, guilt, and self-loathing that marked their involvement with ex-gay therapy, and who overcame their past to eventually live life as their LGBT selves. 

Paulk, meanwhile, hopes his story encourages others to overcome their own fears and uncertainties. “It’s difficult, but worth it at the end of the day because of the peace that comes with it. It’s happy on the other side.”

John Paulk in 2013

From my own experience, I agree with Paulk.  Once one admits that they are gay and that it is neither a choice or something changeable and comes to terms with that reality, it is so liberating and, with adjustment, brings a peacefulness never experienced during all the years of trying to change and to be something that nature (God?) did not intend you to be.  In my view, those who continue to peddle the "ex-gay lie" like Paulk's ex-wife are among the lowest of the low. 

Utah - State's Last Minute Brief Says Ignore Everything We Said About Mark Regnerus

As previous posts have noted, both professional associations and the federal judge in the Michigan marriage ruling have been brutal in their evisceration of Mark Regnerus and his right wing hate group funded supposed study on gay parenting.  Even the Sociology Department at the University of Texas has sought to distance itself from Regnerus and his "study."  Now, the State of Utah has filed a supplemental brief in the same sex marriage case pending before the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals that in essence says "ignore everything we said relying on Mark Regnerus and his work."  As noted before, I cannot help but wonder when the University of Texas will find some basis to fire Regnerus.  But back to the new brief filed by the State of Utah.  Here are highlights via Joe My God:

On the eve of oral arguments before the Tenth Circuit Court, Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes filed a last minute brief that totally dismisses the state's previous reliance on the work of discredited researcher Mark Regnerus.

Utah files this supplemental letter in response to recent press reports and analysis of the study by Professor Mark Regnerus, which the State cited at footnotes 34 and 42 of its Opening Brief, and which addresses the debate over whether same-sex parenting produces child outcomes that are comparable to man-woman parenting.

First, we wish to emphasize the very limited relevance to this case of the comparison addressed by Professor Regnerus. As the State’s briefing makes clear, the State’s principal concern is the potential long-term impact of a redefinition of marriage on the children of heterosexual parents. The debate over man-woman versus same-sex parenting has little if any bearing on that issue, given that being raised in a same-sex household would normally not be one of the alternatives available to children of heterosexual parents.

Second, on the limited issue addressed by the Regnerus study, the State wishes to be clear about what that study (in the State’s view) does and does not establish. The Regnerus study did not examine as its sole focus the outcomes of children raised in same-sex households but, because of sample limitations inherent in the field of study at this point, examined primarily children who acknowledged having a parent who had engaged in a same-sex relationship. Thus, the Regnerus study cannot be viewed as conclusively establishing that raising a child in a same-sex household produces outcomes that are inferior to those produced by man-woman parenting arrangements.

Ouch!!  The bottom line is that Regnerus happily sold his soul to the Witherspoon Institute and created a "study" that would confirm that organization's predetermined anti-gay conclusion.  Regnerus' self-prostitution has now come full circle to bite him in the ass and perhaps usher in the end of his career at any legitimate university.  I find it extremely difficult to have any sympathy for Regnerus who showed less integrity than the tawdriest whore, in my opinion

Virginia Christofascist Oppose Efforts to Ban "Ex-Gay" Therapy

With the Virginia General Assembly in session, not a day seems to go by when Christofascists in Virginia, typically lead by the hate merchants at The Family Foundation, do not oppose any and every legislative proposal that would lessen anti-gay bigotry in Virginia.  Among the bills that have been introduced are bills that would ban ex-gay therapy for minors.  As previous posts have made clear, such therapy is nothing less than child abuse and, in addition to banning the practice, if I had my way I would add criminal penalties for parents that try to subject their children to the fraudulent, witch doctor like therapy.  The Washington Post looks at the ongoing battle, including the typical lies rolling off the lips Victoria Cobb, president of The Family Foundation.  As noted many times, sustaining the "ex-gay" myth is a key lynch pin to the Christofascists' anti-gay political propaganda and they will engage in every conceivable lie and subterfuge to block legislation that would ban the harmful therapy.  Here are story highlights:

RICHMOND — Apryl Prentiss was raised a faithful Christian, and she loved church. So when she realized she was a lesbian, she was terrified and ashamed.  She sought out reparative therapy for gays who wanted to be straight. The years she spent there, followed by two in a Christian ex-gay program in Virginia Beach, were “the darkest of my life,” she said Monday during a news conference at the Virginia Capitol. “I absolutely detested myself.”

That’s why she’s supporting a bill from Del. Patrick A. Hope (D-Arlington) to ban the practice of reparative or conversion therapy by mental health professionals trying to “cure” minors of being gay.  The practice is increasingly seen as anti-gay at a time when more and more Americans view sexual orientation not as a choice or lifestyle, and see gays as a group deserving of legal protection.

The ban would not affect religious counseling that does not involve licensed therapists or adults who seek out the therapy on their own. It would bar professional therapists from practicing conversion therapy, which the American Psychiatric Association opposes, on children younger than 18.

It’s “a very shadowy arena,” said Victoria Bragunier, the director of public policy for the Alliance for Progressive Values.

California and New Jersey have enacted similar bans, both of which have withstood legal challenges.
Social conservatives argue that the ban would intrude on the rights of therapists and families.

“It’s astonishing that the party that claims to defend choice and free speech [is] bent on limiting both for counselors, parents and kids struggling with their sexuality,” Family Foundation President Victoria Cobb said in a statement.

Virginia Democrats are pushing several gay rights initiatives, capitalizing on an area in which public sentiment has moved dramatically during the past decade — and forcing Republicans to take positions on an issue for which their party’s base is out of step with most Americans.

Hope acknowledged Monday that it would be hard to get the bill through the House of Delegates, which is Republican-dominated. But he suggested that it was the right time to begin debate on the issue, even if the legislation does not pass this year.

As for Victoria Cobb, in my opinion, the vilest, nastiest, tawdriest whore has more honesty and integrity than Ms. Cobb.  The woman is pure evil and seeks nothing less than special rights - including the right to abuse children - for Christofascists.  If she could, she would overthrow both the Virginia and U.S. Constitutions. If there is a Hell, in my view, Ms. Cobb has a reserved seat.

nternational Olympic Committee Member Accuses Gays and Obama of "Political Terrorism”

I have long felt that the International Olympic Committee has its head up its ass and lacks a spine (some things never change, remember Berlin in 1936?).  And as for its assurances that gays will not face discrimination or harassment at the Sochi Games,  I have a very low level of confidence.  After all, the IOC is relying on the word of Vladimir Putin, a quasi-dictator and former KGB thug.  Now, an IOC member is accusing gays and Barack Obama of engaging in "political terrorism" because of criticism of Russia's anti-gay laws and veiled threats against those who speak out against Russian homophobia and violence against gays.  AmericaBlog has details.  Here are highlights:

A senior member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) suggested today that President Obama and gay rights advocates are participating in “political terrorism” by raising concerns about Russia’s anti-gay crackdown and how it might affect the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia next month.

While many news outlets already noted Italian IOC member Mario Pescante’s criticism of the Obama administration for sending “four lesbians” as part of the US delegation to the Winter Olympics, most missed what else Pescante said.  He accused the United States, and gay rights advocates, of being political terrorists akin to “Chechnya.”

AP for example, has Pescante’s initial comments about the lesbians:

“It’s absurd that a country like that sends four lesbians to Russia just to demonstrate that in their country gay rights have (been established),” Mario Pescante said at an Italian Olympic Committee meeting in Milan on Wednesday, in comments widely reported by Italian media. “The games should not be an occasion and a stage to promote rights that sports supports daily.”

What AP missed was Pescante’s larger point about the US, gays, and those who raised concerns about the Tibet, etc. at previous Olympics, participating in “political terrorism.”

In fact, President Obama sent two openly-lesbian athletes, Billie Jean King and Caitlin Cahow, as part of the US delegation to the 2014 Winter Olympics. He also sent Brian Boitano, who has since come out as gay.  That’s 3 gay people overall, and 2 lesbians – at least openly.  Who are the other two lesbians?

Putting that aside, the more important issue is that the International Olympic Committee has been unfriendly to human rights since its inception.  And they handled the Russian gay crackdown, and Russia’s threats to jail gay Olympic athletes, horribly.  But to have a senior member of the International Olympic Committee accuse the US, President Obama, and gay rights advocates, of “terrorism,” is really beyond the pale.

Had the IOC had a spine, much of the controversy could have been nipped in the bud had Russia been told that its award of hosting the games was expressly contingent on compliance with ALL non-discrimination and human rights policies.   Better yet, it could have said "no" to Russia's bid.  But, instead, the IOC coddles tyrants and those who engage in human rights abuses.  A major overhaul of the IOC is needed and/or a replacement organization needs to be put in place. 

Second "Ex-Gay" Group Challenges Virginia Colleges Over Lack of Fraudulent "Ex-Gay-Therapy"

With every legitimate mental health and medical association condemning "ex-gay" reparative therapy, the states of New Jersey and California outright banning the practice for those under 18 years of age (additional states may follow suit), and Exodus International closing and admitting that few if anyone was actually "changed" by the witch doctor like "ex-gay" therapy the group promoted, hate group backed "ex-gays" are apparently getting desperate to find a way to remain even remotely legitimate.   Hence the recent move by two "ex-gay" groups to try to intimidate Virginia colleges and universities into providing "ex-gay" information to students.  One can only hope these colleges and universities - or perhaps more importantly, their liability insurance carriers - refuse to knuckle under to these threats and intimidation.    Promoting a discredited and dangerous "therapy" that is based solely on religious dogma would seem to be a liability lawsuit waiting to happen.  Again, with more and more Americans recognizing that the "choice" and "change" myths promoted by Christofascist are lies, fraudulent "ex-gay" ministries are desperate to try to change the playing field to regain a shred of legitimacy.  GayRVA looks at these efforts to intimidate public colleges and universities.  Here are highlights:

Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays & Gays (PFOX) is asking Virginia legislatures to stop funding “gay-transvestite centers at Virginia’s public universities,” claiming state funds are being used to “indocronate” youth into changing their faith.

Today’s announcement comes as a response to an undercover investigation produced last month by the ex-gay group Voice of the Voiceless which concluded that LGBTQ resource centers at Virginia state universities are discrediting the ex-gay community.

In a press release by PFOX their executive director Regina Griggs said these centers deny change is possible by refusing to accept ex-gays exists.

“Virginia taxpayers shouldn’t be forced to fund hatred and discrimination against ex-gays and people of faith,” Griggs said in the press release. “These biased and discriminatory lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender/questioning centers hide ex-gay resources and insist that students adopt a ‘gay-only’ mentality that rejects those who have changed their orientation from gay to straight while celebrating those who have changed their gender identity.”

Griggs said PFOX provides ex-gay brochures urging tolerance to these resource centers at many Virginia state universities but these LGBTQ centers refuse to make these resources available to students seeking guidance.

Ric Chollar is Associate Director for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer and Questioning (LGBTQ) Resources at the Northern Virginia college of George Mason University (GMU).
GMU was specifically criticized by Voice of the Voiceless when Chollar, who is also a licensed clinical social worker, told the undercover investigator to seek a Metropolitan Community Church and read, “The Lord is my Shepherd, and He Knows I’m Gay.”

“It wasn’t that I directed him to go just there,” Chollar said. “All throughout the interview I was trying to be very careful as I think all of us are in not giving advice or direction but instead presenting options and linking whatever suggestions and whatever possibilities come from the piece of himself that he is talking about.”

“The value we place is around encouraging students towards mental health, and towards happiness and towards success as students,” Chollar said about there being no evidence of ex-gay therapy being successful.

The American Physiological Association has publicly state ex-gay therapy does not work, and often is more harmful than anything else. A report was released in 2009 that detailed the results of their work.

“Contrary to claims of sexual orientation change advocates and practitioners, there is insufficient evidence to support the use of psychological interventions to change sexual orientation,” said Judith Glassgold, Psy.D., chair of the APA task force that examined sexual orientation change efforts (SOCE). “Contrary to the claims of SOCE practitioners and advocates, recent research studies do not provide evidence of sexual orientation change as the research methods are inadequate to determine the effectiveness of these interventions.”

If one does their homework, it quickly becomes clear that PFOX is funded almost solely by anti-gay hate groups and its national board of directors includes a who's who of hate merchants, some of whom make a plush living peddling lies.  In my opinion, "ex-gay" therapy needs to be banned nationwide.  In my view, the nastiest whore has more integrity than the folks at PFOX and Voice of the Voiceless.  If students are conflicted by their sexual orientation, they need to get legitimate therapy and over come the sick religious brainwashing that the Christofascists and their minions disseminate.

This situation also underscores why Mark Herring must be elected as Attorney General.  If his religious extremist opponent, Mark Obenshain is elected, Obenshain would likely pressure Virginia colleges and university to provide fraudulent "ex-gay" materials to students.  Countless young lives could be damaged as a consequence.

Virginia GOP (and The Christofascists) Kill Gay Non-Discrimination Bill

While honest and decent people may find grounds to differ on the issue of same sex marriage, polls indicate that some 90% of Virginians believe that employees should not be subject to being fired from their jobs simply because they are gay or lesbian.  Yet once again the Virginia GOP under relentless pressure from the Christofascists at The Family Foundation (an affiliate of the anti-gay hate group, Family Research Council) and the Virginia Assembly of Independent Baptist has killed a bill that would have protected STATE employees from being fired based on their sexual orientation.  Private employers would not even have been covered.  But protecting only state employees was too much for these Christofascist organizations who knowingly disseminate lies and untruths about LBGT individuals virtually daily as they also seek to destroy the separation of church and state in Virginia.  How do the Christofascists brow beat the GOP to go against the views of 90% of Virginians?  They threaten spineless GOP elected officials with primary challenges and, given how the Christofascists have taken over the grass roots of the Republican Party of Virginia, these whore like elected officials do the evil bidding of the haters at The Family Foundation.  The added irony is that Virginia desperately needs to attract new progressive businesses and employers to reduce dependence on federal spending.  Yet, by the killing of this non-discrimination bill today and by passing new racist voter ID requirements, the Virginia GOP has sent a strong message that Virginia is closed for business for all except religious extremists and white supremacists.  The Virginian Pilot has details on today's travesty.  Here are highlights:

Every year, they come to the Capitol, and every year they go away disappointed.  A dozen speakers pleaded with a House subcommittee Tuesday to approve legislation that would prohibit discrimination against state employees on the basis of sexual orientation.

At the end, as it does every year, the Republican-dominated panel tabled the Senate-passed measure (SB701), killing its chances of passage this session.  

"This is a bill about fairness," the patron, Sen. Donald McEachin, D-Henrico County, told the panel. "No one in the state workforce should have to worry about discrimination."

David Hanson, vice president for finance at VCU, said the lack of protection against discrimination is discouraging top talent from joining the faculty.  "It is not just about fairness - it's about business," he said.

Opponents, including the conservative Family Foundation and the Virginia Assembly of Independent Baptists, said there is no evidence that state employees are being discriminated against.  "There is no problem that this bill solves," said Del. Todd Gilbert, R-Shenandoah County. "Once again, we've heard from many people about this specter of oppression that really doesn't exist."

That's easy for Gilbert to say as a white man, retorted Del. Delores McQuinn, D-Richmond, who is black.  "Most white males can go wherever they desire," she said. "But discrimination is alive and well."

The dishonesty of The Family Foundation is stunning. My former client, Michael Moore, the former coach of the VCU volleyball team and many others who have been fired for being gay or lesbian prove that Family Foundation president Victoria Cobb and her minions to be nothing but deliberate liars.  As I have said many times before, in my opinion, the most tawdry whore has more integrity and honesty that Ms. Cobb.  She is a viper and a blight on Virginia.

Mitt Romney’s Son Went to Russia With a Secret Message for Putin

Mitt Romney and son Matt, at right

The lies and false posturing of Mitt Romney never end.  While some in the media are wringing their hands whining that Obama has "goner negative" they continue to give a total pass to the easily documented lies of Mitt Romney.   Lest we forget, America was suckered into the Iraq War because of the lies of Chimperator Geoprge Bush and Emperor Palpatine Cheney.  Lies that could have been exposed had the mainstream media pulled its collective thumb out of it ass and done some hard hitting investigative reporting.  We are seeing the same failure of the old main stream media in the current 21012 elections:  it refuses to expose lies and to call out liars.  The last post looked at Mitt Romney's lies on foreign policy towards Israel.  In the same presidential debate Romney sought to depict Russia as the USA's principal foreign policy foe and made claims that  he'd "get tough on Russia."  Apparently, that message was intended only for American voters who Romney seems to view as simple minded cretins.  Via his son Matt who is in Russia soliciting investors, Romney sent a different message to Putin: I'd ddin;t really mean what I said about Russia or getting tough.  New York Magazine looks at the message Romney was actually sending to Putin.  Here are excerpts:

Mitt Romney has made a point throughout his campaign to refer, with teeth, to Russia as our country's "number one geopolitical foe" and promising to have "more backbone" than Barack Obama when dealing with the Kremlin. But that's all just bluster, says Romney's second-oldest son Matt, who made a sojourn this week to the former Soviet Union in search of investors for his real estate company. According to Matt's colleague, it was just a "harmless trip," but the New York Times has the juicy geopolitical gossip via an anonymous source:

 [...] while in Moscow, Mr. Romney told a Russian known to be able to deliver messages to Mr. Putin that despite the campaign rhetoric, his father wants good relations if he becomes president, according to a person informed about the conversation.

Now we're used to these rascals saying things they don't mean, but that sure sounds like some massive foreign policy undermining just days before the election. Can a grown man get grounded?

The Romney campaign has opted not to comment, but we can imagine Mitt's defense in his own words: "Look, I got five boys. I'm used to people saying something that's not always true and just keep on repeating it and ultimately hoping I'll believe it." Who's getting fooled here?

Seriously, I believe that the most tawdry whore is a pillar of virtue and honesty compared to Mitt Romney.   I keep asking myself, are all Mormons this incredible dishonest?  Similarly, I keep wondering whether or not a majority of voters - or at least the non-racists among them - are stupid enough to believe anything Romney says.