You can purchase an autographed copy of Anything But Straight by sending a $35 check or money order to:
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Wayne Besen
PO Box 25491
Brooklyn, NY 11202
Since my book, Anything But Straight, came out in 2003, public opinion has dramatically shifted on whether being gay is a choice. Reuters reports the proportion of Americans who believe homosexuality is innate -- 36 percent, is up from 30 percent in 2003. Similarly, 49 percent believed homosexuals cannot be changed to heterosexual, compared to 42 percent in 2003.
Okay, I can't really take credit for this shift, but it certainly is fun trying.
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Blogger Joe Brummer has posted Guy Adams' absurd and bizarre response to Truth Win's Out's press release. On August 2, Adams appeared on "The Right View," an Internet radio show hosted by Neo-Puritan operative Stacy L. Harp. While discussing the recent Gay Games, a sporting event for the GLBT community that recently took place in Chicago, Adams made his outlandish comments: "The newest thing in Chicago, it's becoming a trend, and you're gonna find this hard to believe sex with infants."
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Renew America's Guy Adams Reaches 'New Low In Gay Bashing,' Says TWO
Miami Beach, FLA. - Truth Wins Out today called on Renew America's Chairman Alan Keyes to dismiss Guy Adams, the group's Deputy National Grassroots Director, after he made hateful and defamatory remarks against the gay and lesbian community on an Internet radio show. Adams' comments linking homosexuality with infant pedophilia reached "a deplorable new low in gay bashing," said TWO's executive director Wayne Besen.
On August 2, Adams appeared on "The Right View," an Internet radio show hosted by Neo-Puritan operative Stacy L. Harp. While discussing the recent Gay Games, a sporting event for the GLBT community that recently took place in Chicago, Adams made his outlandish comments:
"The newest thing in Chicago, it's becoming a trend, and you're gonna find this hard to believe...sex with infants," Adams said, without offering evidence to back his preposterous and offensive claim. "It's not enough that they have...you know when you engage in perversion, and homosexuality is perversion, we don't hate the gays mind you, we don't hate them, we hate what they're doing...pretty soon that perversion is like addiction, it's not enough, so you need to graduate to something else. You need to move on. So now they're having sex with animals, a small group that's getting bigger, sex with infants, sex in the street in Chicago out in the open, it's just getting more and more perverted."
"The slurs by Adams are a shameful attempt to dehumanize an entire community and he has taken anti-gay propaganda to a disgraceful nadir," said Truth Wins Out's Executive Director Wayne Besen. "These remarks are intended to incite hatred and Alan Keyes should make it clear that Renew America does not support such rhetoric by immediately distancing the group from Adams."
Aside from working with Renew America, Adams claims to be a law enforcement officer and was Keyes' bodyguard in the 2004 Senatorial elections. His comments were part of an onslaught of mendacious anti-gay rhetoric spewed on the radio show. Early in the interview Adams dismissed the contributions of GLBT people to society by saying, "what contributions, AIDS, pornography?" He also referred to gay people as "a very angry and violent group when confronted with the truth."
"It seems there are no moral boundaries the anti-gay industry won't cross in its efforts to distort the lives of gay people and propagate malignant myths," said Besen. "We must be vigilant because each day this right wing extreme pumps divisive and destructive political poison into the mainstream, leading to prejudice and persecution."
The bigoted broadcast was originally discovered by blogger Joe Brummer who said, "Think about some of the outlandish claims made about groups of people over the course of history and then think about the claims that Guy Adams is making. I wish people would stop this horrible rhetoric. It is just so wrong."
Truth Wins OUT is a non-profit think tank and advocacy organization that counters right wing misinformation campaigns, debunks the ex-gay myth, and provides accurate information about the lives of GLBT people.
A few weeks ago, I had to temporarily suspend my policy of allowing my comments section to be a "Free Speech Zone." I was forced to do this because people who are likely paid recloseted homosexuals abused this privilege and camped out on my site 24/7 to post the most inane and insane rantings imaginable.
Since I pulled the plug on the ship of fools, my numbers have gone up and I have gotten positive feedback from my longtime, dedicated readers. Therefore, I have extended my ban on anonymous, paid fundamentalist flaks until September. This site will remain asshole-free for another 30 days. At this point, I may consider opening it to all normal, thinking people. However, if the site is abused by right wingers who lack class and manners, I will have to take action.
Thanks for your loyalty, love and daily contributions. I greatly value my readers and want to keep the clutter from devaluing your enjoyment of this site.
I remember a few well-meaning friends telling me that I was "overreacting" when I expressed outrage over Mel Gibson's sinister portrayal of Jews in his biblical blockbuster, "The Passion of the Christ." Thanks to Gibson's well oiled PR machine, even smart people were able to justify, as mere "coincidence," Gibson's full-cast of beady-eyed Jews with noses longer than Toucan Sam's. It was Gibson's other enduring passion, bountiful booze, that finally revealed the actor to be the hatemongering anti-Semite that I had suspected. Last week, he was arrested for drunk driving by Los Angeles County Sheriff's deputies in Malibu. According to the report, in addition to threatening the arresting officer and trying to flee, Gibson said, "The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world," and asked the officer, James Mee, "Are you a Jew?"
In today's tightly scripted world, nothing is more entertaining than watching public relations give way to embarrassing public revelations. Sometimes, the expensive and controlled image campaign is no match for the out of control star who imbibed too much cheap Champagne.
Whether it's Tom Cruise's fanaticism, Michael Jackson's fetishism or Mel Gibson's fascism, it is a rare treat to see genuine personalities escape the guard of watchful publicists.
The ugly emergence of the true self is not relegated to Hollywood stars. For the past several years, ex-gay groups have worked diligently to appear as if they loved homosexuals. But, Alan Chambers, the leader of the ex-gay group Exodus International, told Focus on the Family's online magazine that gay people are inferior.
"I think their long-term goal is to portray themselves as equals, as people who are the same as heterosexuals, that their lifestyle is just as legitimate as heterosexuality," Chambers said last week.With one burst of unfiltered honesty, Chambers threw away years of work presenting his organization as compassionate and mainstream.
In an equally candid moment, President Bush recently gave German Chancellor Angela Merkel an unwanted massage, causing the flabbergasted fraulein to flinch. Earlier that week, his true nature came bumbling forth in a foreign policy conversation with Tony Blair. "You see," he told the British Prime Minister, "the thing is what they [The United Nations] need to do is to get Syria, to get Hezbollah to stop doing this shit and it's over." While these incidents were inconsequential, they were a rare window into Bush-style diplomacy that offered a hint at why the globe is currently on fire.Fortunately, good can also occur when people escape their handlers to speak from the heart.
Former 'N Sync star Lance Bass decided that coming out is easier than hiding out in outer space. He revealed that he is gay on the cover of People Magazine and has so far been an eloquent spokesperson."The thing is, I'm not ashamed and that's the one thing I want to say," Bass says of his decision to come out.
"I don't think it's wrong, I'm not devastated going through this. I'm more liberated and happy than I've been my whole life. I'm just happy."
In another outburst of honesty, conservative Minnesota mega-church pastor Gregory Boyd has become America's most articulate advocate of separation of church and state. In a shocking series of sermons, he revealed that he thought right wing spin was overshadowing Scripture.
"America wasn't founded as a theocracy," he preached, according to The New York Times."America was founded by people trying to escape theocracies. Never in history have we had a Christian theocracy where it wasn't bloody and barbaric. That's why our Constitution wisely put in a separation of church and State.
"When the church wins the culture wars, it inevitably loses," he continued. "When it conquers the world, it becomes the world. When you put your trust in the sword, you lose the cross."
In a similar manner, former football star and conservative preacher Reggie White started speaking the truth before his untimely death in 2004. White was upset about the way he was used by the far right to promote religion. In 1998, he even took part in a virulently anti-gay ad campaign that said gays could go straight through Scripture."Really, in many respects I was prostituted," White revealed to NFL Films.
On Saturday, White will be inducted into the Hall of Fame. However, one of his great achievements was not on the defensive line, but bucking the religious right's party line.
In the black hole of the human soul, some people, like Boyd and White, finally see the light. On other days, in a drunken haze, a floodlight reveals the darkness of one's true passions. Sometimes, even good PR can't hide who you truly are.
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SAN DIEGO -- Five gay men were beaten with baseball bats and one of themwas stabbed as they left the San Diego LGBT Pride Festival around 10:45p.m. on July 29.The attacks, perpetrated by three white males, occurred in a shortperiod of time in the same general area of Balboa Park after the victimsdeparted a main-stage concert by '80s pop singer Deborah (Debbie)Gibson. One of the men "had his skull bashed in and he's going to have to havereconstructive surgery," said Fred Sainz, openly gay press secretary to Mayor Jerry Sanders. The other four were treated at hospitals and released.
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We all knew deep down that Mel Gibson was a homophobic anti-Semite with a psychotic view of Jesus and a "passion" for booze. But even his critics never knew he was even worse than they had suspected.
On Friday, the dark-hearted drunkard was arrested for slushing behind the wheel by Los Angeles County Sheriff's deputies in Malibu. On his way to the hoose gow, he spewed the most disgusting and bigoted remarks imaginable against Jews. Very much like his Holocaust denying father, Mel spit out stereotypes and hate speech, possibly ending his infamous career.
"It's a nuclear disaster for him," said publicist Michael Levine, who has represented Michael Jackson and Charlton Heston, among others. "I don't see how he can restore himself."
According to the report, in addition to threatening the arresting deputy and trying to escape, Gibson said, "The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world," and asked the officer, James Mee, "Are you a Jew?" The report has not been made public, but the Los Angeles Times reported Sunday that it had independently verified its authenticity.
Even more disturbing was that so many Americans saw the Passion of the Christ and actually found it spiritually redeeming. It was a religious Rocky movie with nauseating amounts of violence and a clearly Anti-Semitic subplot. The Jews in the movie all had noses the size of bananas and looked sinister. And the amount of blood that spilled was more suitable for a "Friday the 13" movie - yet people brought their children. The fact that so many people found such a horrible and sadistic depiction of religion to be uplifting, says a lot about the state of conservatism in America. If Mel Gibson is your religious icon, I can only feel deep pity for you.
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