You can purchase an autographed copy of Anything But Straight by sending a $35 check or money order to:
-------------------------
Wayne Besen
PO Box 25491
Brooklyn, NY 11202
Truth Wins Out criticized Republican Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin today for repeatedly saying in an interview with Katie Couric on CBS News that homosexuality is a choice.
"We are disturbed that a person on the cusp of enormous power could hold such backward and unscientific views," said Wayne Besen, Executive Director of Truth Wins Out. "She seems to be in lockstep with her church, that promoted a 'pray away the gay' conference in Anchorage. We hope Palin will choose to educate herself so she will learn that being gay is not a casual choice, like eating moose stew for dinner. We want her to understand that you can't pray away the gay."
Truth Wins Out Executive Director Wayne Besen sent Palin his book today, "Anything But Straight: Unmasking the Scandals and Lies Behind the Ex-Gay Myth." He hopes it will bring her up to speed on the latest science on homosexuality, as well as introduce her to the damage done to gay people who "choose" to go straight. Every respected medical and mental health association in America -- including the American Psychiatric Association and the American Psychological Association -- warn that so-called "ex-gay" sexual engineering programs can be harmful.
"And you know, I don't know what prayers are worthy of being prayed and I don't know what prayers are going to be answered or not answered. But as for homosexuality, I am not going to judge Americans and the decisions that they make in their adult personal relationships. I have one of my absolute best friends for the last 30 years who happens to be gay, and I love her dearly, and she is not my 'gay friend, she is one of my best friends, who happens to have made a choice that isn't a choice that I have made. But I'm not going to judge people."
21 Comments:
I wonder if Palin chose to be straight? And that's the question all straights including that Alaskan bimbo have to answer as they ask if we choose to be gay. Let's see what idiocies they (she) comes up with.
posted by richard schillen, at
10/01/2008 1:46 PM
Nice gesture Wayne, but considering she cant even name 1 magazine or newspaper that she reads, I doubt that she will ever crack open your book. She'll probably use it for target practice. BTW, I think her 'good friend' the lesbian needs to sit Sarah down and disabuse her of the 'it's a choice' canard. Gary (NJ)
posted by Anonymous, at
10/01/2008 2:59 PM
Wayne, I don't know if you've heard of the Mercy Ministries scandal. It's big news in Australia. They exorcise demons out of the mentally ill and also out of GLBT individuals. According to an article in the Nashville Scene, Alcorn is doing gay conversion therapy even though she herself is gay. See:
P.S. If you guys want more information about Mercy Ministries a number of blogs are up about it, including my own.
posted by John Weaver, at
10/01/2008 5:35 PM
does anyone know what the blue hyperlinks on other comment sites on this blog are? They look like random symbols, are many lines long and link to chinese sites.
And dinosaurs either existed alongside Adam and Eve, or their bones were put in the ground by Satan to trick us.
Palin said exactly what conservative Christians wanted to hear. In the grand Christian tradition, she paid lip service to tolerance while simultaneously trivializing the lives and relationship of gay people and their family.
Sounds like your average rightwing Christian to me. I seriously hope nobody is surprised by this...
posted by Anonymous, at
10/01/2008 7:11 PM
This is hardly surprising. Heterosexism + complete lack of fact-based sexual knowledge + delivered with a friendly smile = the registered trademark of evangelicalism. Either her "friend" is self-loathing, about to become an ex-friend, or--most likely--a fabrication. -Josh
posted by Anonymous, at
10/01/2008 8:04 PM
Oh Eshto - somehow you took one sentnce someone wrote and then added your own and applied that to all people who believe differently about homosexuality than you?
Sound like a leap in logic - sort of the same thing some christians do????
Same boat (stupid) - different name (eshto or conservative christian)
Do us a favor if you are going to try and make a point - be logical. You're making gay people look about as dim witted as others.
posted by Anonymous, at
10/01/2008 10:06 PM
Richard, she will probably say...well, it was god's intention to make her straight, the right way of course because most humans are. Like Bush and many neocons, she has no intellectual curiosity whatsoever.
Anonymous.....there is also no proof or evidence that homosexuality is a choice either, its all theory and supposition. Can you prove that heterosexuality is or isn't a choice? Can you prove that it too can be prayed away? If christo fascist homophobes claim they can pray away the gay, then the same must be true of heterosexuality. Maybe Palin believes that one can pray away one's eye color next.
Does she really believe that someone would honesly choose to be gay with all the discrimination, stigma, denial of basic civil rights and denigration that she and her ilk inflict on others by their bigotry and hypocrisy?
I for one am proud and glad to be who I am and who would want to be like Palin or any other moron for that matter if there were a choice?
posted by Anonymous, at
10/02/2008 5:58 AM
I think Ms. Palin should be asked the following question about homosexuality: "Millions of gays and lesbians say outright that they did not choose to be gay; that they were probably born that way, but, above all, it was not something that they had any say over. Do you accept what they say or do you think they are mistaken, deluded, confused or something else, and if so, why?"
posted by Anonymous, at
10/02/2008 10:10 AM
The earlier comment about the Mercy Ministries reminded me of the 2004 UK saga of the Gilbert Deya "ministry".
Comfortably-off and otherwise sensible middle-class couples who had been childless were persuaded to believe that the wife was pregnant with a miracle baby, which she had to go to a backstreet clinic in Kenya to deliver.
Deya was of course found to be implcated in child trafficing. Pregnant Kenyan girls wanting abortions were paid to carry their child to term then hand the baby over, whereupon it would be foisted on a desperate and gullible British couple.
The extraordinary thing in it all, was the willingness of the couples to suspend disbelief. One wonders how long they could have kept up the self-deception.
It reminded me of people who buy into orientation change either by "therapy" or "ministry". They kind of believe it inside themselves, some of them, for a time anyway - even though when they have a "moral fall" it is ALWAYS with one of their own sex.
posted by Anonymous, at
10/02/2008 5:32 PM
No - you can't pray away the gay. But I think it would be valid to pinpiont her opinon exactly.
What she is saying for sure - and this is what a lot of conservatives are saying is that - no one has a choice over the feelings they have but they do have a choice over what they do with those feelings. Another issue coming out is that conservatives are now saying that even if one has the inborn trait of being gay or predisposed to being gay - that it doesn't matter - since genes can account for pretty much all of our traits such as alcoholism, violence, low mortality rates within families, etc.... And unfortunately, that really is true. What it comes down to is whether or not you want to believe that it is wrong or right - or that it doesn't matter.
I hope we get to the place of - it doesn't matter - and soon.
posted by Anonymous, at
10/03/2008 11:22 PM
