In a letter to the Palm Springs Desert Sun about the Love Won Out conference in Indian Wells, Focus on the Family’s Bill Maier managed to be untruthful in nearly every paragraph. Considering the extent of the deception, it is difficult to be charitable and assume it was unintentional.
Consider:
We’ll admit, our conference offers a perspective on homosexuality that is in stark contrast to that which is touted by America’s major gay organizations. While they claim that homosexuals are “born gay,” we agree with the official position of the American Psychiatric Association that homosexuality develops across a person’s lifetime and is likely caused by a complex combination of factors.
Deception One: most gay organizations do not claim that homosexuals are “born gay”. Offhand, I can’t think of any that do.
Deception Two: I am not aware of any APA claim that homosexuality develops across a person’s lifetime. Nor could I find anything at the APA site that supported such a bizarre and observably incorrect notion. That appears to be a complete fabrication on Maier’s part. UPDATE: It does appear that the American Psychiatric Association does say that “sexual orientation develops across a person’s lifetime”. It is important to note that it also says later on the same page:
The American Psychiatric Association opposes any psychiatric treatment, such as “reparative” or “conversion” therapy, which is based upon the assumption that homosexuality per se is a mental disorder, or based upon a prior assumption that the patient should change his/ her homosexual orientation.
but Maier was correct in the wording of the quote he took out of context.
Our purpose is to reach out with compassion to those struggling with unwanted same-sex attraction and their family members, debunking the myth propagated by gay activists that sexual orientation is fixed for life and cannot be modified.
Deception Three: If that is your purpose, then why is so much of your budget, time, efforts, and language directed to social and political activism? And why are the attendees at your events overwhelming not same-sex attracted? Based on all measures, LWO’s purpose has little whatsoever to do with reaching out with compassion to those struggling with same-sex attraction. This seems to just be something Maier says to impress or influence the public.
So what will those who attend hear? Courageous men and women like my ex-gay friends Mike, Melissa, Alan and Randy, delivering a message of hope and healing to those living with unwanted same-sex attraction.
Deception Four: What attendees will hear will also include political activism, lies about “the homosexual lifestyle”, bizarre statements about “all gays were molested”, and demonization of gay people. And what little hope or healing is offered will be based on claims that “change is possible” even if it consists solely of a religious conversion and a change of self-administered labels. In fact, Maier portion of the program will be dedicated to political activism and vilification of gays and lesbians. Yet Maier omits all of the anti-gay rhetoric that he plans on spewing out of his definition of the program.
Press them, and they might tell you how gay activists often confront them in public and scream “You don’t exist!” in their faces.
Deception Five: Oh really. Maier actually claims that someone has confronted Mike, Melissa, Alan and Randy and screamed “You don’t exist” in their faces. Well that’s the first time we’ve heard of it and frankly, Bill, I think you’re lying. Not only does this not happen “often”, but I doubt it has ever happened once.
Although gay organizations have tried to suppress it, recent scientific research confirms that permanent change is indeed possible. Just ask psychiatrist Robert Spitzer…
Deception Six: OK, let’s ask him. The last time anyone did his response was: “Unfortunately Focus on the Family has once again reported findings of my study out of context to support their fight against gay rights,”
Spitzer conducted a five-year study of 200 gay men and women who had sought “reorientation” therapy. He found that most of them have achieved fulfilling, long-term heterosexual relationships.
Deception Seven: No, Spitzer conducted a study of 200 gay men and women who were convinced that they had successfully reoriented. The vast majority of gays and lesbians who sought “reorientation” therapy were not part of the study precisely because it failed abysmally. In fact, a huge percentage of those who told Dr. Spitzer on the telephone that they had achieved fulfilling, long-term heterosexual relationships worked for ex-gay organizations and had employment or status that was dependent upon convincing themselves and others of exactly that.
Deception Eight: Spitzer’s study was not five years because he studied the participants for that long. It was five years because it took that long to find 200 people who thought they had reoriented. Buy Maier makes it sound like Spitzer spent more than 45 minutes per subject. Not true Maier, not true.
Our hope is that some who come to protest us will set aside their picket signs and give the speakers a fair hearing.
Deception Nine: Really? Does that mean that when I show up you’ll let me attend for free? Will you let me ask questions about some of the more incredible claims? Or is a “fair hearing” one in which I can pay your fees, sit quietly, and ask no questions?
Now I have one more question for Bill Maier: How do you sleep at night?
Spitzer’s study was not five years because he studied the participants for that long.
Reminds me of Paul Cameron’s citing what was actually a letter to the editor in the New England Journal Of Medicine to back up his claim about gay people ingesting feces, as though he was citing a peer reviewed study. It’s the kind of telling mendacity that cannot be mistaken for anything but what it is. There is no way Maire isn’t perfectly aware of what he is doing there. But that’s not what you need to pay attention to. What’s important to realize is that Maire must also know that someone familiar with the study would know instantly that he’s being deceptive. He not only knows he’s being dishonest, he doesn’t care that you know it too.
That kind of behavior does not make sense in the light of their stated goals. But it makes perfect sense as an exercise in demagoguery and hate mongering. Eric Hoffer once said that propaganda doesn’t fool people, it merely allows them to fool themselves. Maire probably could not care less how well you or anyone else here can see through him. The people who would even care that he’s being deceptive, let alone know it, are not his audience.
Maybe he thinks he’s serving a higher truth. Maybe that’s what he tells himself whenever he looks in a mirror. There’s a line in the Lord of the Rings film (I haven’t read the books so I don’t know if it’s in there too or not) where Gandalf tells Saruman that there is only one lord of the ring, and he does not share power. Hate is like that. It will not tolerate anything else within us, and eventually all our better nature, everything noble within us, everything fine and decent we could ever become, either has to be thrown overboard, or hate does. I think of that line every time I watch yet another man of the cloth look calmly at someone and lie through their teeth about their homosexual neighbors. I think of that line whenever I see yet another otherwise decent person start babbling things about gay people they flatly know to be untrue. Hate does not share power. It will not tolerate anything else within you but itself. Not even the love of God.
I think you’re right, Mr. Kincaid. There is hardly anyone at these conferences who are gay. (This includes: gay oriented and recovering gays.)
Would not you think by now we would have tens of thousands of recovering gays. At least a number of them who could have filled a medium-sized convention center to share in some sort of intra-support and camaraderie. Would you not think they would charter a ship and have an ex-gay cruise with their families?
As I see it, there are probably only enough ex-gays to fill a dingy.
“Hate does not share power. It will not tolerate anything else within you but itself. Not even the love of God.”
Beautifully put
cowboy said:
Would not you think by now we would have tens of thousands of recovering gays. At least a number of them who could have filled a medium-sized convention center to share in some sort of intra-support and camaraderie.
Good point, perhaps some “promise keeper” style stadium event? With all these hundreds of thousands of conversions per year, that should be easy to arrange.
David
Awesome to the last sentence.
I particularly liked:
Or is a “fair hearing” one in which I can pay your fees, sit quietly, and ask no questions?
Ex-freakin’-zactly!!!
I think “fair to them and them only” is their true definition of “fairness” in every issue.
Timothy: I see Maier’s editorial a bit differently.
1. Offhand I can think of several gay spokespeople and groups that advocate a gay at birth view: e.g., Wayne Besen, the Tolerance.org folks, the Born Different ad campaign. Time does not permit a full search but this is not a terribly controversial point. Now recently, some groups are saying it doesn’t matter what the etiology is when it comes to rights (e.g., HRC). However, there are enough examples of advocates taking the innate view that I think Maier’s point here is understandable.
2. The APA website has a Q&A on sexual orientation which includes this statement: “Some people believe that sexual orientation is innate and fixed; however, sexual orientation develops across a person’s lifetime.”
3. I have heard this directed at the people at the Ex-gay Educators Caucus (at the NEA convention two years ago). Wayne has said it in print. In the highly emotionally charged environment this debate takes place in, it doesn’t seem surprising to me. Things are said by folks on both sides of this issue that would best not be said.
4. On the Spitzer study, Maier did mistakenly quote it as a “five-year study” confirming that “permanent change is possible.” It was over two years but the subjects had to have experienced change for five years as a criteria for inclusion. Further, it was not a longitudinal study and had no follow up so it cannot be said that permanence was assessed. On the other hand, Bob has never backed away from his belief that some people change at a profound level. He believes the change is rare but that under some conditions, it occurs.
Warren, perhaps you got a pre-release copy; rather than what was actually published?
1. Maier said “touted by America’s major gay organizations” — not, as you imply, merely some gay individuals or some unnamed “groups”.
In fact, none of the major gay organization disagree with the APsA. HRC. GLAAD. PFLAG. NGLTF. etc. Feel free to check. They tend to use “A person’s sexual orientation is defined by their enduring emotional, romantic, sexual or affectional attraction to other people.” or similar. Which is a direct quote from the APA.
While LWO may agree with that single sentence from the APsA, Maier neglects to mention that EVERY PROFESSIONAL BODY has categorically rejected the entire premise of LWO. It may be guaranteed that not a single presentation at LWO would find agreement from any professional body.
2. See above. This, of course, is not the same thing as claiming sexual orientation may be wilfully changed.
3. So, you turn up at the 2004 convention flogging a DVD “I do Exist”… and some people no doubt responded with “No you don’t”.
But who was “screaming” at you, as example?
(And what’s up with Noe these days?)
And “Mike, Melissa, Alan and Randy” hardly need be pressed to make these claims of abuse. They volunteer it, constantly.
The problem isn’t that we fail to notice that they do indeed exist — they do, obviously. They are simply regarded as existing as liars, that is all.
4. The specifics of the Spitzer paper isn’t the only, or even major, thing that Maier has wilfully misrepresented. Do you agree with Maier on either of the following?
> Did Spitzer work to change the DSM in 1973 because he was a pro-gay political activist?
> Which “gay organzations have tried to suppress it”? As if they could, even if they wanted to. Denouncing the paper as a load of codswallop is not suppression.
When left to his own devices, or at the bidding of his employer, Maier makes the most disgusting and unsupported statements about gay men and women. Including pulling the paedophilia card.
No gay person, or our friends and family, need tolerate or respect an abusive person like Maier, or Focus on the Family. They are dedicated to intolerance, and have no desire for diversity… witness the attempt by Focus to maitain the criminal laws against gay men and women.
Those facts, and the basic lie that is behind LWO, deserves to be published, rejected and scorned.
Warren:
The quote you are using (“Some people believe that sexual orientation is innate and fixed; however, sexual orientation develops across a person’s lifetime.”) does not appear on the page you linked. Do you have a better source for this quote?
What the APA website says is “There are numerous theories about the origins of a person’s sexual orientation; most scientists today agree that sexual orientation is most likely the result of a complex interaction of environmental, cognitive and biological factors. In most people, sexual orientation is shaped at an early age.”
I’ve seen the quote you used on anti-gay websites but I’ve not yet seen it actually used by the APA.
Also, I know that many gays say “ex-gays don’t exist”. But that isn’t what Meier claimed. He wrote that gay people screamed “you don’t exist” in the face of Melissa, Mike, etc. And I just don’t believe that this is true. I think Bill was saying something that he know would sound outrageous and which would make the reader sympathize with Melissa, Mike, etc. and would cause the reader to thing that gay people are viscious.
And if you think about it, Warren, I think you will agree that the scenario that Bill describe just doesn’t ring true. Now people who don’t know any “gay activists” might believe him, but I really doubt that you personally think that there were repeated instances in which different people screamed “you don’t exist” in anyone’s face.
In other words, I think Bill lied.
And he can “yeah, but” all he likes. And he can think that it was basically almost the same kind of thing. Or he can think writing “ex-gays don’t exist” is the same as screaming “you don’t exist” in someone’s face. But if your purpose is to tell something that isn’t quite true just so you can gain sympathy and villify another, that’s called lying.
Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe it happened. But, really!! C’mon. I don’t think you believe it any more than I do.
Urgh, yes it does Timothy. Second paragraph. Third sentence.
See — your mother was right. You did eventually go blind because you… [rest of expression removed to protect the sentitive among us]
🙂
Sorry, forth sentence.
Obviously I never listened to my mother either.
OK I must be completely blind…
I’ve read and reread and still don’t see “across a person’s lifetime”.
Y’all, here is the entire first Q&A:
What is Sexual Orientation?
“Sexual orientation” is a term frequently used to describe a person’s romantic, emotional or sexual attraction to another person. A person attracted to another person of the same sex is said to have a homosexual orientation and may be called gay (both men and women) or lesbian. Individuals attracted to persons of the other sex are said to have a heterosexual orientation. Sexual orientation falls along a continuum and individuals who are attracted to both men and women are said to be bisexual. Sexual orientation is different from gender identity, which refers to the internal sense of whether one is male or female. Sexual orientation is a relatively new concept. In fact, although same sex behavior has always existed, the idea of a homosexual identity or a homosexual person is only about 100 years old.
The concept of sexual orientation refers to more than sexual behavior. It includes feelings as well as identity. Some individuals may identify themselves as gay lesbian or bisexual without engaging in any sexual activity. Some people believe that sexual orientation is innate and fixed; however, sexual orientation develops across a person’s lifetime. Individuals maybe become aware at different points in their lives that they are heterosexual, gay, lesbian, or bisexual.
RE: the “you don’t exist” thing. At the NEA convention, members of the Gay Educators Caucus (they had little badges on) said this in my hearing toward those at the Ex-gay Caucus booth. One man also mentioned that I had a special place in hell. Clever. Actually, after his creative salutation, we had a nice chat.
Sorry, the previous post was from me.
RE: the “you don’t exist” thing. At the NEA convention, members of the Gay Educators Caucus (they had little badges on) said this in my hearing toward those at the Ex-gay Caucus booth. One man also mentioned that I had a special place in hell. Clever. Actually, after his creative salutation, we had a nice chat.
Dr Throckmorton- I think the truthiness on trial here was the claim that this gets screamed in the faces of people. I trust you are not saying this happened at the NEA convention.
Actually folks, Dr. Warren Throckmorton is a fictional entity created by a secret government research project. Grove City College is really a secret training facility for the CIA.
Warren Throckmorton, YOU DON’T EXIST!!!!!
There, now you can say it’s happened to you 😉
Warren,
Something freaky is going on… when I linked to the site I got different language. What I get is:
What Is Sexual Orientation?
Sexual Orientation is an enduring emotional, romantic, sexual or affectional attraction to another person. It is easily distinguished from other components of sexuality including biological sex, gender identity (the psychological sense of being male or female) and the social gender role (adherence to cultural norms for feminine and masculine behavior).
Sexual orientation exists along a continuum that ranges from exclusive homosexuality to exclusive heterosexuality and includes various forms of bisexuality. Bisexual persons can experience sexual, emotional and affectional attraction to both their own sex and the opposite sex. Persons with a homosexual orientation are sometimes referred to as gay (both men and women) or as lesbian (women only).
Sexual orientation is different from sexual behavior because it refers to feelings and self-concept. Persons may or may not express their sexual orientation in their behaviors.
And that’s it for the first section
I’m perplexed. Has the language changed? Am I completely delusional? Am I linking to some site other than you (I’m clicking on the link from your post)
Also, to be sure about what you are saying:
Are you indicating that someone with the Gay Educators Caucus actually screamed in someone’s face “You don’t exist”, those words?
Something freaky is going on.
And then there’s that APsA page 😛
We are DEFINATELY getting, second paragraph:
Urgh. Just realised what’s happening: Timothy, I think you’re reading the APA page we linked to. Warren linked to the APsA “HealthMinds” page. Any wonder what you said and he said BOTH sounded familiar!
Warren’s original link here.
Our link here. The other “APA”!
Glad that’s cleared up. We thought our cache had gone berko or something.
Just for clarifacation, although I know nobody on Earth will ever take any notice…
I understand it’s “typical” to refer to:
APA: American Psychological Association
APsA : American Psychiatric Association
APsaA: American Psychoanalytic Association.
So confusing.
(The first are therapists, the second give you drugs. The third wear black homburgs, smoke pipes, have beards, and provide a striped chaise lounge in their rooms. Particularly. the female ones. They are the ones that always want to know when you started hating your mother. Because knowing that, of course, completely explains why you just appeared at McDonalds brandishing a loaded Uzi.)
One man also mentioned that I had a special place in hell. Clever
Warren, you do understand that is how gay men and women are referred to — constantly — by Exodus, NARTH, Focus, “Concerned Woman” Bob Knight, [rest of list removed for brevity]. And it’s the viewpoint that some wish to sneak into any discussion of homosexuality in schools.
Jeepers, if one mild exchange at the NEA bothered you so much; and you were instantly ready to question his intelligence … perhaps you need revisit your seeming unwillingness to ever mention the impact of a lifetime of such exchanges on particular individuals?
Grantdale said:
Warren, you do understand that is how gay men and women are referred to — constantly — by Exodus, NARTH, Focus, “Concerned Woman” Bob Knight, [rest of list removed for brevity]. And it’s the viewpoint that some wish to sneak into any discussion of homosexuality in schools.
AMEN! It’s not just a sin, but an ABOMINATION. I have personally heard pastors tell me that homosexuality is a greater sin than others, or that God especially hates that sin, etc. Small jump to “a special place in hell” don’t you think? Truly Warren, this one gets no sympathy from me.