Building on David Robert’s post on the Richard Cohen portion of The Rachel Maddow Show, Randy Thomas, Vice President of Exodus International, had some things to say about the exchange.

Randy Thomas: I am going to share a review of the actual interview and then move into how I believe she, and some other militant gay activists, are missing the point with regard to Uganda’s anti-homosexuality bill.

Transcript, edited for brevity, emphases mine:

MADDOW: But you have told them, particularly in your book, “Coming Out Straight,” which I understand you donated multiple copies of to this organization that‘s promoting this bill. You‘re telling them exactly what they need to hear in order to justify the kill-the-gays bill. I mean, your book portrays gay people as predators who must be stopped to protect the innocent.

COHEN: Oh, no, no, no.

MADDOW: Let me ask – I‘ll just read from your book, OK? Page 49, “Homosexuals are at least 12 times more likely to molest children than heterosexuals. Homosexual teachers are at least seven times more likely to molest a pupil. Homosexual teachers are estimated to have committed at least 25 percent of pupil molestation; 40 percent of molestation assaults were made by those who engage in homosexuality.”

This is the claim that you make in your book that exactly feeds these folks who want to execute people for being gay, what they need in order to justify that. Do you stand by what you said in your book?

COHEN: Actually, you know, that one particular quote, when I do republish it, reprint it, we will extract that from it, because we don‘t want such things to be used against homosexual persons.

MADDOW: That quote is cited – you cite somebody named Paul Cameron as the source of that book.

COHEN: I see that they‘re using it, but you took that one little quote out of a 300-page book.

“you took that one little quote out of a 300-page book”

That “one little quote” may be edited out of Cohen’s next revision, but it’s a paltry excision in light of the other “little” quotes in his book.

But first, a bit of context. Cohen cites Dr. Joseph Nicolosi—co-founder of the anti-gay organization, NARTH (National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuality)—repeatedly, in the effort to demonstrate (simplified) that same-sex attraction can be “overcome,” and that it all boils down to distant same-sex parenting, or clingy opposite-sex parenting.

Much of Cohen’s book is dedicated to promulgating the concept that gays can become straight–a key factor in justifying the passage of anti-gay laws, and the non-passage of pro-equality laws.

Richard Cohen, Coming Out Straight: NARTH conducted a survey of 860 respondents and found that those who want to change their sexual orientation may succeed. [p24]

In addition to the Paul Cameron “research” that Cohen asserts he will take out of his next reprint, there are several other cases of misused studies that were not mentioned in the interview.

Included are some of the anti-gay industry’s favorites to show that gay men are unfaithful sluts at heart (you monogamous lesbians, as usual, are safe on this front).

Richard Cohen, Coming Out Straight: The Gay Rights Movement, the media, the educational system, and the mental-health profession tell use that homosexuality is normal and natural. Let us observe some of the statistics about homosexual behavior and see if this condition is, in fact, normal:

“The Kinsey Institute published a study of homosexual males living in San Francisco which reports that 43 percent had sex with 500 or more partners, 28 percent had sex with 1,000 or more partners, and 79 percent said that over half of their sex partners were strangers.” [p48]

(Ergo, all gay men are male nymphomaniacs.)

That “particular” quote is footnoted as: Alan Bell and Martin Weinberg, Homosexualities: A Study of Diversity Among Men and Women (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1978) , 308-312

As Alvin McEwen of Holy Bullies and Headless Monsters reports:

A citation of the book Homosexualities: A Study of Diversity Among Men and Women by Alan Bell and Martin Weinberg as a correct generalization of lgbt sexual habits despite the fact that it was written in 1978 and was not meant by the authors to be a correct assessment of the lgbt community in general…

…“. . . given the variety of circumstances which discourage homosexuals from participating in research studies, it is unlikely that any investigator will ever be in a position to say that this or that is true of a given percentage of all homosexuals.”

We then get the claims that gays and lesbians are more prone to drug and alcohol abuse, that gay teen suicides are over reported, and that gay men are “six times more likely to have attempted suicide than heterosexual men.”

And then, on cue, we are given one of the anti-gay industry’s most famous misused study from the 1984 McWhirter and Mattison book, The Male Couple, to show that 95% of male couples are unfaithful.

Yet, from the first page of the Introduction, we find this disclaimer:

We always have been very careful to explain that the very nature of our research sample, its size (156 couples), its narrow geographic location [San Diego], and the natural selectiveness of the participants prevents the findings from being applicable and generalizable to the entire gay male community. Stricktly speaking, the sample is neither large enough, randomly selected nor geographically dispersed enough to represent necessarily the majority of male couples. As behavioral scientists we cannot report our conclusions as being derived from a representative sample.

That is then compared with a survey boasting of a “93.6 percent” fidelity rate among married heterosexual couples.

(Or, in reality based terms: Only 6.4 percent of married heterosexual couples surveyed were willing to admit that they were adulterous cheaters.)

Only THEN do we get to the Paul Cameron child molestation quote that Rachel Maddow confronts Cohen with. And to Randy Thomas’ credit, he does denounce Paul Cameron as “debunked” and “quite hateful.”

Immediately after that litany of slander, Mr. Cohen has this to say:

…Members of the homosexual community argue that social intolerance and prejudice cause these destructive behaviors. I believe there is some merit to this argument. However, the deeper reason for these unhealthy behaviors is the emotional brokenness that caused the homosexual condition in the first place. The social prejudice merely exacerbates the already-existing pain lodged deep in their souls. [p49]

And exacerbate that social prejudice he does.

It remains to be seen whether these defamatory claims will be redacted from the next revision of his book, but the damage is done and his message received; same-sex attraction can be reversed, therefore it is a choice, and gay men are super-slut child molesters.

Randy Thomas: But here’s the point I really want to make; saving Ugandan lives doesn’t appear to be Maddow and friends top priority, bashing alternate views does.

gay men are sex-fiends = alternative view

The exposition of this tawdry laundry list of anti-gay hate-speech would seem to be what Randy Thomas, Vice President of Exodus International, would have us believe is responsible for the ‘victimization’ of Richard Cohen by Rachel Maddow.

Further:

She did not use any of that precious air time in actually helping the Ugandan people defeat this bill…

…In her very long segment, Rachel didn’t change a thing in her world, our world or help save Ugandan lives.

As a “militant homosexual activist,” Mr. Thomas, need I remind you of Ecclesiastes 3:8:

a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.

This is one of those times, Mr. Thomas. To hate lies and to war against them. If you can’t see that, might I suggest you move into a non-glass house?

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