XGW recently banned one antigay activist who disrupted the site.
She felt that threatening people, making false statements, refusing to substantiate her accusations, posting off-topic messages across multiple pages, shouting down people’s responses, and intentionally reposting the same identical message over and over were appropriate forms of online conduct and evangelism.
“Friend of Observer,” also someone with an evangelical spirit, responded by posting a much more civil message, but reposted the same identical message across several pages.
I tried to ask Friend via e-mail to refrain from cross-posting the same message, but the given e-mail address was invalid. I posted a message here asking people not to crosspost and to use valid e-mail addresses.
What followed, in this page’s comments section, is a debate among several people, on both sides, about whether and how it is appropriate for antigay people to evangelize gay people.
Addendum: Gay spirituality blogger Joe Perez discusses “How to Respond to Anti-Gay Moralizers.”
Sorry about the e-mail address. I havent memorized the number part of it yet. This letter will also be with the invalid address,so I can send it, but later on I will be able to retrieve tbe correct number. I thought it was valid.
I didn’t know you can’t post your message in several places. I have no idea why that is rude, but if you say so, okay.
…But, I notice that Janet must have given a true Internet address, and look what has been done to this person. So when I get my address memorized, will my name suddenly be put up on the screen and I will be villified and mocked like that writer has been? Maybe it is not safe. I love you all, and I don’t want to be trashed. Who does? You want to know who I am and I would gladly tell you, but I might get hate mail.
Hate mail is part of the internet. Don’t post on a public board if you don’t want to be called on the carpet for your statements.
Ummm… I love you all, and I don’t want to be trashed. Who does? You want to know who I am and I would gladly tell you, but I might get hate mail.
huh? Christians (including you) come in here and trash gay folks all the time. Is it any wonder the folks here are distrustful? Like Scott said, don’t post stuff on a public board without expecting a challenge.
That goes for you too, my friend Scott. If you post on a public board, then it seems that Janet has the right to call you on the carpet for your statements. You just said so!
So you are saying its okay for her to disagree with you, even strongly, since you posted on a public board. Stephen Bennett can also call you on the carpet publicly if he wishes, correct? since you post on a public board.
It is good that you strongly believe in the freedom of ex-gays to speak openly, including on the free American sidewalks and streets of that free-speech, tolerant city, Provincetown, MA.
It is good that your tolerance, and that of others participating, extends to those of the ex-gays who are vocal. 🙂 (Don’t get mad, I really do care about you.)
I don’t care if you mail me or not. It doesn’t mean that I will be accepting your rants as “truth”. Call me decieved or hard hearted if you want but I don’t buy the same line of reasoning that you do and I personally believe that Stephen Bennett is a fraud who makes money duping people like yourself and Janet.
Mr. Bennett is a public figure and his public statements about his history are being looked into for accuracy.
I would highly encourage Mr. Bennett to e-mail me if he chooses. I have plenty of questions about his past.
So telling you I love you and Jesus loves you is trashing you? “You can be free” is trash talk? My goodness. I wonder how you’d respond to REAL hate speech, if you think love is hate.
Definition of hate: wanting someting bad for a person or people, wanting to harm them, wanting them to suffer, desiring destruction for them. If I didn’t tell you there’s a way out of homosexuality, THEN you could say that I was hating you! I certainly don’t want destruction for you or things bad! If someone like Phelps were attacking you, I would confront him and block the view of his sign. Many of us would. I think you could say someone like that hates you, but I don’t. I don’t have to agree with you to love you. Listen. I don’t want you wiped off the face of the earth. I don’t think you’re scum. I don’t believe God hates you. I hate the word f*g and I think people that make fun of gays are wrong. You could live next door to me and that would be fine. So please don’t judge me or my many Christian friends that you don’t even know.
friend,
The reason so many of us are opposed to the “ex-gay” movement is not because they are vocal, it is because of what they are saying. These people have made a choice to remain celibate, or, if bisexual, to have only opposite-sex partners. I may have my doubts about their ability to maintain their “lifestyle” for the long run, but I do not begrudge them the opportunity to live according to their own moral and ethical beliefs.
The problem is that there is little if any reciprocity. The “ex-gay” and “pro-family” movements continually preach that there is no way to live a happy, healthy, committed, fulfilling and, yes, Christian life while being openly and honestly gay. It is this pre-judgement, this belief that because some people have “changed” (even though those who allegedly have changed continue to talk about their “struggle” not to give in to same-sex attractions) society should never even consider the possibility that gays can and do contribute to society AS GAYS, that bothers us.
America is a country founded on the ideals that a) free and open discourse is the best way to order society and b) all individuals are “innocent until proven guilty.” Both these ideals are trashed by the “ex-gay” movement, which works very hard to censor the message that gays can be happy and healthy just as we are and preaches that only negative effects can come to societies that value gays.
As an American, I am offended by the idea that our country cannot integrate gays into society without that society collapsing. As an observer of life, I am doubly offended because in places like Provincetown, San Francisco, and my own city of Washington DC, gays have already been successfully integrated into society.
If you would like to talk to Stephen Bennett, I’m sure he would be happy to visit with you. His whole story is at his website and there is a toll-free number available. I think you would be suprised to find he’s not the monster he’s been painted to be. It would be really open-minded and fair of you to talk to him yourself. Right now you’re only going on what others have said. I’m not, because I have met him.
I’ve read Stephen’s website and quit honestly I don’t believe his story. It wouldn’t matter if I talked to him on the phone or not.
He claims to have gone to a Church in P-town (while being a gay non-Christian).
He has claimed to have painted a portrait of Katherine Hepburn. I’d love to see this painting or see some record of this story.
He has claimed to have lived in P-town in the 80’s/90’s AND has claimed to have had sex with well over 100 people, countless boyfriends and has buried “many friends to AIDS” but nobody in P-town has come forward with any memory of Stephen Bennett.
Stephen can easily clear up this murky tale if he were come forward with some names of boyfriends or names of people who have died. There are records of deaths and generally records of the surving family.
Surely Stephen would submit something from his past that we can check into. If he has lost friends, then surely there are surviving friends we can talk to to verify Mr. Bennett’s personal tale of redemption.
Telling me my life as a gay person (without even knowing my personal life) is empty and meaningless without your Jesus IS trashing me. It is rude, disrespectful, insulting and offensive. Perhaps you don’t see it that way, so I am telling you that the message you bring, and the way you bring it, is very negative and alienating.
If you really want to be a help to the gay folks around you, stop telling them they need to change as if there’s something faulty with them. Try reading “But, Lord, They’re Gay” by Rev. Sylvia Pennington — a straight women from some small conservative town who went to L.A. to “rescue” the gay christians of Metropolitan Community Church, only to realize they were more ‘christian’ than she was. She woke up to what was really happening in their lives and in their faith, and ended up becoming a minister of that denomination. She also let the scales of bigotry and religious deception fall from her eyes, where she could finally see that her God was big enough to be God and didn’t need her help in deciding who’s a sheep and who’s a goat.
Sorry about the triple posting. Accidental. Doom, I read what you said, and yes, I can see your point of view. One thing, though. Not all ex-gays continue to struggle with same sex attractions. I personally know some who do not! They have become completely not-gay according to their own words. I have no reason to believe they are lying. I would not even have known that homosexuals could become free, if I hadn’t learned it from my own ex-gay friends. I know that some do struggle. To me, that is not truly “ex-gay”, because you aren’t free, unless you are free. I understand that no homosexual would want to be trapped into a life of pretending, “ex-gay” on the outside but miserable inside, trying to please others and living a fraud. If that were what it was about, then you would be right to detest the ex-gay talk. But many, many say that they aren’t at all gay anymore. You know, when people say they’ve been freed of other things, such as drugs, we usually say “great!” and listen to their stories. We don’t trash them and say “no, you’re not really free.” What I’m saying is that there’s something to look into here.
Friend of Observer- I am interested to see your response to my post in the “Stephen’s Bennet’s Assistant…” thread. I responded to a post of yours, and I think my comments are important to help you understand why many at this board may view your words as hate.
Well, Scott, you could ask Stephen those questions yourself, if you really want to know. Maybe he doesn’t want to publicize names out of respect for the people involved. And it has been awhile since he lived in P-town.
Why don’t you talk to him and publish his answers?
First hand research can be a useful thing.
By the way, he didn’t live in P-town year round, so probably all those friends and lovers weren’t from there.
And, yes, telling me “I can be free” IS trashing me. “Free” from what? How do you know I’m not already free? Such a message shows no interest, concern or love for me and my life, and only says that you think I’m lost or in bondage or whatever it is you might be thinking. You’re wrong and haven’t taken the time to find out otherwise. That’s very sad because it means you aren’t really interested in me, but you just see me as a gay person and apparently make judgments about me on that one point.
Regardless of weather or not he lived there year round somebody out there dated him (assuming this is true) and with the Internet sending somebody a note is pretty easy.
Its not only the thin storyline that Stephen puts out there, its the way he talks about the gay community that makes his words ring hollow to me.
Anyone who has lived in a community for over 10 years, whether they stayed in it or not does not talk about them the way Stephen does.
Randy Thomas, who I disagree with vehemently has never used the harsh tone that Stephen does. Terms like “the homosexual” and “stench in the nostrils of God” would never come out of Randy Thomas’ mouth.
I think Randy is misguided and has an aggressive agenda but I have never doubted that he lived in the gay community.
Anyone gay person who reads Stephen’s web site or columns on World Net Daily, or his columns on CWFA or AFA would have serious reservations about where he is coming from simply by the way he presents it.
Heck, I grew up in a Christian church for 22 years of my life and I disagree with much of the things that are taught in the church I went to but I would never leave that group of people and talk about them in the same way that Mr. Bennett refers to the gay community.
He deals in stereotypes that any gay or true ex-gay person knows are not true.
From his stories and his words I get a sense of counterfeit. Call it a gut feeling but something ain’t right.
Not every homosexual person wants to be ex-gay, but some do. Some want very much to not be gay. I know this from personal experiences, from my own friends, not from something I made up in my mind. Those people, wherever they are, have a right to hear that it is possible. That they are not being lied to when someone says, “I was and now I’m not.” IF Stephen Bennett is lying, then he’s a horrible person, evil, really. But what a strange career-killing, embarrassing move to say something like “I was gay”, especially if he wasn’t. Unfortunate as it may be, as a hetero, I know of no hetero that would want to say to the other heteros, “I was gay.” Homosexuality just isn’t that popular in this country yet. There are other, less embarrassing (to heteros) ways to make money. There are numerous causes and jobs Stephen could adopt, if he’s only out to make money. What you don’t understand is, the Christian community of individual believers really doesn’t care enough to sink tons of money into into an ex-gay ministry. It is certain that Stephen will never make the money of a Benny Hinn (the type of ministry that appeals to believers) or even the pastor of a large successful church. If he’s trying to make money, he didn’t pick a way that generally “works” among us believers. I am telling you the truth about this. So, I find it extremely hard to buy the idea that he’s out for money.
friend,
Like a lot of people on this board, I spent years – actually decades – trying to change who I was. It didn’t work. In fact, I followed the prescribed “ex-gay” model – I refrained from same-sex relationships and friendships, found straight male older friends who could serve as my surrogate father to “repair” that “broken” relationship, got involved in team sports – and found out I was pretty good – with those same straight male friends (we even played catch in the front yard!) – basically became as stereotypically male as possible. All I learned, as the thousands who have failed “ex-gay” programs have learned, is that my sexuality is not changeable.
More importantly, I have come to love myself as a gay man – I find absolutely nothing wrong with being gay and reject wholeheartedly those religions that claim being gay is immoral.
I have also researched the science behind the “ex-gay” movement and found that there is not one, single, solitary scientifically proven case of sexual orientation change – not from gay to straight OR from straight to gay.
I don’t want to cast aspersions on your “ex-gay” friends, but I do think they have a huge incentive to lie about their sexual orientation, and know gay people who have done that for years. They get married, live the whole het life they believe they are supposed to, and deeply repress their natural sexuality.
Even if your friends really have changed, however (and that would take a miracle – possible, of course, but I am not banking my entire future on the potential of a miracle), that would not change my point – I believe that being gay is perfectly fine. There are many religions that agree with me, and even more citizens of this country that do likewise.
I truly believe that this country can successfully integrate both the gay community and the evangelical community, and there does not need to be hostility or negativity on either side. What it does take is a willingness for each side to acknowledge that a) they may be wrong (and I certainly believed I was for 20 years) and that b) everyone else has a right to be wrong.
BTW – it does take a long time for this board to post messages, at least my messages. You’ll avoid the duplicate posts if you hit the “Post” button and then go get a drink of water or use the restroom.
I hear you, Scott. But I have heard people that I know definitely were in the gay community, speak rather harshly after they became ex-gays. It suprised me. I would have expected them to be the most gentle of all, but I have heard them speak more roughly about homosexuality than the heteros in my own church do. My always-hetero Christian friends are NOT the ones I usually hear say “It’s an abomination” and so forth. Of course I’m sure this doesn’t go for everyone, but it sure opened my eyes. So I really don’t think you can tell Stephen’s orientation from the strongness of his speech.
friend,
Why are you and others like you so interested in my private life? I can assure you I have no interest in yours. It appears that you are on some religious crusade which I just can’t comprehend. I’m very happy in my life as a gay man and I don’t want or need to change. It seems that if you directed your energy into things that really need attention, like the homeless or others who are less fortunate you would be much more successful. Just my opinion.
“But I have heard people that I know definitely were in the gay community, speak rather harshly after they became ex-gays.”
Of course. They’ve got to convince themselves that they’ve made the right decision–even while their every instinct for love and affection is dragging them the opposite way. They trash the gay community merely as a matter of sour grapes.
Yes, Jim! ‘Friend’ would be not just more successful, but a lot more appreciated, too.
Doom, there was something in my own identity that I believed was not changeable. People would tell me that I needed to change. I didn’t even bother to tell them that I knew it wasn’t possible. Yes, a change of ones deepest identity can only be from a miracle. Stephen himself doesn’t say “I changed myself by my bootstraps–I’m so great–and you can too!” He says “a miracle happened” — and that miracles aren’t just for Stephen Bennett.
I like that you shared with me. I have to leave the computer now, and, of course, there are many things I don’t know. But, IF (and I only say if) you still want a miracle, well, they still happen. I’m proof. Love ya.
BTW, being gay is something to CELEBRATE, not agonize over for goodness sakes.
By the way, everyone, before I go, I never said that only gay lives are meaningless without Jesus. I say that ALL lives are meaningless without Him. Now, I know you probably won’t agree, but you have to admit that I’m not discriminating here. Hetero lives are meaningless without Him. Young lives. Old lives. Everyone. He is the ultimate, the purpose, the reason, the treasure, the source, the destination. He’s it, it, it. The universe revolves around Him. All of reality revolves around Him. Without Him nothing would exist. Okay, I’m done. Byw.
So according to that logic, Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu and Muslum lives are meaningless?
Yeah, Scott, that seems to be the impression I got from it.
Well, as I said earlier: “Telling me my life as a gay person (without even knowing my personal life) is empty and meaningless without your Jesus IS trashing me. It is rude, disrespectful, insulting and offensive.”
At least “Friend” has now revealed him/herself (?) to be an equal-opportunity bigot, insulting and devaluing everyone regardless of sexual orientation. 🙂 (So I guess it’s okay then to be gay as long as you are also a Christian? Hmmmmm….) That sort of sweeping generalization tells me this person is not much of a “friend” after all, isn’t interested in other perspectives, and thus doesn’t warrant any further discussion from me.
I say that ALL lives are meaningless without Him
Mine’s not.
I used to post a valid email address–actually an alias to my real email address–on comment threads. But a recent worm used email addresses that had been on posted on comment threads to spread viruses. When I learned what had happened, I stopped posting a valid email address. This happened a number of months ago, and I am still getting reverberations.
If Mike wants to go through a registration process in which one provides him with a valid email address in order to comment, I would have no objection sending him one. But I will NOT provide a valid email address in a comment thread.
Friend of Observer writes, “I never said that only gay lives are meaningless without Jesus. I say that ALL lives are meaningless without Him.”
I’m reminded of one pivotal time in my life then I saw a beat-up pickup truck with the following slogan spray-painted on the side:
“Good people go to Hell. Saved people go to Heaven.”
Unfortunately for the owner of the truck, the effect of the message on me was probably not what he intended.
Friend:
I have personally emailed and tried talking with Stephen Bennett, but he refuses to talk to someone unless they are “ready to change.” I have no problem with someone identifying as ex-gay (although many say they want to get away from labels, and yet they label themselves constantly). Stephen has not allowed me to speak with him.
Second, as an ex-ex-gay, I too told people that I had no homosexual feeling anymore when I was in counseling. You are ridiculed if you are honest about still having gay feelings. There is heavy incentive to say you have changed completely. Yet, we all know of ex-gays who have once said they changed and then have admitted down the road they have feelings (Paulk?). In the end, I can’t ever fully know, and neither can you. All we know are that people identify as gay and ex-gay, and we should respect that on both sides. Although I was told from day one in ex-gay therapy/ministry that I should never admit to gay feelings. To do so would be admitting defeat. Ex-gay thereapy only made me realize that I was very gay.
One of the things that makes evangelicals so annoying is that they consider it their duty to try and convert non-evangelicals, to spread the gospel. In fact, they consider it a sin to NOT actively seek to spread the gospel. So you can’t really tell them to live and let live, because that’s asking them to sin. Sigh. It’s really too bad.
An atheist | August 25, 2004 01:41 PM
You’ve noticed that, too.
Unfortunately, it often isn’t enough to simply say “No thank you, I have my own beliefs”, or something equally civil and proper. But when you get firm and insist they not get in your face about it, they cry foul on the grounds of religious discrimination or persecution or something silly like that. I’ve always believed that freedom of religion must also include the option of freedom FROM religion, if that is a person’s choice. It’s not like getting phone service and having to sign up for one or another long distance carrier, or take the one that’s offered by default if you don’t make an alternate choice. Some of us don’t believe there’s “Anyone” at the other end of this ‘long distance’ line, and don’t want to sign up for any of them. Fortunately, in the U.S. anyway, while Christianity is quite popular still, it isn’t the automatic default for everyone. 🙂
For the record, if anyone wants to go out, define themselves as gay or lesbian and have as much sex as the day is long, they can do that. That’s none of my business.
But if they hear that there is a different way of living and try it and find it satisfying, maybe a way of living in discipleship to Jesus Christ, that’s their business too.
If someone came onto this site and was not abiding by the minimums of civil conduct, they should have been banned. Probably faster than they were. At the bottom line, no one will be argued into the Kingdom of Heaven, but the doors will still open to all who ask.
David,
I think your method of evangelism beats that of Stephen Bennett’s volunteer by a long shot. Thank you for offering a contrast.
I still disagree, of course, with your either/or dichotomy between identifying as gay (same-sex-attracted) and living in discipleship, etc. And I disagree with the notion that acknowledging one’s sexual orientation defines oneself by one’s sex acts and necessitates sexual abandon or compulsion.
What’s interesting is that there are many forms of Christianity, and not all of them see homosexuality as a sin. Various forms of Christianity, from the non-denominational, reconciling in Christ kind that welcomes everyone, to the rather sanguine Lutherans I grew up with, to the hellfire and brimstone of evangelicals, cast homosexuality in varying shades of sin. With this sort of relativism, a gay man or lesbian seeking a close relationship with Christ is free to choose, from among the offerings, a path or ideology that either allows them to come as they are–as gays and lesbians–or that offers them a way out of their lifestyle through the love and forgiveness of Christ. That some gays and lesbians choose the latter, and work hard to scourge themselves of their homosexual identities, says more about the psychological needs of the individual, his turbulent relationship with his sexuality, and his desire to be free of homosexuality, than any sort of promise of absolute truth the religion might offer.
Scott, I too have been very interested in these gay adventures and lovers Stephen claims to have had. Even John Paulk’s past was an open book when he was a big deal with the fundies.
Here’s what I think, and I’ll bet if you do enough digging you’ll find out I’m right. ;-D :
Stephen grew up in a fundamentalist and/or conservative church. He grew some wings as a young adult and did a little partying which probably included, at the most, one or two encounters with men while intoxicated. Stephen was never really gay, but instead had some mild bisexual tendencies.
After realizing that the partying lifestyle wasn’t conducive to getting what he needed and wanted, namely MONEY, Stephen went back to his family and church, “straightend out” and had the golden goose plopped in his lap, the ex-gay golden goose, that is. With this, Stephen could continue his previous habits of not working for a living.
And I think this will about sum it up.
Yes, that is what I suspect as well. I think he’s exaggerating his past to make himself look like a true miracle case (and drive up donations).
His rhetoric doesn’t match his history in my mind. Publicity stunts like taking a busload of people to a gay event have nothing to do with saving the gay people and everything to do with looking busy to the flock so they send more to support your efforts.
I have the same criticism of Regina Griggs of PFOX. She pulls off some over the top stunts (like her NEA thing) so she can do two things.
1. Get attention and drive up donations.
2. Needle the hated NEA (and drive up donations).
None of these things have anything to do with helping the intended target, they have everything to do with a money grab from people who are in the dark about who gay people really are.
Hmmm…. I’m not sure. I suppose he could be a straight guy with a mostly fabricated past. I’ve seen him in person – heard him tell his testimony – watched his mannerisms, etc. Although I thought his story had holes and was crafted to fit the Moberly model of becoming gay (like most such testimonies out there – have you ever read Dennis Jernigan’s? It’s too textbook to be real), my strong sense was that he actually was and likely still is gay. But who really knows? I was far more concerned by the outlandish statements he made about gay men in particular and his unsubstantiated statistics re: the relationship between child sexual abuse and development of homosexuality.
Interesting story on the 700 Club site.
https://www.cbn.com/700club/profiles/andrew_comiskey_0804.asp
I especially loved this quote:
“Andrew says that he still struggles with past desires. Recently, Andrew and his wife, Annette, celebrated their 20th wedding anniversary by going to New York City. While they were there, they had time to reflect on how God healed each of them of personal brokenness — Andrew of homosexuality, and Annette of childhood sexual abuse — and how God has blessed their lives. However, Andrew found himself being seduced by homosexuality in the New York City culture.”
25 years as an “ex-gay” and 20 years married and he’s still checking out the boys.
Thanks for providing that link, Scott. Interesting article, and a stunning admission. Being seduced by the NY gay scene on your 20th wedding anniversary – and you’re not gay?!
“Andrew says he still struggles with past desires.” What exactly does that mean? If you still struggle with them, aren’t they by definition CURRENT desires, not PAST desires?!
And this is in the newly-cleaned and scrubbed NYC, thanks to Mayor Rudy. Imagine how hard it would have been for Andrew if NYC were still seedy.
One thing that can be checked out about Bennett is that he graduated from a Roman Catholic high school. It appears to be very upper crust and preppy, sort of an RC equivilent of the Choates and other WASP prep schools.
>Being seduced by the NY gay scene on your 20th wedding anniversary – and you’re not gay?!
No, he isn’t gay. He is bi- or possibly homo-sexual.
That’s the problem with conflating one’s sexual orientation (homo-/bi-/hetero-sexual) with one’s lifestyle (gay/polyamorous?/straight).
{{{One thing that can be checked out about Bennett is that he graduated from a Roman Catholic high school. It appears to be very upper crust and preppy, sort of an RC equivilent of the Choates and other WASP prep schools.}}}
What a great formula for laziness. ;-D I went to art school with many of these types. The spector of a true working man’s day had many of them running into the arms of various devils.
Bennett is thouroughly pampered by the fundies, you can bank on that. 😀
I apologize for replying to a comment this old, but I just wanted to point out that there’s a very, very large difference between freedom from drug addiction and freedom from homosexuality (besides the obvious one that the latter doesn’t interfere with having a happy and successful life). That difference is that homosexuality is attraction to members of the same sex. If a cocaine addict wants to do cocaine, but doesn’t, he’s no longer a cocaine addict. If a homosexual wants to have sex with someone of the same gender, but doesn’t, he’s still homosexual. You can’t “struggle” with homosexuality without still being homosexual, yet ex-gay therapists and ministers grudgingly admit that the vast majority of “successes” still struggle with it. That means they haven’t actually changed.
If there are some actual ex-gays out there like you describe, who honestly don’t struggle with it, more power to them. But they’re a tiny, tiny minority, and most of the people who say they don’t struggle, do.
Chronos:
I agree, but many ex-gay believers think that homosexuality is an addiction like drugs, so they will compare the two unfairly.
What is funny is that addicts pretty much always stay addicts. AA teaches that one is always an addict and that you have to stay away from the materials that will lead to the past problems. However, addicts tend to move their addictions to less “dangerous” addictions. So, if homosexuality is an addiction–it does not change ever–you just move the feelings to something “safer.”