The NPR radio program On Point aired a one-hour discussion of exgay “therapy” on July 29.
According to the Making Gays Straight program description, the discussion participants were three exgay advocates, two critics of exgay therapies’ safety and effectiveness, and a reporter who has covered Love In Action’s exgay boot camp.
- Alex Williams, style reporter for The New York Times (Google search for Williams’ coverage of the LIA story)
- Christine Sneeringer, Director of Worthy Creations Ministry, which offers support groups for gay people who want to become straight
- Joseph Nicolosi, Director of the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality
- Jack Drescher, Chair of the American Psychiatric Association Committee on Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual issues
- Leah Deriel, recent graduate and engineer who has sought help to stop her strong feelings toward women
- Brandon Tidwell, a former client of “Love in Action,” a evangelical program in Memphis for gay men and women who want to become straight.
No doubt exgay pundits would call a 3-to-2 bias in favor of exgays “fair and balanced.” However, Dr. Robert Spitzer’s exhaustive 2001 search for successful exgays found barely 200, compared to a U.S. gay population of approximately 10 million (assuming 3 percent of Americans are predominantly same-sex-attracted). Also, “hundreds of thousands” of people have been tallied as exgays on the Exodus scorecard, but 30 percent or fewer of exgays (according to Exodus President Alan Chambers) remain so.
Which seems fairer and more accurate: A 200-to-10,000,000 ratio, Chambers’ 3-to-7 ratio, or a 3-to-2 ratio?
(A 200-to-10-million ratio, by the way, works out to 0.00002 exgays for each gay radio-show guest.)
This radio program was organized on short notice, and exgays appear to have been better organized and prepared than ex-exgays to advance their agenda within tight media deadlines. Ex-exgays were not so ready; there is currently no organized national network of ex-exgays, and some ex-exgays could not be reached on short notice.
On Point offers Windows Media and RealPlayer versions of the discussion.
I have stopped listening to–or contributing to–WBUR since it became clear to me that they are neither fair nor balanced.
BTW, On Point is a program that is produced by WBUR in Boston, but it is syndicated by NPR. NPR itself does produce some original programming (Morning Edition, Talk of the Nation, All Things Considered) but it also operates as a syndicator of programming produced by local public radio stations.
I am sorry, but I did not feel that the presentation was proexgay. The reporter was definately on the side of progay. So it was 3 to 3.
Aaron, as you wish. I have better things to do than to spend an hour or so listening to crap from WBUR. I’ve listened to enough of their crap over the years.
I haven’t written a review of the actual show yet; I’d like to find time for that later, but I haven’t even had time to review the four-part Salon.com series on exgays yet.
In my message above, I was simply noting the imbalance — even at 3-to-3, the radio-show ratio of exgays to ex-exgays is disproportionate.
I don’t blame the WBUR staff for that — I blame the nonexistence of an organized network of exexgays.
Is there an ex-exgay who makes their living for it?Large organisations (such as FoF) pump money into keeping quite a few exgays on STAFF, ready at a moments notice to drop everything and spruke for their employers. This is apart from those who run their own exgay businesses. Ex-exgays are on staff, in a similar way — where?They’re not. Perhaps it is time that several were put on staff, somewhere, to be available to jump on the next flight and roll up to present the case against. Shouldn’t HRC/NGLTF etc pool some efforts and establish a national centre, one telephone number, a few full-time people to counter these exgay marketing efforts?Also, ex-exgays tend to be referred to as “gay activists”, not “ex-exgays”. I note that exgays make sure they are not called heterosexual activists, or even just heterosexuals. (Perhaps, because they are neither).
Mike Airhart at July 30, 2005 09:52 PM
Mike, why limit it to “ex-ex-gays”? Why not just “gays”?
My objection to WBUR’s programs coverage of gay issues can be succinctly stated. Several years ago, On Point announced (via email) that they were going to have a program regarding “gay marriage” that included Andrew Sullivan. It never happened..
Subsequently, they did have a program regarding “gay marriage” that included one person on the pro side (I don’t recall who it was). They also had Tony Perkins of the FRC, and Stanley Kurtz of National Review. That is the equivalent of, if they had a program regarding Negroes, having two KKK characters on for “balance.” Kurtz was famous for suggesting in a column at National Review Online that gay males should not be allowed to marry because straight bois don’t want to watch out gay males in movies. Huh? I’m not joking, by the way. There are other examples, but I won’t go into them.
As I’m typing this, I have WBUR in the background. They have become little more than a BBC feed. They are even cancelling The Connection and moving On Point to the morning.
“…had a program regarding Negroes”
It’s hardly being “PC” to say that the term above is taken as an insult today, dating back to some pretty bad times in our history. Is there a reason you keep using it?
After listening through it twice, I have to admit it sounded pretty reasonable. The interviewer appeared objective, but you could tell he wasn’t accepting the ex-gay position at face value. The listener was left with the general sense that conversion therapy is rooted less in science and psychology and more in faith and a preconceived notion that certain things are true, whether the facts support that or not.
Mike, I didn’t hear Christine Sneeringer or Joseph Nicolosi on the program. It seems they might have replaced them both with John Smid? So the ratio seems to have been better. Either way, Jack Drescher did a good job of clearing through the misinformation.
David
It’s hardly being “PC” to say that the term above is taken as an insult today, dating back to some pretty bad times in our history. Is there a reason you keep using it?
Yes there is, and I don’t always use it. I use it when I wish to express sarcasm in regards homophobes. I know full well that the word “Negro” is offensive, but I also know full well that gay people have largely become the new Negro. The ‘phobes seem to need someone to discriminate against. Since they can’t (publicly) discriminate against black people, or Jews, or Hispanics, they have decided to pick on gay people.
To repeat: I use the word “Negro” as a term of sarcasm in regard the ‘phobes. I apologize if I wasn’t obvious.