On his personal blog, Randy Thomas of the Exodus national office cheers Brown University columnist Carman McNary for protesting alleged “drunken orgies” organized by the campus “Queer Alliance.” Thomas says he wants “these folks” — the “gay identified community” — “held accountable” for failing to speak out against sexual irresponsibility.
McNary self-identifies as a proponent of equality and equal rights, and Thomas applauds this supposedly rare instance of accountability in the equal rights movement.
Thomas’ perception that gay people generally do not uphold accountability and responsibility is based not in fact, but in Thomas’ practice of intentional ignorance. AIDS clinics and gay newspaper columnists of the left and right have chastized sexual irresponsibility for decades, and lifelong monogamy is at the core of arguments made in favor of gay marriage. Thomas is aware of these arguments, through his participation (with me and others) in Bridges Across the Divide. He has also been confronted with accountable gays in gay-marriage debates and in sworn testimony at legislative hearings against gay marriage. (Did Thomas, in fact, ever listen to his opponents at these events?)
Beyond his refusal to see responsible, moral behavior among same-sex-attracted individuals and their defenders, Thomas tiptoes around another issue: Exgay accountability. At different times in the past decade, two prominent voices for exgay movement accountability have been Anthony Falzarano — an exgay activist who publicly condemned Exodus’ addiction to the religious right — and Britain’s Courage Trust, which severed ties with Exodus over the U.S. organization’s misrepresentations about “change” and its refusal to minister compassionately to same-sex-attracted individuals who seek moral co-existence between their Christian faith and their sexuality.
If Thomas is truly in favor of accountability, then I invite him to cheer those who hold Exodus accountable, who uphold established clinical knowledge about sexuality, and who oppose political and financial corruption among Christian conservatives.
Addendum: In a followup message, Thomas calls unspecified criticism of his earlier message “scornful.” In his correspondence with me and with ex-exgay letter-writers over the years, Thomas has been a frequent practitioner of rhetorical silence in response to honest questions about his antigay fundamentalist rhetoric, his smears against people whom he labels “liberals,” and his lobbying for discriminatory legislation. Yet Thomas criticizes this same silent treatment when it is regrettably used upon him (allegedly) by unnamed others.
I invite commenters to contribute (via links) some examples of gay/pro-equality, exgay, and antiequality activists who promote accountability within their own movements.
Uhhh, just what is ‘healthy behavior’? Is it something other than conforming to all this monogamy stuff? Reading the article, what struck me was that this sounded like a frat party. One that heteros put on week after week. Without all the opprobrium raining down upon them.
Or is there some other criteria? I do not see any evidence of unsafe sex in the report. I do see over indulgence, which I do not think is restricted to gay venues. Rather, this seems to be a typical college event. Only the difference here is that the people involved are gay.
I thought the same thing – typical frat party stuff. Randy must really be reaching for something to talk about.
David
Dale,
Healthy behavior, for purposes of this discussion, is for each commenter to define. That’s why I was so vague. So don’t hesitate to tell us what you think it means.
Regarding monogamy: You can’t have marriage without monogamy. And sex isn’t very safe without monogamy. Please don’t claim to be a holier-than-thou critic of Jim Wallis’ position on gay marriage if you frown upon gay monogamy.
As for the accuracy of the “orgies” claim: I don’t accept Randy’s or Carman’s words at face value. I welcome alternate sources of information.
MikeA says: You can’t have marriage without monogamy. And sex isn’t very safe without monogamy.
Tell that to King Solomon. Or King David. Marriage, as far as I can tell, is a commercial transacation. Virgin brides are peddled like slabs of beef. Fathers stand in the market place hawking their daughter’s unbroken hymens. The high bidder gets the girl. Or boy, in our consideration. Monogamy does not enter into the consideration.
Jim Wallis has a position on gay marriage? Who knew? AFAIK he was attempting to say that the idea was out of his ken. And I don’t think I am ‘holier than thou’.
I don’t frown on gay monogamy. I don’t endorse it either. I feel this is something that needs to be addressed within the context of relationships. Not imposed from without. In any event, safe sex has nothing to do with monogamy. We are shielded from disease transmission by practicing safer sex. Not by monogamy. Which IMHE is an unworkable system.
One can have safer sex, using condoms and outercourse with hundreds of partners and be free from disease. One can have one monogamous intercourse and be infected. Which is why I endorse safer sex and distrust monogamy.
Mike, in reading Randy’s follow-up message on the Sex Power God party, I thought he was saying his own post about the party had been more “scornful” than accountability, not the other commenters. I could be incorrect, though.
1. Exgay accountability – It is interesting that the “ex-gay” community is rather silent when one of their own practices “immoral” behavior – as they define it. Where is Michael Johnson again? And why is it that no “ex-gay” even seems to acknowledge he existed at all?
2. Marriage and monogamy – Although I am all for the fight for the rights of marriage, heterosexual adultery does not automatically disqualify a marriage as being legal (although it is grounds for dissolution), and it should not be any different for gay couples. While monogamy may be preferred in a marriage, it is not required for success. We certainly should not discourage a marriage for continuing after a “slip” in the quest for monogamy, for instance, if both parties in the marriage are amenable to it. And many gay male couples (don’t know about lesbians as much) claim to be able to incorporate some level of open non-monogamy into their successful relationships (of course, so do heterosexual swingers, many of whom insist the practice has strengthened their marriage). It is possible to separate sex from love, and therefore monogamy from the commitment of marriage.
None of us can determine what will work for every marriage, and I think the stress should be on the desire for life-long commitment in marriage, and for the two people involved to determine how their marriage will be run.
I rather liked the myopic tone in the original column (by Carman McNary, IIRC), in which he assumes that the whole country had heard of the event he described.
I’m relatively _au courant_ with breaking news, and I’d not heard a whisper of the scandal. Maybe, just maybe, a drunken college party at Brown U is not on the nation’s radar?
I’ve noticed that DL Foster and heteros who contribute to WND, talk as if gay and lesbian journals don’t self criticize, dissent or reality check their own information sources.
As if ex gays and anti gay heterosexuals are THE ONLY ones so intuitively gifted with knowing the motives and abilities of gays and lesbians.
Which is ALWAYS negative and generally hostile, rarely diversified.
As a naturally curious person…I would ask eventually…don’t you have anything GOOD to say about gay people? And why are ALL your sources also negatively opinionated?
Are the only gay people you know subject to criticism and nothing else?
Then how and why would a gay person come to you and see you as a friend?
I’m having before unknown experience with EX gays…and it’s been unpleasant.
I mean, as a heterosexual woman, looking at this behavior from people seemingly claiming a life more convenient than the one they used to have…I’d support what they did.
But turning around and gagging heteros like me with their vitriol with those in their former life is just TOO WEIRD!
That would be as if…when my light skinned great aunts who passed for white at certain times in their young lives during Jim Crow, they went around condemning their black brethren as dangerous, stupid and unfit to be treated with equal respect because whites were afraid of blacks and their sexuality staining the white culture.
If my aunts spent the rest of their lives having nothing GOOD to say about blacks, then what should anyone think of them as people?
That would have made my aunts, not women one could feel compassion for for wanting to live as well as white people…
But mean hearted in the worst way for damning someone else not lucky enough to meet challenges my aunts didn’t have themselves and could hide.
I wouldn’t have thought much of my aunts, and don’t think much of ex gays who engage in this sort of behavior.
And I’m just as hated for being an authentic heterosexual who tells them so.
I’m reading the post the same way as Brady. Randy is apologizing for being “scornful” in a previous post about the article, and then he quotes the article and his previous post.
I like Randy. I don’t like his politics usually, but I like him. He seems very transparent to me, very intellectually honest.
I read Randy’s comments.
One thing I think worth noting is that Randy talks about “frat parties” and is trying to seem familiar with that culture.
On my campus (and I believe in most schools) anyone who was actually a part of the greek system would NEVER say “frat party”. Perhaps other schools had different traditions, but as a regional representative of my house, I can say the culture of our national fraternity was consistent.
The word “frat” was considered to be pejorative and was used by those who opposed the greek system for political reasons. We always said “greek” or “fraternity”.
For a party it would be “at the Sigma Chi house” or “a rush party” or the name of the party. Those who used the term “frat party” generally weren’t welcome, just as someone using “fag party” would not be welcome in my home.
Randy’s comments imply that he was a regular, or at least frequent, attendee of “frat parties”. Perhaps that is true.
But I wonder if Randy really is as familiar with the greek system as he pretends. Or perhaps he was just trying to claim familiarity to allow a comparison to the more responsible STRAIGHT partiers (because, after all, negative comparisons to gays is essential to his agenda).
I still don’t understand the fascination with Randy Thomas by the proprietors of this web site. Would someone be willing to explain it to me?
I read some of his silliness a few years ago on BridgesAcross. His comments on BA were silly then, and the more recent comments as quoted here are more silly now. Maybe he should get an honest job.
raj,
“I still don’t understand the fascination with Randy Thomas by the proprietors of this web site. Would someone be willing to explain it to me?”
I’ll give it a try.
We are called ExGayWatch, which to most of us means that we watch the ex-gay movement, and its various participants, and note when they are saying untruths or making attacks or campaining against equality, etc.
Since Randy is a prominant player in the ex-gay movement, we watch and comment.
I don’t have a lot of options for information, raj.
Thomas and all the others are congealing into a kind of mass, so that I’m getting a general picture.
It sure wasn’t easy.
And as someone a little different from the regulars, this helps me see both sides.
And I hope that something I say will stir up a comment or answer for me.
“Then there are those who mock, argue from silence and ask rhetorical questions for the benefit of entertaining themselves and their own audience. They want to be empowered by picking a fight.”
These words from Thomas’ blog kind of hit home to me, actually. I was one whose comment to his Sex Power God Held Accountable post was “moderated” out. My comment, admittedly, was more of an essay. I’m afraid I do not write lightly (or briefly) very often. I did make much use of rhetorical questions–for good or ill–and though I spent a good day carefully editing out things I thought might be too unkind, he may certainly have perceived some mockery in my comment. I have re-read what I wrote to him, and even after the heavy editing on my part, I wonder if I should have spoken as frankly to him about his own testimony. His email response to my comment was gracious, though strenuously emphasizing the excessive length of my argument, and for that reason, he chose not to allow it. I don’t really know to whom he may be referring, but I agree that he is commenting on some unspecified correspondents.
Ex gays like Thomas, Chambers and DL Foster…are like anti Semitic Jews.
As I said in another blog..sure they exist. And I’m sure they want to assert that they DO exist.
But the point is, what’s so wonderful about an anti Semitic Jew?
What’s so compassionate about a de facto resignation to who would see you disappear?
And like Jews, homosexuals are a diasporadic and assaulted group that require an efficient and unique way to unify to survive.
And also like Jews…they deserve to.
The world could benefit from more Jews, not less.
And this is also true of homosexuals.
Radical ex gays, like anti Semitic Jews…are a seriously strange and cautionary group of people.