A library trustee in Ohio doesn’t want the Upper Arlington Public Library to carry the local free gay newspaper, the Outlook Weekly. In a Focus on the Family article, Bryce Kurfees, the trustee said the following:
“What I want to do with them is toss them out. There’s no reason that we need to accept free newspapers that are just dropped off at our front door, especially ones that are obscene.”
And I’m concerned that if we can’t draw a line at pornographic articles, then it appears that we can’t draw the line anywhere.”
Alan Chambers is quoted about the desired censorship saying that “homosexuals use these periodicals mainly for one purpose”:
“The way I see gay newspapers is they are a means for mostly homosexuals to hook up with other homosexuals or materials that promote pornography.”
Perhaps Chambers has only used gay news magazines for “hook up” purposes or to find promotion of pornography, but this says much more about Chambers than it does about the Outlook Weekly.
It appears to me that Chambers and Kurfees were willing to make claims about the magazine without looking at it. The magazine is online appearing as it does in print.
This is far from a racy or sleazy magazine. It appears to be a glossy mag that provides news to the gay community on political and health issues along with advice, columns, and articles and seems to be balanced between men and women. The current edition has articles about Sarah Jessica Parker and about a gay comic and an odd picture of ducks quacking “April Fools”.
Even the advertising in this magazine appears very conventional and is about what you’d expect in any small newsmagazine. There were two ads in this 32 page magazine that are suggestive. Though I wouldn’t post either on exgaywatch, neither ad would qualify as pornographic or obscene.
Nor did I find any “hook up” ads, not even the personal ads you will find in most mainstream newspapers. The closest was an ad for Out in Columbus, a gay website that offers news, articles, advice, and personals and one pictureless business card size ad for a telephone-based personals service.
If anyone picked up this magazine to “hook up with other homosexuals” or for materials that promote pornography they would have completely wasted their time. Both Kurfees and Chambers are making false accusations in their attempt to demonize anything gay and to restrict the inclusion of this magazine among other free magazines in the public library.
Chambers makes another odd claim in this article in reference to “this type of pornography”:
“A young person could find and look through and eventually get involved in something that was detrimental or dangerous to his health and his well being.”
Chambers appears to be suggesting that reading this magazine and finding its non-existant pornography would make someone gay. Which is odd, because that isn’t at all consistent with the “sexual abuse / distant father” mantra that Exodus espouses. Or perhaps Alan Chambers will say absolutely anything whatsoever as long as it is anti-gay.
I have read many free gay weeklies such as Fab and Frontiers. Never once have I read it for a “hook-up.” Typically I read them to find out what the homophobes are doing (could it be that people like Chambers do not like these publications because it reports on them?). Sometimes the stories are silly and sensational. People would have an easier time hooking up by using the library Internet or bathroom than those magazines most likely.
You missed my two favorite parts of the article:
“[Chambers] knows from experience that certain young men are vulnerable to this sort of pornography.”
Do they mean gay men? Well, yeah. Then I love the assumption it is pornography. And then:
“And a dangerous lifestyle is the last thing a boy should be checking out of the library.”
Oh my gosh! There is so much to say about this brilliant line that I can’t get anything out. It works on so many different levels.
If some people get a hard on any time they encounter a gay magazine or newspaper and therefore consider these to be “pornographic,” then this is their problem not ours.
Wow….
What condescencion people like Chambers, et al are capable of!
They treat adults like children.
They are firmly in the ‘we know best, what is best’ camp and would censor all kinds of things for what they think is the ‘protection’ of an OPEN mind.
Ex gays…and I’m saying this from the point of view of a straight person, and also a straight person who listens to their gay colleagues and friends:
Ex gays are SNOBS. Just SO full of the holy spirit, they are DRUNK on it.
They have such a ‘I’m a better person than YOU because I am redeemed, therefore I deserve to be in front of you reminding YOU gays and your supporters daily, ad infinitum of how worthless you are unless you do what WE did.’
Snobbery, of the rawest kind, because we’re talking about people who weren’t always Christian or straight.
This is the turn off I was trying to get a finger on.
There isn’t any real or committed compassion in supporting being ex gay-it’s root is in NOT wanting to feel or be treated as an inferior person, which inevitably, in so many ways gay people are treated.
So, to alleviate that, convince Exodus that you have absorbed their teaching enough-you TOO can become A SNOB and wash yourself of whatever bad things you committed against another person in your previous life.
And then do what you want, because, if it’s in the name of God and Christ, little challenge will come your way.
Even by the courts and legal actions.
This is why places and orgs. like Love in Action can continue, why situations that take mind control over gay kids especially go on with very little to stop them.
I really don’t want to blanket all ex gays with the same brush.
But they paint each other with the same brush, over and over again.
Redemption isn’t about committing to feeling superior to your perceived ‘weaker’ brethren.
Redemption is about finding strength to commit to a life of support for another person’s pursuit of happiness regardless of if they are gay or not.
Anything that’s at another person’s expense who you think did something to you, or you think will do something to someone else (conjecture) isn’t redemption, it’s revenge.
You all can correct me if I”m wrong.
But I do know a snob when I see one.
Timothy, from what I’ve seen Alan will say anything as long as its anti-gay.
Regan, you got it exactly right when you said “There isn’t any real or committed compassion in supporting being ex gay-it’s root is in NOT wanting to feel or be treated as an inferior person, which inevitably, in so many ways gay people are treated.”.
I’d add that to whatever extent an “exgay” feels discrimination its because of their past association with same sex attractions, not because they claim to have “enhanced their heterosexuality”.
You know what? Several writers for Watermark (Orlando’s local gay magazine, https://www.watermarkonline.com), including myself back in the day, treated Alan with a *lot* of respect. We were very cordial and made a real effort to record his and his organization’s beliefs truthfully and to check the facts. Apparently he’s learned nothing, but then again, it wouldn’t be the first time.