Google News has rejected a request to carry Alains Newsletter because they consider it hate speech. (Big surprise, I know.) Alains Newsletter tends not to accept traffic from XGW so you may have to copy and paste the link into a new window.
Today I noticed the Exodus Live Out Loud blogroll links to the site Writing Right, the personal blog of Stacy L. Harp, a contributor to Alains Newsletter. Harp proudly displays the banner on the right on her site. Click on the image for a full size pop-up.
Alains Newsletter is a publication supported by the Traditional Values Coalition which publishes vile, deliberately inflammatory anti-Islamic content and supports the allegedly racist Constitution Party.
Update: Joe Brummer has taken the time to detail the more outrageous claims Alain’s Newsletter makes about gay people:
- Hitler was gay
- Gays live 30 years less than straights
- Homosexuality is a choice
- Homosexuality is a malignancy eating away at the vital organs of sane, responsible, moral society.
- Homosexuality is a vile, depraved, dangerous, and eternally damning behavior – a deadly curse on this nation founded, and greatly blessed by Almighty God.
- Hate crimes" legislation is a top priority of homosexuals in their desire to gain federal protection as a minority group under federal law. Hate crime bills will be used to force Christian business owners to accommodate homosexual and transgender workers while punishing individuals who may be critical of homosexual sodomy.
Visit Joe’s blog to see his full post.
Where Stacy L. Harp MS (and let’s not forget the “MS” — she never does — despite where that was acquired…) is coming from is best illustrated by a brief exchange at Throckmorton’s blog.She buys into Reparative Therapy lock-stock-and-smoking barrel.And, as you’d therefore expect, she is actually clueless.
Hey thanks for the publicity. 🙂
You may be interested in my latest podcast that you can hear at https://sharp.libsyn.com
It’s the one where Janet Folger interviews me about Alain’s Newsletter and more.
Enjoy guys!
Not at all Stacy MS. My pleasure.I always encourage people such as yourself to become the public face of the exgay movement.I really have no wish to wade through that podcast, but did you get an opportunity to discuss Janet Folger’s wish to see homosexuality made a criminal offence punished by jail time?
Wow, that’s the first time I’ve ever looked over Alains Newsletter – seems like a genuine jerk to me. There is this rash of people behaving badly and interpreting the results as suffering for Christ. I’ll be the first to admit that there are cases when the “hate speech” label is overused to squelch what should be protected as a differing (albeit strongly so) opinion. Alains Newsletter however is an excellent example of someone letting their hate and anger flow obsessively and Google certainly has every right to refuse to participate.
It’s bad enough when these creeps bring shame to themselves, but it truly hurts that they keep smearing Christianity at the same time.
David
Hey David — no reading too much of it… it truly is an ugly display.No reading too much, otherwise it’s back the sock drawer for you 🙂
Why would Alaine’s newsletter not allow traffic from Ex-Gay Watch? According to site’s current front page, they actually WELCOME us!! Maybe their friendly note has been pasted here before (I hadn’t see it), but in case it hasn’t here it is:
‘Hey Exgaywatch – keep on watching Alaine’s Newsletter. If you do, you will have MORE and MORE exgays to watch.
The Truth is coming out, you do not HAVE to be gay! The more of your fellow homosexuals you send to my newsletter, the more that will be set free!
AND, if you leave the gay lifestyle, you will live so much longer! I mean, the statistical lifespan of people who practice homosexuality is 3 decades less than people who practice normal sexuality.
GO STRAIGHT – LIVE LONGER!’
So once again Exodus is linking itself to Paul Cameron’s stats. And how good to know that ‘more and more’ homosexuals will be become straight just by reading the newsletter.
I took some time to read Alain’s Newsletter over the weekend and took some of the major claims about homosexuality and answered to the misinformation. You can read my findings at https://joebrummer.com/WordPress/?p=166
Alas, Stacy,
It’s too late for me. According to your stats, at 42 I’m already dead.
Alas, Stacy, It’s too late for me. According to your stats, at 42 I’m already dead.
And I and virtually all of my friends are apparently well past dead. Fortunately, we all seem to be holding up pretty well under the circumstances… 😉
Alas, my spouse is dead–he is 47. Time for mourning.
My boyfriend and I are both “non-traditional” and cherishing each other at 45 despite having died a few years back. Its not really a sexual relationship, come to think of it its a bit like an “exgay” marriage – except we’re together because we want to be, not because someone else wants us to.
Every time I hear someone quote that lie about low life expectancy I think of how profoundly out of touch with reality the anti-gays willingly are. If they could know the wonderful love we have they’d realize the insanity of they’re doing anything but applauding our relationship.
Having had to sit at the desk and type a report for a few hours allowed me to listen to the offerings of Stacy L Harp M.S. (and thank you for that whiny, fake-“cutesy” voice, NOT!).My conclusion?…
(And that comparison should give you the first clue as to why I’m even bothering with this: expect to begin to see one Stacy L Harp M.S. popping up for commentary at an Exodus event near you…)Stacy is well matched to equally RPDIPL Janet Folger, who had her over the desk as an invited guest and pumped her book “The criminalization of Christianity”.(insert sound of black helicopters here: whoop whoop, whoop…)As we all know, google declined to use “Alains’ Newletter” as a news stream — a good thing considering it’s just a tired repeat of every nasty thing FOF, AFA, Agape etc say about others; including “The Homosexuals” and “The Gay Agenda(C)”.Janet and Stacy declared this to be censorship. This was “screening out Christians from being listed on the Internet” and “it will only be a matter of time before [conservative Christians] can’t be found on any search engine from google” and “wouldn’t be listed in the search engine”.Excuse me? Can we turn the paranoid, ignorant hysteria down to 11?Google hasn’t done anything of the sort. The swill is still to be found via the search engine — what Google declined to do was list this tripe as a special news feed; as they do with about billion other similar “news” sites. QED both Janet and Stacy lied to their listener. (yes, singular. I suspect I was the only one…)Now… as far as I remember, Google is a private company that has every right to do just that. This is no more about censorship than is Stacy herself: “I do allow comments on my blog — they’re moderated.” That’s right… Stacy does not permit any and all comments on her blog… but that wouldn’t be censorship either, she “moderates” them.A clearer idea of what Stacy L Harp M.S. RPDIPL is all about one could consider her blobcast “Stacy Answers Staci”.About a month ago Stacy L Harp, on her blog, cut and paste comment made by “activist lesbians” in a yahoo group. One of said activist lesbians, a Staci, had something to say about the deceptive Exodus billboard — a fairly bland comment of the type that has been said here at XGW. Stacy L Harp provided this as evidence of the intolerance of the homosexuals. So far, so boring. It’s not intolerance to make comment when Exodus uses deceptive advertising. Whatever.But Stacy L Harp went further. She decided she was in a position to make personal comments about Staci. About her life, about a non-biological parent custody dispute… Staci replied about a month later, leaving a fairly nicely worded comment that CORRECTED Stacy L Harp.This was all that was needed for an ENTIRE blobcast about the intolerant ANGRY lesbians at the yahoo group who had more than a few choice (but still rather bland) words to say about what SLH had done to one of their group (eg ridiculing her name as Stacy L HarpY. And, the shear irony, Stacy was quick to mention that she was soooo hurt because “Nobody likes to be called names…”Boo-frickin-hoo, Stacy L Harp. Perhaps you could first start living by your own rule before lecturing others, and trying to beat up a sympathy vote.We then get to the parts that cause me to describe her as a rambling, pointless, delusional, ignorant, paranoid. ie a lunatic.Stacy told Janet about being “threatened by a lesbian activist”. Let me repeat, exactly, what had caused her to start quaking in her flats…
Well, no. I didn’t pick that up. What threat? A desire to leave a critical comment on your blog is a threat against yourself??? Lady, you need to book yourself into a convalescent home for a holiday.Stacy L Harp concludes her comments by giving herself some canned applause. How nice. I guess she felt she deserved it.And now, I have a sock drawer that needs sorting…
Grantdale, I appreciate your reporting on SLH’s podcast, and you do provide examples (at least weak ones) of R,P,I, and P in SLH’s statements.
But I don’t see any evidence of D or L.
And whereas your criticisms might be true of her arguments, you seem to be attacking SLH directly and personally. That, I don’t like.
This may come as a surprise to some, but I have been chatting a bit with Satcy. While I do not agree with her message and I hope a dialog can take place about that, I have found Stacy Harper to be nice. SHe has read my site, and I have read her’s. It is clear we don’t agree, but we have managed to have very nice conversations.
Grant, I appreciate your post, and the info which I will go and listen to the pdcast if I can, and do some more research on the lesbians listserv thing since I wasn’t following it.
I just wanted to sum this up by saying that we will never end war by attacks on each other. We only make new enemies that way, It is better to attack the evil and not the persons doing the evil.
Sorry, Grant, I usually always like your comments, but I feel that we need to end this war more than we need to talk about it.
Point well taken, both Mike and Joe.I also had second thoughts, least of all because this does inflame matters, more the point because it simply dumps on the personal without any explaining of the consequence of being public with such views. But I did it anyway. (Told Randi he’d just have to wait long enough…) One of us has already had a good talking to the other, and a no-holds-barred critique, if that makes any sense… :PNever an excuse, and I’m not making one, but put it down to sheer mind-bending blithering frustration after listening to those awful audio streams. I went and dug over the garden, as the sock drawer wasn’t enough. I have no idea, Joe, what conversations you’ve been privately having but those collected public streams (and the blogs dating back years) etc are most unpleasant. The wholesale “RPDIPL conclusion” was indented delib., but cannot be read as intended to reflect that feeling(other one here: actually, it reads as if intended. So that’s even worse! And poor technique. You should have just spoke of the feelings, instead of trying to be all artistic.)Mike — we know the rules here.You may remove the post if you wish for the same reason others have got removed (I know you are always reluctant to do that, but will do it for those that overstep the personal).Or permit the criticism already given one to the other to be reflected in a revision.Or leave it standing as what not to do, together with all the deserved comments that follow.
And, as someone has just reminded me, I was meant to finish on something before pushing “post”…Stacy, I unreservedly apologize for those sections that will be read as unnecessarily personal. They add nothing to the post.I do, however, stand by all the observations about the paranoid, ignorant and unpleasant nature of the way you address gay men and women. I really don’t know why you chose to do that, but if your opinions were to become widespread there will be cruel consequences for people such as ourselves and others. Your reading of the lives of gay men and lesbians, and the statements you make, go well beyond any deeply held religious views – you are demonizing people, without even bothering to know who you are talking about. That is dangerous.And now, I await Mike’s email…
I think your apologee was well said…..
Oh, come on really how many people do you expect to know what a RPDIPL is? I didn’t even get anything on google.
Okay, now I get it…after I post that…
I don’t get it, what does it mean?
never mind…i get it now…..
grantdale said:
No reading too much, otherwise it’s back the sock drawer for you 🙂
Hehe, my socks are wearing out more from organizing than from wear these days. I’m going to have to add Ativan to my regimen for breakthrough anger. Some of this stuff is such pure hatred!
As for the personal attacks, it’s true that these do not really help the debate and I am usually the first one to point that out. However sometimes it takes tremendous will power to avoid in the face of such wretched statements. And Joe, although I don’t personally find the Ghandi style appropriate for everything, if you can point out the utter nonsense they are spouting while still being chummy, more power to you. I guess a lot of that will depend on just how civil the other party is willing to be.
David
It isn’t just Ganhi and KIng I admire, it is Peterson Toscano and Mel white, Jeff Lutes. I admire those who are way better at it than me. I may never be completely non-violent, but it is my goal.
Joe Brummer said:
It isn’t just Ganhi and KIng I admire, it is Peterson Toscano and Mel white, Jeff Lutes. I admire those who are way better at it than me. I may never be completely non-violent, but it is my goal.
I would certainly agree with non-violence during a debate (or most any time with the obvious exceptions). Perhaps we are not in sync with the definition of violence in this instance. I always try to remain civil, but there are times when my passion about a particularly heinous point of view may be expressed with some fervor. If the cause is just, I think it is perfectly normal to express some healthy anger on occasion. Christ was certainly not violent, but he did get angry at injustice.
Again, these are personal issues; that your way is not necessarily mine does not make either wrong. By all means follow your own passion (and don’t wear out your sock drawer!).
David
I understand the anger issue. Anger is part of human emotion. Anger is healthy. Anger is what motivates much of what I do. Stacy Harps blog makes me angry. Exodus makes me angry, but I want to do something positive with this anger. Here is a blurb from the King Center about anger and non-violence. I offer it in hope I can recruit you into non-violence.
“Nonviolence as a way of life challenges us to rise above the debilitating emotions of hatred and to purge our contempt and animosity toward adversaries. Instead of returning anger with anger, we set an example of emotional maturity. We educate the public and we win the respect and support of the community. We acquire a moral and spiritual power that can not be denied. To internalize the spirit of nonviolence, we refuse to be bated into petty arguments. We challenge negative energy and violence with a loving, positive attitude. This is how nonviolence disarms adversaries. As Dr. King said, “Along the way of life, someone must have enough sense and morality to cut off the chain of hate by projecting the ethics of love into the center of our lives.”
https://www.thekingcenter.org/prog/non/awayoflife.html
I truly believe we can turn anger into love, it is not easy, and at times it seems impossible, but I know it could end this war with the conservative right wing.
Joe Brummer said:
…but I know it could end this war with the conservative right wing.
I will have to disagree there. There may be some on the inner edge of that movement who will accept a reasoned argument over time, but for those who believe their message is one of righteous truth there is no compromise. You will sometimes get what we saw with SB recently, an insincere attempt at making nice – an act – but you won’t get changed minds. The best we can hope for from those who hold to that ideology is to prevent them from exercising any real power over the lives of those who disagree.
There may always be those who oppose our position, but we must all have the freedom to live our lives as we see fit within the bounds of civil society. Think about it for a minute; if someone truly believes in the God of the Bible, and they truly believe that He considers homosexuality a sin, what could you possibly offer them that would be more authoritative (to them) than that? Heck, if I believed that (He considered it a sin) I wouldn’t listen to you either.
As I said, we may be talking about different things when you mention violence, but I have no problem with occasionally punctuating my position with strong emotions. I do try to make that the exception and not the rule, otherwise it would be counter productive. Nevertheless, I need not be Spock to be logical.
Good luck and keep on documenting what you can. I think that is important.
David
Reasonable: “I will have to disagree there. There may be some on the inner edge of that movement who will accept a reasoned argument over time, but for those who believe their message is one of righteous truth there is no compromise.”
I disagree also, but I think there’s another overriding reason. The big picture has nothing to do with individuals who “come out of” homosexuality, or “restore” heterosexuality, or eliminate those pesky “same sex attractions.”
It has everything to do with supporting and underpinning a broad religious view that homosexuality is a changable condition in everyone, and therefore can be viewed as sin and not god’s creation.
This makes most ex-gays soldiers on a suicide mission. I feel sorry for those involved (parents, well-meaning ministers and lay people, poor confused trapped gays and lesbians) who don’t know any better.
But there’s a tipping point among the wiser and more experienced, where there is just no conclusion other than the ex-gay movement is hurting everyone it touches, and the choice is either to change the program or view those soldiers as expendable for the greater good.
I realize you don’t believe non-violence is the way, but I will offer you this. It is a quick read and means so much for us as gays and lesbains. Maybe it will chance your minds, maybe not. I called it worth the try!
https://www.theotherside.org/archive/jan-feb98/white.html
Joe, I understand completely (trust me on that), but I don’t think others are suggesting violence rather than non-violence.Ghandi’s path was a brave and uncertain one, but he did — and I consider his writings here — also rely on the goodness that he detected in those who controlled the Raj.My grandfather remembered Ghandi touring the mill towns of Lancashire — areas dependent on the export of cotton cloth that his home grown movement placed in direct jeopardy. Yet he was welcomed, in even the poorest of streets.Ghandi’s approach worked because it embarrassed the British. They already knew they should not be controlling India. Those who responded agressively to the independance movement caused nothing but generally deep shame both within India, and within Whitehall.A very different situation occurs when the oppressive hate the oppressed. In different times and places Ghandi would have been shot in an alley, along with anyone who followed him. And a regime could have continued.What I’m suggesting is… consider the pathways that we all tread. The footway to the gas chambers was cobbled and lined with flowering bushes. It also ended in torment.I’m not a violent person, or even confrontational. I’m also not a martyr. It is good you work as you do, and perhaps you may succeed. But please don’t forget that you may be dealing with someone who has no real morals or even a glimmer of shame. I don’t think they are ‘evil’, but they are dangerous.They also don’t care if you lunge at them, or kneel, as they swing the axe.Hope that makes sense 🙂 Blame us, and not our friends, if it doesn’t.
grantdale said:
In different times and places Ghandi would have been shot in an alley…
Or on a motel balcony in Memphis.
Joe, I still think we are emphasizing differences that aren’t really that significant. However, while I respect Mel White for his energy and dedication, there are many things about his personal beliefs and philosophy that do not resonate with me. If I might be candid, your efforts on this seem to border on the evangelistic. I appreciate your fervor, but consider how this would be perceived if I was trying to evangelize grantdale into Christianity – probably not something we should be doing here.
David
David — Hey! You have no idea what we are… and that is entirely deliberate on our part 🙂 Sheez you Talibans, sorry, Americans.Being able to bang on about any religion doesn’t mean we follow it. Or not. Or much at all, actually.PS: don’t take it to heart. You are right to doubt you’d ever convert us to anything, but that doesn’t mean we haven’t already been. Or maybe we haven’t. Our point … “and I do have one” … is that it SHOULD NOT MATTER.As we say to all the crazy evangelicals (not nec. Xian)…
grantdale said:
David — Hey! You have no idea what we are… and that is entirely deliberate on our part 🙂 Sheez you Talibans, sorry, Americans.
Oh you melodramatic Australians 🙂 Actually, I just grabbed your name for the sake of argument because you made the last post above. My point didn’t require the other party to be “heathen”!
The faith or lack thereof of those posting is not as important to me as the way we treat each other. Proselytizing of any sort is probably not a good practice here, however. That was my point.
David
Agree. And not just for here. Actually it’s been considered rather rude in Australia to question after people’s personal religious beliefs — let alone pester people. Sadly that’s falling by the wayside. Always happy to discuss, but don’t ask don’t tell.And wadda ya mean — you’d be melodramatic if you too just had to wrestle a crocodile on your way to bed. That really pisses me off, they’re so annoying. That and the million flippin roos in the yard, eating up all my herb garden. Vermin.By the way, herbs has an “H”. Erbs??? What the heck are they?
Nothing but love for both of you 🙂
I think “erbs” are the dry things you get in a jar at the supermarket where “herbs” are the fresh things you pick in the garden.
David
“That and the million flippin roos in the yard, eating up all my herb garden. Vermin.”
But… but… they’re cuuuuuuuuute!!!!!
Some excellent points about Ghandi and the differences between the Mel White way and more confrontational ones. I don’t know what way works best against an oppressor motivated only by the destination and doesn’t care about the path. Maybe trying a myriad of approaches works the best. In practice, that is what Mel White did in his own life.
When he talked about the file cabinets full of screeds, intolerance and hate from people like Falwell, et al, I wondered how much of that material may have been written by Mel White himself.
I just took a look at Alain’s website and had a hearty chuckle. His repeated claims that he was attacked by “homosexual activists” and cut with a knife is absurd, as are the claims that his house was broken into and vandalized, presumably by more angry homosexuals.
Gays and lesbians do a lot to defend ourselves from the cultural bigotry espoused by Alain and his ilk in the faux-Christian movement. However I cannot come up with one single report of an incident where gays acted as the “bashers” or vandalized property in the way Alain claims. The tactics he describes seem more in line with the Neo-Nazi crowd who are thrilled by Alain’s noxious rhetoric. Gay men and lesbians have been attacked physically, many even murdered in the attacks. Gays and lesbians have had their homes vandalized by hatemongers. In a way, if the violent incidents claimed by Alain actually took place wouldn’t that be sort of a sweet justice?
I applaud Google News for refusing to run anything from Alain’s website. They don’t run the daily commentary of the KKK either, so I think that Alain has little ground to stand on when he claims that Google is “censoring” him. There is absolutely no difference between racists and homophobes – both disorders are based in groundless fears.