Stephen Bennett of Stephen Bennett Ministries is available for comment on the Foley scandal. From the “Foley, Molestation and Homosexuality — Expert Available for Comment” media release:
…”Former Rep. Foley’s story is so tragically typical – the molested can become the molester. Yes, there are those who can deal with the trauma and make it through. However, we have to stop worrying about being ‘politically correct’ in the media regarding homosexuality and finally deal with the truths and facts that homosexual molestation (and heterosexual) of children can and does produce future homosexual men and women. It robs children of their childhood and in many cases, destroys their lives. I’ve personally dealt with so many homosexual individuals whose lives have been ruined because of childhood molestation – but the great news is they don’t have to be ‘by-products’ or victims of their childhood. These individuals can be ‘victors’ and not ‘victims.’ Change IS completely possible. For former Rep. Foley and so many others, there is help — and there is HOPE.”
Stephen is available to provide expert commentary on the Foley story in regard to homosexual molestation, as well as former NJ Governor McGreevey and share many other true accounts – even the story of a man molested who was jailed for molesting little boys, and hanged himself. He could no longer control his desires to molest boys and instead took his own life.
“No comment” from me (as any comment I would make would seem too obvious a rejoinder), so let me call this a “Foley scandal: Formerly Gay Identified People Speak” entry.
*****Update*****
No, I can’t go without commenting. Yesterday on MSNBC, I saw Pat Buchannan parrot Peter LaBarbera’s comments. Today I see Stephen Bennet’s comments, and wonder who might parrot whatever he says.
Mike Airhart, in a responding yesterday to the comment by LaBarbera, asked the question (here) “Did LaBarbera offer any stats or sources to substantiate his opinion, or did he just vent uninformed animosities?”
I think the question also applies to Stephen Bennett who, in my opinion, just spouts uninformed opinion as fact. As a transwoman, Bennett’s apparent belief that gender expression is divinely created with absolutist standards seems a particularly unlettered opinion, and that he’s previously identified himself as an expert on HIV/AIDS when he just cherry-picks statistics … I could go on.
It’s that he frequently describes himself an “expert” when he seems to frequently use Argument By Selective Observation (again, here) and Scenario (as in the story about the prison suicide in this latest press release, vice citing specific statistics on suicides, and then tying it to the Foley scandal)…well, I find it irritating that there will be some news organizations that may regurgitate his opinions as “expert” opinions.
Think I just threw up in my mouth a little.
If he’s providing expertise, where on earth did he get the “expert”?
“even the story of a man molested who was jailed for molesting little boys, and hanged himself. He could no longer control his desires to molest boys and instead took his own life.”
Would he also be able to comment then on the Amish school killer that did basically the same thing but killed others too?
If Foley really was 13 – 15 when he was molested, then I highly doubt that the molestation “made” him gay. After all, don’t some of the “scientists” at NARTH start treating children as young as 3 for the “problem” of homosexuality?
Not to mention the huge number of us who are gay and were never molested (I did have impure thoughts about one of the priests I knew, but that was a youthful, unrequited, crush).
‘expert commentary’? Coming from Bennett?
Oh please…
It doesn’t take sex to make someone know they are gay. It doesn’t take a single encounter to determine that.
ESPECIALLY when you’re adolescent.
Am I right about that guys?
One isn’t so conscious about heterosexuality. I assume that feeling or being gay ISN’T different from being homosexual.
You just feel that way, and there isn’t anything deliberate there.
Wild horses, wouldn’t make me gay-even though I find men a trial sometimes.
Straight folks and ex gay folks wear me out with this ‘choice/deliberation’ opinion.
They get so exercised about it in ways that don’t make much sense to someone like me who is paying attention.
Foley is bucking for sympathy. And saying that ‘a molestation made me gay/do it’ is the exact refuge that Bennett LOVES to exploit.
There is no way to qualify if it’s even true.
And there is no reason not to believe it.
But jumping on it and shaking the ‘see gay men are all pedophiles’ finger must be getting old for regular folks too.
It serves Bennett’s agenda well. But it’s dangerous for all innocents.
well, I find it irritating that there will be some news organizations that may regurgitate his opinions as “expert” opinions.
As with Paul Cameron, that’s were most of the “facts” I have seen in such publications have come from. Like hand me down clothing, it gets more ragged with each use.
In other words, “hey, me too! I want in on the action! How can I get some publicity out of this? That’s the not so hidden agenda I see here. SB is one of those ex-gays that has never seemed sincere in the slightest to me. I know that is subjective, but it’s my opinion. He has a history of starting this and that business literally in his garage, and while there is nothing wrong with that in itself, his efforts with this “ministry” have been quite similar to those small business ventures.
I like how he lists Bill O’Reilley as a reference for his work but omits that Bill also threatened to sue him for copyright infringement for allegedly placing part of the show on a tape for sale. I wonder how bonafide the rest of the references are.
I trust some of these guys to a point, because they have shown themselves trustworthy, to a point, but I just don’t believe much of what comes out of Stephen’s mouth. And I don’t say that lightly.
I have a good friend who is “struggling” with “unwanted” same sex attractions. He reached out to, and communicated with, Stephen Bennett. Later he recounted some of his interactions with this man saying that he was one of the most disingenuous, least self-assured people he had ever met. That he was less concerned with helping my friend and much more concerned with helping his “image”…sad commentary from someone who thought Mr. Bennett was someone he could gain help from.
Interesting, that on Stephen’s media bio, it states that he is the “biological” father to his two small children. Why the need to share that? It almost sounds as though he’s scared people will think he’s not really the dad.
Looks as though Stephen is now the “Senior Pastor” of a church. Work on his autobiography is progressing as well, although it looks as though the publishing date has moved to fall 2007.
j.
I say Bennett on the O’Reilly show and even Bill thought that he was fanatic and fringe. He then claimed Bill was not fair to him and misrepresented him. If O’Reilly had a problem with him, that is saying something.
I once saw him on the 700 Club, and he kept saying how he is no longer gay even though he is somewhat effeminate. He seemed very insecure and worried about his masculinity on the show. He seemed to equate heterosexuality with being a “true” male, which is funny because my spouse and I, even though we don’t care about gender, are really masculine people. It has nothing to do with our sexual orientation.
So if anyone has any interactions with Stephen, be sure to ask him how many children he molested back when he was a homosexual.
Jonathan,
If your friend would be comfortable with it, we would love to hear the story about his interaction with Bennett. We would be respectful of his wishes for anonymity. Even if he didn’t want it discussed on the site, the authors would still like to have this information to help us understand Bennett and his motivations.
If he’s willing, could you please have him e-mail one of the site coordinators.
Thanks,
Timothy Kincaid
Boo beat me to what I was going to say, so I’ll just ask a question I’ve always wanted an answer to:
If sexual orientation is a choice, then how can a person have “unwanted same-sex attractions”? What would those be? I guess if, say, I found Rush Limbaugh sexy, that would be an “unwanted same-sex attraction”. So far I’ve been lucky, in that the only guys I’ve been attracted to were ones I liked, except for the occasional found-him-sexy-til-I realized-he-was-a-jerk-and-quickly-lost-interest guys who’ve crossed my path.
I’ll get in touch with him before the end of the week and see how comfortable he feels with sharing about his interactions with Stephen.
j.
thanks
Boo,
Peter LaBarbera on the Americans for Truth website today stated:
So should Mike Ensley or Scott Davis, who wrote Exodus Youth’s Truth & Tolerance ever be around youth? What about Randy Thomas — he created the “…first online youth outreach initiative that now reaches young people all over the world with a message of hope and change?” I guess those are rhetorical questions.
So here’s a question I would like to ask LaBarbera and ex-gays in the ministry who work with youth:
What do you believe are the measurement tools Christians should use for determining when formerly identified male homosexuals become safe enough people to work with adolescent males? And how does one obtain the measurement data on these individuals to make the determination?
Damn good question, Autumn. You suppose they feed ’em saltpeter and pray?
I had lost track of what was happening for Stephen.
Suddenly he is Pastor Bennett; I can’t find any reference to him being ordained recently, or earning credentials from a religious group. Perhaps, just as he is a self-ordained expert on Foley, something similar has happened regarding the pastorate.
And there is a new church. Which is also a TV studio. With a yet-to-be-published street address. Like many of the Bennett ministry projects, it has its own web site, needs financial support, and welcomes donations from anywhere around the globe.
Each new project seems to eclipse the prior ones despite assurances that the older ones either won’t change significantly, or will come back after a hiatus. Global initiatives, annual outreach events, New England initiatives, a daily radio show, the autobiography… all have taken center stage and later been upstaged.
So, now he adds “media expert on sexual abuse” and “self-ordained pastor of a local yet global church” to the resume.
God sure is busy telling Stephen to change course and start new stuff.
Jonathan said:
Looks as though Stephen is now the “Senior Pastor” of a church.
Where did you find this?
Once again, the “fact” that one was molested and the “fact” that one is now is gay does not “prove” that either one “caused” the other.
This is a common falacyof reasining called “post hoc ergo propter hoc”. The phrase is latin for “after this, therefore because of this.” Wikipedia says this is also known as:
“multicollinearity” or “coincidental correlation” or “false cause.”
“It is a logical fallacy which assumes or asserts that if one event happens after another, then the first must be the cause of the second. It is a particularly tempting error because temporal sequence is integral to causality — it is true that a cause always happens before its effect. The fallacy lies in coming to a conclusion based only on the order of events, which is not an accurate indicator. That is to say, it is not always true that the first event caused the second event “Post hoc” is similar to affirming the consequent. It can be expressed as follows: When A occurs, B occurs.
Therefore, A causes B.”
David – The front page of sbministries.com states that Bennett is now senior pastor of ‘Heavenly Hope Christian Church’ in Huntington, CT. A blog entry indicates that it’s a new start-up church (presumably started by Bennett) that had 34 persons at the initial service. Sermons are available online, and a photo on the blog shows a pulpit set up in what looks like someone’s living room. He envisions thousands attending the church in the future from all over the world. Up until now, Bennett has been affiliated with a Baptist congregation in West Haven. Small Baptist churches are famous for splitting and forming new groups when people disagree on doctrine, pastoral leadership, etc. But since Huntington is 16 miles away, maybe it’s more like a satellite congregation. Anyway, I had noticed that Bennett’s national speaking schedule has become pretty sparse, so maybe he has time now to stay at home and preach every Sunday. Interestingly, the online info on his upcoming Annual Conference (late Oct.) still includes Sunday morning services at his “home church”, which is listed as Haven of Rest Baptist in West Haven. My thoughts on Bennett’s new ‘senior pastor’ status is that new church starts are enormously tricky and time-intensive. I don’t see how someone could pull it off while also managing a growing ex-gay ministry and while ’emerging as one of the nation’s key speakers on the issues of homosexuality and the homosexual agenda.’ We’ll see if the shelf life of Bennett’s pastorate is similar to that of “Straight Talk Radio.”
I was entering the site through the link in the article above and didn’t realize I wasn’t on the front page. You know, on that page he says SBM was founded in 2000 by Stephen Bennett, a heterosexual man who once engaged in the practice of homosexuality. Yet in the sermon video linked to another page he asks that if there are any homosexuals in the congregation, I hope you will listen or words to that effect. He also constantly refers to his ministry to the homosexual, has links in his menu to Former Homosexual’s testimonies, and asking Is your child, loved one, etc. homosexual, and on his Jerusalem World Pride Outreach graphic he entreats others to Help SBM reach many homosexuals with the truth. So which is it, was he homosexual? Are these people he claims to want to “reach” homosexual?
The haphazard way he approaches the whole subject would lead me to call him anything but “expert” on it. He comes across as constantly concerned about how many organizations, initiatives, cd’s, books and whatever else on which he can put “SBM” or “Stephen Bennett founded”. At best he is an entrepreneur with a seriously fouled moral compass, and at worst, well you fill in the blank.
Note: amusing case in point. Here is the verbiage from his contact page:
All e-mails go through SBM’s On-Line Security & Fraud Division for scanning and approval. Approved e-mails will then be forwarded to the National Offices of SBM. SPAM, hate, vulgar, pornographic, and disrespectful or non-ministry e-mail will be AUTOMATICALLY deleted by SBM Security.
Grandiose, aren’t we. Must take 5 minutes in an elevator just to get to the top of that garage.
Have you seen pics of Bennett? My goodness, that HAIR!!!! He must singlehandedly be responsible for ozone depletion with the amount of hairspray used on his gravity-defying do. He’d give Cher or Patti Labelle at their most 1980’s outlandish a run for the money…
So, Stephen want’s others to “Help SBM reach many homosexuals with the truth.”. He must know that many gay people (maybe most) find the term “homosexual” offensive. The fact that he keeps refering to gay people in this way is yet another indicator that he is not at all sincere about “ministering” to gays, if he was he wouldn’t start out by insulting the people he supposedly wants to reach. His actions are truly despicable.
Johnson,
Please be careful with “appearance comments.”
On a personal level, I frequently see Christian right pundits use catch phrase a man in a dress to describe individual transwomen. And, when I look at my peer transpeople, I don’t always see “passable appearance” in the target sex — that’s one of the reasons transpeople call the often lengthy process of changing one’s sex a transition. Is a transperson’s value as a human being diminished because he or she doesn’t “pass” in her target sex? Or is a transperson’s value as a human being diminished if he isn’t a handsome man or she isn’t a beautiful woman? Gawd, I hope not.
On a broader level, focusing on the appearance of people on different sides of issues often becomes Ad Hominem arguing. The issue of whether or not Stephen Bennett is a qualified “expert” has nothing to do with his hairstyle.
Bennett is a businessman who sells his own brand of political correctness.
But he lacks professional sales skills. The resulting product is amateur.
“Have you seen pics of Bennett? My goodness, that HAIR!!!!”
Having grown up in evangelical Christianity of the, shall we say, less sophisticated sort, I can vouch that bad hair is a cultural aspect of some Christian circles. Just as certain girls from Jersey might wear hairstyles that would earn mockery across the state line in NY, so too do some evangelical Christian men, especially those in ministry, sport hairstyles that might appear to be disconnected with the current styles as dictated by fashion magazines. In my youth, I’m sure my father single handedly kept Brylcreem in business.
This isn’t to suggest these ministers are hicks or ignorant, but simply that they are fitting into the cultural norms of their community. Just as there is Texas Hair, and Jersey Hair, and the latest Hollywood Touseled Strategically Arranged Faux-hawk/bed-head Hair all of which are designed to win the approval of the people you see every day, there’s also Preacher Hair. It’s not good, it’s not bad, it just is.
You know what they say: “The higher the hair, the closer to Jesus”.
I think it’s charming.
The first time I saw a picture of Stephen Bennet I thought he was kind of attractive…ewww, I have unwanted heterosexual attractions, help me! help me please! I need to wash my mind out now.
I think Bennett looks perfectly fine.
And I agree with Timothy and Autumn: Judgment of people by their appearance says more about the judger than the target.
“However, we have to stop worrying about being ‘politically correct’ in the media regarding homosexuality and finally deal with the truths and facts that homosexual molestation (and heterosexual) of children can and does produce future homosexual men and women.”
Oh, I get it . . . homosexuality is like vampirism! I bite you, and you get it, and then you bite someone else, and they get it, and so on, and so on. Well, that sure lets the air out of ex-Gay doctrine, doesn’t it? Anybody knows you can’t cure vampirism with therapy and prayer.
Personally, I think people like Stephen Bennett prey on rational thought in the same way vampires prey on virgins. They fly at it, engulf it in their batwinged fabrications, sink their fangs in deep and suck every bit of rationality out. Something should be done about them. At the very least, we should do what we can to keep them away from us. I think I’ll buy a few cloves of garlic tonight at the grocery store.
Flying vist, while on holiday (sort of)…
Perfectly happy to agree that Judgment of people by their appearance says more about the judger than the target.
It’s still SERIOUSLY BAD HAIR. Regardless. On both of them. Big, and Bad. With an ozone hole all of their-hairsprayed-own.
But this ain’t a hair judging forum. (Lucky, because you’d need a microscope with one of us!)
Never mind the bad hair… it’s the attitude, the lying, and the insincere platitudes that are really disgusting.
Well, OK, more disgusting. Or, Most disgusting?
From Stephen’s Oct. 22 sermon:
“Just like Dorothy said in the classic movie The Wizard of Oz:
‘My, people come and go so quickly around here!'”
I just knew Stephen was still a friend of Dorothy’s!