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Writing much here would only serve to spoil the excellent job MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow did Tuesday night in her interview with ex-gay guru Richard Cohen. Pay close attention to the references in Cohen’s book, Coming Out Straight (third printing), which came from the discredited pseudo-research of the notorious Paul Cameron.
Also of note, Maddown calls Cohen on the reference in his other book, Gay Children, Straight Parents, which places race as one contributing factor to homosexuality. At first Cohen didn’t believe it was in the book, but then, after hearing a direct quote, had to painfully admit that this was not true. This begs the question, why did he write it in the first place?
So, InterVarsity Press, are you still glad you made the decision to publish this mess?
Maddow played as she has once before the video showing one of the major proponents of the Uganda Anti Homosexuality Bill 2009, Stephen Langa, teaching from Coming Out Straight. She painstakingly connected the dots for him, showing how claims from one of his newsletters — that homosexuals prey on children and recruit them into the “homosexual lifestyle” — gave Langa and others in Uganda exactly what they needed to force what is now being called the “kill the gays bill” into law.
We agree with Maddow, Cohen has blood on his hands with this one.
Rachel, My life partner and I have been together since the early 1970’s. Since our retirement we have become more active than ever in Democratic politics and the gay community, now offering our zoological and botanic landscaped home and acreage to the local leadership and their events. This email is to send you our congratulations and admiration for the wonderful work that you are doing in uncovering, fighting back, and no doubt changing many minds of some still infected by the hate virus being spread by the hate mongers in this country and throughout the world. You would make a wonderful future president of the United States. We hope that you will have the opportunity to consider such a goal in the post Obama period. Best wishes, Dennis Balgemann
[swell music “The Army of the Enemy of Satan” by “tEh JeSuS ChIlDrEn”(r)]
[fade up from black]
Hi. I’m Alan Chambers.
I used to life a homosexual lifestyle.
[fade in 1978 NAMBLA banner, fade to image to SSA male couple in leather, fade that to a close up of an angry obese lesbian yelling]
But now I have a wife and children.
[fade in, fade out]
Some of you may have heard about the terrible situation in Uganda.
[show map of Alaska]
[start clip of happy young people running over flower strewn lawn]
I want to assure you — personally — that Exodus International has never associated with Richard Cohen.
We acidentally once invited him to our events. We acidentally once joined a group he founded. We accidentilaly once sold his books.
[close up. serious face.]
But we stopped as soon as we knew who Richard Cohen was. He does not represent the Love of Jesus. He does not show love to hurting homosexuals. He does not help homosexuals find freedom.
[fade in an attractive man and women (same race) holding a newborn baby (ditto)]
I was as shocked as I know you were to discover that Richard Cohen had sent one of his people to Uganda to interupt a brief information workshop about freedom from homosexuality.
[cue photo of Don Schmierer in suit and tie behind a podium. Crop to exclude IHF person. Pan to show happy African faces.]
As the largest information and referral ministry in the world addressing homosexual issues, I want to assure you — personally — that we now do not associate with Richard Cohen.
We never have.
We never will.
You have my word on it.
[extra-close up. Wink to camera.]
[fade out with image of pensive young man staring out a frosted window]
[fade over “I questioned homosexuality.” fade out]
huh??? sorry, that went berko on us. And now we cannot edit it. Forgive all spelling errors, please. (how many ways can one incorrectly spell “accidentally”?)
The guy can’t bring himself to take even a smidgen of responsibility for his own words. What a huckster.
Thanks Grant/Dale,
The best visualizations since the invention of YouTube…or maybe Cinemascope.
“Cohen has blood on his hands with this one.”
Ask him if he cares. He’s too busy beating the devil out of himself to care what happens to his victims.
Uganda is one of my favorite countries. However, it is disgustingly homophobic. LGBTs are regularly attacked in the mainstream media and even most progressives there are scared to speak out against homophobia. This is one time that the West would be right to intervene to oppose this ultra-reactionary proposed kill-the-Gays bill.
How does Cohen stay on the radar with being expelled from the American Counseling Association for multiple violations of the ethics code? He is also a member of NARTH, which is supposed to be a scientific organization, so how does he get in there. He has NO SCIENCE ON HIS SIDE, his books are full of factual and scientific errors, serious ones. I don’t think he is a member of any professional association for counseling or otherwise and now HE DOES HAVE BLOOD ON HIS HANDS..
he dose not care
I’m so creeped out by this guy. All the crap he kept saying about non-bonding with father, etc was the same crap I heard when I went through so-called ‘reparative therapy’ 20 years ago. What an idiot. He’s clearly never spent any time with gay people who don’t hate themselves.
Nobody knows for sure why a person is gay. To try to make them un-gay, a therapist has to come up with a recipe. A recipe is used over and over to produce the same result, but each human being on this planet is as unique as their fingerprint.
I think I’ve made my point. I find books and CDs and seminars to un-gay a person the highest form of degradation any human being can go through.
This is one former degraded human being who will never fall for their crap again.