Around the Block: Exgays in the News

Focus on the Family cheers killers’ change of story in Matthew Shepard murder (Dec. 6)

Focus’ press release, misquoting Katie Couric, is here. AgapePress helps Gary Bauer hop on the ABC/religious-right bandwagon promoting leniency and sympathy for Shepard’s killers. Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell are taking the public debate over hate crimes even lower — calling Christians the victims of "hate crimes" because holiday displays on public property are required to reflect the diverse faith perspectives of the taxpayers.

Rio considers funding ‘gay conversion’ therapy (Dec. 8)

(Hat tip: James B.)

Hostility toward gay youth rises post election, Lambda Legal says (Dec. 9)

(This story includes links to numerous other stories reporting specific incidents of harassment against gay youth. Exodus official Randy Thomas last week ridiculed schools’ efforts to reduce harassment. So did WorldNetDaily. Blogger Dan Gonzales sees an exgay connection to rising violence against gay youth.)

The American Family Association’s AgapePress conceals Focus on the Family’s heavy involvement in the antigay magazine insert in The Washington Post a couple weeks back. (Hat tip: Dan Gonzales.)

Salt Lake Metro magazine interviews former exgay Russ Gorringe, who was given bad exgay advice to marry by Mormon church leaders and later spent "hundreds of thousands of dollars on reparative therapy" that nearly drove him to commit suicide. The article balances Gorringe’s struggle with the views of Evergreen International executive director David Pruden, who is exgay, and the personal and clinical observatios of ex-exgay therapist Dr. Lee Beckstead. (Hat tip: Wayne Besen.)

Gay author Wayne Besen warns against social conservatives’ dumbing-down of America (Dec. 9), and examines the erroneous conflation of two very different institutions: marriage and civil unions (Dec. 16).