Focus on the Family refuses to treat gay bloggers as journalists, which is hardly unexpected. What is surprising is how a reporter from the Southern Voice, part of a network of gay print media which reaches 400,000 readers weekly, was went unrecognized and marginalized despite behaving in a professional maner at Love Won Out Atlanta. Laura Douglas-Brown had some things to say on SoVo.com that really shows Exodus may proclaim “freedom from homosexuality” (to straight voters) but really doesn’t give a damn if actual gay people ever hear the message.
Contrast that to the treatment Dyana Bagby, Southern Voice news editor, received when she covered “Love Won Out,” Focus on the Family’s traveling ex-gay conference, last weekend at First Baptist Church of Woodstock.
The event’s media coordinator was initially happy to help Bagby when she called to inquire about press credentials. But when the man learned that Southern Voice covers gay issues, his attitude immediately changed.
Gay newspapers are banned from obtaining press credentials for Love Won Out, he said, and we could attend only by paying the $60 fee as a member of the public — although several other media outlets attended free-of-charge.
When Bagby attempted to use a digital recorder to take notes during a morning lecture by anti-gay researcher Joseph Nicolosi — as any attendee might want to do — she was told that the sessions could not be recorded. She immediately stopped.
Later in the day, Bagby asked directions to a press conference hosted by Focus on the Family, and was hostilely told that she would not be allowed to attend. Keep in mind that in most cases, press credentials are not required to attend press conferences — they are almost always public events attended by both media and others interested in the particular issue. In fact, most organizations work to increase attendance at their press events, not limit it.
The incident apparently left Bagby marked by conference organizers. She was allowed back into the conference, but when she misplaced her recorder, it was returned to her by conference staff later that afternoon — with her notes from the event, as well as a previous story, erased.
And despite the fact that she was a paid attendee, and that she had not recorded any notes since being told not to that morning, Bagby was then escorted out of the conference and all the way to her car, where she was watched to make sure she drove away rather than trying to interview any conference attendees on their own time outside of the event.
So much for truth.
You have an extra quote mark [“] at the end of your tag for the first
And oddly enough it added a period [.] at the end of the URL I posted. Or maybe I put it there, which means we should add a space after posting a URL – or nothing at all.
Lij, thanks. I have fixed the original link.
In the future, please send link corrections to us via e-mail — because once the link is fixed, your comment becomes confusing to new readers.
but we hope everyone will be fair in characterizing what we say and the way in which we say it.
Too bad they didn’t extend that courtesy to Dyana Bagby. I can almost hear the rationalizations now about how she is an activist and not a member of the media, etc. What it boils down to is a desire not to have what they say observed with a critical eye. I’m surprised they haven’t yet tried to say their speaches are trade secrets.
Why is no one held accountable for actions like these? Shouldn’t someone at least try to explain this behavior?
I spoke with a journalist after we had both attended LWO in Maryland. She experienced something similar — the folks at the press credentials desk quibbled over whether she was attending as a professional journalist because her publication had assigned her to do a piece, but she would only get paid after it had been published. The only option available then was to pay the $60 entry fee.
Arguably, that approach accomplishes a couple of things for the organizers of LWO: (1) Professional journalists who identify themselves (an ethical, up-front thing to do) to LWO can be monitored (2) fees can be collected (3) Independent and contract journalists who aren’t reimbursed for expenses are discouraged from covering LWO, given that the cost can exceed what they’re paid.
In their materials, and in the initial welcome to the event from the podium, attendees are told that they are present at the pleasure of the LWO organizers, who reserve the right to remove any person at will without explanation.
As I wrote then, this was my first experience sharing a church sanctuary with armed cops. They weren’t overbearing, but they made their presence known by walking the aisles during breaks, scanning the people there.
During the talks, 2-4 LWO staffers were stationed near the front of the sanctuary, watching the attendees for infractions like turning on a recorder. I had assumed that it would be possible to blend in somewhat inconspicuously, but ended up feeling conspicuous when I didn’t participate in standing ovations.
Note that LWO doesn’t fully reject recording of the LWO talks. Audio of the full day, including break-out sessions, is available for purchase on CD. (It seems to me the price was in the $60-80 range.) I haven’t seen those marketed to non-attendees.
Why is no one held accountable for actions like these? My thoughts are that (1) Credible mainstream media are cautious about making themselves part of a news story. (Note that Douglas-Brown’s coverage appeared in an editorial.) (2) LWO organizers are, if not happy to attract negative publicity, experienced in using it to their advantage. (3) The ex-gay subculture is not perceived by the mainstream media to be hold significant influence or interest within the public.
Thus, the work of the writers and readers of XGW is very important. By itself, a LWO event isn’t terribly significant. The issue is that Focus on the Family and Exodus will use LWO to support claims that they are just one more credible advocacy group within the American culture. The experience of folks collected here, though, reveals that LWO is a tightly-scripted, only nominally open road show which holds itself accountable and fully open to no one.
I have no personal quarrel with people who want to change their sexual orientation, although I do not think it is possible, which many ex-gays admit, to completely change their same-sex attraction. If there are people who are so unhappy that they would rather choose to stop acting on a part of their identity, rather than find a way to embrace it in the context of their spiritual beliefs, I wish them only peace.
This is beautifully said.
Dr. Devena Wilson one of the keynote speakers at this weekend’s LBO (Love Breaks Out) conference in Palm Springs was in the Love Won Out conference as an observer.
From the very first, the opening warning in the conference was if there were any people there who supported gays, gay rights or were otherwise there to stay their work for the opposite side, would be taken out of the room and not allowed to participate on any level with anyone else there.
As the article in SoVo illustrates, there isn’t to be any dialogue or interaction with gay people or straight people who are in the business of information for GAY people.
Therein would be the very people most able to be a challenge to the lies and fear and misinformation Love Won Out wants to spread without restriction.
Very, very telling isn’t it?
And as I say, all these years trying to have a conversation with an ex gay or people who support such ministry has been like pulling teeth.
I am condescended to, treated as if I hadn’t asked a question or I asked a question too stupid to be dignified with an answer or as if I’m a hostile entity that can’t be allowed into the proceedings.
DL Foster isn’t the only one who behaves this way.
It’s the way the ex gay movement handles themselves.
They talk AT people, not WITH them.
They want complete control of information, and anything other than their formulaic or filtered information is a lie cooked up by the ‘homosexual agenda’.
Anything that requires fear, control and guilt to achieve their end, is without the morality, love and commitment they claim.
I can’t imagine the behavior of the Love Won Out conference folk engaged in is the kind of behavior Christ would approve of, or would be engaged in.
There is something I find particularly cynical about this big show of security guards, warnings or at least showing the public who and won’t be tolerated in these conferences.
1. That gay people have in the past or are likely to be threatening.
2. That gay reporters or gay supportive observers or writers have to be strictly controlled in a way used by segregationists in the past: a way of showing contempt or disrespect in such a way that makes gay people look even more like deviants or outsiders with ‘normal’ people or those seeking to be ‘normal’.
3. That gay writers or publications are in any way capable of being self critical, unbiased or fair in their observations or reporting on such conferences.
I started out doing very much the same thing. I just wanted to learn about the techniques, usual educators and coaches who did the ex gay ministries.
I felt that since they advertise that theirs is a tried and true ministry, that they have many thousands of satisfied clients and that they are very effective in their methods and approach, they would be very eager and open about showing off to whoever was interested in it.
Later on you find out that they are very restrictive and in some ways punitive if you’re not there to particpate in the program yourself, but just there to report on it or learn as someone unbiased.
That in itself is really, really weird.
And I’ve been left to draw my own conclusions because of this treatment.
And for any ex gays who don’t like what I have come to realize, that’s just too bad if I’m not full of praise and flattery.
I think ex gays are STRANGE people. STRANGE and confused.
And considering what’s being said here, I’m not the only one that thinks so.
I must be in a Bible mood today.
Matthew 9:10-13
LWO would have posted guards at Matthew’s door and forbid entry to anyone with taxcollector credentials.
Great point, Timothy. Pardon my urge to split hairs, but here goes…
In Matthew’s shoes, LWO would (1) charge sinners admission (2) give Matthew and the apostles the podium, not Jesus (3) publicly welcome tax collectors while privately marching them out the door (without refunds, needless to say).
Later on you find out that they are very restrictive and in some ways punitive if you’re not there to particpate in the program yourself, but just there to report on it or learn as someone unbiased.
Quite frankly, it sounds like the actions of a cult meeting, not a conference. Armed guards patrolling the crowds for potential signs of non-compliance with the group’s beliefs? It seems eerily like the actions of some Jim Jones-like figure. One has to wonder, what are they afraid of?
Interestingly, I have never heard of a public gay event refusing coverage to any member of the press – in fact IIRC someone posted pics on this very site of “pro-family” folks at the press conference announcing Wayne Besen’s new group. And I remember some very angry Capitol Pride organizers ticked off at the Washington Post a couple of years ago because the paper failed to send a reporter to the street fair.
When Peter LaBarbra was sighted at the International Mr. Leather event this past May (an event which I attended and which is, as I understand it, closed to all but paying participants and their guests), there were fliers out at the Palmer House lobby alerting the attendees to his presence, and that of one of his colleagues, by the next morning. At no point, however, was anyone told to throw Petey and his friend out, or get anyone else to throw them out – rather the fliers explicitly told attendees to treat them with respect and cordiality. The fliers were more concerned with alerting the participants to the possibility they would be filmed or photographed without their permission.
The “pro-family” movement is always talking about how they, and they alone, can expose the evil underbelly of “the gay lifestyle.” But the lifestyle, or at least the institutions, the conferences, the organizations and the businesses that form the infrastructure of the GLBT community, are open to anyone. If you really want to get to know what the community is like, what “the lifestyle” really is (understanding we each have our own lifestyle in reality), there are plenty of ways to do so. And, in general, it seems straight people who do experience the GLBT community are not, in fact, repulsed by it, but actually often become more supportive.
I guess it is just another example of how the realities of the gay community and the “ex-gay” world are often quite different from the latter’s propaganda.
Doesn’t this scenerio disturb you terribly? I am coming to the conclusion (more and more) that people have conflicts between their sexual orientation and their faith do so because they have been brainwashed by church leaders, parents and peers to hate a sacred part of themselves that they probably have no Idea how to embrace. It is such an incredible experience when a person comes out of the closet, accepting himself or herself with Christ leading the way.
I hope that more of the mainstream Media is allowed into LWO and other similar events with Focus on the Family. CNN would do an excellent job covering this. I think that our country needs to be exposed to the reality of what Focus on the Family is doing as an ex-gay industry. Wayne Besen hit the nail on the head in his book Anything But Straight. If the people keep shouting hallelujah and pass the collection plate then Focus on the Family will continue with their toxic rhetoric about gay people. If an increasing number of people only refused to believe in Dobson’s rhetoric then he wouldn’t be able to continue on with his empire. Too many people are like sheep and are afraid to look inside of themselves (along with questioning their views) for truth even when men like Ted Haggard are exposed.
I have been an advocate and activist for gay youth for a lot of years now.
PFLAG, continues their outreach, education and compassionate involvement for ALL KINDS of folks.
And for FREE.
You can formally join the membership, which is 35.00.
But wherever PFLAG goes, people can gather written materials, come to meetings and have snacks and beverages…free.
Same goes for GSA’s and GLSEN doesn’t charge schools.
The difference between motives is clear. The profit motive for FOTF, LWO…is tremendous. And this without any proof that their work has widespread success or results.
So you’re spending your money to enter the gates….but, after that-whatever mess is left, you’re cleaning it up on your own.
Dobson had no time for Haggard…but look how much time Haggard put in and how much money was earned for Dobson’s organization.
And clearly the evangelical method didn’t work.
When it’s all said and done, the motive for PFLAG and GSA’s is all about love, compassion and education and helping students help each other through tough teenhood.
What would Jesus think between these two who was most furthering Jesus’s agenda?
If something is true, should you have to pay for it? If it’s true, shouldn’t you welcome the skeptics with open arms, not exlcude the journalists who are there to raise legit questions?