On Monday May 2nd when Soulforce is protesting by taking the public tour at Focus headquarters, the Focus On The Family daily broadcast is scheduled to feature the ex-gay testimony of former prostitute turned Focus staffer and Exodus board member Mike Haley. I’m sure this comes as great relief to “the tyrannical judiciary” which has regularly been in the cross-hairs of Focus On The Family broadcasts for the last two weeks. It’s about time Dobson get back to his preoccupation of obsessing over the lives of gay Americans.
For your own spiritual enlightenment, you should know Haley is on record for having said his own failed relationship wasn’t monogamous therefore the existence of any committed same-sex relationship is “an absolute fallacy.”
“…it was open on both ends of our relationship so the whole monogamous thing as Dr. Nicolosi talked about is just an absolute fallacy.”(*)
I expect Monday to be an uplifting hour “when we once again turn our hearts toward home” quoting host John Fuller. On Monday you can listen online here.
I plan to go and try to deliver the letters to Focus today along with the Soulforce group. For the record, they closed the entire Focus campus today and Dobson is out of town. So I won’t get the free tour. 🙁
Actually, I just found out that they have only closed FOTF to the public today. I was misinformed. Still, no free tour for me!
Hi everyone – first comment from me, although we’ve been following XGW for awhile.Well, I suffered listening through Mike Haley’s 20 odd minutes broadcast by FOF and a howler jumped out from his testimony.Out of shear curiosity, does anyone here know a suitably polite way to describe someone who claims to have been running into libraries to look up the “LeVay hypothalamus study”, the “Bailey and Pillard twin studies” and the “Dean Hamer gene study” in the 5 years somewhere between 1985 and 1990 that he was corresponding with Jeff Conrad???As these were only published in 1991, 1991 and 1993 I am tempted to use “complete BS artist”; but this is not normally considered polite. Makes an interesting comment, though, about the believability of the rest of his story. If he’s happy with life now, all power to him — but why the fabrication?As for his description of FOF’s approaches to him to join them (fairly much “I don’t want to work for them ’cause no-one understands ex-gay ministry”); how he pulled that off without mentioning that the four approaches were made by long-term buddy John Paulk is a rather obvious statement about just what eventually happens to you at FOF when you are their star witness and are discovered to be lolly-gagging around in dingy gay bars late of a night…Umm, and I guess I just answered my own question about why fabricate a history.
He’s not a BS artist, he’s just suffering from Dimished Integrity Syndrome. Unfortunately that seems to be one of the major side-effects of treatment for SSA.
Other side-effects include Logical Circulus (a thought process that is self-referencial in how it defines “proof”), and Orwell’s Disease (a form of Touret’s that causes the victor to define words the opposite of what the hearer thinks them to mean – “change”, for example)
ooops… read “victom” for “victor”
ooops… read “victom” for “victor”
uhm, it seems to me he didn’t fabricate his story about researching gay gene theories and research, he just got the dates wrong and really couldn’t remember when he did it. He said sometime between 1985 and 1990. The first study was in 1991. He was off by a year. Big deal.
The studies didn’t prove homosexuality was genetically inheritable, btw.
No, listen to what Haley says instead of just defending him.He was very specific about all the other dates around this. Not mistaken on one. Specific on many.He was fabricating his testimony. Accept it.
The principles and the ideas of his speech are what’s important. Giving testimonies is difficult, screwing up a date or two is a definite possibility. For those who are wanting to get rid of this lifestlye he had a very poignant testimony. Those studies that he mentions prove his point, that homosexuality is not genetic, so why fight the dates? It seems like you’re on a mission to hunt out the slightest imperfection. perhaps there’s part of you that’s trying to hide from what you already know to be true.
Meredith,
1. Since there is no homosexual “lifestyle,” it is not apparent what Haley really got rid of. Please be more specific: What did Haley really get rid of?
2. The cited studies from the early 1990s were preliminary, partial, imperfect indicators that sexual orientation might originate at least partly from biology, not mere choice or upbringing. More recent studies, strangely ignored by Haley, add weight to the argument for biological connections. No peer-reviewed study, that I’m aware of, has substantiated the pseudo-Freudian myth that sexual orientation is determined by bad mothering or fathering or by abuse. And “genetics” has nothing to do with the biology-vs-choice debate — the only people talking about a “gay gene” these days are political religious-rightists who falsely suggest that a gay gene is required to document biological underpinnings to sexual orientation.
3. Your comment “perhaps there’s part of you that’s trying to hide from what you already know to be true” is presumptuous and patronizing at best. Smugness does not become you. I encourage you to communicate your thoughts in a less cynical fashion.
Meredith,Haley makes his living out of that testimony (or rather, those testimonies). You said it yourself:[the] principles and the ideas of his speech are what’s important –not, it seems the facts.And if we find, as we do, that his grasp on the facts is weak; what is he left with? Nothing more than a testimony that he wants others to think is absolute truth. Because without that faith in him, what does Haley offer?People embellish their life stories and tell white lies all the time. It’s how we make ourselves appear more interesting, or a way of politely living alongside others, or perhaps even an mere eccentricity. They are not motivated to harm by deception or to perpetrate a grosser fraud.But Mike Haley is a paid-up warrior for the largest private religious organisation in the United States. On his testimony people feel sanctified in their anti-gay behaviours and put their gay children through hell. His efforts argue that gay people deserve to be degraded; because they could change if they tried, just like him.Asking for the truth from him on that testimony is the least we should expect. It is all he offers.I’m too cynical to be disappointed that you feel lying to further “a greater truth” is an honest life.
Meredith at August 11, 2005 01:47 AM
For those who are wanting to get rid of this lifestlye he had a very poignant testimony.
If they want to “get rid of this lifestyle” why don’t they just do it? They don’t have to crow about it. And they don’t have to get involved in activities that would deny those of us who enjoy homosex equal rights.
They should just do it.
It has become clear that they don’t “just do it” because they are fronts for a political movement.
If they want to “get rid of this lifestyle” why don’t they just do it? They don’t have to crow about it. And they don’t have to get involved in activities that would deny those of us who enjoy homosex equal rights.
That’s exactly what I did. After seeing a (20/20, Dateline) piece on “reparative therapy” and the fact there was a book out on how to change sexuality using this theory, I bought the book and put the actions into my own life.
As it turns out, I had already made several of the steps, without knowing it was part of the “treatment.” I had made friends with several older straight men (you’re supposed to repair your relationship with your same-sex parent through friendships with older same-sex people with whom you have no attraction), started playing sports and doing other “manly” things (like watching WAY too much college basketball), and found out that my sexual orientation didn’t change at all. But during the time I was attempting to change I did not feel the need to testify about the process to the entire world.
CPT_Doom at August 11, 2005 04:15 PM
…you’re supposed to repair your relationship with your same-sex parent…
This is one thing that really frosts me about these “reparative therapists.” My father was always “there” for me during my teen years in the 1960s. But I was literally hell-on-wheels .for a couple of years. And, thereafter, I settled down and became gay anyway. They didn’t mind it.
But, what the “reparative therapists” are doing is critizising my father. And I hate that. I sincerely do.
Meredith,
I don’t know if you are a person of faith. And I know that others will address our concerns with the inconsistency and dishonesty of the statement in relation to civil or social context. I am, however, going to address the issue in terms of Christianity, my personal faith.
We, as people, tend to be forgiving of those who get a few facts or dates wrong. We tend to say that they aren’t really lying.
And that may be fair.
However, there is a time when inaccuracy is not allowed, and that time is when bearing witness. Then you are not allowed to err. At all.
God so cared about this distinction that he included an additional “truth” commandment in the Big Ten. Not only shalt thou not lie, but also thou shalt not bear false witness. This commandment raises the bar. Inaccuracy, hyperbole, exaggeration, white fibs, spin, none of this is acceptable when bearing witness (testimony). When you add to this the burden assumed when you speak “as a Christian” or say that “God says…” then you are not only bearing false witness but dragging God into it as well.
That, Meredith, is why the issue of having the right dates matters. If you aren’t certain of your facts, you are forbidden by God to make testimony of them.
Lately we’ve seen many religious people comfortable about going before a legislative body or the news and claim some “fact” or “statistic”. And they claim to speak for God or God’s people. Yet even a casual glace at their source shows that what they claim is not true.
I don’t believe that many of them are lying; although the words they are saying are lies I doubt that they know it. They simply don’t care whether it’s true. They are bearing witness and making no effort to determine if it is false.
And that is the callous, self-righteous, complacent attitude that was the primary target of Christ’s ministry.
Timothy, that was very beautifully and movingly put.