Wayne Besen's Glass House

Wayne Besen isn’t short on finger pointing. In fact, he is pointing at someone else all the time. To read Wayne’s Enquirer style rag blog (which I rarely do) you’d think that everyone in the world has something wrong with them, except him. Sounds like someone that should join the throng of liberal misery merchants waging daily war on the family on Capital Hill.

This week Wayne is pointing his finger at Regina Griggs calling her a LIAR. Well, Mr. B. before you get too far ahead of yourself, let’s take a look at the blatant LIES you tell in your piece from Monday, June 11, entitled, DR. WARREN THROCKMORTON HIDES BEHIND ANONYMOUS SOURCE IN CHICAGO TRIBUNE ARTICLE. The subtitle to it states: Exodus Puffs Up Numbers To Conceal Lack of Growth.

Well, that’s a lie in and of itself. Our numbers are what we say they are and can be verified by going to our website where the ministries are listed. As of this writing there are 164 Member Agencies a part of the Exodus Network. Those agencies are largely Member Ministries, which might or might not have therapists on staff, but mostly conduct support groups and provide resources to the communities that they are in. 

Exodus has a growing list of Professional Therapists, which may or may not run support groups. Mr. Besen blows his own smoke by manipulating the facts by saying we don’t have ministries in certain areas or states, but a Professional Therapist is just as much a representative of Exodus as a Member Ministry is. 

Wayne lies again when he claims that Exodus has “Zero Ministries” in states like Alabama where there are 2 Member Agencies. One is a Branch Ministry (same as a Member Ministry) and the other a Professional Therapist, which has all of the services of a Member Ministry and more. In fact, the Professional Therapist that runs the ministry in Mobile, Alabama is also a member of the APA. And I thought that all APA members were fairly represented by the anti-choice policies of that organization. Go figure.

As for Washington, DC, there’s not only no Exodus Member Ministry located in the District, there’s no airport, either. Yet, a hop, skip and a jump away is both Reagan National Airport (located in Virginia) and Regeneration Northern Virginia – a 20 year old Exodus Member Ministry. Sorry, Wayne, foiled again.

Oh, and Mastering Life Ministries is listed in Tennessee and Jacksonville because they have groups going in both locations just like Metanoia does in Tacoma (Seattle Area) and Ft. Lauderdale. 

Lastly, Exodus International is now partnering with churches. We have a growing network of Member Churches that have some type of outreach for those affected by homosexuality. Many of those churches offer the same services as that of a Member Ministry and some even have Professional Therapists on staff. Sorry,Wayne, your yellow journalism is showing.

Wayne, don’t be upset that some people find homosexuality incompatible with morality and faith. It’s called choice and we were all created with the freedom to exercise it. Exodus can, does and will continue to help people affected by unwanted homosexuality. There are A LOT of people who fit that description.

Exodus International has never been in the business of starting ministries in local areas. However, I think it is a good idea.  New York City, here we come…..

Comments

[Randy]

Good job.

[Joe Brummer]

You think someplace along the way, ex-gay folks and pro-gay folks would stop this senseless, pointless badgering back and forth. The fact you responded to Wayne's tirade with the same exact sort of tirade just leaves this in a place for more retaliation.

Martin Luther King, Jr. said it best when he uttered these words:

"In struggling for human dignity the oppressed people of the world must not allow themselves to become bitter or indulge in hate campaigns. To retaliate with hate and bitterness would do nothing but intensify the hate in the world. Along the way of life, someone must have sense enough and morality enough to cut off the chain of hate. This can be done only by projecting the ethics of love to the center of our lives."

[Mike Ensley]

I don't think it's accurate to put the two blog posts into the same category of "tirade", especially when one is factual and the other is deceptive.

[Joe Brummer]

Facts or myths, both Alan and Wayne's blog post articles just shoot insults. Wanye is pretty disrespectful of others when he writes. He calls it "edgey", I call it violence and it gets us no place.

Alan's response has the same tone as Wayne's. Calling Wayne tabloid like and blowing smoke etc...

It is not the information that either writer presented that is offensive, it is both Wayne and Alan's tone and presentation that is getting us all nowhere!

[Scott]

Come on Alan, don't tell me you rarely read Wayne's (or any opposing) sites.

If you don't personally, you have office staff that does, combing the internet looking for something you can put in that monthly fundraising letter.

Most of us have site meter installed and we can see when an Orlando IP address is referred from a Google blog search for "Alan Chambers".

I've seen it, I'm sure several others have as well.

I seem to remember Ex-gay watch posting a public link to the tax roll information on your house a few years ago. You commented there that it wasn't a big deal and that it made you laugh.

Funny that the exchange wound up in the next Exodus fundraising letter with you claiming that those "homosexual activists" were posting your personal information to try and intimidate you.

P.S. Send money

You poor victim, you.

If you're going to complain about Wayne's glass house, you'd better make sure you get a bottle of Windex for your own.

[Brian]

Wayne Besen's Top Hate "Anti-Christian" Quotes

These quote's were taken from
his book.."Anything But Straight"
Most of these hate quotes were directed at Pentecostal and Evangelical Christian's.

Waynes uses hateful statments
to depict religious experince's
which many African American and others use in there church.

1)Besen describes his visit
to such a church in Orlando, Florida, that had, in his words, "an authoritarian,
hocus-pocus worship style".

It should also be noted that black religous groups use this form of worship to get closer to God, Wayne thanks the holy spirit is a sham.

(p. 4. This, under a chapter subhead he calls "Ministry Mouse and Deuteronomy Duck."

Wayne also refers to "convincing Jesus to wave his magic wand" as
the means by which some people experience change, and claims "they have reduced God to no more than a rabbit's foot, a simple good luck charm that is used to stop them from masturbating or running to an adult bookstore" (p. 44).

2)"Crazy stories are almost as ubiquitous in the ex-gay community as prayer" (p. 45)

3)"Many of the ex-gay leaders appear to have untreated mental
disorders... An alarmingly high number of ex-gays...report hearing voices and having visions, which may very well
be hallucinations"
(p. 43).

4)These ministries have merged pseudo-science with religious beliefs to create, in effect, a new religion, ... Eventually they will collapse under the weight of their deceit. But as long as they
survive we will have trouble winning any political battles."

5)"The ex-gay ministries are very excited about this, An anonymous source tells me that James Dobson called Silo and signed him up for zoological 'Love Won Out' tour."

6)"Tennessee sent a strong message that Love and Action is not above the law. This dangerous and dysfunctional group should be held accountable and expected to adhere to professional standards like other mental health facilities in the state.

Tennessee is rightfully and responsibly protecting its citizens from unscrupulous
and unlicensed practitioners posing as genuine mental health professionals.

I urge every state in the nation to look at their local 'ex-gay' groups to determine if they meet basic mental health guidelines."

7)Most (ex-gays) are suffering unbelievably dark, lonely, miserable lives" (p. 37).

8)The vast majority of the (ex-gay ministry) leadership and nearly all of the spokespeople ...(are) self-destructive, unstable
individuals who lack self-control and have decimated their personal
lives

9) "the dangerous quack psychology of the lucrative reparative therapy industry" (p. xviii)

10) "the zany characters who run these programs" (p. xxi)

11)"Moberly sends the quack-o-meter off the charts" (p. 104)

12)"Moberly' s pedestrian book"(p. 103)

13)"twisted antigay doctors such as Jeffrey Satinover" (p. 137).

14)"the avaricious Cohen" (p. 121).

15)"Reparative therapists are detestable, money-hungry con artists who lure and bamboozle susceptible people with misleading promises
and false hope.

One reason these quacks practice their chicanery is to cash in on this lucrative industry, but one cannot dismiss raw hatred as the primary motive that drives these charlatans to extreme lengths to denigrate lesbians and gay men" (p.15.

[queertardo]

Before anybody started mudslinging, they should have read the title of Besen's blog being commented on.
Alan has made a severe mistake regarding the title, which Alan implies Besen is making comments on his own- Besen is referring to the article in the Chicago Tribune- here's what it says:
DR. WARREN THROCKMORTON HIDES BEHIND ANONYMOUS SOURCE IN CHICAGO TRIBUNE ARTICLE
In Article, Exodus Puffs Up Numbers To Conceal Lack of Growth, Says...
Same as on the Truth Win's Out blog.
By the way Alan, Besen is commenting on a blog entry found on Good As You.org about the "quotation marks" generally mean they are other people's words. Nowhere in Besen's blog does he for himself assert that Griggs is a liar- the boys at G-A-Y are asserting that, it helps to better read a blog before you go on a tirade of your own.

[Alan Chambers]

Actually "Scott" I rarely do read Wayne's blog. On a the very slow day last week that I happened by and read something on Exodus I decided to post here and correct the misinfo for a change.

As for reading other "opposing" sites. Sure, I read them often. Despite our vast differences, I actually like reading XGW and have found it beneficial to dialogue there with those willing to actually dialogue.

As for office staff being assigned to read Wayne's or other opposing blogs---they cannot. We have a block on our system that prohibits staff from visiting those sites.

[G-A-Y]

I'm not going to weigh in on the mudslinging. However, I do find it interesting, Alan, that you start off this post calling Wayne a liar in terms of the Regina Griggs situation, and you act as if you are going to set him straight. However, you never again even mention the assertions that Wayne (or, more accurately, I) made about Ms. Griggs!

Please, by all means, respond to this.

-Jeremy

Jeremy Hooper
Good As You
www.goodasyou.org

So let me remind you -- What Regina Griggs said to 'One News Now' is:

"The official position of all medical and mental health organizations and the American Psychiatric Association is that there is no biological or genetic cause or replicated study for homosexuality.."

Whether she misspoke or deliberately twisted the truth, this is a MISREPRESENTATION! Nobody's official, definitive statement is that "there is no biological or genetic cause."

[G-A-Y]

CORRECTED: Please remove above.

I'm not going to weigh in on the mudslinging. However, I do find it interesting, Alan, that you start off this post calling Wayne a liar in terms of the Regina Griggs situation, and you act as if you are going to set him straight. However, you never again even mention the assertions that Wayne (or, more accurately, I) made about Ms. Griggs!

So let me remind you -- What Regina Griggs said to 'One News Now' is:

"The official position of all medical and mental health organizations and the American Psychiatric Association is that there is no biological or genetic cause or replicated study for homosexuality.."

Whether she misspoke or deliberately twisted the truth, this is a MISREPRESENTATION! Nobody's official, definitive statement is that "there is no biological or genetic cause."

Please, by all means, respond to this.

-Jeremy

Jeremy Hooper
Good As You
www.goodasyou.org

[Beth]

Virtually all of the evidence argues against there being a determinative physiological causal factor and I know of
no researcher who believes
that such a determinative
factor exists.

Such factors play a predisposing, not a determinative role.
I know of no one in the field
who argues that homosexuality
can be explained without reference to environmental factors."

--Sociologist Steven Goldberg, Ph.D

[Stephen Black]

Thank you Alan for correcting Wayne in the open environment of this blog. Wayne is always on a tyrannic ramble.... I for one, I am tired of seeing good Christian men, even ministers of God cowering to the rantings of the anti Exodus groups. The righteous are bold as lions... I am roaring... yes, speak the truth in love, but to the scoffer, or the priest of Baal... as Elijah, taunt them back in their futility... "Where are your gods? Sitting on the toilet?" That was Elijah's taunt... we should resist the dialog, but speak when necessary answer them according to their own folly. Jesus is a good example! Jesus answered the religious and scoffers with nothing, sarcasm, rebuke or with a parable... He knew what was in their hearts. Love you brother!

[G-A-Y]

Beth, I'm not sure if your quote is meant to refute me, but you have not done so in the slightest. What you present is the opinion of one sociologist, made in 1994. It does nothing to negate the FACT, which is that this statement...

"The official position of all medical and mental health organizations and the American Psychiatric Association is that there is no biological or genetic cause or replicated study for homosexuality."

...is simply untrue.

[Alan Chambers]

Justin,

Prove your point. There is no study that proves homosexuality to be genetic.

Honestly, it doesn't matter to me whether it is genetic or not---we don't live under the tyranny of our genetic code and God is able to help us live beyond our genetics.

I think both sides fail to validate the complex nature of homosexuality by inferring that it only has one root cause.

[Scott]

Alan Said:

we don't live under the tyranny of our genetic code and God is able to help us live beyond our genetics.

Wonderful, Alan. Then I can expect to be a 3'6" flying squirrel by morning if I pray really, really hard.