Wayne Besen does it again!!

Way to go with the bold move, Wayne:

COMPLAINT FILED WITH ILLINOIS ATTORNEY GENERAL AGAINST RIGHT WING GROUP FOR SELLING FRAUDULENT ‘EX-GAY’ VIDEO

So-Called Miracle ‘Cure’ Did Not Endure, Yet Consumers Intentionally Kept In The Dark About ‘Ex-Gay’ Leader’s Failed Sexual Conversion

CHICAGO – Truth Wins Out filed a complaint today with Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan against the Naperville, Illinois-based non-profit organization Americans For Truth and its president Peter LaBarbera for selling a misleading video on its web-site titled, “It’s Not Gay.” In a letter to Madigan, Truth Wins Out urged her to expeditiously pull this fraudulent video from the marketplace, require a written apology from LaBarbera and that refunds be offered to dissatisfied consumers.

“Nowhere does Americans for Truth inform potential viewers that Johnston’s ‘cure’ did not endure,” wrote Truth Wins Out’s Executive Director Wayne Besen in the letter to Madigan. “This organization is undeniably peddling false hope to vulnerable and desperate people and bilking them out of their hard earned money. In doing so, Americans for Truth is unscrupulously capitalizing on the sincere and heartfelt religious convictions of its followers and exploiting them for the organization’s financial gain.”

The primary spokesperson featured in “It’s Not Gay” is Michael Johnston, an HIV+ so-called “ex-gay” leader who offers testimony claiming he became heterosexual in 1998 “through the power of Jesus Christ.” He went on to collaborate with The American Family Association, Coral Ridge Ministries and Rev. Jerry Falwell.

In August 2003, Johnston’s claims at sexual conversion collapsed in an embarrassing scandal. Michael Hamar, a Virginia attorney, called Besen to say he had a client who had been having an affair with Johnston, not realizing, at first, Johnston’s true identity as a prominent ex-gay figure. Besen was also introduced to another young man who claimed to have had unprotected sex with the ex-gay leader. While in Virginia, Besen was shown a video of a man that looked eerily similar to Johnston having unprotected sex with several men. Hamar’s client signed an affidavit swearing the man was Michael Johnston.

The news broke in Southern Voice, a respected gay publication in Atlanta. Johnston resigned his ministry in disgrace and fled to a sex addiction facility in Kentucky, Pure Life Ministries, where he sought counseling. In reaction to Johnston’s fall, LaBarbera told Southern Voice, “He obviously had a moral failing, that’s true.”

Despite publicly admitting that Johnston had failed in his efforts at heterosexuality, Labarbera is now selling the specious “It’s Not Gay” video and portraying Johnston to unsuspecting viewers as a “former homosexual.”

Truth Wins OUT is a non-profit organization that counters right wing propaganda, exposes the “ex-gay” myth and educates America about gay life. For more information, visit www.TruthWinsOut.org.

- 30 -
________________________________

January 18, 2007

Attorney General Lisa Madigan
Attn: CONSUMER FRAUD
100 West Randolph Street, 12th Floor
Chicago, IL 60601

Dear Ms. Madigan:

I am writing to file a complaint against the Naperville, Illinois-based non-profit organization Americans For Truth and its president Peter LaBarbera. This organization is selling a misleading video on its web-site, titled “It’s Not Gay.” The primary spokesperson featured in this video is Michael Johnston, an HIV+ so-called “ex-gay” leader who offers testimony claiming he became heterosexual in 1998 “through the power of Jesus Christ.”

In August 2003, Johnston’s claims at sexual conversion collapsed in an embarrassing scandal. Michael Hamar, a Virginia attorney, called me to say he had a client who had been having an affair with Johnston, not realizing, at first, Johnston’s true identity as a prominent ex-gay figure. I was also introduced to another young man who claimed to have had unprotected sex with the ex-gay leader. While in Virginia, I was shown a video of a man that looked eerily similar to Johnston having unprotected sex with several men. Hamar’s client signed an affidavit swearing the man was Michael Johnston.

The news broke in Southern Voice, a respected gay publication in Atlanta. Johnston resigned his ministry in disgrace and fled to a sex addiction facility in Kentucky, Pure Life Ministries, where he sought counseling. In reaction to Johnston’s fall, LaBarbera told Southern Voice, “He obviously had a moral failing, that’s true.”

Despite publicly admitting that Johnston had failed in his efforts at heterosexuality, Labarbera is now selling the specious “It’s Not Gay” video and portraying Johnston to unsuspecting viewers as a “former homosexual.” Indeed, on the front of the box under a picture of Johnston it says, “Former homosexuals tell a story few have heard.”

How can Johnston continue to be presented as a “former homosexual”? The word “former” clearly implies that he has ceased all homosexual activity prior to filming “It’s Not Gay.” However, abundant homosexual activity on the part of Johnston had occurred after the video was released. This makes LaBarbera guilty of deceptive advertising and duping unsuspecting consumers who are led to believe that Johnston had miraculously changed sexual orientations.

Nowhere does Americans for Truth inform potential viewers that Johnston’s “cure” did not endure. This organization is undeniably peddling false hope to vulnerable and desperate people and bilking them out of their hard earned money. In doing so, Americans for Truth is unscrupulously capitalizing on the sincere and heartfelt religious convictions of its followers and exploiting them for the organization’s financial gain.

It is in the state’s best interest to expeditiously pull this fraudulent video replete with bogus claims and outright fabrications from the marketplace. Truth Wins Out also urges the state to require a written apology from LaBarbera that he must post prominently on his website and that refunds be offered to dissatisfied consumers.

Thank you for reviewing the enclosed information and I look forward to hearing back from Ms. Madigan after the investigation is complete. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me. I am happy to assist you and provide you with additional information that will help ensure consumers in Illinois and nationwide will not be taken advantage of by a dishonest and unprincipled organization.

Sincerely,

Wayne Besen
Executive Director
Truth Wins Out

Hate Crimes Legislation and Isaiah Washington

Let's get this out of the way first: Isaiah Washington is a dumb ass. And his derogatory comments about T.R. Knight are very disappointing; especially seeing that he once played a gay man in the Spike Lee movie "Get on the Bus."

And do you know how hard it is to find a good representation of a gay black man in movies these days?

But having said that, I refuse to get caught up in the hoopla about making him apologize. Why? Because this gay black man is still reeling over the lack of comments when that awful movie Soul Plane came out.

You know Soul Plane don't you? The movie featuring the chubby black gay "stewardess" named Flame complete with purple lip gloss whose every appearance in the movie was either to make fun of gay black men or emphasize the point that some consider us outsiders in the African-American community; unwanted and unloved.

Now where was these folks pushing for "positive portrayals of gays and lesbians" when this movie came out a few years ago?

I don't like to fit the stereotype of the jaded, cynical gay male, but in this case, please don't get offended when I say I don't really give a shit about Isaiah Washington or his big mouth.

What does concern me is the push for hate crimes protection. Apparently, the anti-gay industry are alarmed that Congress is going to make sure that the gay and lesbian community will be protected under these laws.

Now correct me if I am wrong, but doesn't this country already have hate crimes laws that punish people for crimes committed because of religious or racial hatred?

This being the case, why is it such a problem to include us? Apparently the anti-gay industry seems to think that if we are included, pastors will be arrested in their churches for speaking out against homosexuality.

This is just subterfuge backed by lies backed by distortions backed by . . . well you get the picture.

As the days go by, I expect this battle to heat up.

Good cause I am in an ass kicking mood.

Put me back in, coach! It's just a scratch!

I have some of the most rotten luck with computers. This Saturday, my internal modem died. Subsequently, I have been offline until now.

I am able to get online, because like the Bionic Woman, I have been given better equipment, i.e. DSL. (I know you all are thinking that I should compare myself to the Six Million Dollar Man, but the Bionic Woman had the better villains, i.e. fembots.)

While offline, I was able to prepare the index of my upcoming book as well as assess where I am with the project. I was pleased with the results, but like a football player who just made it to the Superbowl, I was anxious to get back into the game.

I was mainly worried that some huge revelation would take place involving the anti-gay industry and no one would be there to cover it.

I didn't have anything to worry. Wayne Besen (www.waynebesen.com), Joe Brummer (www.joebrummer.com), and www.goodasyou.org, as well as many others had things covered.

I did notice that Wayne Besen has given an update on where Michael Johnston is. In one of my last entries before my modem died, I covered the fact that Americans for Truth was selling a video featuring Johnston's claim that he was "delivered from homosexuality" when such was not the case. While Johnston was traveling the country making this claim, he was allegedly having unprotected sex in hotel rooms with gay men.

In all honesty, I entered the controversy rather late. Wayne Besen was at the forefront of exposing Johnston's escapades in 2003 and was also there to make sure that people knew the anti-gay industry was still peddling his lies last year.

According to Besen, Johnston is now on the staff of Pure Life Ministries as a member of the speaking team, He is still peddling his story of "deliverance from homosexuality," complete with an admission of his fall from grace in 2003.

But neither him nor Pure Life Ministries is forthcoming as to the depth of his fall. Johnston said that he was HIV positive and was no longer gay. If the stories are true, while he was making this claim, he was having unprotected sex with gay men.

This portion of the story regarding his "fall" is conveniently omitted from his Pure Life Ministries biography.

My heart goes out to Johnston and I don't mean him any malice but I have to ask just where is his integrity. He should not be speaking to anyone but those men he could have infected due to his carelessness.

He has no business presenting himself as a speaker or any type of leader until he makes restitution with those men. And as far as I know, he has not.

Score one for the good guys

Almost every time the anti-gay industry tries to keep children from forming gay/straight alliances in high schools, it gets its hand smacked.

The most recent incident is yet another pleasurable bitch slap to those who try and keep our lgbt children in the closet:

A settlement has been reached between the American Civil Liberties Union--representing students in a gay-straight alliance--and officials in White County, Ga., who had refused to permit the club to meet at White County High School, the ACLU announced Wednesday.
Local media reported December 26 that a settlement had been tentatively reached, but Wednesday's announcement makes it official.

“I’m just so happy this is all over and that our school is doing the right thing,” Charlene Hammersen, one of the founders of the alliance, called Peers Rising in Diverse Education (PRIDE), told the ACLU. “It’s taken almost two years to get here, but we’re as determined as we’ve always been to promote diversity and fight harassment against gay students at our school. This is really great for every student that goes to White County High.”

The future of the lgbt community is in good hands.


Unbelievable nonsense

From the web page of my friend Joe Brummer comes some outrageous nonsense from our friend Peter LaBarbera and his ironically named group Americans for Truth About Homosexuality. If the report is true, LaBarbera's group is listed in GuideStar (a source of information about non-profit organizations) as a lesbian and gay civil rights group:

Somebody has been asleep on the job


$60,000? Maybe I am on the wrong side of the argument

Arkansas is paying for its opposition to gay adoption in a way it probably did not expect.

According to this article:

Arkansas taxpayers will pay $60,000 for the testimony of a university professor who testified for the state that gays and lesbians are unfit to serve as foster parents.

But it is a far cry from the $200,000 George Rekers had sought.

The Arkansas the Department of Health and Human Services hired George Rekers as an expert witness in the case, brought by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of four couples who wanted to foster parents.

Rekers's original $200,00 bill included "research" and "late fees." What makes matters worse is that Arkansas lost the case.

Rekers is not as well known as Paul Cameron but according to the ACLU, he is cut from the same cloth:

Rekers is one of the founders of the Family Research Council, a notoriously anti-gay group.

Rekers relies on the discredited research of Paul Cameron, an anti-gay "researcher" who was kicked out of the American Psychological Association for misrepresenting the research regarding homosexuality.

Rekers has suggested that gays are unsuitable to serve as foster parents because they're at higher risk for AIDS and other sexually-transmitted disease, ignoring the fact that there is a physical examination required of all foster parent applicants in Arkansas that would weed out any applicants with health conditions that could jeopardize a foster child.

Rekers says that children are best served when raised by both a mother and a father, but doesn't favor excluding single heterosexual single women from fostering.

That's it! I am switching sides. Who needs integrity when you can get $60,000.

Americans for Truth, American Family Association team up to sell fraudulent video (Another one for my book)

I almost missed this one.

Americans for Truth (our friend Peter LaBarbera's group) is helping the American Family Association pull a big fraud.

On the Americans for Truth web page is a solicitation for the video "It's Not Gay." According to the group, the video:

" . . . presents a story that few have heard, allowing former homosexuals the opportunity to tell their own story in their own words. Along with medical and mental health experts, these individuals express a clear warning that the sanitized version of homosexuality being presented to students is not the whole truth."

Those who click on the video link is directed to the American Family Association site where they can order the video.

Besides the usual bit of misrepresentation (i.e. the claim that those in the video have been "freed from homosexuality") is something a bit more sinister and blatant.

Notice how the cover of the video on both links seem to be blurred.

I can't help wondering if this is intentional. Why you ask? Because of the person it features.

This link from Ex-Gay Watch plainly shows who this person is: Michael Johnston.

For a while, Johnston was one of the anti-gay industry's "golden boys." He traveled across the country telling his story of how he was "delivered" from homosexuality after testing HIV positive. He was even the leader of his own ministry, Kerusso Ministries. In addition, he helped to start "National Coming Out of Homosexuality" Day in order to counter "National Coming Out" Day.

However, Johnston's star crashed in 2003 when it was discovered that while he was doing all of these things, he was also engaging in unprotected sex with men.

So why in 2007 is the American Family Association and Americans for Truth trying to sell a video featuring him making his claim that he was "delivered" from homosexuality when it was obvious that he wasn't.

And it's obvious that LaBarbera knows what his group is doing. He is quoted in the above link about Johnston's transgressions.

This is not the first time this subject has come up. Last year, Wayne Besen of www.truthwinsout.org asked the same question about "It's Not Gay."

What AFA and Americans for Truth are doing is like selling a hammer with a broken handle. One can always take back the hammer.

But who will seek recompensement for the lives of the lgbts who are going to be attacked by churches and others who will probably buy this tape and believe its claims?

The fact that the American Family Association and Americans for Truth are encouraging people to buy this tape speaks to both groups' lack of integrity. God does not like ugly, even when it's done in his name.

The AFA of Pennsylvania tries to scare people

It seems that the anti-gay industry has depleted their anti-gay marriage equality hysteria.

So whither where they fly? Or rather what's the next target for these folks.

A Pennsylvania incident may give an indication of where they are going. However, I don't envision them having as much success as they had scaring everyone about gay marriage:

According to Agape Press, the American Family Association of Pennsylvania is up in arms with school districts for working with the organization GLSEN.

GLSEN is an organization that works to make school climates better for our lgbt youth. Subsequently, that makes them public enemy number one in the eyes of the anti-gay industry:

According to (Diane) Gramley (President of the AFA of PA), many public school officials simply do not realize the danger of partnering with GLSEN or other groups like it whose primary goals, she insists, are to normalize homosexuality and to encourage students to experiment with same-sex partners. "That's what they want," she asserts. "They want the kids to believe that 'gay is okay,' and that if you feel that you are homosexual -- if you feel you're tugged in that direction -- [you should] go ahead and try it."

Gramley is partly right. We do want children to know that gay is okay because being lgbt is perfectly fine, regardless of the climate folks like her attempt to create. However, this idea that we want children to have sex is just "ignant."

That's right, I said "ignant." It's a new word describing an idea so stupid that it doesn't deserve three syllables to declare it dumb.

In her next statement, we get the gist of what Gramley is going for:

Gramley believes groups pushing the acceptance of homosexuality will eventually target the First Amendment rights of Christians who understand the Bible to prohibit sexual activity between people of the same sex. Therefore, she suggests, the homosexual agenda is a direct threat to the free speech and religious liberty of those who believe homosexual activity is sinful.

There they go again with the "dire consequences" propaganda technique. In the absence of truth, some members of the anti-gay industry spin the theory that gay people want to curtail the rights of those who think that homosexuality is a sin.

The "dire consequences" tactic is usually effective because it simultaneously appeals to the ego and the fears of the audience. Its usage is also a sign of desperation. Scaring people is the way to go for those who have depleted their logic.

Now it is here that I would make a joke that lgbts don't want to arrest Christians for believing that homosexuality is a sin because we want to send them to re-education camps where they will be strapped down and forced to watch 24 hours of Bette Davis movies or Larry Kramer speeches.

However, I have a feeling that our friends Peter LaBarbera and Matt Barber would take me seriously and make my joke the subject of a new action alert/call to arms.

But I will say to Ms. Gramley, we don't want to cause you all trouble because some of us are enjoying watching you self-destruct.

Manufactured martyr gets a promotion - CWA hires Matt Barber

Concerned Women for America has hired a replacement for the departing Robert Knight. And if this man's past history is any indication of his future at the organization, he may provide me with more fun than Knight ever did.

Matt Barber is the new hiree and if he sounds familiar, it's because he was a cause celebre in 2005. At that time, he was an employee at AllState Insurance who was fired because of a column he wrote. The column in question gave the usual anti-gay nonsense about how diseased we are, like the following Cameroneque excerpt:

As a result of the concerted effort by liberals to mask the devastating effects of the gay lifestyle, many people are shocked to learn that the average life expectancy of a homosexual male is only about 45 years old - 30 years younger than that of a heterosexual male.

Barber was fired because he involved AllState in his nonsense. He claimed that he wrote the column on his own time. Now the bio on the column said the following:

J. Matt Barber is a non-practicing attorney, an undefeated heavyweight professional boxer (Matt "Bam Bam" Barber), and a professional jazz drummer in the Chicago Land (IL) area. In addition to his Law Degree, Barber holds a Master of Arts in Public Policy. Matt Works for Allstate Insurance Company as a Territorial Senior Manager in Allstate's Law and Regulation Corporate Security (Internal Fraud Investigations) Department.

Or if you want to see the column with the bio, this is the link

Barber sued AllState for violating his religious beliefs because he was not allowed to receive unemployment benefits as a employee who was fired for willfull misconduct. The Illinois Department for Employment Security said this was not the case, so Barber was able to get unemployment benefits.

Barber continued with a lawsuit against AllState. He was aided by religious right lawyers, anti-gay industry figures such as Donald Wildmon and the American Family Association, and blogs like Free Republic who claimed that he was the newest victim of the "gay Mafia."

Barber settled with AllState and the settlement was not made public. However, I did notice two things.

I find it interesting that Concerned Women for America did not milk Barber's firing for its own purposes. The organization doesn't even mention it. An article speaking of his settlement clearly says, "no mention of a dollar figure was revealed, according to a WorldNetDaily report."

But go to AllState's web page and you will find the insurance company is talking about it:

The company has stated its position to the court in our answer to Mr. Barber’s lawsuit, and the following statement is included in those papers: “Plaintiff, James Matthew Barber, was not discharged from his employment with Allstate Insurance Company because of his religious beliefs or practices, but because he used the company’s information technology systems and other resources for his personal journalism activities, many of which took place on company time, and which identified Plaintiff as an employee of the Allstate Insurance Company.”

The article references a determination made by the Illinois Department of Employment Security. The role of the Illinois Department of Employment Security is to implement the Illinois Unemployment Insurance Act, which provides unemployment compensation to residents of the state who meet the eligibility requirements provided in the act. The Department determines whether anyone is eligible for unemployment compensation. Apart from this role, the Department does not rule on the reason for terminations.

To reiterate, Allstate would not terminate an employee for expressing personal religious or lifestyle views on his or her own time.

Seems to me that Barber and his cohorts aren't telling the entire story. He was not fired for "willful misconduct," but apparently his firing was very justified.

Barber should fit in very well with Concerned Women for America. After all, liars generally like each others' company.