Religious-right socialism: Focus on the Family, ex-gay political powerhouse and host of the Love Won Out roadshow, rebrands Barack Obama’s vision of compassionate community values with the label “big-government socialism.” Focus overlooks its own support of socialism in the form of so-called faith-based initiatives — at least $2 billion in taxpayer handouts to ineffective and unskilled evangelical organizations, with regulatory strings arbitrarily enforced by bureaucrats.
You told us so We told you so: Exodus and Focus on the Family pretended today that they have always supported a combination of nature and nurture in theories about the roots of sexual-orientation formation. In discussing a new brochure by the American Psychological Association, Randy Thomas of Exodus voices hope for a slippery slope in which the APA eventually slides into a cesspool of belief that sexual and romantic attractions don’t matter — that all people can change their self-labeling as easily as Thomas has. Addendum: Good As You notes that Thomas and Focus omitted reference to a key passage of the brochure that finds no evidence that ex-gay programs are effective — and some indication that ex-gay promotions are harmful.
Who’s jamming whom? The religious right has, since 9/11, jammed public discussion of sexual orientation with hot-tempered and poorly documented accusations of terrorism, atheism, and dangerous behavior among people of faith and family values who happen to be American couples of the same gender. In their latest effort to make discussion of sexuality inseparable from terrorism, defenders of Oklahoma state Rep. Sally Kern are accusing the opposing side — those couples at home by the fireplace, upset at fundamentalist smear campaigns — of being the jammers.
Ex-gay: Bullies made me gay, not nature: Independent ex-gay activist Stephen Bennett recently appeared on an evangelical TV “helpline” (video intro) to declare — amid waves of amateurish gospel music — that childhood name-calling by bullies caused him to mistakenly believe he was gay. But have no fear, he reassures antigay Christians — nature has nothing to do with sexual orientation.
