As resistance in Minnesota rises against Christian Right harassment in the public schools, Exodus International activist Janet Boynes is stepping up to lead Minnesota social conservatives in a new round of struggle to defame, shame, and silence sexual-minority youth.
Her October 14 Young Adult Prayer Call is timed to thwart local and national media attention that has fallen upon school-sponsored antigay violence in the the Anoka-Hennepin School District — Minnesota’s largest school district. Under leadership and pressure from religious conservatives, Anoka-Hennepin schools stubbornly refuse to enact anti-bullying programs that specifically address and oppose antigay violence. That violence has reached endemic proportions and resulted in suicides among local youth, prompting negative reviews in the media.
Boynes’ pro-bully “Prayer Call” also occurs just as Exodus International is patting itself on the back for stepping back from the Day of Truth, an arguably less militant effort to sanctify school bullies and mobilize parents against anti-bullying programs.
Who is Janet Boynes?
Boynes’ life story is the prototypical ex-gay example of an individual who is abused as a child, who misguidedly equates the abuse with sexual attraction (and temporary attraction with full-blown orientation), and who then egocentrically projects her self-misdiagnosis upon anyone who was born or predisposed as an infant to full-blown same-sex orientation.
From humble beginnings as an Exodus ex-gay activist, Janet Boynes has evolved into a veteran supporter of U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann, one of America’s top theocrats. Bachmann advocates fundamentalist Biblical control of the U.S. government generally, and imprisonment or execution of homosexuals in particular.
Since 2006, Boynes and Bachmann have piggybacked their rise to fame upon one another. Just as the Pope once sold indulgences to Europe’s finest in exchange for access to power, Boynes has exploited Bachmann for political support while Bachmann has exploited Boynes for local religious support and access to conservative African-Americans. Boynes has also used the Christian Right’s “Ex-Gay Educators Caucus” to demand that the National Education Association and nation’s teachers teach discredited ex-gay myths to public-school students.
As Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays has fallen into disrepute in recent years, Boynes has sought to replace PFOX’s presence in public schools with her own.
Since last year, Boynes has periodically shared Bachmann’s soapbox with Christian rocker Bradlee Dean, another Bachmann sidekick who became infamous this year when the Minnesota Independent exposed his speeches to youth audiences affirming Islam’s official policy of genocide against gays.
Boynes uses her non-profit ministry to fill her supporters’ minds with visions of gay men as little more than diseased anuses — bodily organs that are unworthy of constitutional equality. According to the Minnesota Independent, Boynes said on March 2: “Same-sex marriage and interracial marriages have nothing in common. … Allowing a black woman and a white man to marry does not change the definition of marriage. However allowing two men and two women to marry would fundamentally change the definition.”
Boynes’ bitter and sexually obsessed political battles have drawn affection from her partners in Exodus International.
Randy Thomas fawns over her book “Called Out,” which rationalizes an ex-gay journey toward freedom-from-freedom — freedom especially from the obligation to characterize sexuality, people of faith, political dissent, and constitutional law with accuracy and integrity.
Exodus Global Alliance sees Boynes as a ticket to credibility among antigay groups globally. Exodus affiliates in Barbados favor long-term imprisonment for LGBT citizens, while Exodus continues to work in Africa to divide the families of LGBT people and fill their minds with blame games over which relative or whose demons caused a loved one’s homosexuality. Boynes’ testimony characterizes LGBT people as demon-possessed — thereby legitimizing “spiritual warfare”: Exodus’ code phrase for defamation, suppression, imprisonment, and violence.
Janet Boynes’ October 14 “prayer call” is not a promotion of Christian spirituality among youth: It is the latest step up in a campaign of emotional, physical, and spiritual abuse against sexual-minority youth.
