Wayne Besen’s Message to TWO Supporters

One year ago, I closed Truth Wins Out. In its 11 years, the organization had many notable accomplishments including:

• An undercover operation that showed then Rep. Michele Bachmann and her husband, Marcus, owned a clinic that practiced conversion therapy

• We organized the American Prayer Hour, an event that shined a spotlight on the role American evangelicals played in the introduction of Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill.

• Truth Wins Out led a successful campaign to have Apple remove Exodus International’s “ex-gay” iPhone app

• We created Respect My Research, a unique website where scientists condemned right wing groups, such as Focus on the Family and NARTH, for distorting their research to attack the LGBT community

• In a joint investigation with South Florida Gay News, we exposed JONAH’s Arthur Abba Goldberg as a Wall Street con artist who served time in prison for fraud

• Truth Wins Out generated countless news stories, protests, and survivor videos that undermined the “ex-gay” myth

• We launched the Center Against Religious Extremism to monitor and oppose the Religious Right’s attacks on LGBT people and America

Given the alarming state of the world, from Right Wing violence, to a presidency veering toward authoritarianism, to Vladimir Putin’s role in exporting homophobia across the globe, many of you have reminded me that Truth Wins Out was ahead of the curve in warning about the existential danger posed by right wing extremism.

So many of you have urged me to reopen Truth Wins Out, appeals to which I have so far resisted. I’m grateful, and I humbly thank you for your kind words and confidence in our work. As many of you have said, “what other organization goes beyond press releases and actually exposes right wing hypocrites as frauds?

In the past few weeks, I’ve had to rethink your calls to reopen Truth Wins Out. Like you, I’ve witnessed the boorishness and barbarism, such as the anti-Semitic attack in Pittsburgh, the pipe bombs sent to Trump’s Democratic opponents, efforts to deny a recount in Florida’s elections, the shooting of two African Americans at a Kentucky supermarket, as well as Trump appointing a homophobic loyalist to be interim Attorney General, placing our democracy at grave risk. We have an administration so vile and depraved that they had literally ripped crying children out of the arms of loving parents with their evil child separation policy at the U.S./Mexico border.

The time has come for me to reengage in our fight for freedom. My sabbatical is over, because bigotry and hate has not taken a sabbatical. As of today, Truth Wins Out is open for business – effective immediately.

I hope you will consider generously supporting our work. You contributed in the past because Truth Wins Out was more than talk – we were action. We actually monitored and exposed “ex-gay” and right wing leaders, showed the world their true colors and shut them down.

For example, last week Truth Wins Out went undercover and exposed conversion therapist, Norman Goldwasser, for having gay profiles on ManHunt and Bear Nation, even as he tried to cure LGBT teens of their homosexuality. Thanks to Truth Wins Out, one more ex-gay quack bit the dust. Again, who else does this kind of work?

Today, I need your help, with seed money to restart our efforts. In turn, I will dig deep with passion and resolve, and give you everything I have as we engage in the greatest struggle of our lives: Battling a corrupt administration and a spineless, quisling Republican Party that has put democracy in peril. If you give me a chance, I’ll also work non-stop at putting the remaining “ex-gay” programs out of business, once and for all. Not just in the U.S., but across the globe.

Please join me today, in fighting for equality and fighting against a resurgent right wing extremism and the ex-gay myth. I’m hopeful for the future, because I believe in our determination, grit, and resolve, and because the alternative to prevailing in our struggle for freedom is unthinkable. Please head on over to TruthWinsOut.org to become a member and give a tax-deductible contribution today to Truth Wins Out.