After news of Tom Brady's season-ending injury hit, the most common reaction I heard was a sense of glee at any of a number of things - Brady finally getting his just deserts, Brady finally being exposed as a sham if the Patriots win without him, Matt Cassel finally getting to throw a pass - but I still don't understand why Brady's hated so much.
Apparently the folks at Focus on the Anus's CitizenLink have a bit of a wet diaper and feel the need to assert that LWO is not anti-gay at all. Pinocchio noses, anyone?
To hear the media tell it, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is supporting an "anti-gay conference that preach(es) an anti-gospel doctrine."
Of course, nothing could be further from the truth.
When Focus on the Family’s Love Won Out conference travels to Anchorage, Alaska, on Saturday, it will bring a biblical and experiential perspective on the issue of homosexuality.
“We exist to help men and women dissatisfied with living homosexually understand that same-sex attractions can be overcome," said Melissa Fryrear, director of Focus on the Family’s gender and sexuality department. "It is not easy, but it is possible, as evidenced by the thousands of men and women — like me — who have walked this difficult road successfully.”
Ms. Fryrear, who appears at LWO events to talk about her "restoration to heterosexuality after 10 years of "lesbian activity", claims "there's nothing intolerant about our message."
Fib much? Ms. Fryrear:
"I never met a person who aspired to be homosexually challenged," the gender issues expert noted at one point. "Sexual trauma is a huge piece of the puzzle. Having talked with hundreds of homosexuals, I have never met one that had not been sexually violated in his or her life."
Jim Burroway of Box Turtle Bulletin attended one of these LWO conferences (so you don't have to), and heard Melissa's "testimony":
After all, it’s theologically impossible for a story to end otherwise after having put their faith in Jesus Christ. And evidence of that triumph was often found in references to wives and children. As far as the audience was concerned, what better proof is there that they had “left homosexuality behind?” Mike Haley’s testimony closed with a wedding photo and pictures of his beautiful children. (And his children really are adorable. No wonder he’s such a proud husband and father.) Joe Dallas and Alan Chambers also spoke of their wives and families. The only speaker who “left homosexuality” but wasn’t married was Melissa Fryrear. Since she didn’t have any wedding photos or adorable children to talk about, she was reduced to describing what her ideal man would look like — “tall, red-headed, looks good in a kilt!” — while joking, “Is it hot in here?”
Palin should take questions about this -- are the beliefs of this brand of evangelical faith endorsed by her -- and McCain? How might policy decisions be affected -- is praying for a pipeline or an end times philosophy going to inform the decision making in a McCain/Palin administration -- if yes, why; if not, why not? After all, these are basic questions -- certainly Barack Obama had to answer quite a few regarding Rev. Wright -- and so the door is now open to examine the issue of faith and policy.
I have an oldie but goodie below the fold -- an ex-gay glossary of terms.
Scott at RealityCubed did this glossary last year, and it's worth reading again to show the ridiculous nature of Love Won Out.
Gay Identified - A person who thinks they are perfectly happy being gay, they should be opposed every step of the way.Sexual Orientation - Does not exist in the ex-gay world.
Thousands of Ex-gays - This is the term used when any ex-gay spokesperson is talking to a skeptical, secular audience.
Tens of Thousands of Ex-gays - This is the term used mostly in print when the audience is friendlier than a secular audience but could still be seen by the secular crowd.
Hundreds of Thousands of Ex-gays - This term is reserved only for a friendly audience (i.e. preaching to the choir). This is not generally used when specific evidence of "hundreds of thousands" might be asked for.
Homosexual Lifestyle - Used generally within a story of bad human behavior (i.e. "I used to molest innocent squirrels when I was in the homosexual lifestyle"). Once defined as an example of incredibly bad behavior to your listeners for the first time, you can start using it to broadly paint mundane things like getting your mail or grocery shopping as "living the homosexual lifestyle". After you've initially defined this term with your audience and equated the term to bad behavior, it makes generalization of an entire group of people quite easy.
Well adjusted gay person - Does not exist in the ex-gay world. These people are deceived by Satan.
We can laugh at this, but what's sad, particularly since we have a GOP veep nominee whose church believes in praying away the gay through programs like this, is that these conferences have audiences full of parents of gay children who want to change them, and people who have been steeped in faith that damns them for same-sex attraction. They are damaging and deluding minds.
I'm a little wary of this story about how Sarah Palin turned a blind eye when rape victims in Wasilla were forced to pay for their own investigations. Even if she is responsible---and she's so firmly anti-feminist it isn't hard to see that she could be---it's all too easy for the campaign to argue that it was an internal police matter that simply wasn't brought to her attention. The most damning evidence against her is that the Democrat who took her office after she left repealed the policy.
After reading that Michael Reagan believes Sarah Palin is the reincarnation of his father, former president Ronald Reagan, I guess we shouldn't be surprised at the asshattery that comes from the keyboard of faded action star-turned-WND-columnist Chuck Norris. He goes back a few more centuries -- McCain's running mate evokes Dolley Madison and Betsy Ross.
Christy Hardin Smith has challenged bloggers to talk on a personal level about choice, something I've done before, but I feel I should take on the challenge again to encourage other bloggers---male and female---to do it. Because putting a human face to these issues helps. Also, Christy was brave enough to talk about her abortion, which was a tragic event for her and my sympathies are with her.
The Dust-Up between myself and Katherine Mangu-Ward is about Sarah Palin and feminism, so I didn't really have the time and space to denounce Mangu-Ward's scare tactics around taxes. Which is too bad, because she insinuates, in the piece, that it's in her self-interest and the self-interest of a majority of Americans to vote for McCain for tax reasons.
I'm watching a tape of a Sarah Palin speech right now, and realizing that the woman is the GOP's Manic Pixie Dream Governor. Literally, her entire stump speech is just wacky shit she's done that's supposed to get the dispirited base thinking about what could be, a woman who brings a variety of oh-so-charming experiences to help John McCain stop being such a sourpuss.
