When Giving Hope Is Considered Evil: Dan Savage Gets Savaged By "Ex Gay" Minister And Associate Of "Bishop" Eddie Long

The gay teen anti-suicide/bullying movement, It Gets Better, finally got the unkindest cut of all, courtesy of Americans For Truth About Homosexuality Radio Hour with Peter LaBarbera:  Pastor DL (short for "Down Low") Forster called for the arrest of Dan Savage, the creative mind behind the phenomenally successful attempt to quell the country's spate of teen suicides.


And the supposed pastor has long billed himself as "ex-homosexual," and has had a close association with "Bishop" Eddie Long and his New Birth Missionary congregation. Go figure.


Dan Savage responded in his inimitable Dan Savage way:

Gay Kids Are Still Killing Themselves

posted by DAN SAVAGE on MON, FEB 13, 2012 at 10:34 AM

And it's not because gay kids are still being told that they're sick and sinful by their preachers. And it's not because gay kids are still being failed by cowardly school administrators and callous school boards and cowed teachers. And it's not because gay kids are still being bullied by straight kids who have been told that gay people are sick and sinful and that gay people, by simply existing, represent an existential threat to their families. And it's not because the religious right opposes all efforts to prevent anti-gay bullying in our schools and is pushing for new laws that create a special right for little religious bigots tobrutalize gay children. And it's not because some gay kids have parents who subjected to years of psychological and spiritual violence before throwing them out and cutting them off.

No. It's my fault. And I should be arrested.

The Low Down On Down Low

DL Foster (Christian name Darryl, but attributes the DL to "Down Low") does not have a page on wikipedia.org. He is, however, mentioned in passing as one of the leaders of the ex-gay movement, which is surprising, considering that Exodus International (the leading "ex-gay" group) distanced itself from Rev. Foster back in 2006. Foster's own ministries are a dizzying mixture of self-inflicted racism, self-loathing, come-back-to-God because you are "sexually broken" polemics centering on the African American Community, in particular Atlanta, the hub of "Bishop" Eddie Long's New Birth Missionary Baptist Church (at which Foster was invited to speak about the evils of homosexuality ... and to hawk his book


Foster's autobiography,  Touching A Dead Man: One man's Explosive Story of Deliverance from Homosexuality,  has long been out-of-print and is available only by downloading it through Foster's website.* It is, of course, a "book that launched a thousand deliverances." [sic]. Needless to say, however, unless you read the book, you will not know just how much Foster was in "the homosexual lifestyle" or if, in fact, he was ever gay at all. 

Bigot-enablers


The 27 videos of "ex-gays" and their proclamations are problematic: the self-loathing cannot be hidden. Their self-acceptance comes across as a merely a polemic (as Low Down would have it, but a poor one) based upon deep-rooted self-loathing: "falling" back into a destructive lifestyle of sex and drugs is predominant. Even those who admit to being born gay, never look upon themselves as have ever having any self-worth. Some actually state that they were "enticed" back into a "homosexual lifestyle," as if their own lives were worthless to begin with.


These "testimonies" seldom address one problem: that they may do more harm than good; for the purely prejudiced, "change" is the name of the game. And they care not if it is true or false, because they need something to hang their prejudices on. Harking back to the thoroughly researched topic of the relationship between I.Q. and prejudice, sociologists and psychologists can tell you that such testimonies can cause serious physical and emotional harm to gays, lesbians and transgendered people. And while the "ex-gays" are told how many souls they are helping to save, the reality is this: people will be hurt. 


The Target Is The Message

Foster's latest raison d'etre is not African American men and women who identify as gay, but gay men and women who identify as Christian. Yes, you read that right. Gay Christian Movement Watch - one of Foster's online "ministries" - is perhaps more like Gay Christian Movement Witch Hunt, alerting people to more progressive ministries and organizations and demonizing them ad infinitum:

GCM Watch seeks to facilitate balanced discussion regarding the “gay christian movement” and enlighten the broader Christian constituency through research, documentation and examination of movement’s various adherents and their beliefs in contrast to traditional Christian doctrine.

A close look at his polemics (his own word, since he considers gay Christians and affirming churches heretical) reveal nothing that could be considered a "discussion" and certainly nothing approaching balance.
To sum up: after the American Family Association warned us that Ellen Degeneres was dangerously "nice" and should be fired from being a spokesperson for JC Penney, a suppoosedly "ex-gay" minister has called for the arrest of Dan Savage because he founded the movement It Gets Better. 


Being nice to people and giving them hope sure ain't what they used to be.




*One reviewer of Touching A Dead Man: "I feel sorry for this man's wife. He'll be skulking around the men's room sooner or later, if he isn't already."
4 copies of the paperback book are available for an astounding $64 ea. Perhaps someone thinks of it as a curious collector's item. 

You're Right, Mr. Obama, It Gets Better - But Not If The Christian Right Has Anything To Say About It!!

You'll look back on the struggles you've faced 

with compassion and wisdom.

There's nothing wrong with your monitor. It's green because so many Christionists are puking up bile onto their screens and blogs and websites and desks and carpets and dogs. 

Stock tip: Buy stock in Resolve and Magikist Rug Cleaners (They're out of business? Damn!).

The President delivered an "It Gets Better Speech" last night. He got some kudos, but not enough from the LGBT community to make a dent in their disappointment. His DOJ put DADT back into play. It doesn't balance out. but there will be hell to pay nevertheless. And both the LGBT community and the President will suffer.

So now, what? 

As a diversion, it's time for the Tony Perkins "Homosexual Agenda Show!" What awful pun will he use for his first headline? The suspense kills. Then there will be the Bryan Fischer radio rant chanting "perverted president" "Christians are always right, "gays are nazis!" ("pssst: kill them!"). Concerned Women for America will release a statement like : "Of course, we want ALL children to be safe, but must we push the homosexual agenda on infants?" Southern Baptist ministers across the land will be nixing their Sunday sermons and feverishly drafting new ones to tell people that their Halloween Hell Houses will contain an "Abominable Obama" rainbow-colored monster. And FOX News ... will live for the next YEAR on this one. 

Yes, I feel sorry for the President. He was pressured to do the right thing, of course, but it still took a certain amount of courage to do it. He could have abstained by lauding Hillary Clinton's speech as sufficient. Still, some people in his own party may be distancing themselves from him even more than they have recently. The Democrats are so scattered right now, you 'll hear groans amongst the faint cheers. To some, Obama may have shown the wrong time to deliver compassion.

Compassion. Seriously, that's a word that the Christian Right has now taken to demonizing as a soft, wimpy word, not commensurate with the bold measures needed to "Take Back America" from the godless secularists. Ironically, however, compassion will be the word the Right will need to adopt before looking totally hard-hearted. It will need to convolute the definition to mean something, well, less compassionate and more boot-strapsier.

"We've got to dispel the myth that bullying is just a normal rite of passage-that it's some inevitable part of growing up. It's not."

This is when the Right will turn and say "yes it is!" Christine O'Donnell and Sharon Angle are shouting "man it up!" The red states will say "he's teaching our kids to be sissies." 


Compassion will be banned from the conversation. If there is a conversation. But instead it will be a one-sided bray from the Right, backed up by righteous indignation. 


Yes, I also feel sorry for the LGBT community. The bullies may win the day: after all, they still have Hell Houses to give the bullies justifiable support. After Oct. 31st, we may wake up to a spate of gay bashing the likes of which we've never seen since the onslaught of the AIDS epidemic.


Just a thought.

Hell Houses To Gay Teens: It DOESN'T Get Better - It Gets WORSE!!

 

MUCH WORSE!!

Special Report

While Dan Savage's bid for the minds of the country's gay teens has taken America by storm, another bid for their souls is in its 19th year: the church-sponsored Hell House. Initiated by Jerry Falwell in then70s, the Halloween-themed attraction has scared thousands (some say hundreds of thousands) of teenagers into believing that what they feel about themselves is sinful. 

This site will try to keep you posted every day (if I can) about Hell Houses, their effects and their locations. Please tell your friends to contribute by telling us of locations and any experiences. 

Thanks,

Dan Vojir

Below are some scenes from actual Hell Houses. They are offensive and destructive to all teens.

This has got to stop. I don't know how we can stop it, but it must stop.