The Malcontent

"Ex-Gays" Say the Darndest Things

Our friends at Ex-Gay Watch (I need a nifty logo like theirs) alerted us to a piece that aired last night on CNN featuring Richard Cohen – not the WaPo columnist – one of the most controversial, and unlicensed, practitioners of so-called "reparative therapy" for gays.

I'll leave the heavy lifting to the experts at EGW, but the piece – whether unintentional or not – was hi-frickin'-larious.  We are treated to therapy sessions between Cohen and 42-year-old "Rob," a gay man who thinks that Cohen can help him become un-gay.

We see Cohen practicing "touch therapy" to recreate a "healthy father-son bond."  Call me crazy, but it appeared to be a cunning way for Cohen for be able to get his jollies cuddling up with other men while still claiming that he is now straight.

We then see Cohen engaging in an interesting form of quackery that he calls "bioenergetics," whaling on a pillow with a tennis racket in lieu of his overbearing mother.  Frightening stuff.  Norman-Bates freaky.

I suggest if you find yourself in a session with Cohen that you dial 9-1 on your cell phone, just to save time in case you need to hit that last 1.

We are treated to more of the same tripe that we have seen from the ex-gay movement, this happy-crappy talk about how "there's nothing wrong with being gay," but somehow one can choose to be straight, even though we don't exactly see hordes of heterosexual men stampeding the opposite direction into ex-straight therapy.

What I got out of the piece is that it is a sign of progress that the gay guy aspiring to be straight was the one hiding his identity, while the gay guy who long ago gave up on reparative-therapy nonsense was proudly public.

[Watch video – 6:42, WMV format, high bandwidth]

[Watch video – 6:42, WMV format, low bandwidth]

Our Own Private IDAHO

A reader sent in this short film he made in observance of "IDAHO," the International Day Against Homophobia:

Scouting for Some

"Scouting for All" takes its message of tolerance to Washington, D.C., on May 24.

A news conference, rally and candlelight vigil will be held to protest the Boy Scouts' ongoing exclusion of gays and atheists.

Scouting for All President Scott Cozza writes that they will be "reading the names of those scouts who have turned in their scouting awards to Scouting for All in protest of the BSA's national leadership's policy of discrimination against gay and atheist youth and adults."

The full text of the announcement follows ...

Gimme My Special Rights!

Gay Americans are quite rightly engaged in a historic battle for our rights.  It is unconscionable that we should be denied legal status for our families in most places, or the ability in some states to adopt children – or, as of July 2004 in Virginia, to enter into private contracts that are even remotely reminiscent of the appurtenances of marriage.

But even as we demand these rights, we consistently slip on a banana peel that we ourselves have tossed carelessly onto the kitchen floor.  We play into the hands of those who fear that we want not equitable treatment, but "special" rights.  In fact, we often give our foes more than ample reason to conflate our desire for equality with homo-favoritism.

Case in point.  Two, actually.

A 17-year-old student from Trumansburg, N.Y., was kicked out of school for wearing a T-shirt protesting yesterday's Day of Silence, which is meant to draw attention to the bullying and harassment of gay students.  (He was followed out the door by several others.)  And what was this hateful, intolerable message on his chest, this unforgivable offense that the superintendent said was making other students feel "threatened"?

"It's Great To Be Straight."