On Tuesday, May 10, 2011, Fairness WV hosted Wayne Besen, Founding Executive Director of Truth Wins Out, on West Virginia University’s campus in the Mountainlair Greenbrier Room.  The event was co-sponsored by the WVU President’s Office for Social Justice, the WVU Council on Sexual Orientation, and WELLWVU.  The President’s Office for Social Justice provided lunch.

Before the event began, I said to the audience that “ex-gay” ministries are “a key tool used to justify preventing gays and lesbians from obtaining equal rights.”  I went on to say, “Antigay sentiment is not natural, nor is it inevitable; it is a feeling based on prejudice, ignorance, and denial.  Fairness WV is dedicated to exposing the ‘ex-gay’ myth and the propaganda that it produces.”

With every seat filled, Besen gave a sweeping presentation on the structure and mission of many “ex-gay” ministries.  He described the ministries’ psychologically dangerous “therapy,” which often entails “ex-gay” leaders irrationally blaming all of participants’ problems – unsuccessful careers, depression, divorces – on their sexuality.  He also exposed many of the lies and scandals behind the industry.  

Here are a few key points that stuck out to me during his presentation:

• Besen said that in a joint investigation with South Florida Gay News in 2010, he exposed JONAH’s Arthur Goldberg as a Wall Street con artist who served time in jail for stealing millions of dollars. 
• He photographed Focus on the Family’s “ex-gay” poster boy John Paulk in a gay bar on September 19, 2000.   
• He helped uncover Rev. Jerry Falwell’s HIV-positive “ex-gay” leader, Michael Johnston, picking up men on the Internet. 
• He also revealed that the president of Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays (PFOX) president, “ex-gay” therapist Richard Cohen, had been kicked out of the American Counseling Association. 

After Besen commended Fairness WV for confronting the “ex-gay” myth directly and for fighting for LGBT equality in West Virginia, a room full of students, educators, professors, attorneys, clergy, psychologists, and concerned community members applauded Besen’s powerful message, and many commented afterward that they found it a terrific and hopeful sign of better days to come in West Virginia.

That evening, First Presbyterian Church of Morgantown hosted “Let My People Go: A Liberating Faith for People of All Sexual Orientations.”  After a wonderful dinner, we watched the documentary, “For the Bible Tells Me So,” a prize-winning film that explores issues of sexuality and faith.  While we discussed the film, we heard word that the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) had voted to ordain openly gay and lesbian clergy.  We left the church knowing that our friends in Morgantown and across the country, and yet another mainline Christian denomination, had taken the right step towards equality.

With these events, we are reminded that support for equal rights for LGBT West Virginians is only rising; that Morgantown’s community boasts a tremendous swath of support from academic, religious, and medical communities, among many others; and that, with continued unrelenting work from our friends and allies across this state, we certainly will achieve our goals of fairness and equal civil rights for all West Virginians, regardless of sexual orientation.

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