Magellan Health Drops 'Ex-Gay' Therapist From Advisory Panel

Magellan Health, the largest provider of behavioral health and employee assistance services in the US, recently dropped a notorious member of the fraudulent 'ex-gay' industry from its National Provider Advisory Council.

Magellan dropped Warren Throckmorton, of the Christian Grove City College, because he mixes religion with matters of behavioral health science. His views are simply "too controversial" for them. And that's putting it mildly!

The so-called 'ex-gay' industry festers with fraud, ethical violations, and pseudoscience. Throckmorton is one of its loudest proponents. Now Throckmorton and the bizarre 'ex-gay' organization known as P-FOX are organizing a hate campaign against Magellan Health. In articles appearing in the American Family Association propaganda organ, Agape Press, and on a right wing website known as Mens News Daily, they are completely mischaracterizing the circumstances surrounding Magellan's rejection of Throckmorton. They're inventing stories claiming that Magellan's "discriminates" against the 'ex-gay' community and organizing a hate mail campaign against them.

Let's neutralize the hate campaign by sending letters of support to Magellan Health. Congratulate them for maintaining ethical and professional standards. Tell them you appreciate their removal of a representative of an unethical and fradulent industry from their organization.

Copies of your letter will go to the administration and psychology faculty of Grove City College as well as to representatives of P-FOX.

Write to Magellan Health.

Update 2: San Diego Bishop

Well it seems the San Diego bishop's apology isn't what it's cracked up to be, the San Diego Union-Tribune reports:

Bishop's careful apology fails to end dispute

The morning after San Diego's Roman Catholic bishop apologized to a family after canceling their gay son's funeral Mass, he left two voicemail messages for an evangelical Christian activist who crusades against homosexuality."James, please take my call," Bishop Robert Brom said Tuesday into the answering machine of James Hartline, a Hillcrest man who supported canceling the funeral. "I have to explain how it's all wrong and how I was done in. We need to talk and we need to meet. Please call me back immediately."

In a second message, the bishop sounded more urgent: "This is Bishop Brom begging you to call me back. I did not cave in. I stood for our position and I still do, but I need to explain and I need your help."

Hartline said he never returned Brom's calls. Instead, he played the messages for a reporter, saying he was outraged by the bishop's "totally spineless" apology to the family of John McCusker, a nightclub owner who died earlier this month. The bishop had banned a Catholic service for McCusker, citing what the diocese considered his sinful business activities.

[...]

Obviously, the bishop needs some more e-mail after all.

Update: San Diego Bishop Apologizes

Thanks, MailToBloggers, the San Diego bishop who refused a funeral for a gay man has seen the error of his ways and issued an apology. Your letters were a big help.

Bishop apologizes for barring Catholic funeral of gay nightclub owner
Brom promises to hold memorial mass at USD church
UNION-TRIBUNE March 21, 2005

SAN DIEGO – The head of the Roman Catholic Diocese of San Diego apologized Monday to the family of gay nightclub owner John McCusker, less than a week after decreeing that McCusker couldn't have a Catholic burial because of his "business activities," according to a statement released by McCusker's family.

In a stunning twist to a controversy that has created an uproar in the San Diego gay and Catholic communities, Bishop Robert Brom also promised to preside at a mass in memory of McCusker at The Immaculata Catholic church on the campus of the University of San Diego.
It was only last week that the bishop forced The Immaculata to cancel McCusker's funeral, declaring that no parish within the diocese, which includes San Diego and Imperial Counties, could hold a Catholic funeral for him.
[...]

I accuse... Peggy Noonan of being a moron.

We should tell her so.

Now, reasonable minds may differ on the whole Terri Schiavo issue. Many, many people quite reasonably feel that the matter is a private tragedy that should be left to the family, specifically to the traditional perogative of a husband or wife to make the decisions regarding a spouse's medical treatment (isn't hat "traditional marriage"? See Genesis 2:24). Far fewer people think--sincerely and not unreasonably--that questions of life and death are matters of public concern that warrant government infringement on personal liberty and privacy.

But for any position to be reasonable, it has to be rational. And some of the conservative political activists currently giving out their opinions are simply not being rational. They are being morons, and former Reagan staffer Peggy Noonan is a prime example. Now, lots of people say that Peggy Noonan is really smart... but I rather think she is merely clever; kind of like how pigs and snakes can be clever without actually being intelligent. Case in point:

Peggy Noonan, who writes regularly for the Wall Street Journal and its online editorial page, Online Journal, has decided that the world would stop spinning on its axis if she didn't tell all of us how she feels about the "invaluable and irreplaceable human life" represented by Terri Schiavo's body, which has a vast fluid-filled hole where most of her brain used to be.



See what I mean? (I'll leave it to the reader's imagination what Peggy's brain might look like in a CAT scan.)

Peggy claims that she and her friends "do not want an innocent human life ended for what appear to be primarily practical and worldly reasons". Oddly though--and this is where Peggy goes off the deep end--she fails to mention the case of little Sun Hudson, the Texas boy who was taken off of life support this week only because his mother could no longer afford to pay for it. Reasons don't get more practical and worldly than that, Peggy.

But she doesn't care. Why doesn't she care? Because she is a Republican, and the law that allowed Sun Hudson's hospital to pull the plug against the wishes of his mother was enacted by a Republican legislature and signed by then Republican governor George W. Bush (in her column, Peggy refers to these as "the pull-the-tube people"). And, for that, she is a moron. She is a craven political opportunist of the worst sort... she says "life itself is the point" in the Schiavo case, but won't make the same argument for little Sun Hudson. Now, Peggy is entitled to her beliefs... but she is not entitled to apply them unequally. And she isn't allowed to lie about them. She can't respect life as much as she so crassly claims, because her outrage is so fickle.

Perhaps it would do to remind Peggy of something she said recently: "Beware the politically obsessed. They are often bright and interesting, but they have something missing in their natures; there is a hole, an empty place, and they use politics to fill it up. It leaves them somehow misshapen." Sound familiar, Peggy? That's what I mean about Peggy just being clever... she might seem bright and interesting, but there is something missing. In this case, it's Peggy's integrity that's missing.

You see, there is nothing wrong with infringing on personal liberties in the service of a broad social principle. That is because the principle ensures that the infringement is even-handed, consistent, and meaningful. But what principle is Peggy offering here? She obviously doesn't really care about human life in principle, because she can't even bring herself to mention Sun Hudson. If true principle were involved, she would care about Sun and his mother. But she doesn't. And it isn't applied consistently, because Peggy isn't crusading for Sun and his mother. And that is where the danger lies, because the infringement on personal freedom that she is espousing is not in the service of a greater principle, but merely in the service of political opportunism and rallying the base. And it only protects those favored by the political elite. It cannot be tolerated by a free people.

Peggy also says "Part of courage is simple consistency." Let Peggy know that simple consistency would mean standing up for little Sun Hudson, even if it meant going against her party and its corporate contributors, just as much as she stands up for Terri Schiavo. That's integrity. She is entitled to her sincerely-held religious beliefs and she's entitled to express them. But that isn't what she's doing. If it was, her column would have at least given a mention to little Sun Hudson and his grieving mother. Republican party hacks should not be allowed to get away with being such hypocrites, and they shouldn't be using private tragedies to get their own names in the papers. Let her know what you think about her lack of integrity and her fickle (and therefore suspect) moral outrage:

http://www.peggynoonan.com/sign.php

-or-

peggy@peggynoonan.com


UPDATE:

We now have the proof that Peggy Noonan was an idiot on this issue. The autopsy of Terri Schiavo proves that half of her brain had died. A healthy brain in a woman her size weighs about 1250 grams. Terri's weighed 615 grams. The entire part of her brain that once contained her consciousness and her personality were completely gone (also gone was her visual cortex, so when Senator Frist said that she was responding to visual stimulation he was obviously full of crap). But don't expect Peggy Noonan to make note of that.

Catholic Church Even Persecutes the Dead

March 17, 2005

Diocese of San Diego denies Catholic funeral rites to bar owner

A member of the Greater San Diego Business Association and owner of two gay bars has been denied a funeral at the University of San Diego and in any Catholic church or chapel in the Diocese of San Diego.

Well isn't that just special, folks? Let's all thank the Catholic Church for its attempt to start pogroms in the US.

John McCusker, 31, owner of Club Montage and ReBar, two local gay nightspots, died early March 13. McCusker suffered an apparent heart attack while at the Mammoth Mountain Ski Resort on vacation. The bars are closed indefinitely according to a notice on the Club Montage Web site....

A 1996 graduate of USD, McCusker's family wanted to have the funeral service there, but was denied after church officials received information about him and his businesses...

"We all know what this is about," Joyce Marieb executive director of the Greater San Diego Business Association said, who knew McCusker for the past five and a half years. "They [the Catholic Church] claim they've buried other gay people and that it's because of the bar aspect."

Yes we all do know what this is about. This is the Catholic Church, not individual Catholics but the Vatican, doing its damnedest to create an atmosphere of hatred for LGBT folks across the nation, even those who aren't Catholic. This is the Catholic Church attempting to impose its own particular brand of spiritual violence on all of the citizens of this country.

A statement released earlier Thursday by Rodrigo Valdivia, chancellor for the Diocese of San Diego, explains the church's actions.

"The facts regarding the business activity of John McCusker were not known by church officials when arrangements were requested for his funeral. When these facts became known the bishop of San Diego concluded that to avoid public scandal Mr. McCusker can't be granted a funeral in a Catholic church or chapel in the Diocese of San Diego..."

WHAT PUBLIC SCANDAL? A pillar of the business community has died. He was respected and loved by other business men and women in San Diego and he always had time to help others. He paid his taxes, put back into the community more than he took from it.

"His business is adult entertainment, which is inconsistent with Catholic teaching" Valdivia said. "People would be scandalized that the church granted a funeral to a person who had this type of business activity."

Isn't that just utter codswallop? Spanish Inquistion, eh, what, Rodrigo? Wouldn't it be nice if no one had to expect the Spanish Inquisition for a change?

But, according to Valdivia, the Catholic Church does not consider all bars and clubs "adult entertainment."

"There's a lot of different things that can play into what would make a business activity something that was notoriously against Catholic teaching or not. It would not necessarily be if (the club) was gay or not."

When asked what about McCusker or his business goes against Catholic teaching, Valdivia said he couldn't say, for legal reasons.

Yeah, right. What a god damned liar, literally. What a cowardly little man in an ugly black dress.

Marieb also said there will be a community meeting on Monday at the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center of San Diego to discuss this issue.

If you can offer some assistance or support to them, contact them via Email; or if you're local you might call (619) 692-2077

McCusker's memorial service is now planned for 11 a.m., March 18 at St. Paul's Cathedral, an Episcopal church.

Burn up the phone lines and Email conduits. Contact the Catholic Diocese of San Diego and let them know what you think about their totally inhumane, not to mention un-Christian, hate and bigotry. Phone: 858-490-8200. Better yet, Email them

Colorado Educators Fall Victim to Spongephobia

The Colorado Springs Gazette is reporting that at least one school district in the area has fallen prey to a lunatic conpiracy theory about Sponge Bob turning children gay (or something like that).

"Academy School District 20 won’t show students a children’s music video that conservative groups have denounced for promoting acceptance of gay lifestyles. [...]

"The four-minute video features about 100 popular cartoon characters and puppets — including SpongeBob SquarePants, Kermit the Frog, Big Bird and Barney — singing 'We Are Family.'"

The lunatic conspiracy theory arose earlier this year when James Dobson of Focus on the Family and the American Family Association claimed the video is part of a huge plot to turn children gay, (or something like that). They're never quite specific about what this video does to children, they simply try to create fear.

Action:
1. E-mail the school district. Tell them you're concerned about the children whose education they oversee. What sort of educators can be so gullible and so stupid that they fall for the lunatic theories of religious wingnuts?

2. Write a letter to the editor of the Colorado Springs Gazette expressing your concern for the quality of education the children of the community receive under the direction of people who clearly lack the ability to think rationally. The article is titled, D-20 rejects disputed video, published on 3/16/05.

(Thanks to AmericaBlog for spotting this one.)

Extremist Christian Group Joins With Ultra-Orthodox Israeli Group In Attempt To Cancel Jerusalem World Pride

Haaretz reports, "A group of evangelical Christians has teamed up with members of Shas to launch an international petition aimed at canceling the Gay and Lesbian World Pride Parade scheduled for Jerusalem this summer.

"Led by California Pastor Leo Giovinetti, the initiative, which will be launched at a news conference in Jerusalem today, is hoping to garner the signatures of an estimated 1 million Jews and Christians worldwide.

"'As friends of the state of Israel, we are in a state of heartbreak and shock to hear that you who govern and watch over Israel are planning to allow World Pride 2005, a worldwide gathering of homosexuals, to take place in the holy city of Jerusalem'".

According to Israel Insider, last week "Shas spiritual leader Rabbi Ovadia Yosef on Tuesday called Prime Minister Ariel Sharon "evil" due to his disengagement plan, and said "God will strike him with one blow and he will die, he will sleep and not awake."

Giovinetti is pastor of San Diego's Mission Valley Christian Fellowship.

Action: Send an e-mail to the Mission Valley Christian Fellowship staff. Tell them that hatred disguised as religion is not a part of Christianity or Judaism. Remind them that they are in violation of one of Jesus' greatest commandments when they commit this sort of spiritual violence against others.

Let's derail the AFA

The AFA decided to aid and abet hatred and attack religion other than fundamentalist Christianity in Midland, Michigan.

Family group warns Midland officials: school newspaper’s promotion of witchcraft may expose children to harm

March 8, 2005

MIDLAND, Mich. – A statewide family values group Tuesday praised Midland Central Middle School Principal Paula Geller for pledging to ensure that the middle school’s student newspaper will not publish articles in the future encouraging its 11- to 13-year old readers to consider experimenting with witchcraft.
Gary Glenn, Midland, president of the American Family Association of Michigan, contacted school officials in response to the Winter 2005 issue of the middle school’s Cavalier Chronicle, which included an article entitled “Good Witch or Bad Witch?” in which an 8th grade member of the student newspaper staff wrote that “most people believe that witches don’t exist, and I am here to prove them wrong.”
“My family is a normal family, except that my aunt is a Wiccan witch,” the Central Middle School 8th grader wrote. “…I have decided to experiment with this religion and see if this is the way for me. I also think that some of the kids in school would like some of the things that Wiccans do, like: We gather in meetings every week and talk, gossip, and learn about the Wiccan way. We cast spells and potions. …So, if you are interested, you can look up some books…and learn all you want about Wiccans.”

Oh my goodness gracious! Whatever will happen to someone who actually learns FACTS instead of lies about a religion other than his or her own? Heaven forfend!

Here's your opportunity to let the Midland Public School Board know that ignorance breeds bigotry and bigotry breeds violence, and that learning *about* another religion is not the same as being converted *to* another religion from one's own. Ask them if this policy will be applied to ALL religions or if it will be selectively applied to SOME religions. Remind the school Board that intolerance is the mark of a dying civilization, not a healthy and lively one.

Extremist Wingnut Columnist Needs Lesson

Poor Michael Gaynor of MichNews.com. A California judge declared California's discriminatory marriage law unconstitutional. And Gaynor's in such a homophobic rage that he doesn't know Republicans from Democrats.

In his article, SECULAR EXTREMISM STRIKES AGAIN, he shows us exactly how clueless he is when he calls California's Superior Court Judge Richard Kramer a "loony leftist". Kramer is a Catholic Republican and the appointee of a Republican governor.

Gaynor then goes on and on showing us just how much he hates the US Constitution and how little he understands it.

Take Action: Send an e-mail to Michael Gaynor. Tell him he should check his facts before making such a fool of himself. And while you're at it, ask him why he hates the US Constution.

Fundie Med School Blocks LBGT Student Group

Refusing To Allow Gay Student Group May Cost Medical School Degree


FOLLOW UP ARTICLE:

NY Med School Refuses To Back Down On Gay Ban

(White Plains, New York) New York Medical College is refusing to back down on its ban of an organization for LGBT students. The school, which is affiliated with the Roman Catholic Diocese of New York, has refused to sanction the students group, denying it funds or a place to meet. story This week, Dean Ralph O'Connell met with the head of a national organization of gay doctors. O'Connell has refused to discuss the meeting with reporters.

Joel Ginsberg, the executive director of Gay and Lesbian Medical Association said O'Connell's position had not changed.

"The dean expressed openness to the idea of expanding the coverage of (gay-related) health topics in the curriculum [but] the school does not seem prepared to permit [the gay group to meet]," Joel Ginsberg, the executive director of Gay and Lesbian Medical Association, told the Journal News after the meeting.

"I question whether a school that bans its gay club can ever effectively teach its students to be accepting and nonjudgmental about the LGBT patients they treat," Ginsberg told the paper.

At the meeting, Ginsberg gave O'Connell a petition signed by 1,150 health care professionals and medical students that said banning the campus group was a signal to medical students that gays were "not fully welcome within the medical profession" and could help make graduates ignorant of the gay community's health needs.

Full article here

TAKE ACTION:

1) Contact Stephen J. Friedman, the dean of Pace University Law school letting him know you support and approve of the faculty's choice not to partner with NY Medical College.

2) Add your voice to those condemning the actions of NY Medical College. They don't use Email. The contact information is:

New York Medical College
Administration Bldg.
40 Sunshine Cottage Rd.
Valhalla, NY 10595

President and CEO
Rev. Msgr. Harry C. Barrett, D.Min., M.P.H.
President and Chief Executive Officer Administration Building
(914) 594-4600

Provost
Ralph A. O’Connell, M.D.
Provost and Dean, School of Medicine Administration Building
(914) 594-4900

Columnist Thinks Prejudice is "Common Sense"

Columnist Mark Holmberg of the Richmond Times-Dispatch seems to think it perfectly fine to listen to right-wing anti-gay rumormongers. In fact he resents all the objections to the cancellation of a GSA speaker because of anti-gay rumors spread by religious extremists.

In fact, Holmberg thinks anti-gay prejudice is "common sense" and resents it being characterized as discrimination.

Take Action: Send an e-mail to Mark Holmberg. Tell him that "common sense" has absolutely nothing in common with the rumormongering of anti-gay religious extremists. In this situation, "common sense" would have been determining exactly what the author intended to speak about at the GSA meeting. Ask Mark if he'd approve of cancelling a talk by Arnold Schwarzenegger. After all, Arnold posed nude for Robert Mapplethorpe on at least two occasions. And he posed nude for the gay magazine, After Dark.


RELATED:
Shunned gay writer speaks at gay church
Speech by gay author being sent to board
ACLU wants schools to invite gay author again
Gay author to speak at church
Officials cancel gay author's talk at school

Take Action

Write to the Board that they failed their community by accepting the word of rumormongers.

Virginia School District Cancels GSA Speaker

As reported in the Washington Blade, "Gay author Greg Herren said he was surprised when he was asked to give a presentation to the Gay-Straight Alliance at Manchester High School in Chesterfield County, Va."

"He was told that his presentation had been approved by the faculty adviser of the school’s one-year-old Gay-Straight Alliance, as well as by the principal of the school. He was even asked to donate copies of some of his books for a new gay section in the school library."

Then just one week before the presentation he was contacted by a reporter for the Richmond Time-Dispatch about 'the controversy'. This was the first Herren knew about a 'controversy'.

He then learned that the virulently anti-gay Virginia Family Policy Network had mounted a vicious e-mail campaign against him. They characterized Herren a “gay porn” writer and suggesting that it was not appropriate for him to be in contact with students. The e-mail urged parents to contact the school and object to Herren’s visit.

Herren as produced some erotic writings, but that's only a small part of his work. His primary output consists of mystery novels. His presentation was to be about being a professional writer and had nothing to do with sex. He told the Times-Dispatch, “My message [to students] is to be yourself and chase your dreams. I don’t read from my books to kids, mainly because I know that parents might find my books troubling.”

The school board met without taking time to check the facts of the situation. They chose to believe the rumormongers of the anti-gay Virginia Family Policy Network, an organization that promoted legislation to ban Gay-Straight Alliances from Virginia schools.

Meanwhile the ACLU discovered the the school district is not treating the GSA equally with other groups at the school. "In addition to the cancellation of Mr. Herren's program, it appears that the [Gay-Straight Alliance] has been treated differently in other ways," the ACLU [stated in a letter to the school]. "First, the GSA has been approved for only one year. It is my understanding that other student organizations do not have such time restrictions. Second, the GSA has been told that it may not use its full name, Gay-Straight Alliance, in its posters, nor may it include language indicating that meetings are open to all students, whether gay, straight, or questioning."

At least one other newspaper, The Virginia Pilot, has picked up the rumormongering of the hate group, Virginia Family Policy Association, and published an editorial supporting the school district's deplorable behavior. "Is a writer like Herren, who concerns himself largely with erotic themes, an appropriate speaker for a high school audience?"

Take Action

1. Write to the school board and high school responsible for this incident. Tell them that the kind of prejudice that accepts the word of vicious rumormongers over the facts is simply not acceptable.

2. Write to the Board late, but right in canceling speaker, he failed his community by accepting the word of rumormongers.

P-FLAG and GLSEN Accused of Promoting Pedophilia

Join P-FLAG and GLSEN in demanding a public retraction and apology from the Pinellas County Juvenile Welfare Board (JWB) in response to defamatory statements made by board member Cecilia Burke. Burke is a political appointee of Florida governor Jeb Bush.

In a written memorandum addressed and circulated to the entire JWB on February 7, 2005, Burke stated that GLSEN and PFLAG "endorse unhealthy sexual practices among youth, including sex between underage youth and adults." This statement is false.

The St. Petersburg Times reported on March 7, 2005, "Burke said she based some of her statements on the work of the National Association for the Research and Therapy of Homosexuals. ... Burke's memo also criticized a mailing to school principals from a board committee saying that "reparative therapy" - a technique that tries to convert homosexuals to heterosexuality - is harmful for children with same-sex attractions and should be discouraged."

"In 1997, health and medical organizations, including the American Psychological Association and the American Medical Association, issued a resolution against any methods to change homosexual desires, because homosexuality is not a mental illness. "What we've understood is that if a person tries this therapy and it doesn't work, there is a heightened sense of guilt and a lowered sense of self-esteem," said the APA's Clinton Anderson." More about 'reparative therapy' here.

Send an e-mail to Jeb Bush and the staff of the Pinellas County Juvenile Welfare Board. Demand an official apology and the resignation of board member, Cecilia Burke.