Wayne Besen

Although we just had an election, Rick Santorum, as tireless as he is tiresome, is already stumping in Iowa to prepare for his next defeat. His willful ignorance and woeful arrogance personifies why the GOP is losing the next generation of voters. Santorum, for instance, attacked marriage equality and foolishly pretended the huge cultural shift on this issue was no more than a passing fad – like a Hula Hoop or a Rubik’s cube... [ Read more → ]

For fifty years, Bob Jones University, in Greenville, S.C., prohibited interracial dating and Bob Jones Jr. once claimed that Catholicism was a “satanic counterfeit” of fundamentalist Christianity. Despite the ugly rhetoric and vile policies, Republican candidates regularly flocked to the school and groveled for its endorsement. The GOP luminaries who appeared at the university include Ronald Reagan, Dan Quayle, and Bob Dole. This ignoble political ritual ended in 2000 after presidential candidate George W. Bush was excoriated for appearing at the school... [ Read more → ]

In private moments, it must be disconcerting to the Pope that gay couples pledging their love and lives to each other, have significantly greater moral authority than the Vatican. People, including most moderate Catholics, must be scratching their heads and wondering why a troubled religious institution that does not have its house in order, is obsessively trying to cause disorder in loving gay households? [ Read more → ]

One of two cases that the Supreme Court has decided to hear in the coming year will challenge the Defense of Marriage Act. Although this is ostensibly a legal case, it is really about competing narratives – and there is nothing same-sex marriage opponents offer that comes close to the touching tale of Edie Windsor and her deceased wife Thea Spyer. Their struggle not only tugs at the heartstrings, it transforms the heart into a marionette, dancing merrily to sappy love songs. This case screams out for fair resolution, and the court runs the risk of delegitimizing itself as draconian and doctrinaire if it denies this couple justice. [ Read more → ]

In 1998, 15 religious right organizations launched a huge advertising campaign to promote “pray away the gay” programs. Anti-gay activist Robert Knight called the “Truth in Love” campaign the “Normandy Landing in the larger cultural wars.” Things didn’t quite work out as Knight had hoped... [ Read more → ]

Today, I feel a little bit like Dr. Sam Loomis. He was the psychiatrist in the classic horror movie Halloween who ran through the streets of Haddonfield telling anyone who would listen that Michael Myers had just escaped from the insane asylum. As he frantically warned the residents, they looked at him as if he were a paranoid crank. Similarly, I warned in May that something was seriously amiss at Mike Bickle’s International House of Prayer (IHOP) in Grandview, MO, an exurb of Kansas City... [ Read more → ]

In reality, Mitt Romney is a nasty individual with radical ideas who seems to have little regard for animals, women, minorities, gays, and 47-percent of Americans whom he regards as bums who can get their healthcare in the Emergency Room. [ Read more → ]

When people see their own sons and daughters and friends and co-workers coming out, it creates a crisis of credibility for religious institutions. It leads to countless situations where mean-spirited men like Archbishop John Nienstedt demand blind, irrational obedience and say take it or leave it – and more people are now following their consciences and walking away. [ Read more → ]

If there is one thing that we learned by the Pacific Justice Institute’s lawsuit against California Gov. Jerry Brown, and anyone in his orbit remotely connected to a new law banning “ex-gay” therapy for minors, is that these lawyers are as logic challenged and convoluted as the industry they are poorly defending. [ Read more → ]

While Cardinal Timothy Dolan prayed at the Democratic Convention against my family and for the unborn, a Catholic leader in Kansas City, Bishop Robert W. Finn, was convicted of covering up the crimes of a pedophile priest, Rev. Shawn Ratigan, who liked to take nude pictures of the barely born... [ Read more → ]

I’m not sure why anyone is surprised that the Boy Scouts of America reaffirmed the group’s bigoted ban on out gay members and leaders. After all, this is a group that is guided by the Southern Baptist Convention, The Roman Catholic Church, and the Mormon Church. Until the influence of these conservative religious groups wane, a new policy is doubtful, if not wishful thinking. [ Read more → ]

Violet Andrews Park is the type of serene refuge that people visit to get over the death of a loved one, not the type of place where people are brutally murdered. Surely, a violent encounter was the last thing on the minds of Olgin and Chapa when they went to the park on June 22 to waste time before a movie. What happened next is still a mystery. But we do know that the couple was led into a mud-soaked, grassy trail where both girls were shot in the head with a high caliber pistol. [ Read more → ]

I’m going to Texas on Friday to mourn the loss of a beautiful young girl at a vigil in the park where she and her girlfriend were shot. But I’m also hoping this tragedy wakes people up to the nightmares on the horizon that are sure to come if our foes don’t halt their rancid and reactionary rhetoric. [ Read more → ]

If there is one thing that irks me, it is having the Roman Catholic Church preach to me about sexual morality. It is a religious sect led by a virulently homophobic Pope that goes out of its way to trash my family. Yet, my family hasn’t spent a cent defending itself against nonexistent charges of child rape, while the Vatican has spent $2.5 billion on legal fees, prevention programs, and settlements relating to the sexual abuse of minors. [ Read more → ]

There are two things we know about the religious right: They have no faith in science, and they cynically distort science to justify their faith. The latest example is a new study by University of Texas researcher Mark Regnerus (pictured), “How Different are the Adult Children of Parents Who Have Same-Sex Relationships?” [ Read more → ]

Anti-gay activists have long argued that gay people do not need protection from discrimination because they can hide their identity. Anti-gay activist Janet Boynes succinctly made this point in her book, Called Out: “The difference between black skin and homosexuality is that black skin is a physical characteristic while homosexuality is a behavior.” [ Read more → ]

I know it is cliché to say that this presidential contest is the most important election of our lifetime, but if you are a gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender, it truly does hold monumental importance. Here are ten reasons why it is critical that Obama wins and what his victory would mean for America and the LGBT community. [ Read more → ]

Reparative therapy, which seeks to “cure” homosexuality, is a destructive form of consumer fraud, where avaricious practitioners try to profit off their victims by instilling a deep sense of shame and guilt. There is not one shard of evidence supporting such efforts, while there is a long trail of blood and tears from the human casualties who bought into the lie that they were abnormal and needed to be converted into heterosexuals... [ Read more → ]

Obama’s decision today shows he has a moral core and is a change agent – just as he promised in his first campaign. Obama’s strategists hope such leadership qualities will play well in the war for Independent voters. Furthermore, Team Obama hopes that today’s decision will energize the progressive base and open the floodgates for gay volunteers and money. An excited base will be needed to counteract the expected onslaught of anti-gay groups that will portray the President as a radical gay-loving socialist. Make no mistake: today’s announcement is risky... [ Read more → ]

The last time I checked, I never signed up for the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. I don’t even like his church, yet he thinks I should be forced against my will to live by its rules. Do we now make our civil laws based upon Christian Sharia? Do we all have to follow his version of the Bible or be punished by government? And if this is the case, are we really a free country? Are we really much different than Iran, or is it only by a matter of degrees or a matter of time until these so-called “Christian Supremacists” get their filthy and corrupt paws on all of our laws? [ Read more → ]