News
2005-12-07
Author demands
antigay group pull "fraudulent" video
American Family
Association's "ex-gay" video denounced by gay author
Wayne Besen
Out auth
Out author Wayne
Besen is demanding that the antigay group American
Family Association stop promoting and selling a video
featuring a man who claims he has been "cured" of
homosexuality who has since been dumped as a spokesman
for the group for continuing to have sex with men. The
video, It's Not Gay, features Michael Johnston, who
once said he had been “cured” his
homosexuality through the "power of Jesus
Christ." Johnston, who is HIV-positive, stopped serving
as a spokesman for so-called ex-gay groups in 2003
after reportedly continuing to meet men through the
Internet and having unsafe sex with them.
After Johnston
stepped down, AFA spokesman Buddy Smith called
Johnston’s continued sexual interest in men and
possible exposure of others to HIV a
“moral fall,” but the organization is still
promoting and selling the video featuring Johnston on
its Web site, says Besen, author of the book
Anything but Straight: Unmasking the Scandals
and Lies Behind the Ex-Gay Myth.
"The American
Family Association is blatantly committing fraud by
suggesting that Johnston is heterosexual, and they are
promoting the spread of HIV by continuing to use him
as a spokesperson," says Besen. "This episode suggests
a stunning lack of integrity on the part of the
American Family Association and utter contempt for the
truth. If they have a shred of decency and morality,
they will immediately stop selling the tape and
apologize for their disgraceful behavior."
In 1998 a
coalition of conservative religious groups launched a
national print and television ad campaign preaching
that gays can change. Johnston appeared with his
mother, Frances Johnston, in a controversial print ad
under the headline "From Innocence to AIDS." A similar
television commercial appeared in 1998 as well; it was
titled "Mom." Johnston also worked with Reverend Jerry
Falwell and was the founder of National Coming Out of
Homosexuality Day. (Advocate.com)
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