Mike Tidmus

Just Love — A Statewide Challenge to the Ex-Gay Movement Here is an updated list of speakers who will be addressing Just Love. The program will be hosted at St Paul’s Cathedral in San Diego this coming Saturday, 6 March 2010, from 9:00 am – 5:00 pm. The day-long event will challenge Exodus International’s Love [...]

Republicans go nuclear with health reform distortions (video: The Rachel Maddow Show) Over at The Hill, Rep Anthony Weiner (D-NY) writes: I said it on Wednesday, and I’ll say it again: the Republicans really are just a wholly owned subsidiary of the insurance industry. Thursday’s summit proved it: They want to destroy Medicare, shovel money [...]

Just Love – A Statewide Challenge to the Ex-Gay Movement On Saturday, March 6, 2010, a one-day event will be held at St. Paul’s Episcopal Cathedral in San Diego. The 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. event will confront and challenge the misinformation and distortions of the ex-gay movement and challenge the efficacy of reparative/conversion therapy, [...]

We Don’t Buy the “Ex-Gay” Lie! Demonstrations on Saturday 6 March 2010 will coincide with an all-day conference being held in San Diego at St Paul’s Episcopal Cathedral as an alternative to the Exodus International/Focus on the Family Love Won Out conference slated for Jim Garlow‘s Skyline Church in La Mesa at the same time. [...]

Can God turn gays straight? Hungry Beast ep 13 (video: NewOnABCTV at YouTube) The so-called ex-gay reparative or conversion therapy movement is rapidly becoming America’s most toxic export — ask any gay or lesbian Ugandan. Via Michael Airhart and Truth Wins Out: “Australian former ex-gays explain on national television how U.S. evangelicals and their Australian affiliates [...]

On the heels of yesterday’s news that staunch advocate for traditional marriage and contributor to California’s Proposition 8 Papa Doug Manchester has been granted a legal separation from his wife Elizabeth ‘Betsy’ Manchester, who filed for divorce in August, we learn the American Psychological Association has cancelled its August meeting at the Manchester Grand Hyatt in [...]

Here’s your Saturday morning giggle courtesy of christianist nut-job Gary Cass. Cass’ signature brand of paranoid insanity is not unfamiliar to regular readers in these here parts, but he who organized a shitload of like-minded, gay-hating fundie pastors, including San Diego’s own Jim Garlow, to preach in Washington DC about the sheer fabulousness of executing the [...]

Patrick Strudwick went under cover and underwent reparative therapy and wrote about it for Britain’s Independent: According to a report by Professor Michael King of University College London, one in six UK psychiatrists and psychotherapists have sought to reduce or change a patient’s sexual orientation. And with the help of the American conversion therapy movement, [...]

The official Welcoming Committee at Skyline Wesleyan Church in La Mesa, California. The other entrance was similarly blockaded (all photos: Mike Tidmus, fair use encouraged) Yesterday, a handful of demonstrators were unceremoniously greeted by San Diego County sheriffs and four sheriff’s vehicles on top of heavy church security with golf carts, blocking the only two [...]

San Diegans Plan Protest at Local “Ex-Gay” Training Event San Diego Citizens Oppose Reparative Therapy As Espoused by ‘Ex-Gay’ Groups in the USA and Uganda WHO & WHAT: Demonstrators, not representing any particular organization, on Wednesday morning will greet the attendees at a training session being staged by Exodus International, an organization that advocates reparative [...]

Former ‘ex-gay’ leaders apologize (video: SoulForceQ at YouTube) Here’s the truth about Exodus International in the words of three of the organization’s former leaders, via SoulForceQ: Michael Busse (co-founder of Exodus), Darlene Bogle (a former Exodus ministries leader), and Jeremy Marks (former Exodus International and head of Courage UK) issue a public and formal apology [...]

L-R: Exodus International Board member Don Schmierer, San Diego-area Pastor Jim Garlow (photos L-R: Exodus International, Skyline Wesleyan Church) In March 2009, three American advocates of so-called “ex-gay” conversion therapy traveled to Uganda to preach at an anti-gay rally that led to the introduction of a now-infamous, draconian bill that would criminalize homosexuality and under [...]

If you’re an anti-gay pastor watcher like me, you’re well aware that San Diego area radical clerics Miles McPherson and Jim Garlow relish both the spotlight and the media attention that comes hand-in-hand with being two of California’s better known anti-LGBT advocates. When he’s not mentoring young Christians like former beauty queen turned soft-porn celebrity Carrie [...]

Senators team with religious right on reform obstruction (video: The Rachel Maddow Show) The mustachioed bobblehead leading the Family Research Council’s anti-healthcare-reform freakshow is Lou Engle. Bruce Wilson, writing at Talk to Action, has a piece up on Engle, who Wilson suggests is “the Republican Party’s new spiritual guru.” In GOP’s New Prayer Guru Says [...]

Maddow reveals the political ties between the Ugandan exterminate-the-gays bill and the American fundies who inspired it (video: The Rachel Maddow Show) I’d really forgotten how much watching Bush the Imbecile turns my stomach. It’s apparent that these right-wing political lackeys want to insinuate a smidgen of space between themselves and Uganda’s pending murder-the-gays bill, [...]

Uganda be kidding me (video: The Rachel Maddow Show) [ updated: see below ] MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow continues to hammer away at the gay-hating American fundamentalists involved in pushing the bill in Uganda that would criminalize being gay and provide the death penalty to people with AIDS and repeat offenders. Regular readers will recall this [...]

Revising the format a schooch today to post several reactions on the same topic: the radical religious right’s declaration of theocracy, which they’ve dubbed the Manhattan Declaration. Peterr (firedoglake): From Justifying Discrimination in the Name of Religious Freedom is Not a Good Idea: Shorter [Archbishop Donald] Wuerl: “God forbid that same sex couples be allowed [...]

[ updated: see below ] Barry Duke, writing at Great Britain’s Freethinker, is astonished by the degree of hatred toward LGBT Americans espoused by elements of the radical religious right here in the Land of the Free. Here’s a taste from his piece Fry in hell, faggots!: JUST when I thought I had a handle [...]

No difference whatsoever (graphic: from the Tidmus archives) Word that the Reverend Fred Phelps is coming to San Diego on Friday 16 October 2009 is bound to excite Fred’s fellow Christian conservatives, e.g., Pastor Jim Garlow, Pastor Miles McPherson, Saint James Hartline, and Pastor Chris Clark — all of whom have nothing whatsoever in common with Fred, [...]

NOM’s head honcho, Brian Brown, addresses a small crowd in San Diego last May. Local pastor and rally organizer Jim Garlow’s six personal bodyguards and Brian Brown’s six flown-in-for-the occasion children constituted a hefty percentage of the rally attendees celebrating the elimination of marriage equality in California (photo: Californians Against Hate Blog, used with permission) [...]

Here’s a bit of light reading on Prop H8 and the California Supreme Court hearing from around the vast internets: Los Angeles Times: California Supreme Court may reveal stance on Prop. 8 on Thursday The California Supreme Court may reveal Thursday whether it intends to uphold Proposition 8, and if so, whether an estimated 18,000 [...]

It’s not the latest dance craze. It’s just plain crazy!  (Photo: Rex Wockner, PhotoShoppery: mine) In addition to his excellent coverage of the candlelight rally in Hillcrest last night, veteran writer and reporter Rex Wockner has some very disturbing photos from yesterday’s freakshow at Qualcomm Stadium. If you think freakshow is a biased and unfair [...]

Pastor Jim sez: Come for the wholesome, family-friendly fun! (Graphic: mine, photo credits inside the first comment) Crawl attendees are encouraged to come early and enjoy the pre-prey parking lot festivities at San Diego’s beautiful Qualcomm Stadium. Refreshments will not be served, but have they got a show for you!!! And remember, kids, it’s a [...]

(Graphic: mine) The New York Times, on Monday, published an article about California’s Proposition 8 called A Line in the Sand for Same-Sex Marriage Foes. For quotes and background, writer Laura Goodstein turned to a few of the leading lights of the radical religious right — Tony Perkins, Chuck Colson, and Ake Green. In the article, [...]

Leave it to the radical religious right to equate legal marriage equality in California with illegal drug abuse. Christianist pastor James Garlow, of Skyline Church in San Diego County, has declared that marriage equality is “bad for the country.” Failing to articulate precisely why it is bad for America and confronted with the high number [...]