Local and Michigan Headlines: Measure Introduced to Repeal Ban on Same-Sex Marriage; Brother Defends Local Administrator of Racist Website

Here are some interesting articles covering Grand Rapids and Michigan that were published elsewhere on the web in the past couple of days:

• Byrnes same-sex marriage initiative surprises Mich. Democrats – State Representative Pam Brynes is introducing legislation to reverse the state’s constitutional ban on same-sex marriage. According to Brynes, the time is right with recent polls showing that most Michigan residents support same-sex marriage and even former Vice President Dick Cheney saying that it’s time.
• Appeals court allows ACLU challenge on public defender system to go forward – A Michigan Court of Appeals in Ingham County has rejected a claim of immunity by the state of Michigan and allowed a challenge filed by the ACLU on behalf of a class of indigent defendants against the state’s public defender system to go to trial.
• Senate bills would weaken environmental rules, privatize review – Michigan State Senator Judson Gilbert has introduced two bills in the Senate that would weaken environmental laws by taking away the state’s ability to make laws stricter than their federal counterparts. The bills would also require state agencies to review all laws and asses their friendliness to business.
• Michigan’s Unkindest Cuts – This is a short commentary piece published over at Michigan Liberal that criticizes the state of Michigan’s decision to cut funding for the arts. The author argues that arts funding–always the first to be cut–is a critical means of attracting new residents to Michigan.
• Man died defending home despite U.S. eviction moratorium – Late last month, local and state police wearing SWAT equipment and using an armored truck showed up at an Allen Park home to evict a man who was living in his house despite its being foreclosed. The man was shot and killed when police shot a barrage of bullets at his house. Now, several weeks after the shooting, it’s still unclear what happened.
• Most of West Michigan’s federal stimulus money flowing to road work – The majority of federal stimulus money being spent in West Michigan is going towards roads. The Grand Rapids Press has a handy map highlighting the various projects that have received funding.
• A question of race? Working couple stopped by police – The Muskegon Chronicle has a disturbing report about racial profiling: an African-American couple quit their job distributing phone books in the predominately white town of Grand Haven because they felt unwelcome after two encounters with police.
• Mike Lloyd: The special privilege of a Press career – Grand Rapids Press editor Mike Lloyd–who is leaving the Press–gushes about his brushes with power over the years. While not particularly newsworthy, it’s a good reminder of why I’m so glad to see him go.
• Grand Rapids’ Downtown Development Authority: Did members assemble illegally? – Grand Rapids’ Downtown Development Authority used a secret meeting to discuss a controversial spending plan. Unfortunately, it isn’t the first time the DDA has used secret meetings. The Grand Rapids Press has more in this must-read article.
• Brother defends hate site operator Steve Reimink who has ties to alleged Holocaust Museum shooter – The brother of Steve Reimink–who was tied to a racist website operated by the Holocaust museum shooter–is trying claim that Steve Reimink is just a normal guy with no ties to organized racism. In the article from the Grand Rapids Press, the Southern Poverty Law Center says that is extremely unlikely.
• Fair Tax plan wins big at convention – Tea Party activists in Michigan–an outgrowth of national rightwing protests against taxes back in April–are considering a ballot measure to implement a so-called “fair tax” that would replace Michigan’s taxes with a single higher sales tax.

Local and Michigan Headlines: What Happened to Single Payer Health Care; College-Bound Michigan Students Unsure about Financial Aid

Some worthwhile articles published elsewhere in the past 24 hours or so:

• Mich. Court of Appeals hears case of preacher sentenced for criticizing judge – This article from the Michigan Messenger is a good profile of activist Rev. Edward Pinkney of Benton Harbor who was recently in Grand Rapids for an appeal in a case in which he was imprisoned for criticizing a judge. That case grew out of a campaign of repression directed at Pinkney for his activism in Benton Harbor.
• What happened to single payer? – Single payer health care–a popular (according to polls) reform proposal in which the government would cover medical bills using taxpayer money–is being excluded from the debate on health care that is now starting in Washington. Much of the Democratic Party leadership and establishment is rejecting the idea, even as Michigan Congressman John Conyers is arguing for such a system.
• After Tiller, Holocaust museum shootings, Mich. police agencies ramp up for gay events – After two recent acts of right-wing violence, police agencies are increasing security at various pride events being held over the weekend.
• Granholm signs global warming agreement with Indian tribes – Governor Granholm signed an agreement with the 12 federally recognized Native American tribes in Michigan urging cooperation on the fight against global warming.
• Pride and politics: Gay rights advocates differ on whether split exists, hurts equality push – This is an interesting look at the relationship between the LGBT community–as represented through major organizations such as Michigan Equality and the Triangle Foundation–and the state government. It looks at the recent legislative battle for anti-bullying legislation and Lt. Governor John Cherry’s burgeoning campaign for governor.
• Alternative school graduation rates cited by Grand Rapids Public Schools appear out of date – This is a disturbing blog post from the Grand Rapids Press that shows that the Grand Rapids Public Schools (GRPS) recently discussed changes to the district’s alternative education programs based on statistics that were 3 years old.
• Some Kent County Commissioners bristle at Peter Secchia labor union statement during pitch to expand sports facilities – So, here is a good example of why money from rich white businessmen isn’t simply about charity and benevolence. Pete Secchia–a longtime funder of the Republican Party–recently suggested that the Kent County Commission lease some land to the West Michigan Sports Commission to build baseball fields. Secchia said that it was a good thing to do since the county had decreased tax revenues due in part to the state’s alleged “high tax rates and perceived issues with labor unions.” So basically Secchia is asking for government money to promote a private entity while attacking labor unions–who says philanthropy is ideological neutral?
• Meeting on foreclosures joins together Grand Rapids-area renters, homeowners – The Grand Rapids Press reports on a meeting last night at the Wealthy Theatre on foreclosures and the need to address the ongoing foreclosure crisis.
• Students in financial-aid limbo – Michigan students planning to start college this fall have no idea how much financial aid they will be receiving from the state government due to uncertainty about the state’s 2010 budget.
• State GOP offer plan for another group of schools – Republicans are offering yet another plan to dismantle the public education system in Michigan.

Local and Michigan Headlines: Updates on Coal Plants in Michigan; Pete Hoekstra is Olbermann’s “Worst Person in the World”

Here’s some interesting headlines covering Grand Rapids and Michigan from the past twenty-four hours:

• Dueling gay identity events highlight change in Grand Rapids – The Michigan Messenger looks at two upcoming events in Grand Rapids–an anti-gay conference organized by a Focus on the Family affiliated organization and a panel discussion organized by Grand Valley State University (GVSU) to give a more comprehensive view of LGBT issues.
• Wolverine Mum On Coal Plant’s Price – The Michigan Land Use Institute looks at the potential cost of a proposed coal power plant near Rogers City.
• Consumers report notes that renewables can meet two-thirds of projected demand – Michigan Liberal highlights an editorial from the Midland Daily News that questions the need for more new coal plants in Michigan. They point out that Consumers Energy says that renewables could meet two-thirds of the demand for electricity in Michigan.
• Hoekstra: Olbermann’s worst person in the world – I don’t watch the show, but Keith Olbermann’s MSNBC show is pretty popular and he featured Representative Pete Hoekstra last night as the winner of the show’s “Worst Person in the World” award. The reason? Hoekstra’s revealing classified documents after denouncing others who did it.
• Pew Study: Michigan 10th in Clean Energy Jobs Nationwide – Blogging for Michigan reports that Michigan is ranked 10th in the country for clean energy jobs. The sector grew while jobs in other areas of the economy decreased.
• Kent Commission chair slams colleagues for standing up for West Michigan – Three Kent County Commissioners–all of them Democrats–have been advocating a policy change that would require the county to use local contractors. However, the chair–a Republican–isn’t interested and said that the three are just “rookies” and suggested they just don’t understand how things work.
• Tuesdays with Tormala Radio Show – Public Reality Radio–an AM station in Grand Rapids offering a decent line-up of progressive radio programming–is launching a new show hosted by former Grand Rapids City Commissioner Rick Tormala. The show is going to be a live call-in show covering politics. It will be a welcome break from the conservative shows.
• Foundation will fund eight Grand Rapids middle school football teams – Two DeVos family foundations are going to fund football teams in Grand Rapids’ middle schools. Earlier this year, they provided funding for basketball teams.
• Thursday town hall meeting will discuss ways Countrywide Financial Corp. settlement funds are being used to fight foreclosures – There will be a town hall meeting Thursday to update residents on how funds won through a class action lawsuit against Countrywide–a company that has been partially blamed for the mortgage crisis in the U.S.–are being used to fight foreclosures.
• Setting priorities for downtown Grand Rapids – The Grand Rapids Press’ development reporter has a brief overview of some items before the Downtown Development Agency (DDA). It’s one of those entities that should get more scrutiny than it currently does.

Repairing What Shouldn’t Be Fixed

by Kate Wheeler

November 1, 1878. That was a particularly dark day for American Indians; the day that Captain Richard Pratt opened the Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania. His goal: to “kill the Indian, but not the man”–to “fix” Indians by teaching them that everything about being an Indian was wrong, and that Indian children needed to be as much like whites as they possibly could.

The staff at the Carlisle School and many others at schools like it continually represented themselves as working compassionately to “help” Native Americans find their footing in a White world. But the fact was that these schools were founded on bigotry, hatred, and an agenda to neutralize any future threat of Indian uprisings against Whites.

The Damage of Hidden Agendas

When President Hayes questioned whether or not Captain Pratt was needed more as a soldier than a teacher, Pratt snapped back in a letter that he was fighting a war to bring “civilization out of savagery! Industry and thrift out of laziness! Education out of ignorance! Cleanliness out of filth!” His actual feelings about the children he was “helping” is pretty clear in that passage.

Today, Indians throughout North America are still haunted with depression, high suicide rates, and substance abuse that are a direct result of the brainwashing their parents and grandparents endured in these schools, where they were told that nothing about themselves was right; that what was inherent within them needed correction or, better yet, abrogation.

History Repeats Itself

Do any of these techniques and results sound familiar? If you read the news last week, it should be ringing some bells. You would have heard of a dog-and-pony show that’s on its way to West Michigan with a similar message–put on by people who are attempting to create as much damage in the LGBT community as Pratt and his kind wreaked on Native American tribes. Love Won Out, a “reparative therapy” group, is going to be setting up shop at the Sunshine Community Church to help people with same-sex attractions heal themselves of their very natures.

Just like Pratt, Love Won Out, brainchild of the infamous James Dobson, professes public compassion for those who are “affected by homosexuality” and seeks to bring them “into the arms of their Creator.” This kindly language is mirrored by Dobson’s Family Research Council, which states “Compassion, not bigotry, compels us to support the healing of homosexuals.”

Two Faces, A Single Goal

But groups like this sound very different when they’re speaking to their base. Recently, as one example, Exodus International President Alan Chambers stated, “One of the many evils this world has to offer is the sin of homosexuality.”

And so Love Won Out and groups like them come to us with their hidden bigotry and their surface “compassion” and their agenda to kill the homosexual, not the man. And they offer their bizarre treatments, which range from suggesting prescriptions for Prozac to meditating on a tree when one feels same-sex desires to improving one’s hand-to-eye coordination (on the supposition that men who are bad at sports become gay out of pure shame).

Lack of a Scientific Basis

Although they claim a high success rate of turning gays into heterosexuals, the ex-gay industry never offers scientific data or actual statistics–mainly because their successes are mostly failures. These broken results were predicted by the American Psychiatric Association when it stated in 1998 that “the potential risks of ‘reparative therapy’ are great, including depression, anxiety and self-destructive behavior…”

That scenario sounds so similar to the one being played out on reservations that you’d think that there’d be some value in the lessons of history–but apparently not.

Even worse, some ex-gay counselors insist to their clients that therapies to cure homosexuality are routinely used in mainstream treatment, a lie which is repudiated by groups such as the American Psychological Association. This professional organization issued a statement in 2006 which said, “For over three decades the consensus of the mental health community has been that homosexuality is not an illness and therefore not in need of a cure.”

Because the Bible Told Me So

With the force of all of the major mental health professional groups standing against them, how do groups like Love Won Out justify their ongoing march of reparative destruction? Why, because it’s mandated by the Bible, of course. The problem with that argument is that the Bible can be carefully cherry-picked to justify any evil under the sun, and has been. It’s been used as a call to war…as a justification for slaughtering Jews…as an excuse for empire-building and the eradication of native cultures…as a foundation for lynchings…as the rationalization for slavery. Remember that Jefferson Davis said in a famous speech, “Slavery was established by decree of Almighty God…it is sanctioned in the Bible.”

The tactic of Biblical justification for human horrors once prompted Lord Byron to remark, “History is the devil’s scripture.”

When Love Won Out arrives in Grand Rapids, it will be funded by its $146 million budget. It will be fueled with a religious zeal to transform everyone into the same cookie-cutter view of what is acceptable–acceptable in the eyes of James Dobson, if not of God.

But the basis of this group, just like the philosophy of the Indian school educators, is absurdly flawed. Gays can’t be fixed any more than I could fix the fact that I’m straight, or five-foot-three, or that one of the major lines of my family is rooted not in Spain or Germany or Russia but in the Abenaki Nation. These things can’t be fixed because there’s nothing wrong with them.

We are each perfect in the richness of our differences. Someone should try that concept as a reparative therapy for the Reverend Dobson.

Local and Michigan Headlines: Film Looks at Philanthropy in Grand Rapids; Family Research Council Candidate for Hoekstra’s Seat

Here are some interesting articles published elsewhere in the past 24 hours covering Grand Rapids and Michigan:

• Riemersma Is In the Republican Primary for the 2nd Congressional District – With Representative Pete Hoekstra leaving his U.S. House seat to run for governor, a number of Republican candidates have announced their intent to run for the seat, including Jay Riemersma. Aside from being a former football player, he’s known for his involvement in the religious right’s Family Research Council.
• Obama at 71% Approval in Michigan, While the GOP Roots for the Failure of GM – A new poll shows that approval for both President Barack Obama and Governor Jennifer Granholm is very high, at the same time, more voters are identifying as Democrat in Michigan than ever before. The Republicans’ response? Tell people to boycott GM.
• Lake Huron fish sold without warnings despite health advisories – Great Lakes fish containing cancer causing dioxin can be sold without notifying consumers thanks to federal regulatory loopholes.
• EPA allows car ferry to dump coal ash till 2012 – The Ludington to Manitowoc ferry is able to continue dumping coal ash until 2012 after the EPA met with the company that operates the ferry.
• GM Announces “Country’s Largest” Advanced Battery Lab Will Be Located in Warren – General Motors–which is trying desperately to reinvent itself–has announced that it will be locating a battery lab in Warren to research technology aimed at reducing dependence on foreign oil. That’s an alright intermediary step, but I’m having a hard time getting excited about the possibility of a “green” auto industry when you consider the devastating effect that car culture is having on the natural world.
• Budget Finger-Pointing Begins: Senate to Propose $1.3B in Cuts – Blogging for Michigan weighs in with some news and analysis on the state government’s budgeting process.
• West Michigan residents who lived through Great Depression without cable, dining out and jobless benefits know we can survive tough economy – Golly gee, things were a whole lot worse back in the 1930s and the people who lived outside of their means are responsible for the financial crisis–it sure didn’t have anything to do with the banks and financial companies. Nope, you won’t find anything like that in this article from The Grand Rapids Press comparing conditions during the Great Depression and the present. It’s just run of the mill “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” moralizing.
• Former Grand Rapids city worker Jenni Corrigan, who claimed harassment, has not yet been paid her worker compensation benefits – The Grand Rapids Press reports that the City of Grand Rapids still hasn’t paid any workers compensation to an employee who has claimed she was sexually harassed.
• Louis Farrakhan in Grand Rapids to support appeal of Benton Harbor minister Edward Pinkney – Rather than do any substantive reporting on the case of Edward Pinkney–an activist in Benton Harbor who claims that he has been unjustly targeted for repression by the government–the Grand Rapids Press focused on the presence of Louis Farrakhan at the hearing.
• Grand Rapids-area schools look to clean up budget woes with layoffs and other cutbacks – The Grand Rapids Press provides a useful overview of cuts and budget shortfalls at school districts across West Michigan.
• Film explores Grand Rapids area’s legacy of philanthropic giving – A new documentary looks at philanthropic giving in Grand Rapids and focuses primarily on the rich white males of the DeVos, Van Andel, and Cook variety. I haven’t seen the movie yet, but from the trailer and this article it appears to nothing more than glorifying those folks and their contributions without any critical perspectives. For example, how much of their vast fortunes have they given and how does this match up to their political giving? But heck, I’m just a mere mortal who will never be as good as those folks.

Rally Tomorrow in Support of Benton Harbor Civil Rights Leader

Tomorrow, a federal appeals court in Grand Rapids will begin hearing an appeal by the ACLU on behalf of the Benton Harbor activist Reverend Ed Pinkney who has been targeted by the government for his civil rights work in Benton Harbor.

Outside of the hearing, a coalition of supports will be staging a demonstration. An announcement of the demonstration was sent to MediaMouse.org:

ACLU Defends Persecuted Benton Harbor Civil Rights Leader in Grand Rapids Appeals Trial

Concerned Citizens Rally in Defense of a “Voice for the Voiceless”

Who: The Michigan Emergency Committee Against War and Injustice (MECAWI), the Michigan Welfare Rights Organization (MWRO), the Michigan Coalition for Human Rights (MCHR), the Grand Rapids IWW, and people from throughout Michigan who support social justice.

Why: Rev. Pinkney has been fighting for social justice in Benton Harbor as leader of the Black Autonomy Network of Community Organizers (BANCO). He was convicted by an all-white jury on trumped-up charges related to false allegations of voter fraud. The ACLU was successful in winning his release from prison, on bond, pending the outcome of his appeal.

What: Picket in Support of Rev. Pinkney’s Civil Rights

When: June 9, 8 am. Trial begins at 9 am.

Where:

Court Of Appeals Building

350 Ottawa

Grand Rapids, MI 49506

Local and Michigan Headlines: Mackinac Center Attacks Organized Labor (Yet Again); Poll Finds Support for Gay Marriage in Michigan

Here’s some interesting Grand Rapids and Michigan headlines from today and over the weekend:

• Dillon finds new way to disappoint – The Democratic speaker of the Michigan House of Representatives is touting nuclear energy jobs as “the most promising green jobs in the state.” Perhaps he didn’t get the memo that nuclear energy is incredibly expensive, has a dubious environmental legacy, and that there are other renewable energy sources (for example, wind) in the state.
• Mackinac Center: Crush organized labor, or we’re all going to die! – The right-wing Mackinac Center is singing its usual song again: unions are costing jobs in Michigan and that the state needs less unions to get it out of its current economic crisis.
• Michigan voters shifting views on gay couples – Four years after a ballot proposal that banned gay marriage in Michigan, support for gay marriage has doubled in the state according to a new poll. Now 46.5% of voters support gay marriage while larger margins support a wider range of rights for LGBT people.
• Same-sex marriage advocates call for 2012 equality push – LGBT advocates are looking at a push for marriage equality in 2012 and perhaps they will have better luck in light of the poll mentioned above.
• State cancels $740 million in transportation projects – Due to problems coming up with matching funds, the state of Michigan has had to cancel ¾ of a billion dollars of transportation projects. The federal money will now go into a pool to be claimed by other states.
• Why I want a DeVos loss – Writing for the Socialist Worker newspaper, author Dave Zirin looks at Richard DeVos–who owns the Orland Magic–and his politics. Seeing DeVos’s right-wing political activism, Zirin is hoping that the Orlando Magic lose the 2009 NBA championship.
• Michigan’s economy is not tanking, it’s transforming – The Center for Michigan has a surprisingly positive assessment of Michigan’s economy, saying that it is growing and diversifying–not simply falling apart.
• Bash Back retains lawyer in protest suit – The radical queer group Bash Back! has retained a lawyer in a lawsuit over a November 2008 protest (http://www.mediamouse.org/news/2009/05/bash-back-lansing-lawsuit.php) outside of Lansing. Their lawyer calls the lawsuit–initiated by a right-wing Christian legal group–a waste of taxpayer resources.
• Gannett-owned, ABC affiliate WZZM-TV 13 cuts weekend morning newscast, blames poor economy – WZZM 13 has eliminated its weekend morning news program. I’d say its news value was fairly limited, but it’s always disappointing to see less media choices.
• Grand Rapids abortion opponents ‘stunned’ by killing of Dr. George Tiller in Kansas – The Grand Rapids Press has reaction from some local anti-abortion activists to the murder of Kansas abortion provider. Perhaps somewhat surprisingly, the people they talk to say they were sickened by the murder. Of course, it isn’t clear what that really means since they don’t condemn other anti-abortion activists who have been less willing to condemn the shooting.
• Grassroots effort focuses on national health care plan – The Grand Rapids Press published this short article about local organizing in support of President Barack Obama’s as of yet unknown health care plan. I think it’s another example of the disappointing nature of the Obama “movement”–local organizers are just expected to drum up support for his policies rather than building policy from the ground up.

  If we missed anything, let us know in the comments.

Local and Michigan Headlines: West Michigan Ready for Wind Power Development; Recycling Improvements Proposed for Kent County

We missed yesterday, but here’s some recent Michigan headlines:

• Senate Republicans (Still) Obstructing Smoking Ban, Drug Company Immunity Legislation – Blogging for Michigan looks at how Senate Republicans are blocking action on a smoking ban and repealing drug company immunity in the Michigan State Senate.
• Bouchard Strategy: “I’ll Be So Unpopular, You’ll Never Re-Elect Me” – Commentary on Oakland County Sheriff Mike Bouchard’s announcement that he is running for the Republican nomination for governor. It doesn’t exactly sound like he has a winning campaign…
• Michigan to get $7.4M in federal stimulus funding for aquatic wildlife habitats – Michigan is going to get money from the federal stimulus bill to improve aquatic wildlife in state forests. The money will go towards a number of different projects including opening up streams that are currently blocked by artificial obstructions such as dams.
• Feds, Georgia-Pacific agree on Kalamazoo River PCB landfill containment plan – The federal government and Georgia-Pacific have agreed to a plan to cap a Kalamazoo Township landfill that is filled with PCBs.
• Report identifies West Michigan as ripe for wind farm development – A report by the Michigan Public Service Commission identifies Allegan County as a prime location for wind power.
• Proposed $12M Kent County recycling center to simplify recycling for residents – A proposed recycling center for Kent County would all residents to put all of their recyclables in a single bin. According to the article, “single-stream” recycling like this boosts recycling by 20%-30%.
• Kalamazoo City Commission committee set to move on anti-discrimination ordinance – Kalamazoo’s City Commission is expected to move forward on an anti-discrimination ordinance that was approved and then rescinded last year after opponents gathered enough signatures to place it on the ballot.
• PETA’s plans for horse-carriage protests, fish empathy center highlight a busy animal-rights week – The Grand Rapids Press takes the opportunity given by a few headlines about PETA to break out the anti-vegetarian jokes and to remind people that a lot of idiots live in West Michigan. Honestly, do you really think the fact that people hate PETA on the MLive.com message board is newsworthy?
• Obama appoints Great Lakes czar – President Barack Obama has appointed a Chicago-based environmental lawyer to oversee the clean-up of the Great Lakes.
• Michigan House OKs keeping criminals away from prison – Michigan’s House of Representatives approved legislation earlier this week that is designed to reduce corrections spending and reduce re-entry.
• Bills target medical pot regulation – Republicans in Michigan’s Senate have introduced bills aimed at regulating medical marijuana. According to advocates, the bill would nullify the proposal that legalized medical marijuana last election.
• Michigan court rules for police in Taser death – The Michigan Court of Appeals has ruled in favor of police officers who were charged with the death of a Saginaw man who was shot twice by a Taser.

If we missed anything, let us know in the comments.

Wake Up Weekend Videos Now Online

Calvin College has posted the videos from this winter’s “Wake Up Weekend”–an annual celebration of animal advocacy–online. They are very much worth watching for anyone wanting to learn more about animal rights, animal advocacy, veganism, and factory farming.

The following video–just one of many–is of Nekeisha Alexis-Baker’s talk on “Speciesim, Sexism, and Racism: The Intertwining Oppressions.” We wrote about her talk over the winter and were quite impressed by it:

Ex-Gay Conference in Grand Rapids to be met by Panel, Protest

I received a disturbing email earlier today about an “ex-gay” conference at Sunshine Community Church here in Grand Rapids. For those of you who haven’t heard of them, “ex-gay” ministries are rightwing religious/political ministries that operate with a homophobic/anti-gay agenda that says that homosexuality is a mental illness that can be “cured” by prayer and/or “reparative therapy.”

This particular conference is sponsored by a group affiliated with Focus on the Family called Love Wins Out. It’s part of a multi-million dollar industry of rightwing ministries focused on repressing LGBT people. The conference features sessions outlining “the family dynamics that can lead to the development of same-sex desires,” how lesbians are a result of “emotional dependency,” how to raise children “toward a healthy heterosexual identity,” and how to pursue legislative efforts aimed at stopping LGBT equality.

If anything good came out of the news, it’s that there is already serious organizing going into the countering the hateful message of the program, with Grand Valley State University organizing a panel discussion on ex-gay ministries and a protest at Calder Plaza.

An email from GVSU’s LGBT Resource Center provides some background information and outlines the events:

Dear members and friends of the LGBT community,

Focus on the Family is bringing their anti-gay seminar “Love Won Out” to Sunshine Ministry Church on Saturday, June 13th. This program has a “pray away the gay” philosophy.

To present another side to that conversation, Grand Valley State University will host a panel discussion on religion and homophobia that will feature national and local experts.

“Religion and Homophobia: Spiritual Violence in Our Community” is set for Thursday, June 11, from 7-9 p.m. in the Eberhard Center, Room 215, on Grand Valley’s Pew Grand Rapids Campus at 301 W. Fulton St. The event is free and open to the public.

Wayne Besen, executive director of Truth Wins Out, will begin the discussion with a presentation about the nature, validity, and impact of “ex-gay” reparative ministries or therapies. Truth Wins Out is a national nonprofit organization dedicated to defending the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community against anti-gay misinformation campaigns.

Panel members will include the following:

• John Corvino, Wayne State University professor, author and lecturer;

• Milt Ford, director of Grand Valley’s LGBT Resource Center;

• Judith Snow, Grand Rapids area forensic therapist and author;

• Doug Van Doren, pastor of Plymouth Congregational United Church of Christ;

• Josh Sleutel, GVSU student, previous reparative therapy patient.

Join our Facebook group, “Religion & Homophobia: Spiritual Violence in our Community” The National Organization of Women is planning a protest response to “Love Won Out” on Saturday, June 13 at noon – Calder Plaza. Join their Facebook group at “Grand Rapids NOW Takes Action!”

The event is sponsored by Grand Valley’s Division of Inclusion and Equity, Dean of Students Office, LGBT Resource Center, Women’s Center, Women and Gender Studies Department, Office of Multicultural Affairs, Liberal Studies Department, Allies and Advocates, and the LGBT Faculty and Staff Association.

For more information, call the LGBT Resource Center at (616) 331-2530. Tell your friends!