Wayne Besen Takes The Fight To Alaska

The Anchorage Press covers Wayne Besen's protest at the "ex-gay" conference endorsed by Sarah Palin's church:

[T]he culture wars are raging in Anchorage, too, with Love Won Out descending on the town and the opposition it sparked evident both outside on the sidewalk and in a gay-friendly church that last week hosted speakers who were outraged by this promotion of ex-gay ministries.

Wasilla Bible Church, where Palin has prayed since she was young, promoted Love Won Out in a bulletin it sent out, and a story went out on the Associated Press wire painting Love Won Out as part of the “pray the gay away” movement. Love Won Out took umbrage with that characterization and fired back with a press release inviting journalists to the conference. Melissa Fryrear, Focus on the Family’s Director of the Gender Issues Department, Love Won Out speaker, and former lesbian, stated, “We exist to help men and women dissatisfied with living homosexually understand that same-sex attractions can be overcome. It’s not easy, but it is possible, as evidenced by the thousands of men and women—like me—that have walked this road successfully.”

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Besen, who lives in Brooklyn, New York, has flown to Anchorage specifically to help organize opposition to Love Won Out. A non-practicing Jew, he tells the congregation the story of when he got a job as a television reporter in Bangor, Maine covering politics—until his co-workers discovered him at a gay bar, upon which he was taken off the political beat and later fired.

“This is what we face,” Besen says, noting that if he holds his boyfriend’s hand on a New York subway he has to look around at the people near him to see he’ll end up in a fight because of it. “This industry is out there to keep discrimination strong,” he says of Focus on the Family and Love Won Out. “They do everything in their power to make us miserable. They ask you to lie to God, and have lust in your heart forever, while you bury your head in the sand. They need to open their eyes to the damage they’re doing, destroying families in the name of family values.”

The article goes on to describe Besen's history fighting "ex-gay" movement and the numerous times its leaders have "fallen" back into their old man-lovin' ways.