Obviously we disagree with any view that says homosexuality is something that can or should be "cured." But in this first clip, listen to the measured way in which Liberty Counsel head Mat Staver addresses the subject. While on mainstream television, he makes it sound like this is all about freedom, denying that there is any effort afoot to stigmatize gay people:
But now get this. On the very same day, wearing the very same shirt and tie (sans jacket), Mat Staver made another appearance on his very own web radio show, alongside regular partner in hostility Matt Barber. In this one, he flat-out calls homosexuality "abnormal" (at 8:30), drops the name Jerry Sandusky (at 7:40) to suggest that homosexuality can be created by abuse, uses the word "doomed" (at 7:52) to refer to someone who might be brought to terms with his or her homosexuality, decries the generalized counseling belief that homosexuality is "good and normal" (at 9:40), and then promotes his overtly hostile book (at 9:57) titled Same-sex Marriage: Putting Every Household at Risk. Stigmatization is the order of the day:
But wait, there's more! On this very same day and still wearing that very same blue shirt and red tie, Mat made another one of these Liberty Counsel videos, focused on the same subject of "ex-gay" so-called therapy. In this one, Staver first sits back and lets cohost Barber position gays as both molested and molesters (with another Sandusky mention), incorrectly suggesting that pedophilia is a sexual orientation (it's not; it's a paraphilia). Then Staver takes the ball and runs with it, dedicating the next many minutes to pretending that measures geared toward "ex-gay" junk science are opening the door to laws that protect pedophiles. This one is almost too unbelievable for words:
This is the perfect example of what we have been saying for the past nine months here at GLAAD's Commentator Accountability Project. When these commentators appear on networks like CNN, they try as hard as they can to button it up and play the role of the nice, sweet conservative voice. But those of us who listen to the rest of it know the real story. We know that on their own channels, they speak the full-throated anti-LGBT condemnations that undergird every aspect of their movement.
It's time for mainstream media to get even better about reconciling the two voices. The Mat Staver who appeared on the openly gay Anderson Cooper's show is the very same man who, earlier in the day, worked as hard as he could to portray people like Anderson as at least somewhat akin to pedophiles. It's not activism to report that truth: it's news!