To: City Desk

Contact: Wayne Besen of Truth Wins Out, 917-691-5118, or wbesen@TruthWinsOut.org

ATLANTA, Nov. 2 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Truth Wins Out called on Focus on the Family today to sever ties with Joseph Nicolosi, the keynote speaker of this Saturday's Atlanta "ex-gay" Love Won Out conference, after it was discovered that the speaker's group, the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH), had racist literature on its website that justified slavery.

"It is clear that NARTH's opinions on race are every bit as bizarre and dangerous as their discredited views on homosexuality," said TWO's executive director Wayne Besen. "It is disturbing that a politically influential group like Focus on the Family is standing by NARTH and is apparently at ease promoting this group and their extreme views. We call on Focus on the Family to immediately sever ties with NARTH and apologize for giving this hate group a platform."

The shocking opinion piece on http://www.NARTH.com was penned by Gerald Schoenewolf, Ph.D., a member of NARTH's "Scientific Advisory Committee."

According to Schoenwolf:

"With all due respect, there is another way or other ways, to look at the race issue in America," wrote Schoenwolf. "It could be pointed out, for example, that Africa at the time of slavery was still primarily a jungle, as yet uncivilized or industrialized. Life there was savage, as savage as the jungle for most people and that it was the Africans themselves who first enslaved their own people. They sold their own people to other countries and those brought to Europe, South America, America and other countries, were in many ways better off than they had been in Africa. But if one even begins to say these things one is quickly shouted down as though one were a complete madman."

"The National Black Justice Coalition is deeply troubled by an article written by Gerald Schoenewolf, Ph.D that has appeared on your organization's website. His comments reflect not only a misunderstanding of history, but a trivialization of the suffering caused by slavery," the NBJC wrote in a letter to NARTH.

One NARTH member resigned in protest over the online polemic and another, Warren Throckmorton, cancelled his appearance at NARTH's annual convention in Orlando this month. Yet, incredibly, it seems that Focus on the Family still finds such offensive discourse acceptable and has no problem offering a stage to Nicolosi, says TWO

These remarks follow a screed written by another NARTH "Scientific Advisory Board" member, Joseph Berger, who said that gender variant children should be "ridiculed" by their classmates into conforming. Despite promotion of child abuse, Berger, like Schoenewolf, remains on NARTH's board.

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TWO is a non-profit think tank and educational organization that debunks the ex-gay myth, counters right wing disinformation campaigns and provides accurate information about the lives of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.

http://www.usnewswire.com/

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/© 2006 U.S. Newswire 202-347-2770/

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