Palin's Church Promotes Converting Gays

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Gov. Sarah Palin's church is promoting a conference that promises to convert gays into heterosexuals through the power of prayer.

"You'll be encouraged by the power of God's love and His desire to transform the lives of those impacted by homosexuality," according to the insert in the bulletin of the Wasilla Bible Church, where Palin has prayed for about six years.

Palin's conservative Christian views have energized that part of the GOP electorate, which was lukewarm to John McCain's candidacy before he named her as his vice presidential choice. She is staunchly anti-abortion, opposing exceptions for rape and incest, and opposes gay marriage and spousal rights for gay couples.

Focus on the Family, a national Christian fundamentalist organization, is conducting the "Love Won Out" Conference in Anchorage, about 30 miles from Wasilla.

Palin, campaigning with McCain in the Midwest on Friday, has not publicly expressed a view on the so-called "pray away the gay" movement. Larry Kroon, senior pastor at Palin's church, was not available to discuss the matter Friday, said a church worker who declined to give her name.

Gay activists in Alaska said Palin has not worked actively against their interests, but early in her administration she supported a bill to overrule a court decision to block state benefits for gay partners of public employees. At the time, less than one-half of 1 percent of state employees had applied for the benefits, which were ordered by a 2005 ruling by the Alaska Supreme Court.

Palin reversed her position and vetoed the bill after the state attorney general said it was unconstitutional. But her reluctant support didn't win fans among Alaska's gay population, said Scott Turner, a gay activist in Anchorage.

"Less than 1 percent of state employees would even apply for benefits, so why make a big deal out of such a small number?" he said.

"I think gay Republicans are going to run away" if Palin supports efforts like the prayers to convert gays, said Wayne Besen, founder of the New York-based Truth Wins Out, a gay rights advocacy group. Besen called on Palin to publicly express her views now that she's a vice presidential nominee.

"People are looking at Sarah Palin as someone who might feasibly be in the White House," he said.

Comments

[BluePride]

Do you remember sometime in puberty and you had a crush on that new kid in school? Was the choice of guys or girls part of that crush? Do I like guys or girls better? When did THAT happen? It doesn't. The crush just happens by itself. That's the way nature planned it. You can't fight it. All gays I've spoken with tell honest stories of personal torment and shock at their realization. Yet with tremendous personal fortitude gays persevere. This coming out process typically gives gays/lesbians empathy for other disaffected groups.

Women/Men deserve to be loved deep and endlessly. A gay man may certainly go through all 'the motions' but will not, can not have the emotions. Gay isn't about sex. It's the romance, the attraction and the longing for that certain someone. And that someone must be of a compatable gender. All else is reflections of brainwashing.

Exactly the same thing happens when guys try so dilligently NOT to be gay and go into the priesthood in high numbers. They try their best to do all they're told about a diety's directive. Disaster results. It's insane hypocracy of religion to place this group to live only among men, live in a rectory, wear dresses and become your marriage cousellor and your youth's choir directors.

Could YOU change for ANY reason?

[Hephaestion]

BluePride, as a gay man who wasted 40 years of my life trying everything imaginable to become straight (because I believed the lies preached by 99% of all American churches) I thank you for so perfectly telling it like it is in your comment above,

The only gay person that can possibly hurt the families that Republicans constantly say they want to "protect" is a closeted gay person. I pose no problem to my family. Larry Craig DOES. Ted Haggard DOES.

[wdw101]

America needs to bring the shock factor back. If a 14 year old girl is pregnant, it is not a reason to throw a party the age of consent has not been reached and society will judge. Your kid tattoos his/her body beyond belief society will judge. Body pierce your face society will judge. A felon is released on to society depending on the crime where he/she can live and work is judged. If you are on welfare for an extended period of time society will judge. Your son wants to marry his boyfriend this not a happy occasion. Until recently it was illegal. Society will judge still.

More things that society judges to be aberrant, wrong, illegal or just plain bizarre, less people will go down that path. Society is kept in check. Peer pressure can be good.

[neem]

McCain is gambling that the members of Palin's church are MORE SANE than the Hillary voters who will stay home on Election Day.
Keep in mind that 3 liberal Supreme Court justices are very old, and near retirement. THREE.
But I believe that the Hillary voters will make Sarah Palin very happy.

[westreal]

But I'm still here. They need to pray harder.

[Earl]

All the congregants of the Church of England prayed for the health of the royal family for several hundred years, but the health of the royal family is statistically no different from anyone else's.

[rextrek]

Sarah Palin and McCain represent a more severe problem with America...THEY WILL FURTHER DIVIDE AMERICANS....and after all isn't that the GOP plan...and America can't take further devisiveness!

[MarkInEugene]

Seriously what this church should be doing to help humanity is teach individuals like Larry Craig that he can live as an openly gay man with dignity. They could teach him that he doesn't have to resort to homophobic toe-tapping trolling in public restrooms freaking out straight men as well as decent gay men who just want to use the restroom for it's intended purpose!

The very best approach that this church could do would be to support dignity and stable relationships within the gay community. Instead what they've chosen is fear, guilt and oppression. It's not going to work. It's never worked and it's not a solution.

[Weasie16]

sadly, this isn't such a shocker. This is becoming a bad dream.

[patianneb]

It saddens me to see the belitting of Christians and Jesus, one of the most decent people who ever walked the earth, whether you believe him divine or not.

I'm not a practicing Christian, but it's clear to me it is NOT Christianity's fault that there are people who use faith as a weapon and guilt as a method of control.

They're miserable people who want everyone else in the same boat. They may be dangerous in groups, but they are also to be pitied.

They give Christianity a bad name.

In my opinion, the majority of decent Christians should SHUT THEM UP by DROWNING THEM OUT WITH PROTEST OF THEIR HATEFULNESS and put CHRIST back as leader of the Christian Church.

[Nagarjuna]

The Nazz was a beautiful cat. -- Lord Buckley

[mikie63]

One of the commenters, (comacoma) asked the simple question: Why are religious people so full of bigotry and hatred?

I think the answer to this question is that those many religious, evangelical christians have maybe one or two total books in their homes, and in those books is where they get all their views, beliefs, knowledge, lifes truths and anything more. Let's face it , most of them know nothing about the real world or earth or the universe or the beginnings of all these things, because they were taught as CHILDREN to believe only what they were told to believe.

the majority of Europe has gotten out of the Dark Ages, but the Christian right in the USA has fallen back a thousand years. To me it is more than scary. I am not gay, and I am not the most intelligent American out there, but I think education, reading, learning, deciding, prooving, etc are more important to our lives and future than blind belief or FAITH.

[DesertLight]

I think the answer to this question is that those many religious, evangelical christians have maybe one or two total books in their homes

You couldn't be more wrong. In fact, I wonder how twisted someone would have to be to think like that.

[JhNyc]

Oh, right.. they also have a complete set of those "Left Behind" books.

[scrzbill]

That answer is easy, become a christofgascist like palin.

[jeffp26]

Quite well said.

In psychological circles, this false differentiation among human beings is called pseudo-speciation.

And the remarkable irony is that this nonsense is nothing if not entirely against the tenets of christianity.

Which makes Palin and Bin Laden family members.

[wdw101]

well that's good because i'm not religious.­.......whi­le i do defend palin's right to believe what she wants religiously

[PutinIsDaMan]

I was raised into a Christian background. Luckily at age 30 I gave it up and burned my freaking Buybull and my life started getting better and better and now at age 62 I am fulfilled and truly happy.

Too bad most Christers are afraid to think and use their own brain.

[Earl]

They don't even read the Bible.

[Higbyguy]

Amen! But remember that there are a lot of Progressive Christians out there who actually follow the left-leaning teachings of Jesus, and don't create a twisted hate-filled, misanthropic ideology for their own fear-filled purposes.

But you are right, Mikie63, that most ultra-right wing Christians aren't intellectually curious and prefer to sit in their pews and be spoonfed what their radical preachers want them to believe. They are drones, little religious automatons who don't understand that God gave us brains to think for ourselves. They'd be happier as ants.

If any of the readers of this post are as afraid as I am of this country coming to resemble Colorado Springs, for God's sake and for the sake of those who worship the true and loving God (who embraces your gay brothers and sisters as well) VOTE!

[OneWoman]

Pray away homosexuality? Really? Hasn't the Church tried to do that in some form or another for centuries? At what point do you say to yourself, "Hey, this isn't working"? Or perhaps god has answered their prayers--with a resounding "NO". Perhaps god is saying "I made 'em and I want 'em, so deal with it!"

[woodwakr]

Hey... It worked for Priests!

Oh, wait....

Never mind.

[xilishx]

brilliant!
ilish

[beekeeper]

Can we pray her away? Or, pray her into a decent human being?

[huffposeur]

if that's your wish, you're doing it the wrong way. the more palin and her church are held up to ridicule and public spectacle, the more you are guaranteeing a series of ads come fall juxtaposing jeremeiah wright's church with hers and you don't want to know on which side the majority of americans will fall..

[gnostic19]

word

Can we pray away the next 2 weeks of silence so we can have a journalist ask her questions other than what her favorite exercise routine is?

[hapiguy]

What God would they be talking to? Palin, the Pubs Bridge to Nowhere, but hate, and more division in this Country

[marymansour]

Could they convert Palin to a vulture and let her fly off? Puh leeze?

[blisterina]

Perhaps, since she likens herself to a pit bull, we can send her to Dogtown to be lovingly rehabilitated? Oh, no, that won't work -- pit bulls are greatly misunderstood, while she is really quite transparent.

[BetterDeadthanRedState]

This is pretty disgusting, but what else bothers me about Palin, is she seems to have personal, empirical evidence of the shortcomings of "abstinence only," but is she flexible enough to change her dubious opinions when faced with reality? I don't think so.

[helonias]

When will they get to the adulterers?

Which is a 10 suggestion no no

Unlike being gay.

[Nagarjuna]

Interesting point for the Ten-Commandment crowd: No commandment against homosexuality, but of course a commandment against adultery -- See McCain, John and his cheating on the first Mrs. McCain with the younger and richer Cindy Hensley.

[Tommygun264]

According to the Enquirer, Palin and her husband's former business partner know all about that one - intimately. Wonder if it will get the same amount of attention as the public crucifixion of John Edwards?

[LemonMeringue]

10 suggestion

LOL

I had to think for a moment before I got it.

The National Enquirer reports that all of Alaska knows about her affair although Todd Palin tried to hide it after dissolving his relationship with the business partner. I plunked down my $3.75 and considered it a latte for Obama. I will support any source that tries to report the truth.