Wayne Besen is the Founding Executive Director of Truth Wins Out, a non-profit organization that defends the GLBT community against anti-gay lies and the "ex-gay" industry. Besen is also author of two books, "Anything But Straight: Unmasking the Scandals and Lies Behind the Ex-Gay Myth" (Haworth, 2003) and Bashing Back: Wayne Besen on GLBT People, Politics and Culture. In 2006, Besen was recognized in the Advocate Magazine's "People of the Year" issue

Besen has appeared as a guest on leading news and political talk shows including: the NBC Nightly News, CNN Headline News, Fox's O'Reilly Factor and Hannity and Colmes, MSNBC News and Comedy Central's The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

Prior to founding TWO, Besen served as a spokesperson for five years with the Human Rights Campaign. He also worked in corporate communications for Edelman Public Relations Worldwide, and served as a press secretary on a U.S. Senate primary in Maine.

Blog Entries by Wayne Besen

The Gay 'Civil Likes' Movement

9 Comments | Posted November 6, 2009 | 01:35 AM (EST)


Instead of validating marriage for same-sex couples, Maine voters cruelly voted 52.75 percent to 47.25 percent (87 percent of precincts reporting) to strip away this most basic right and leave gay families and their children legally unprotected and vulnerable. According to journalist Rex Wockner, "it was the 31st time that...

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Obama's Big Gay Speech

246 Comments | Posted October 7, 2009 | 10:04 AM (EST)


If I were advising President Barack Obama, I would tell him to pay as much attention to the ornery jeers from protesters outside the Human Rights Campaign's October 10th Washington dinner as the cheers coming from inside the ornate ballroom.

"The last thing we need is more flowery...

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Iraqi and Afghan Gays and Women Losing Freedom

Posted August 18, 2009 | 03:27 PM (EST)


Despite the bumbling and fumbling of the war effort, the bitter divisions in our country and the wheelbarrows of dough dumped in the desert, there was always the faint hope that a better Middle East might just emerge from the mess. And, whatever one thinks of the two wars, Saddam...

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Republican Mobs Stirrng The Pot Until It Boils Over

66 Comments | Posted August 13, 2009 | 10:28 AM (EST)


Sometimes, words can kill.

A vocabulary carefully crafted into lethal lies almost always foreshadows fatalities.

In the case of Nazi Germany, the evidence of Hitler's wicked intentions -- from Mein Kampf to the Brown Shirts - was vividly clear. People may have ignored the alarm bells, but no one can...

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APA Was Right To Reject Harmful 'Ex-Gay' Therapy

19 Comments | Posted August 5, 2009 | 06:42 PM (EST)


There is "no evidence that sexual orientation change efforts work." This was the American Psychological Association's verdict on "ex-gay" therapy after an appointed task force of experts studied the issue for two years.

This conclusion did not surprise those of us who work with people who have been...

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The Anti-Gay Violence to Come

20 Comments | Posted July 30, 2009 | 02:41 PM (EST)


On Sunday, the New York Times featured a chilling article on how fundamentalist Christians stalked, harassed and ultimately murdered Wichita abortion provider George Tiller, who they taunted with the nickname, "Tiller the Baby Killer."

The lone gunman, who used the e-mail name "ServantofMessiah", shot Tiller while he ushered at...

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The Episcopalian Gay Revolution

1 Comments | Posted July 22, 2009 | 10:43 AM (EST)


Southern California already had its hands full with an invasion of giant squid when another squishy invertebrate washed ashore. At the Episcopal Church's annual conference in Anaheim, California, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, wrapped his amoral tentacles around a proposal to allow more gay bishops.

Williams...

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Gays Should Drop the Washington Crack Pipe

9 Comments | Posted June 23, 2009 | 03:32 PM (EST)


I understand the magnetic allure of Washington, DC. I worked there for several years and it could, at times, be mesmerizing. I've attended press conferences on the steps of Capitol Hill with Ted Kennedy and marveled that I was standing next to the real icon, not a replica from Madame...

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Gays to Obama: "We've Seen Enough"

266 Comments | Posted June 18, 2009 | 09:53 PM (EST)


A debate is raging on whether to have a national gay March on Washington in October. Most leaders I have spoken with are against the idea, preferring to keep scarce financial and human resources in the states. Others, such as myself, are largely ambivalent. A galvanizing force, however, is giving...

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Jamaica: A Killer Vacation For Gays

Posted April 11, 2009 | 02:04 PM (EST)


This week, I joined San Francisco organizer Michael Petrelis and Box Turtle Bulletin editor Jim Burroway in launching an international boycott against Jamaica (www.boycottJamaica.org). While the island appears laid back, gays are under attack.

Forget business as usual. Instead, we should stop doing business with a country...

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Pope Condom Quote Undermines Credibility

Posted March 25, 2009 | 03:23 PM (EST)


Signaling a meaningful change from President George W. Bush's disastrous policies, the Obama administration last week endorsed a United Nations statement calling for the worldwide decriminalization of homosexuality. The primary opponents of this measure were radical Islamist countries and the Vatican, representing a new unholy alliance across the...

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Obama's Latest Preacher Problem

Posted March 18, 2009 | 12:04 PM (EST)


George W. Bush longed to escape his daddy's shadow, while Barack Obama has turned to shadowy preachers in his long search for a father figure. His filial approach to faith began with Rev. Jeremiah Wright and has now taken a sharp turn right.

The New York Times reports that...

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Keep Religion out of Military

Posted March 6, 2009 | 10:55 AM (EST)


Rep. Ellen Tauscher (D-CA) introduced a bill this week to repeal Don't Ask, Don't Tell, a law that prohibits gay and lesbian military personnel from serving openly.

While this is welcome news, there is no guarantee of a "welcome mat" for gay and lesbian soldiers if the...

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Word Thief To Lead Focus on the Family's DC Lobby Shop

Posted January 28, 2009 | 06:07 PM (EST)


Tim Goeglein is a perfect hire as lead Washington lobbyist for Focus on the Family. He resigned from the Bush White House on Feb. 29, 2008, after ex-Fort Wayne News-Sentinel columnist Nancy Nall discovered that Goeglein, while he wrote guest columns for the newspaper, had plagiarized 19 of 38 columns....

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The Gay Republican Blues

Posted January 13, 2009 | 04:55 PM (EST)


The Log Cabin Republicans are broke and their party is seriously broken. The group's $100,000 debt comes at a time when the GOP is indebted more than ever to extremists. Instead of learning from Election Day, the party is pandering to those who believe in the "End of Days,"...

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The Mess In The Middle East

Posted January 6, 2009 | 09:13 PM (EST)


As long as we refer to the Middle East as the "Holy Land" there will be war. For peace to prosper, extremists, on both sides, will have to he marginalized. This will require courage from Israeli and Palestinian leaders, who have failed to take aim at the religious roots of...

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The Rick Warren Whirlwind

Posted December 23, 2008 | 03:45 PM (EST)


It could be that Barack Obama is simply smarter than the rest of us. The first black president of the Harvard Law Review has made a career of turning conventional wisdom on its head.

When people said that America was not ready for an African American president, he ran anyway...

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Gross Hypocrisy In Anti-Gay 'No Mob Veto' Ad

Posted December 10, 2008 | 11:49 AM (EST)


In a breathtaking display of lies and hypocrisy, a group of anti-gay culture warriors and long-time Mormon bashers placed a full page ad in the New York Times pretending to be both victims of alleged homosexual "mobs" and staunch defenders of the Latter Day Saints (Mormons). Both claims...
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Winds of Change

Posted November 21, 2008 | 11:21 AM (EST)


Few people at the three Proposition 8 protest rallies I attended - two in New York and one in Chicago - were familiar. The ones I recognized were the hardcore advocates and tireless workhorses who have long carried the GLBT movement. However, these semi-spontaneous rallies had a different flavor. There...

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Frank Talk on Race and Prop. 8

Posted November 12, 2008 | 06:20 PM (EST)


On Election Day, 70-percent of African Americans voted to take away a gay person's right to marry primarily based on a book -- the Bible -- that calls on slaves to obey their masters. Mormons funded the measure -- even though religious discrimination drove them from Missouri and Illinois in...

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