The Advocate’s Andrew Harmon reports that Sen. Al Franken’s (D-MN) rebuttal of Tom Minnery’s assertion that children were better off living in households with opposite-sex parents wasn’t the only awkward moment for the Focus on the Family’s vice president at yesterday’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the Defense of Marriage Act. What truly confused observers was Minnery’s offer to assist Ron Wallen — a widower who testified about losing his home because of the 1996 law — with “counseling and outreach services from his organization, which until two years ago had sponsored an ex-gay summit known as Love Won Out”:

“I had read his prepared testimony the night before, so I knew what he was going to say,” Wallen told The Advocate. “But I was shocked when he offered condolences, and was in disbelief when he was offering his services. If I were looking for help, his [organization] would be the last place I would go to.”

Asked what services they might provide, Focus on the Family vice president of communications Gary Schneeberger said in a statement to The Advocate, “We offer a variety of print and online resources, as well as free counseling referrals, to help people deal with the myriad challenges of life.

“We would be happy to share those with Mr. Wallen in the hope they would help him through the trials he’s experienced,” Schneeberger said.

Besides its ex-gay affiliations, Focus on the Family maintains ties to many state-level anti-equality groups and is helping them raise over $6 million to fight marriage equality over the next year through the covert “Ignite An Enduring Cultural Tradition” campaign. The group also inherited the “Day of Dialogue” (formerly “Day of Truth”) from the Alliance Defense Fund, which encourages Christian youth to be vocal about their anti-gay beliefs to show “love” to their LGBT peers who are “hurting” and “vulnerable.” Last April, Minnery clarified that FOTF would oppose an openly gay nominee to the Supreme Court because homosexuality is sinful.

You can watch Wallen’s moving testimony from the hearing below:

Major General Dennis Laich (Ret.)

The American Legion strongly opposes the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and has repeatedly demanded that the Obama administration defend and maintain the discriminatory policy. Today, retired Major General Dennis Laich officially withdrew his support and membership from the organization because of its anti-gay positions through a hand-delivered letter (PDF):

Unfortunately, policy positions that the American Legion and several of its senior leaders have taken regarding gay and lesbian service in our military are repugnant to me and represent a bigotry and discrimination that demeans the service and sacrifice of gays and lesbians to our nation’s defense. I further believe that these positions on gay and lesbian service place the good programs supported by the American Legion in jeopardy as more current or potential American Legion members may choose to not be Legionnaires.

Please notify me when your policies support gay and lesbian service members and respect these proud patriots, as I would be happy to consider rejoining. In the meantmie your Twentieth Century policy positions make it impossible for me to be a member of the American Legion in the Twenty-first Century.

Laich sits on the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network Military Advisory Council and has been a vocal proponent for repeal of DADT. In December 2007, he spoke at the “12,000 Flags for 12,000 Patriots” event on the National Mall hosted by the Human Rights Campaign, Servicemembers United, and others. Speaking on behalf of 28 generals, he commended those 12,000 men and women who have been discharged for being gay, lesbian, or bisexual and spoke out in support of DADT’s repeal. Watch it:

Revelations that Marcus Bachmann’s clinics administer ex-gay therapy have thrust the “controversial” treatment into the media spotlight. There is no controversy among scientists, however, who continue to agree that the therapy is not effective and should not be recommended because it can be harmful. A new study from a surprising source confirms this reality; researchers at Pat Robertson’s Regent University found that “ex-gays” in opposite-sex marriages continued to have a same-sex orientation.

The study (PDF) looked at “mixed-orientation” marriages in which at least one member of the couple is not heterosexual. One of the items on the questionnaire asked participants to rank themselves using the Kinsey Scale (a 1-7 continuum representing identities between exclusively heterosexual and exclusively homosexual) on four criteria: sexual behavior, attractions, emotional attachment, and sexual fantasy. This chart shows how participants identified before and after marriage on behavior and on the “expanded version” (the average of all four criteria):

As would be expected, being in a heterosexual marriage led to more heterosexual behavior (3.60 declining to 2.80). But the study actually found that not only did attraction toward the opposite sex not increase, it seems to have decreased. Consider that those “expanded version” numbers are merely an average that includes the behavior score. This means that the results for attraction, emotional attachment, and sexual fantasy must have been even higher, representative of a same-sex orientation. Alas, the published study does not separate these numbers out.

Regardless, here is a study from a university run by one of the largest opponents of LGBT equality that shows that people cannot change their orientation. They can change their behavior — act the part of the heterosexual. But the numbers sure seem to indicate that they are as gay as ever. In its conclusion, the study tries to hedge this point, but concedes it simultaneously:

This is not to say that orientation cannot change (Jones & Yarhouse, 2007). Rather, the behavioral changes in a mixed orientation marriage should not be taken to signal orientation change as such. This is important to the Christian interested in applied psychology who might be more inclined to view behavioral change as signaling orientation change. These should be understood as separate considerations.

And guess who authored this study? The same Yarhouse that authored the cited 2007 pro-ex-gay study, which has been thoroughly debunked, critiqued, and discredited by the American Psychological Association. Researchers trying to prove the wherewithal of ex-gay therapy are going to have to stop doing legitimate research or they might accidentally arrive at the answer they’re trying to avoid.

(HT: Right Wing Watch.)

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) endorsed a possible executive order that would prohibit the federal government from contracting with companies that don’t have policies protecting LGBT employees from workplace discrimination at her weekly press conference today, a measure that is seen as an “interim alternative” to securing greater protections for gay, lesbian, and transgendered Americans while Republicans control the House:

CHRIS JOHNSON, Washington Blade: You’ve been a supporter of the Employment Nondiscrimination Act, that legislation is unlikely to pass as long as Republicans remain in control of the House. As an interim alternative, would you support an executive order from the President, prohibiting federal dollars from going to companies that don’t have their own workplace protections based on sexual orientation and gender identity?

PELOSI: Yes and yes. I think it’s all long overdue.

Watch it:

Last month, Sen. Tom Harkin’s (D-IA) came out in support of the EO, joining Reps. Jared Polis (D-CO) and Jeff Merkley (D-OR). The Obama administration has not yet said if it would issue such an order. The public is supportive of expanding employment protections. A recent poll from the Center for American Progress poll found that nine out of ten voters already believe that gays and lesbians can’t be fired for their sexual orientation, even though only a handful of states actually offer the LGBT community protections.

Yesterday’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on legislation to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act highlighted the nation’s evolution towards LGBT equality, but also demonstrated a decreased desire on the part of Republicans to use same-sex marriage as a political wedge. For while DOMA passed with overwhelming bipartisan majorities in 1996, just two Republican senators — Chuck Grassley (IA) and Orrin Hatch (UT) — appeared at yesterday’s hearing, and only one (Grassley) spoke-up in its defense. The rest of the debate was dominated by Democrats, some of whom expressed regret for voting for the law, “talked warmly about how DOMA wrongly harms same-sex couples and their children,” and explored how federal discrimination contributed to the high suicide rates within the LGBT community.

The tone marked a stark departure to the hateful and discriminatory comments leveled against the LGBT community in 1996, when, as the below video compilation reveals, Republican senators tripped over themselves to condemn the “homosexual lifestyle”:

– REP. TOM COBURN (R-OK): “And there are studies to say that over 43% of all people who profess homosexuality have greater than 500 partners”.

– REP. BOB BARR (R-GA): “It is part of a deliberate, coldly calculated power move to confront the basic social institutions on which our country not only was founded, but has prospered, and will continue to prosper.”

– SEN. TRENT LOTT (R-MS): “To force upon our communities the legal recognition of same sex marriage would be social engineering beyond anything in the American experience.”

Watch the compilation:

As E.J. Graff put it in the Atlantic after watching yesterday’s hearing, “It’s hard to remember that now-foreign country, which was almost unrecognizably hostile to lesbians and gay men.” Indeed, Bob Barr, who sponsored the act, and President Clinton, who signed it, are now calling for its repeal.