LGBT POV

Lost amid all the brouhaha and fallout over Indiana Democratic Sen. Evan Bayh’s surprise retirement announcement Monday was an important story that further suggests that the antigay movement is built on a fraudulent foundation.

An investigation by  Truth Wins Out, an antigay-watching site headed by longtime Religious Right watcher Wayne Besen and the South Florida Gay News revealed that Arthur Goldberg, co-foundeder of Jews Offering New Alternatives to Homosexuality (JONAH) and president of Positive Alternatives to Homosexuality (PATH), is also “Abba Dabba Do,” who the investigators say was “the Wall Street criminal mastermind who was convicted in 1987 and went to prison for  ”fraud of spectacular scope” that included “bilking poor communities with complicated bond schemes.”

Truth Wins Out (TWO) Executive Director of Wayne Besen said in a press release:

“We have long considered Arthur Goldberg a con-artist, but our investigation shows he is also an ex-con. His diabolical past mirrors his dishonest present-day work with the ex-gay industry. Whether it was shady deals on Wall Street or shading the truth on gay issues, Goldberg is someone who lacks credibility and can’t be trusted.”

South Florida Gay News Publisher Norm Kent said:

“Mr. Goldberg’s silence today about his illegal conduct yesterday is a clear indicator that 18 months in prison 20 years ago has not inhibited his willingness to deceive others in order to advance himself today. You free yourself by admitting your wrongs, not erasing them. Goldberg is hardly in a position to be advocating how gay men and women should be authentic with their own lives when he is a fraud with his.”

The team says that after Goldberg completed his parole, he dropped his conspicuous middle name, Abba, and co-founded Jews Offering New Alternatives to Homosexuality (JONAH) in 1999. He is now president of Positive Alternatives to Homosexuality (PATH), which they describe as an umbrella group for “ex-gay” referrals.

Additionally, Goldberg is Executive Secretary of the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH) – an Encino, California-based organization that advocates “reparative” or “conversion” therapy, which has been denounced by mainstream professional psychological associations.

TWO has an extensive expose of NARTH including a video of Dr. Lisa Diamond, University of Utah, rebuking NARTH leaders Dr. Joseph Nicolosi who she says deliberately twisted her work for political gain. TWO also says NARTH “uses outdated studies from up to 100 years ago and repackages these invalid studies as new.”

Jim Burroway at Box Turtle Bulletin and Warren Throckmorton have also been reporting on NARTH in conjunction with the Uganda Anti Homosexuality Bill, getting the group’s past president to admit that “Research tells us that forced therapy is almost always a failure. It is unethical and unworkable.”

The TWO and SFGN investigation also notes that Goldberg is President of Congregation Mount Sinai, a temple in Jersey City and a Principal for the International Center for Gender Affirming Processes (CGAP). “Goldberg is a key ex-gay industry insider and viewed as an architect of its strategy and message machine,” they say.

The investigators point out that Goldberg wrote “Light in the Closet” (Red Heifer Press), which apparently promises to “explode the gay gene mystique, offering hope, compassion, direction and vitally needed information to gay strugglers, their families, friends, and surrounding community.” JONAH, they say, “also plays a key role in supplying clients for Journey into Manhood Weekend, an ex-gay boot camp, where participants are taken deep into the woods to supposedly discover their masculinity. Goldberg is not gay, but has an openly gay son who reportedly lives in the New York City area.”

From the TWO press release:

Although Goldberg often claims that he has been deeply involved in civil rights issues, his case revealed a deep insensitivity to minorities. An October 1, 1989 story in the Philadelphia Inquirer reveals that Goldberg jokingly described a bond issue the firm had underwritten in Guam as “selling bonds to the cannibals.”  He also sought out poor minority communities, such as East Saint Louis, as targets for his conspiracies.

“Simply by concealing his middle name and omitting his dirty deeds from his biography, Goldberg was able to mask his past as a mini-Madoff,” said Besen. “The real Arthur Abba Goldberg is an unsavory character who lacks the credibility and integrity to portray himself as an expert on gay and lesbian issues.”

In an interview, one of Goldberg’s former clients suggests that his past moral deficiencies are reflected in his current work. He says that Goldberg is manipulative and exploits those who are despondent and desperate to conform, so they can fit in and be accepted by their friends and family members.

“Arthur Goldberg takes advantage of the vulnerability of religious Jews by promising them the opportunity to heal from their homosexuality and be able to live a life within the community they grew up in and fulfill the expectations they had of themselves and of their families,” the former client told TWO and SFGN. “When speaking to Arthur Goldberg, he uses false statistics of changing hundreds and thousands of men and women and other such numbers as an 80% success rate, which is misleading and false.”