Anything But Straight: Unmasking the Scandals and Lies Behind the Ex-gay Myth

Besen left his post as Associate Communications Director for the Human Rights Campaign, America's largest GLBT rights organization, to work on the book because he felt uniquely qualified to challenge the ex-gay movement.

During his five-year stint with HRC he repeatedly squared off against the nation's most prominent ex-gay leaders on such programs as "NBC Nightly News," "CNN's Talk Back Live," "The Roseanne Show" and "The O'Reilly Factor."

As part of his exhaustive research for "Anything But Straight" Besen made numerous undercover visits to ex-gay meetings, attended ex-gay and right-wing conferences and interviewed many of the movement's most powerful proponents.

In the book he reveals many of the ex-gay movement's dubious conversion methods — which include having gay men pepper their speech with "heterosexual" words like "dude" and teaching lesbians to apply make-up.

It all seems laughable until the author reminds us just how much clout these ministries have to influence government and society — particularly now with the debate over same-sex marriage raging.

Bottom line: "Anything But Straight" is an invaluable resource for debunking the specious claims of the ex-gay movement.