The New Owner of Newsweek Believes Homosexuality Can Be Cured
Last year, IBT Media acquired Newsweek from IAC, hoping to use the magazine’s name to redeem the company’s reputation as a soulless content farm controlled, in part, by right-wing Moonie leader David Jang. In a lengthy profile of IBT founder Johnathan Davis, Guardian reporter Jon Swaine reveals that the 31-year-old entrepreneur believes in redeeming gay people, too:
In a Facebook post in February 2013, Davis described as “shockingly accurate” an op-ed article written by Christopher Doyle, the director of the International Healing Foundation (IHF), which works to convert gay people. Davis said it “cuts like a hot knife through a buttery block of lies.”
In the Christian Post article Davis linked to, ex-gay activist Christopher Boyle argues that “there is a good chance a person will experience SSA”—same-sex attraction—if that person experiences “sexual initiation and/or sexual abuse” as a child, and that “activists in the psychological and counseling communities” repeatedly silence researchers who suggest that homosexuality is harmful and can be cured. (Both assertions have been repeatedly debunked.)
When asked about the Facebook post, which he eventually deleted, Davis told the Guardian: “Whether I do or not [believe that], I’m not sure how that has any bearing on my capacity here as the founder of the company. I’m not sure how it’s relevant. People believe all sorts of weird things. But from a professional capacity, it’s unrelated.”
Update: A few hours after this story was published, Davis sent IBT employees a company-wide memo in which he states that “our company, myself included, has and always will respect diversity in our workplace.”
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