Box Turtle Bulletin

Briefly Noted

They were against it before they were for it. Time is not on my side, not for any prolonged writing pleasures anyway. So let’s try this out as a new feature between features.

• Fifty-six percent of Virginians support amending the state constitution to ban same-sex marriage, but only 46% support it when the text of the proposed amendment is actually read to them. (via GoodAsYou.org)
• Eureka! Vacationing gays are descending on the beautiful Ozarks in Arkansas, and the locals aren’t quite sure what to make of it.
• First we had the book The End of Gay. Is it now The End of Ex-Gay?
• A British court refused to recognize a lesbian couple’s Canadian marriage as a full marriage in Britain, although it can be recognized as a civil partnership.
• Two men were beaten in the head with baseball bats and a third was stabbed by three assailants as they were leaving San Diego’s Pride festival at Balboa Park late Saturday night.
• Imagine having a neighbor who constantly hurls anti-gay and anti-AIDS threats at you. A Rhode Island judge puts a stop to it.

A Study in Holland

There has been a noticeable increase in the number of visitors to this web site using search engines to learn more about the famous “Dutch Study.” I suspect the recent spike in visitors may have something to do with an article that appeared in the American Family Association’s AFA Journal this month. Ed Vitagliano notes that in countries and states where marriage or civil unions are allowed, the number of same-sex couples tying the knot is relatively low. Why do you suppose that is? Ed thinks he has the answer:

Even when they couple, homosexual relationships are relatively short-lived. A study of homosexual couples in Holland found that same-sex unions lasted an average of 18 months and included an average of eight additional sex partners outside the “monogamous” relationship.

Well we’ve been down this familiar road before. The AFA is relying on cooked statistics for this. This was a non-representative study based on AIDS patients who were all under the age of thirty. This is hardly a pool where you’d expect to find many couples celebrating their golden anniversaries. But these statistics have reached urban-legend status. You can read more about it in Straight From The Source: What the “Dutch Study” Really Says About Gay Couples.

The AFA thinks that the low number of same-sex couples getting hitched shows that gays aren’t really interested in marriage, but are only interested in advancing their nefarious plot to win “the cultural victory that legalized same-sex marriage would represent.” But as I said before, I think the answer is much simpler — and much more conservative and family-valued than that.

Being Gay Leaves You Open to Blackmail After All

Or at the least, revenge. But that’s only because of the US military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy.

A decorated sergeant and Arabic language specialist Bleu Copas was dismissed from the Army, even though he never was asked, and never told. His accuser has not been identified. Instead, the Army relied on a stream of anonymous e-mails sent to his superiors. So much for the accused’s right to confront his accusers.

This brings up a disturbing possibility:

The policy is becoming “a very effective weapon of vengeance in the armed forces” said Steve Ralls, a spokesman for the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, a Washington-based watchdog organization that counseled Copas and is working to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”

The US military has been engaging in an anti-gay witch hunt recently. Dismissals are up 11% from 2004, and the army has no compunction about dismissing anyone regardless of how critical their skills may be. Arabic translators are in extremely short supply, but fifty-five have been dismissed under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” costing American taxpayers nearly $369 million (not to mention unknown lives due to the shortage of translators).

One historic argument against granting gays and lesbians security clearances is that they were presumed to be susceptible to blackmail. But proponents of gays and lesbians have noted that blackmail is only possible if the individual is closeted. Ironically, the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy forces gay and lesbian military personnel back into the closet, which leaves them vulnerable to blackmail attempts or acts of revenge. Because of this, “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” ends up weakening our security, not strengthening it.

Sgt. Copas, however, showed the kind of integrity that should have made the Army proud:

On Dec. 2, investigators formally interviewed Copas and asked if he understood the military’s policy on homosexuals, if he had any close acquaintances who were gay, and if he was involved in community theater. He answered affirmatively.

But Copas declined to answer when they asked, “Have you ever engaged in homosexual activity or conduct?” He refused to answer 19 of 47 questions before he asked for a lawyer and the interrogation stopped.

Since the Army violated its own policy in asking Sgt. Copas “the question,” he was right to refuse to answer. But that wasn’t enough to keep him in the army. Apparently, knowing gay people and being involved in theater is enough to get kicked out these days.

That is a standard that neither Ronald Reagan nor Charlton Heston could meet.

After Exodus

The Advocate has a heartbreaking story by David Luc Nguyen, a former ex-gay (an “ex- ex-gay,” you might say) who emerged from a very difficult attempt to go straight. He was forced by his parents to undergo counseling after he came out to them. When he finally dropped out of Portland Fellowship, an Exodus affiliate where he underwent counseling, his parents kicked him out.

Many of the damaging aspects ex-gay ministries comes from the fact that they are not certified competent counselors:

But even they admit they’re not really counselors. Before writing this, I contacted Ron Shaw, who works with Metanoia Ministries, an Exodus group in the Pacific Northwest. A disclaimer at the bottom of Shaw’s e-mails states: “Ron Shaw is NOT a state-licensed counselor. All advice given is based on spiritual principles contained in the Bible.” …

The advice Shaw gives sounds a lot like science. One of the more dangerous aspects of “reparative therapy” is that it often uses pseudoscientific language, says Matthew Brooks, a mental health professional in Seattle. “This can make it appealing to young people,” Brooks says. “This therapy is based on religious and political prejudices. It robs people of the chance to strive for happy productive lives, friendships, and families as healthy gay men and lesbians.”

Not only do these ministries rob people of the chance to strive for happy and productive lives, their persistent message is that it is impossible to be gay and happy. Virtually all of the ex-gay testimonials speak of sexual addictions, prostitution, violence, drugs and alcohol, and promiscuity. All of these are blamed on homosexuality itself, and not on the poor life choices that these individuals made. Blaming it on homosexuality allows them to dodge the hard questions about their own responsibility for their poor choices in behavior.

Fortunately — and perhaps miraculously — David has come out the other side to offer a very poignant look inside the ex-gay experience and what it does to many of those who go through it.

Still, Exodus is with me. I know this may sound crazy, but somewhere deep inside I felt like God was going to punish me if I wrote this piece and spoke out against the church. Fortunately, I’m a lot like my parents. I’m stubborn and determined.

You can read David’s story here.

Welcome Out, Lance Bass

Lance Bass, of popular boy-band ‘N Sync came out in the most recent edition of People Magazine. With all of the rumors floating around, why did he wait so long?

“I knew that I was in this popular band and I had four other guys’ careers in my hand, and I knew that if I ever acted on it or even said (that I was gay), it would overpower everything,” says Bass, referring to bandmates Joey Fatone, Chris Kirkpatrick, JC Chasez and Justin Timberlake.

“I didn’t know: Could that be the end of ‘N Sync? So I had that weight on me of like, ‘Wow, if I ever let anyone know, it’s bad.’ So I just never did,” he says speaking about his sexual orientation for the first time with PEOPLE.

Now, after years of keeping his personal life private, the Mississippi-bred, Southern Baptist-reared Bass, 27, is publicly revealing what he first shared with his friends, then his shocked family.

Coming out is a deeply personal decision. Speaking as one who came out late in life, I know the pressures and the expectations that keep so many in the closet. But, I also know the joy of sheer liberation that comes from not hiding any more. And apparently so does Lance:

“The thing is, I’m not ashamed — that’s the one thing I want to say,” he explains of his decision to come out. “I don’t think it’s wrong, I’m not devastated going through this. I’m more liberated and happy than I’ve been my whole life. I’m just happy.”

People hits the newstands Friday. Welcome to the sunlight, Lance.

Unfocused on the Family

Glenn Stanton, of Focus on the Family, finally got around to responding to the American Academy of Pediatrics’ report on why same-sex marriage is important to children of gay and lesbian couples. (I reviewed that article here.) Unfortunately, he seems to have missed the entire point of the report:

“This report essentially says that research shows that gay and lesbian parents can be as loving and caring as heterosexual parents,” he said. “That is not the same as saying that children who grow up in homes in two-female or two-male adult homes do as well as kids who live with their mother and father in important outcome measures.”

The AAP is skirting some very important issues, he said. For example, the study claims “there are more similarities than differences in parenting styles and attitudes of gay and non-gay fathers.”

While sexual orientation does not seem to affect whether parents prefer their kids to eat healthy snacks, get plenty of exercise, read books, limit television viewing and be kind to their friends, Stanton said there are other important factors the study tries to play down or simply ignores.

Those who try to work with this line of reasoning miss a very important point, the very point that prompted the American Academy of Pediatrics to commission the report in the first place. Gay and lesbian couples are parents. They have always been parents, and they will always be parents. There is simply nothing anybody can do which will ever change that. Like it or not, these children exist, they are growing up, and they will soon become adults themselves. This report is focused on their needs and how best to address them:

This analysis explores the unique and complex challenges that same-gender couples and their children face as a result of public policy that excludes them from civil marriage. In compiling this report it became clear to the contributing committees and section that the depth and breadth of these challenges are largely unknown to the general public and perhaps even to many pediatricians. As such, the AAP Board of Directors approved the broad dissemination of this analysis to assist pediatricians with addressing the complex issues related to same-gender couples and their children.

That’s why they wrote the report: To inform everyone what those challenges are, and why marriage is so important:

In all its work, the AAP is committed to calling attention to the inextricable link between the health and well-being of all children, the support and encouragement of all parents, and the protection of strong family relationships. This analysis was prepared to bring to light the legal, financial, and psychosocial ramifications of recent and proposed public-policy initiatives affecting same-gender parents and their children.

Civil marriage is a legal status that promotes healthy families by conferring a powerful set of rights, benefits, and protections that cannot be obtained by other means. Civil marriage can help foster financial and legal security, psychosocial stability, and an augmented sense of societal acceptance and support. Legal recognition of a spouse can increase the ability of adult couples to provide and care for one another and fosters a nurturing and secure environment for their children. Children who are raised by civilly married parents benefit from the legal status granted to their parents.

You can’t find a stronger endorsement of family values than that.

So, given the very real existence of these children in gay- and lesbian-led families, what exactly would Focus on the Family suggest we do to remove the many roadblocks that these parents face every day so they can provide the best care for their children? We know that Focus on the Family would like gays and lesbians to go away — that’s why they promote and finance ex-gay ministries. Do they have something in mind to make their kids go away too?

What does Focus propose for the children who are already being raised by gays and lesbian couples now and in the future? Don’t these children count? Was Glenn Stanton’s boss really serious when he backed extremely limited domestic partnership benefits in Colorado? James Dobson sure seems to have lost his voice since then. Maybe he took too much heat from fellow conservatives.

Or maybe Focus on the Family can only focus on one kind of family?

Therapy in the Wild, Wild West

By now this is all very old news. In the online world, anything more than a few weeks old is ancient history, but I experienced a sort of deja vu this weekend as I re-read Richard Cohen’s 2000 book, Coming Out Straight. Interesting reading, I know. Let’s just say it’s what I do on my afternoons off.

You may remember ex-gay activist Richard Cohen, president of PFOX (Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays), who was featured on CNN’s Paula Zahn Now on May 23rd demonstrating his unusual methods for “curing” homosexuality. He advocates some very unorthodox therapeutic exercises — many of them drawn from pop-psychology fads of the 1970’s and 1980’s.

One technique involves the client beating a pillow with a tennis racquet while screaming at his parents. Remember when that was all the rage? Beating a pillow while screaming about how angry you are at your parents presumably allows you to work through your feelings about your remembered “abuse” which, according to Cohen, you weren’t allowed to express as a child. There’s a lot of recycled “adult children” talk sprinkled throughout his theories, and they’re all described in his book from six years ago. Not much has changed here.

But his most controversial therapy involves “holding” or “touch” therapy, where he takes a male client onto his lap, holds him gently, and repeats affirming words to him. Cohen claims that this recreates the father-son bond in the “adult child,” which, according to the distant father/domineering mother theory which he favors, is supposed to be the key missing component in the lives of gay men. He went on to demonstrate this technique on-camera with a client identified as “Rob.”

This raised quite a few eyebrows among professional therapists. Among those shocked by this display was Dr. Warren Throckmorton, a professor at Grove City College in northwestern Pennsylvania, who himself is very active in the ex-gay movement:

When my wife watched the clip (I taped it), she said she couldn’t get past the “ick factor” to even evaluate what was said. We discussed which was the ickiest, the tennis racket slamming the pillow while screaming at mom; or the client-cuddle technique where Richard holds his client like a baby in a kind of nursing position. We couldn’t decide.

Dr. Throckmorton had worked closely with PFOX in their attempts to force the Montgomery County (Md.) school system to revise its sex-education programs to include information about ex-gays. This “information” from PFOX includes, for example, a reading list for teachers and students which promoted the idea that gays are diseased and need to be “healed” — a position that is incompatible with modern psychology.

I don’t know to what extend Dr. Throckmorton was bothered by these actions. But he has clearly decided that the sight of a colleague who is a well-known figure in the ex-gay movement embarrassing himself on national television would be the last straw:

Since viewing the “Paula Zahn Now” segment, Throckmorton has notified PFOX that, although he supports its mission and its belief that people are not born homosexual, he will not represent the group as long as Cohen remains its board president.

So why do I bring all of this up now? Well, I was reminded of it as I was reading Cohen’s book. And there it was, exactly what I was looking for: the same detailed descriptions of his “holding therapy” in pages 207 through 211 that he demonstrated on CNN. This book isn’t exactly obscure. It comes with a glowing foreword written by that other famous non-therapist therapist, Laura Schlessinger.

Cohen’s enthusiastic endorsement of this holding technique is found throughout his book (along with pillow-beating, or “bioenergetics” as it is termed). This nationally-televised demonstration may be shocking, but it’s not new. It’s been a part of Cohen’s practice for several years, and no one can accuse him of hiding it.

And there’s another thing that’s no longer hidden: Cohen’s permanent expulsion from the American Counseling Association in May 2002 — although he’s doing his best to hide that. You certainly won’t find any mention of it in PFOX’s website.

While we disagree strongly in many points, I’ve come to respect some of Dr. Throckmorton’s recent actions. He’s one of the few ex-gay proponents to recognize that biological factors can play a role — in possible combination with environmental and developmental factors — in the sexual orientation of many gays and lesbians. This position, more or less, is generally in agreement with those held by most serious researchers, although Dr. Throckmorton places more emphasis on environmental factors. But at least it’s a start. More specifically, he recently criticized Joseph Nicolosi’s “reparative” theory of homosexuality (which is essentially the “distant-father” half of the weak-father/strong-mother theory), declaring “I am not a reparative therapist.” Nicolosi (with the late Charles Socarides) is often looked to as a father of the ex-gay movement, and this theory is the operative theory among almost all of the most prominent ministries. (Ironically, it is this “reparative” drive that Richard Cohen’s techniques are supposed to “heal.”)

And despite his enthusiastic participation in Exodus conferences and other ex-gay activities, he has offered draft guidelines for the practice of what he calls ‘sexual identity therapy” which seeks to establish an ethical framework by emphasizing the actual needs and aspirations of the client, and not the political, religious or moral ideals of the therapist. For example, the draft states, “Therapists should be open to the possibility that embracing same-sex attractions may place other vital aspects of identity at risk. It is also important for therapists to take a neutral stance toward the client’s worldview.” There are areas in these guidelines which can stand improvement, but this effort is certainly a welcome departure from NARTH’s draft guidelines which simply regurgitate the customary anti-gay rhetoric.

Besides, I have to believe that anyone who grew up just a few blocks away from me — a fellow River Rat from Portsmouth, Ohio — can’t be all bad.

But like any specialty in which standard practices, ethical guidelines, certification, and official oversight are all absent. and especially where the distinction between religious ministry and clinical practice is often obliterated, the field of sexual reorientation therapy can resemble the wild west, complete with charlatans and snake-oil salesmen. When one makes it his life work to enter into this kind of work, one must be very careful when choosing those with whom one associates and makes common cause.

See also:

Richard Cohen Shifts Gears
Richard Cohen Is “Disappeared”
Fallout From Richard Cohen’s “The Daily Show” Appearance
Therapy In the Wild, Wild West

The Best Message?

Yesterday was the one year anniversary of the hanging of two Iranian youths, Mahmoud Asgari and Ayaz Marhoni, who were accused of having a gay affair. They were seventeen years old when they were murdered by the Iranian authorities. Several vigils and protests marked the occasion in cities around the world.

[Update: San Francisco activist Michael Petrelis, who, more than anyone, organized the vigils worldwide has a complete roundup of those vigils. And the Washington Post today has an excellent article on the mainstream media’s silence about Mahmound and Ayaz.]

The picture for gays is very bleak in the Middle East. In addition to ongoing active persecution in Iran, the situation is deteriorating rapidly in Iraq. According to the United Nations:

16. UNAMI HRO has received several reports indicating that, since 2005, homosexuals have been increasingly threatened and extra-judicially executed by militias and “death squads” because of their sexual orientation. It is believed that such incidents are underreported, because families are unwilling to admit that targeted members were homosexual for fear of further abuse. It has been difficult to independently verify the information received due to the fact that members of this group maintain a low profile, preferring instead to go into hiding or leave the country.

17. From October 2005 to 30 June 2006 at least twelve homosexuals were reportedly killed in targeted attacks. Militias are reportedly threatening families of men believed to be homosexual, stating that they will begin killing family members unless the men are handed over or killed by the family. In March 2006, a 29-year-old man was kidnapped in Baghdad and his family threatened for allowing him to lead a homosexual lifestyle. The family paid a ransom for the man’s release but the mutilated body of the kidnapped victim was instead found dead a few days later. In another case reported a homosexual man was allegedly victim of “honour crime.” It was reported in the press that the man’s father was released without trial once he explained that he had hanged his son after discovering that he was homosexual.

An editorial in The Advocate also notes pervasive persecution inside the Palestinian Authority:

Tarek, a young Palestinian gay man suspected of homosexuality, was sentenced to a “reeducation” camp run by Muslim clerics under Palestinian Authority jurisdiction. He said that for a period of two months he was “subjected to beatings with belts, clubs, and was forced to sit on bottles which were inserted into my rectum. I was hanged by the hands, I was deprived of sleep, and when I finally did sleep, my limbs were tied to the floor.”

Meanwhile, just one day earlier the House of Representatives turned back an attempt to amend the constitution to ban same-sex marriage. But supporters of the amendment were not daunted, nor were they apologetic over the fact that while Beirut burns, the House fiddles. After the vote, House floor leader Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-Ga.) commented:

This is probably the best message we can give to the Middle East in regards to the trouble we are having over there right now.

Message received. Unfortunately.

Marriage Is for Children

Glenn T. Stanton, senior analyst and Director of Global Insight for Cultural and Family Renewal at Focus on the Family, offered some thoughts on same-sex marriage in a book review on Christianity Today’s web site. In his review of The Meaning of Marriage: Family, State, Market and Morals (Robert P. George, Jean Bethke Elshtain, eds.), Mr Stanton discusses one of the chapters:

Don Browning and Elizabeth Marquardt, self-described religious and political liberals, assert that “same-sex marriage is unjust in many ways and that liberals should be cautious about endorsing it.”

Unjust? Yes, by changing the focus from the needs of children and the larger society to the desires of adults. They warn that civil marriage for homosexuals would change marriage from being concerned about raising a community’s next generation to being concerned about close, personal adult relationships.

After which he adds his own thoughts:

We are moving from this natural, universal model to a greater embrace of what I call “disembodied procreation” in same-sex unions, where sperm and egg meet only in a Petri dish and foreplay is a legal contract.

This has become a growing argument among opponents of same-sex marriage, that gays and lesbians who want to marry are elevating their own desires above the needs of children, especially since, on their own, they cannot have children biologically as a gay and lesbian couple.

Yet gays and lesbian couples become parents through many different means; most of them are the result of a previous heterosexual marriage. The American Academy of Pediatrics note that according to the 2000 census:

— Same-gender couples are raising children in at least 96% of all US counties.

— Nearly one quarter of all same-gender couples are raising children.

— Nationwide, 34.3% of lesbian couples are raising children, and 22.3% of gay male couples are raising children (compared with 45.6% of married heterosexual and 43.1% of unmarried heterosexual couples raising children).

…

— Six percent of same-gender couples are raising children who have been adopted compared with 5.1% of heterosexual married couples and 2.6% of unmarried heterosexual couples.

— Eight percent of same-gender parents are raising children with special health care needs, compared with 8.3% of heterosexual unmarried parents and 5.8% of heterosexual married parents.

— Of same-gender partners raising children, 41.1% have been together for 5 years or longer, whereas 19.9% of heterosexual unmarried couples have stayed together for that duration. …

It is difficult to determine exactly how many children are being raised by a gay or lesbian parent or parents because of many of the same factors that impact the determination of the number of same-gender couples. Estimates range between 1 and 10 million. The majority of these children were born in the context of a heterosexual relationship.

These statistics are instructive. They point out that the impulse to marriage and to raise children is a distinctly selfless impulse. Not only are gay men and lesbians more likely to adopt children who don’t have homes, they are more likely to adopt hard-to-place children than heterosexual couples overall. Gay parents don’t blithely choose to raise children as if they were deciding to take in a homeless puppy — nobody adopts hard-to-place children on a lark. Instead, these couples have demonstrated a selfless willingness to do the hard work and make the commitments necessary to take on the arduous task of raising a child who needs a family. You can bet that these couples are very much “concerned about raising a community’s next generation.”

But what’s more, the impulse to marriage is also a distinctly conservative impulse. Even though these couples are not bound together by a marriage license, they are much more likely to stay together than heterosexual couples who are not bound together by a marriage license. And we know that marriage is a stabilizing influence in a family. Think of how much more stable these gay- and lesbian-led families would be if they were supported by the same civil protections, rights, and responsibilities afforded to and expected of heterosexual couples.

Mr. Stanton’s arguments willfully ignore the simple fact that gays and lesbians have always been parents and they will always be parents. There is nothing in history that says otherwise, nor is there anything in the future that will ever change that reality. And as much as we like to talk about the importance of marriage to gay and lesbian couples, we cannot ignore how vital it is for their children, the vast majority of whom, unlike those of Mr. Stanton’s imagination, were not conceived by the “disembodied procreation” of a petri dish. And because marriage is vital to these children, it is, in the end, a tremendous benefit to society overall — especially the society that our community’s next generation will inhabit.

Pink News Gets It Even More Wrong

An update to an earlier post The Advocate Gets It Wrong

A tip from a reader (Thanks Jeffery!) led me to this article from London-based Pink News, which breathlessly exclaims:

Up to 20 per cent of gay men have tried crystal meth

Research published today by City University, London has found that up to twenty ten [sic] per cent of gay men in London have tried the clubbing drug crystal methamphetamine (crystal meth). Of these men, most use it only infrequently.

Wrong! Wrong! Wrong! And what’s with the “twenty ten per cent”? Did the article originally read “ten per cent” and someone decide it needed punching up?

I expect this from Paul Cameron, Melissa Fryrear and others like them. (And I fully expect the anti-gay press to pick up on this very soon.) But when I set out to counter the misrepresentation of research by anti-gay activists, I certainly didn’t expect to see the same thing coming from the gay press. I am pulling out what little remains of my hair here.

So, where does the 20% figure come from? It comes from an even smaller sample from that same study’s convenience samples we talked about before — gay men who attend selected gyms in central London. I’m not familiar with the gym scene in central London, but these researchers appear to conclude that the gym scene is closely related to the club scene. I don’t know about the gym venues surveyed to know if this connection is real.

But for the sake of argument, let’s just assume that the connection is there. If so, it still doesn’t mean that this sub-sample of a sub-sample is representative of gay men in London overall. To say that one in five London Men have used meth, even infrequently, blasts right through credulity and proceeds straight to ludicrous.

And how do we know this? Other London-area researchers have looked into exactly this issue. They compared survey responses from a national probability sample (The National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles, or Natsal) and a “community sample” from London drawn from gay bars, clubs, saunas and STD clinics (The Gay Men’s Sexual Health Survey, or GMSHS). Here is what they found:

These results show that the Natsal London men recruited by a probability sample were less likely to report STIs [STI in UK=STD in North America – ed.], GUM clinic attendance [GUM=Genitourinary Medicine, the British term for STD clinics – ed], or HIV testing than GMSHS men recruited from gay venues…

It is important to consider the appropriate sampling frame for a particular set of research questions. … Our findings suggest that focusing on a community sample of MSM [Men who have sex with men – ed.] is likely to result in an overestimate in the prevalence of sexual risk behaviour and sexual health outcomes with respect to all MSMs in Britain.

— Ref: Dodds, Julie P.; Mercer, Catherine H.; Mercey, Danielle E.; Copas, Andrew J.; Johnson, Anne M. “Men who have sex with men: A comparison of a probability sample survey and a community based study.” Sexually Transmitted Infections 82, no. 1 (February 2006): 86-87. Abstract available here.

Crystal meth is serious business. Because meth users are at least twice as likely to engage in unsafe sex, studies like this one are exceptionally important to understand how we can better target educational and prevention programs. And we can better target these programs when we know where we can find these high-risk groups. Professor Jonathan Elford, one of the authors of the study, noted:

What is clear from the research in the gyms is that crystal meth is a part of the London gay club-drug scene. Health promotion and awareness campaigns around crystal meth must therefore focus on the gay club scene to have maximum impact.

And Will Nutland, Head of Health Promotion at Britain’s Terrence Higgins Trust, added:

This research adds to the growing understanding of crystal meth use among gay men in London and helps to ensure that our educational responses are properly grounded in evidence.

That’s why we do these studies — to provide intelligent responses to a serious problem, not to provide headline writers with sexy headlines.

To learn more about convenience samples, see The Survey Says… What Everyone Should Know About Statistics. You can also see how the Washington Times started an urban myth in What the “Dutch Study” Really Says About Gay Couples.

Why Pay $550 To Change?

The ex-gay therapy group “People Can Change” have issued a press release touting a survey they conducted to understand what motivates gay men who undergo sexual reorientation therapy. According to the press release:

According to conventional wisdom, the answer is inevitably “internalized homophobia” or societal pressure.

But a new survey of almost 200 same-sex-attracted men who are pursuing change paints a very different picture: Out of 18 possible motivations listed in the survey, outside pressure was the least frequently cited motivating factor reported by the 189 survey respondents.

The report carries the unwieldy title, “Why Change? Survey of Men With Unwanted Same-Sex Attractions of the Factors Motivating Their Desire to Change” (PDF: 117KB/26 pages). The 189 survey respondents were out of approximately 1,100 registered participants in People Can Change’s online discussion forums. That calculates out to an exceptionally low 17% response rate — one of the lowest response rates I’ve ever seen in a survey.

With such a low response rate, one might ask why so many declined to participate in the first place. Did they look over the questionnaire and decide the questions or responses didn’t really apply to them? Were they put off by it somehow? One might also ask how different the results might have been if that 83% had participated. With such an exceptionally low response rate, it’s very important to ask questions like these.

But that doesn’t appear to bother the folks at People Can Change, since they apparently got what they wanted. The results pretty much echo everything most ex-gay therapists and ministries say about gay men, which makes this survey essentially a marketing survey — to verify their messages are resonating with their clients.

And resonate they do. Why did these men want to change? The top ten answers given were straight out of the ex-gay theorists’ cookbook (respondents could choose more than one answer):

1) Want to heal emotional wounds (91% identified this answer as a motivating factor): “I believe my SSA feelings are as a result of past emotional hurts and bad experiences…”

2) Values (90%): “Homosexuality conflicts with my deeply held values and beliefs.”

3) Expectations of unhappiness (90%): “I believe I can never truly be happy living a gay lifestyle.”

4) Spirituality (87%): “Regardless of what any religion teaches [emphasis mine], I feel God wants me to turn away from homosexuality, and/or I feel more peaceful spiritually when I turn away from homosexuality.”

5) Male friendships (86%): “I want to be able to have “normal’ male friendships.”

6) Conscience (86%): “Living a gay life just feels wrong to me.”

7) Family (85%): “I want to have a wife and children, or I want to hold together an existing marriage and family.”

8) Masculinity (85%): “I want feel more manly, like a regular guy, and for me that is a heterosexual man.”

9) Compulsiveness (85%): “For me, homosexuality is or was addictive, compulsive, obsessive, and/or self-destructive.”

10) Religion (84%): “My religious faith (religious community, faith tradition, scripture) tells me that homosexuality is wrong.”

Other motivational factors included depression or dissatisfaction (84%), wanting increased heterosexual interest (80%), identity (“my homosexual feelings don’t feel like who I really am inside”; 78%), shame (73%), fear of rejection (65%), gay relationships (could not or didn’t believe “I could find a lasting, meaningful relationship with a man”; 56%), fear of disease (56%) and outside pressure (55%).

Now, I don’t know how they can say that this proves that “internalized homophobia” is not a factor. Depending on how you define it, several of these answers could easily be recognized as “a prejudice carried by individuals against homosexual manifestations in themselves and others, [causing] severe discomfort with or disapproval of one’s own sexual orientation.” You know, prejudice that says that homosexuality is the result of an “emotional wound,” or that homosexuality is incompatible with decency and values, or that it is impossible to be gay and, well, gay.

But that’s okay for People Can Change. After all, it means that because they have found a small number of their members willing to echo their organization’s talking points, they don’t have to change their literature. But more importantly, this little marketing survey shows that they can continue to charge $550 per person to attend one of their workshops, with the enticement of moving on to a more advanced workshop for an minimum $200 deposit.

And life-change coaching services. Don’t forget about that.

The Advocate Gets It Wrong

The Advocate just posted this news item:

Approximately 10% of gay men in London have used the recreational drug methamphetamine, according to a study published in the online edition of the journal Addiction.

Well, er, no. It’s bad enough when anti-gay extremists get research wrong to portray gays as drug-fueled sex fiends. We don’t need our own media outlets feeding the myths.

It appears that neither The Advocate nor Sirius OutQ (which originated the story) read the abstract to that article very closely:

Participants HIV-positive gay men attending the HIV treatment clinic in 2002–03 (n = 388); HIV-negative gay men attending the HIV testing/sexual health clinics in 2002–03 (n = 266); gay men using the gyms between January and March 2003 (n = 445), 2004 (n = 653) and 2005 (n = 494).

Conclusion Among gay men in London surveyed in clinics, approximately one in 10 reported using crystal meth in the previous 12 months (HIV-positive men 12.6%; HIV-negative men 8.3%).

That’s right. The 10% statistic came from men surveyed at HIV/STD clinics. So what does that prove? Only that 10% of gay men surveyed in HIV/STD clinics used crystal meth. That’s it. Nothing else. It is not generalizable to gay men across London or anywhere else. It applies only to gay men at HIV/STD clinics. In London. Crystal meth usage may be different elsewhere.

This study is based on what’s called a convenience sample — an easy-to-access group of people recruited to test a particular hypothesis. This is a perfectly legitimate means of studying simple correlations. But it is by no means a general population survey, and the authors did not intend for it to be cited as such.

This is not to say that men who take the responsible step of getting tested should fall under the suspicion of being drug users. But the only thing this study can possibly demonstrate is that when targeting intervention programs for crystal meth users among the gay population in London, one place to look might be in HIV/STD clinics. But even there, only one in ten are likely to be users. (I’ll have to get the article’s full text from the library to know the nature of the “gyms.”)

Anti-gay extremists often misrepresent research to claim that a given survey represents everyone regardless of how the survey was put together. And when they turn to studies based on STD clinics, they obtain some pretty out-of-whack statistics (which is why STD population-based studies are especially popular with that crowd.) But when the media does it (and especially our own) it is downright irresponsible and outrageous.

Ten percent would be a large chuck of gay men using crystal meth. One in ten — look around and consider that possibility. This would be big news. But to use this study to say that 10% of all London gay men are meth users is simply wrong, not to mention slanderous to the men of London. Give us — and especially our gay friends in London — a break.

UPDATE: To learn about other research which proves this study cannot be extrapolated to the general male population in London, see our response to an even more eggregious misrepresentation of this study in Pink News Gets It Even More Wrong.

To learn more about convenience samples, see The Survey Says… What Everyone Should Know About Statistics. You can also see how the Washington Times started an urban myth in What the “Dutch Study” Really Says About Gay Couples.

An Indian Prince Comes Out

It’s not unusual for a son or daughter to be disowned by his or her familiy after disclosing their sexual orientation. But it’s almost unprecedented among royalty — because royalty almost never “comes out.” There’s typically far too much at stake to allow such a bold step, but that may be changing.

Prince Manvendra Singh Gohil, who is from one of India’s richest royal families that ruled the former Rajpipla principality in the western state of Gujarat, was disowned by his family after he publicly announced that he is gay. While princely kingdoms were abolished when India declared its independence, many royal families continue to enjoy tremendous wealth and influence.

Prince Manvendra responded, “I will not stake my claim to the property. I have found a family in the (gay) community and am happy working for the community. … As an activist, I thought it right to come out of the closet first. Otherwise, it would have been living a lie.”

Prince Manvendra runs Lakshya Trust, an organization working with Indian gays with HIV/AIDS. That work is complicated by the fact that homosexuality is banned in India, where it is punishable by up to ten years in prison.

“Calm Down, Sweetie”

Those are the words that led to a bashing.

They are also the beginning of a defense of some sort for the four who were arrested for beat up singer Kevin Aviance in New York on June 10. Aviance bumped into one of the three on the street and said, “Calm, down, sweetie,” which apparently was just too threatening to someone’s sense of manhood:

“I did not hit the guy because he was gay,” Johnson said in his statement. “I just did not want my friend to think … I was a p—y.”

So of course, the only option was for the three to beat Kevin senseless, breaking his jaw and several bones.

This defense is starting to look like a variation on the the so-called “gay panic” defense, which has been used successfully by defendants in a number of horrific cases. In February 2005, Josh Cottrell escaped the death penalty when a Hardin County, Kentucky jury convicted him of manslaughter for killing Richie Phillips, stuffing his body into a suitcase and dumping it into a nearby lake. To win that reduced conviction, Cottrell’s attorney told the jury:

If a man tries to force you to have deviant sexual intercourse, you have the right to use deadly force to protect yourself. … Does putting that body in the suitcase make that kid a murderer? A robber? No, it doesn’t. He has admitted that was the wrong thing to do, but he was acting in survival mode.

However, there was no evidence that Richie Phillips tried to “force” sexual intercourse. At most, there was a mere suggestion. But that was enough, apparently in the minds of a jury, to warrant a reduction in the charge.

The “gay panic” defense has been successfully used to avoid more serious penalties in cases ranging from the Matthew Shephard’s brutal beating and murder (the defendants avoided the death penalty) to the murder of male-to-female transgender Chanelle Pickett by William Palmer (she was beaten and “throttled” for eight minutes and died; he was acquitted of manslaughter and murder, convicted only of assault and battery).

Kevin Aviance was severely beaten — the wire just came off his broken jaw and he will soon be able to eat solid foods — but there is no murder here, luckily. One might argue that the stakes here aren’t quite as high. But if the defendants have their way, merely being called “sweetie” would be a justifiable defense. This sort of defense, when used successfully, opens the doors for all LGBT to be attacked for the smallest provocations — or even the mere allegation of one — and that endangers everyone whether they are gay or not.

Paul Cameron Down Under

The bogus “research” of discredited psychologist Paul Cameron has been enormously influential in the U.S. for some twenty-five years. But it’s easy to overlook the high esteem with which he is held by those overseas are also willing to leverage his shoddy and disreputable work to bolster their anti-gay agenda.

The Sydney Star Observer reports that his dubious research has shown up in a report submitted by the Australian Christian Lobby to the New South Wales Adoption Act Review, which is considering the issue of adoption by gay and lesbian parents. Citing Cameron, the submission (PDF: 144KB/11 pages) claims that:

…a major American study arrived at these conclusions:

“children of homosexuals will;
— be more frequently subject to parental instability (of residence and sexual partners);
— have poor peer and adult relationships.
— Be more apt to become homosexual;
— be unstable (have emotional problems and difficulty forming lasting bonds) with reduced interest in natality, and;
— be sexually precosious and promiscuous.”

It’s quite a stretch of the imagination to claim that anything Paul Cameron writes consitutes “a major American study” — certainly not when considering his many run-ins with American professional societies and his own well-documented aversion to the truth When apprised of Cameron’s history, a spokesperson for the Australian Christian Lobby said he was unaware of Cameron’s history and promised to look into it.

As well he should. The Australian Christian Lobby certainly would be the first to have egg on their faces because of this, and unfortunately they probably won’t be the last. Despite the mission of prominent Christian organizations to uphold The Truth, they are too often eager to turn to one who has absolutely no regard for it.