The Baptist Standard calls out Texas Baptists on their hypocrisy
Canada's Anglicans oppose Uganda's 'Kill Gays' bill
Gillibrand, a willing ally
A review of the Manhattan Declaration
NJ Democrats Wiggle and Waffle
NOM's biblical Illiteracy
Texas kid beaten with metal pole, entirely preventable
Austria gets civil partnerships
Featured Reports
David Benkof: Behind the Mask
At first glance, David Benkof appears to be a young gay man who believes that same-sex marriage will damage the institution of marriage, that there are better options for gay couples than marriage, that the community should join him in prioritizing other more pressing issues, and that the marriage discussion is harming the efforts of gay couples in red states to get recognition for their unions. He also claims that he’s a gay columnist, that he speaks for an influential collection of gay thinkers, and that he is part of the gay and lesbian community and that he shares our goals and dreams. But none of that is true.
“Repeat After Me”: The Reparative Therapy Echo Chamber
The April 2008 edition of the pay-to-publish vanity journal Psychological Reports featured a new report from NARTH. Written by NARTH president A. Dean Byrd, past president Joseph Nicolosi, and Richard W. Potts, the report carries the unwieldy but self-descriptive title, “Clients perceptions of how reorientation therapy and self-help can promote changes in sexual orientation.” While the title describes what the authors meant to show — how clients describe the benefits of reparative therapy — the report itself actually illustrates something very different: the ex-gay movement’s remarkable ability to instill an almost robot-like parroting of ex-gay rhetoric among their clients.
Testing the Premise: Is MRSA The New Gay Plague?
The Toronto Star said that a new study “discover[ed] a new strain” of a super-bug “hitting gay men.” Headlines in Britain screamed, “Flesh-eating bug strikes San Francisco’s gay community,” and anti-gay extremists across America spread the alarm that gays were introducing another plague into “the general population.” But there was a small problem with all of this: None of it is true!
Paul Cameron’s World
In 2005, the Southern Poverty Law Center wrote that “[Paul] Cameron’s ‘science’ echoes Nazi Germany.” What the SPLC didn”t know was Cameron doesn’t just “echo” Nazi Germany. He quoted extensively from one of the Final Solution’s architects. This puts his fascination with quarantines, mandatory tattoos, and extermination being a “plausible idea” in a whole new and deeply disturbing light.
From the Inside: Focus on the Family’s “Love Won Out”
On February 10, I attended an all-day “Love Won Out” ex-gay conference in Phoenix, put on by Focus on the Family and Exodus International. In this series of reports, I talk about what I learned there: the people who go to these conferences, the things that they hear, and what this all means for them, their families and for the rest of us.
Prologue: Why I Went To “Love Won Out”
Part 1: What’s Love Got To Do With It?
Part 2: Parents Struggle With “No Exceptions”
Part 3: A Whole New Dialect
Part 4: It Depends On How The Meaning of the Word "Change" Changes
Part 5: A Candid Explanation For "Change"
The Heterosexual Agenda: Exposing The Myths
At last, the truth can now be told.
Using the same research methods employed by most anti-gay political pressure groups, we examine the statistics and the case studies that dispel many of the myths about heterosexuality. Download your copy today!
And don't miss our companion report, How To Write An Anti-Gay Tract In Fifteen Easy Steps.
Testing The Premise: Are Gays A Threat To Our Children?
Anti-gay activists often charge that gay men and women pose a threat to children. In this report, we explore the supposed connection between homosexuality and child sexual abuse, the conclusions reached by the most knowledgeable professionals in the field, and how anti-gay activists continue to ignore their findings. This has tremendous consequences, not just for gay men and women, but more importantly for the safety of all our children.
Straight From The Source: What the “Dutch Study” Really Says About Gay Couples
Anti-gay activists often cite the “Dutch Study” to claim that gay unions last only about 1½ years and that the these men have an average of eight additional partners per year outside of their steady relationship. In this report, we will take you step by step into the study to see whether the claims are true.
The FRC’s Briefs Are Showing
Tony Perkins’ Family Research Council submitted an Amicus Brief to the Maryland Court of Appeals as that court prepared to consider the issue of gay marriage. We examine just one small section of that brief to reveal the junk science and fraudulent claims of the Family “Research” Council.
Review: The Gay Report
When Karla Jay and Allan Young published The Gay Report in 1979, it quickly a favorite source of statistics for many anti-gay extremists. But before you accepts these statistic at face value, you should examine the inner workings of this survey very carefully. What you learn might surprise you.
Daniel Fetty Doesn’t Count
The FBI’s annual Hate Crime Statistics aren’t as complete as they ought to be, and their report for 2004 was no exception. In fact, their most recent report has quite a few glaring holes. Holes big enough for Daniel Fetty to fall through.
News, analysis and fact-checking of anti-gay rhetoric
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Regan DuCasse
March 25th, 2008 | LINK
Talk about weakening marriage and it’s vows and concepts. All in order to keep gay people from entering the institution, and at the same time leaving it all open for heterosexuals who are too shy to go for the whole pinata.
If they tried to make this option exclusive to gay people, it would point out how glaringly unConstitutional it is to ban marriage for gay couples and at the same time, the straight people might sue against the law saying it’s not fair for them to not have a ‘marriage lite’, .
Taken altogther, the straight folks making these laws are gumming it up for everybody.
cooner
March 25th, 2008 | LINK
Just wondering, but do heterosexual couples anywhere who want to get married have to “demonstrate financial interdependence?” Or even, for that matter, prove that they share a primary residence? (I’m not sure about that last one.)
Wonderful, you have to do a whole lot more work to get a whole lot less.
Bruce Garrett
March 26th, 2008 | LINK
I’ve been thinking for years now that the only reason I can still freely travel across the country is because I’m still single.
cowboy
March 26th, 2008 | LINK
It has been my experience with several friends, the hospitals in Salt Lake City that I have visited have afforded us all the graciousness and professionalism any health-care facility should…even going out of their way to personally assist us during stressful medical emergencies. Sometimes simple human decency dictates people act more humanly towards one another rather than rigidly following the dictates of any dogmatic laws. So, I wouldn’t fear being hospitalized in Salt Lake City.
I view this “compromised” verbiage is a step in the right direction and eventually the folly of certain Representatives in our Legislature will be dealt with in this coming November.
Timothy Kincaid
March 26th, 2008 | LINK
cowboy,
I’m not surprised at your experience.
OK, I’m going to display total ignorance here and undoubtedly offend someone – for which I ask forgiveness in advance. But my observations about Mormons and gay issues are that there is a war of basic values going on within the members of the church.
It appears to me that a very important part of being Mormon is being a good citizen, family member, and neighbor. It seems that Mormons hold dear the notion that one must treat others kindly.
But they also have doctrinal issues surrounding notions of marriage that transcend earthy recognition.
This may explain some Mormon legislators (Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Oregon, for example) that are strong supporters of the gay community and in treating gay people decently but balk at recognizing marriage or anything that looks too much like it.
I suspect that in time, if approached correctly, the community could get the LDS Church to be supportive on some non-discrimination issues such as military service and hate crimes out of their drive to be good neighbors and treat people decently. But maybe I’m a dreamer.
Regan DuCasse
March 27th, 2008 | LINK
Great question cooner!
As a matter of fact, to get a marriage license, all you have to do is swear you are not currently married, are of consenting age and not closely related. You have to show picture I.D. to prove you are who you are and a birth certificate.
You still have to submit to a blood test, and if you don’t want to, agree to a confidential marriage license that will take a court order to unseal.
Then you have thirty days from applying for the marriage license to have your ceremony and the license signed by the authority to do so and they have it notarized.
The only time you have to prove your living and financial arrangements as what you do with a DP, is if you are buying property together or adopting children. Or if you are not an American citizen, prove your relationship and the ability to sponsor the foreigner for legal residency and citizenship.
Of course marriage expedites ALL of the above, that a DP basically doesn’t cover at all.
DP’s and CU’s make a mess of family and marriage laws. Marriage doesn’t.
Yes, in fact, you DO have to work a lot harder to get a lot LESS.
cowboy
March 27th, 2008 | LINK
First, I have to say there is a difference in how Utah Mormons behave towards gays as contrasted by those Mormons living in California or Oregon. There is a palpable difference. It may be due to the living in a culture where the dominant religion in a region is so powerful they wield their way over others…in a theocratic way…as opposed to Mormons in the minority living in bigger metropolitan areas.
There is now even a difference in Salt Lake Valley Mormons as opposed to the more rural cities…like Kanab where the city mayor and council made national news about the “natural family ordinance” they enacted.
It was once herding the neighbor’s children inside if I was cutting the lawn shirtless. When their young priesthood deacons come around to collect fast-offerings, they would have an adult with them but only at my house. The attitude of some of my Mormon neighbors is still a bit condescending and I suppose I am still the boogie man on the cul-de-sac.
What is strikingly palpable, for me recently, is how more of my Mormon neighbors are relating with me. From what I understand there is an edict from some pronouncement from their conferences and an article in their publications about how to handle their gay brothers and sisters (brethren).
I once entered a Mormon Ward House at the invitation of my one good neighbor’s son to attend his Mission-Farewell program. I was expecting people to stand at least outside a 10-foot imaginary circle around me but, actually, I temporarily lost feeling in my hand and wrist from all the handshaking! Plus, there were none of the mass murmurings that started at the back of the Chapel and slowly made it to the front when I walked in. And then there was a special moment during Christmas holidays where three smartly dressed men invited me to attend Church and gave me a holiday greeting card.
The rift between Mormons and gays is not going away that fast. But the attitude has changed. The biggest change was the LDS General Authorities’ acknowledgment last year that gays are struggling with something they underestimated. That’s a big step in our negotiations in the war with gays and Mormons.
A Stitch in Haste
March 28th, 2008 | LINK
Questions…
–Who called on the Secretary of Defense to give a speech every year on the state of our schools?
–…
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