The Daily Agenda for Sunday, May 19
French President Hollande Signs Marriage Bill
The Daily Agenda for Saturday, May 18
Fox News Ignores Marriage Equality Wins
The Era of Civil Unions Is Coming To An End
Orthodox Priests Lead Violent Attack On LGBT Rights Rally in Tbilisi, Georgia
France's Marriage Equality Bill Clears Final Hurdle
The Daily Agenda for Friday, May 17
Featured Reports
What Are Little Boys Made Of?
In this original BTB Investigation, we unveil the tragic story of Kirk Murphy, a four-year-old boy who was treated for “cross-gender disturbance” in 1970 by a young grad student by the name of George Rekers. This story is a stark reminder that there are severe and damaging consequences when therapists try to ensure that boys will be boys.
Slouching Towards Kampala: Uganda’s Deadly Embrace of Hate
When we first reported on three American anti-gay activists traveling to Kampala for a three-day conference, we had no idea that it would be the first report of a long string of events leading to a proposal to institute the death penalty for LGBT people. But that is exactly what happened. In this report, we review our collection of more than 500 posts to tell the story of one nation’s embrace of hatred toward gay people. This report will be updated continuously as events continue to unfold. Check here for the latest updates.
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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One thing you can say about Oklahoma State Rep. Sally Kern is this: She doesn’t give up. And the more she talks, the more she embarrasses herself and the good citizens of Oklahoma’s District 84. Today, the Bethany Tribune published a letter to the editor (A permanent copy is available here as PDF.) Kern’s letter contains the usual misinformation from the usual sources.
Sally Kern will reach for anything to demonize gay and lesbian citizens of her district and beyond, including the rantings of a Nazi sympathizer and holocaust revisionist. We first awarded Kern the LaBarbera Award for her outrageous fear-mongering comments, saying that gays were “the biggest threat our nation has, even more so than terrorism or Islam.” As a Certified Cameronite, Kern has completed her own evolution to the lowest depths of extremist rhetoric. She now joins the ranks of so many others who care neither for the truth, ethics, or simple human decency in their zeal to render LGBT citizens as second class — or worse.
David
March 29th, 2008 | LINK
This is surprising? Her letter contains this sentence: “Homosexuals are already citizens who have equal rights. They want “special rights” for the acceptance of their deviant lifestyle.”
Speaking of studies, I’m still waiting for her to tell us just what studies reveal that any society that embraces homosexuality is doomed to disappear within a few decades.
Timothy Kincaid
March 29th, 2008 | LINK
Oh me too, Mrs. Kern. I’m very very thankful.
I live in California.
grantdale
March 29th, 2008 | LINK
Puke. Plainly a reprobate.
Here’s the cautions that Statistics Canada gives around the “twice as violent” data:
1. Readers are cautioned that the results of the survey describe rates of violence committed against those who self-identified themselves as gay/lesbian, but does not distinguish the sexual orientation of the perpetrator of the violence.
2. Use with caution, coefficient of variation is high (16.6% to 33.3%).
But, hey, when you’re on a mission… throw all caution to the wind.
Notably missing, this that preceded … “1% of victims indicated that they were gay or lesbian”.
Just 1% — hey, there’s more of us than that! This alone implies we either are not, or at least don’t report, a rate of partner violence in proportion to our actual numbers. Oh. Damn.
(In other comment, Statistics Canada noted that 2.5% of a data-set of police reports involved a same-sex couple.)
Which sounds to me … it’s about the same, overall. Or perhaps less, if a behavorally homosexual figure of 5+% is used. Self-report and under-report presents major difficulties, as always.
The American College of Pediatricians, who she also quotes, is of course a fake : or, as PFLAG puts it, a “small splinter group of medical professionals who do not support the mainstream view of the American Academy of Pediatricians (AAP) that homosexuality is a normal aspect of human diversity.”
I missed any mention about us kidnapping babies for use in secret blood ceremonies.
Oh, sorry: I think that one’s about Jews.
grantdale
March 29th, 2008 | LINK
Sorry Jim, bad me. It would help if I pointed people to the reports by Statistics Canada wouldn’t it…
Look for:
85-224-XIE
and
85-570-XIE
There’s actually quite a few more, but those about sum it up.
cooner
March 29th, 2008 | LINK
“Homosexuals are already citizens who have equal rights. They want “special rights” for the acceptance of their deviant lifestyle.” -Sally Kern
I always hate the ‘special rights’ argument. Hate crime laws are used to defend anybody. As far as marriage, the whole “You have the equal right to marry, as long as it’s someone of the opposite sex” is ludicrous, as well … We don’t do arranged marriages in America. Part of the right to marry is the right to marry the person you choose to spend your life with. How would Ms. Kern have liked it if she were told she were free to marry anyone from THIS HALF of the male population, and her husband (who she presumably loves) was unfortunately placed on the opposite side?
My father used to parrot all the right-wing talk about ‘special rights’ all the time. Ever since I came out to both my parents, it’s something he’s come to feel deeply pained and ashamed of, now that he sees things from a slightly different perspective.
Joel
March 29th, 2008 | LINK
Homosexuals insist they are born gay, yet a study by Dr. Neil Whitehead and Briar
Whitehead on various cultures states: “If homosexuality were influenced by genes,
it would appear in every culture, but in 29 of 79 cultures surveyed in 1952,
homosexuality was rare or absent.”
how accurate is this? If this is true as she states than that is more than conclusive proof that homosexuals are environmentally developed, and the homosexual agenda(or pro-gays) are to blame.
Neil H
March 30th, 2008 | LINK
Homosexuals insist they are born gay, yet a study by Dr. Neil Whitehead and Briar
Whitehead on various cultures states: “If homosexuality were influenced by genes,
it would appear in every culture, but in 29 of 79 cultures surveyed in 1952,
homosexuality was rare or absent.”
how accurate is this?
Well, the first lie is that this statistic is from a “a study by Dr. Neil Whitehead and Briar Whitehead on various cultures”. But Cameronites are famously bad at doing proper scientific attribution, and when they do attribute properly they usually misrepresent what they’re attributing, so that lie should not be surprising.
The real story is this: Whitehead and Whitehead released a book called “My Genes made me do it a scientific look at Sexual Orientation”, available for free download here. A quick look through their material seems to indicate a position aimed at refuting the existing evidence pointing to links between genetics and homosexuality. Their more recent updates seem aimed at refuting the links between non-genetic biological processes and homosexuality as well.
The survey that Kern wrongly attributes to them is actually a reference to another study in chapter six: a book by CS Ford and FA Beach called “Patterns of Sexual Behaviour” (too old to be easily available, alas: it was published in 1952).
Whitehead and Whitehead are intellectually honest enough to admit the obvious flaws in relying on external observers like cultural anthropologists for details about private, internal behaviours like sexual acts, so this is hardly “more than conclusive proof” of anything. Unfortunately they neglect to mention that they’re only referring to findings about incidence of same-sex sexual behaviour, and make the all-too-common mistake of equating same-sex sexual behaviour with same-sex attraction. They are not the same thing, and this simple mistake pervades everything I’ve read so far in Whitehead and Whitehead’s book.
If this is true as she states than that is more than conclusive proof that homosexuals are environmentally developed, and the homosexual agenda(or pro-gays) are to blame.
Funnily enough, Whitehead and Whitehead point out also that there are societies in which there are no taboos against homosexual behaviour discovered but in which homosexual behaviour was not observed by anthropologists or missionaries. What does that say about claims that the “homosexual agenda” is to “blame” for the incidence of homosexuality in the West? What does it say about the general reliability of Whitehead and Whitehead?
Stefano
March 30th, 2008 | LINK
In addition to her references to bogus studies and distortions of legitimate ones, I find her entire thought processes extremely troubling coming from a legislator. So! She would like for any employer or employee to be able to express their most hateful or bigotted opinions in the work place, including the right to, evidently, only associate with people of whom she approves? Hmmmmmm?!? This begs the question(s): “Sally! Does this extend to the Aryan Brotherhood? Are you also in favor of them NOT checking their “rights to freedom of religion, speech, and association at the workplace door”???!!!!
As an aside, I always find it laughable when people like Kern speak of “special rights”. I mean, come on… who exactly is seeking “special rights”? Us or those who: (1)have written into law the right to marry as being their personal exclusive right; (2) who is lobbying for preferential treatment to be given to their singular sectarian and denominational beliefs to the exclusion of all others, etc.?
She’s a real piece of work.
Jason D
March 30th, 2008 | LINK
“You have the equal right to marry, as long as it’s someone of the opposite sex”
I’ve always handled that one with a simple analogy:
Telling a gay man he can marry any woman he wants is like telling a man in a wheelchair he can use any staircase he wants.
It is technically possible that a man in a wheelchair could use the handrail to pull himself and his chair up a staircase. It is technically possible he could simply leave the chair at the bottom, climbing up the stairs using his hands and elbows.
Sure, it’s technically possible that I could marry a woman: but the question is, why should I have to? Why should she have to? We have escalators that allow people who have a different way of moving around to get where they need to go.
Ben in Oakland
March 30th, 2008 | LINK
Joel; more important, this “study” (actually a survey– a world of difference) was conducted in 1952– NINETEEN FIFTY TWO.
A vastly different world– one which you oculd be killed, jailed, or committed for this crime against nature not to be named among Christians.
I always wonder how this kind of inteelectual and moral dishonesty allows these homobigots to sleep at night.
Emproph
March 30th, 2008 | LINK
Excellent report Neil H. I started to look that up earlier and got distracted. I didn’t even realize it was from the actual book “My Genes Made Me Do It!,” which I own – and bought specifically because I kept seeing it recommended by the anti-gay sites. I don’t think I’ve picked it up since I got it, but fortunately when I did, I made sure to go through it for Cameron citations. Four of them, BY NAME, and it’s © 1999, so credibility obviously descends from there.
P.S. Ben, that was my first thought too, they didn’t even have cell phones back then let alone the internet (among an infinite number of other significant variables) – how relevant a study could it be? -On TOP of the appeal to tradition!
grantdale
March 30th, 2008 | LINK
Ford and Beach’s book has an extra dimension to it that is often not mentioned.
To start with the data itself… Ford and Beach didn’t go visit 79 individual cultures around the World with a clipboard and reel-to-reel recorder. Instead, they raided the archives at Yale (?).
Some of these cultural studies did not make mention of homosexuality — doesn’t mean it didn’t exist or occur, obviously; but the studies were silent on the subject, or noted the topic had not been covered etc. (we are talking pre-1951 here, when such reticence was not uncommon). Some of these cultural studies were rather old, even then.
But what they did find was that (at least) 49 of these cultures are recorded as viewing homosexuality as an entirely normal sexuality. One that was accepted, even lauded by some.
Now… the interesting bit… in 1952 homosexuality was also first declared a mental illness in the DSM 1.
Declared so by (essentially) white American psychoanalysts drawing on the older and negative views of white European psychoanalysts.
As Ford and Beach too obviously displayed — this was a wrong declaration, hide-bound in its own culture and prejudice; and ultimately reflecting social mores rather than science and research.
If most of the cultures did not view homosexuality as a pathological state… why did 1952 America?
It took 21 years for that error to begin to be corrected, even though it was plainly a flawed and narrowly-based opinion right from the start.
Personally I rate Ford and Beach as at least as significant as Kinsey and Hooker, in terms of the bombshell it contains. It was ignored by medical professionals because… Ford and Beach were anthropologists.
Brady
March 31st, 2008 | LINK
I’m hoping someone is planning to write a response to the Bethany Tribune. Is anyone here planning on doing that?
Timothy Kincaid
March 31st, 2008 | LINK
“…in 29 of 79 cultures surveyed in 1952, homosexuality was rare or absent.”
That could have included the United States in 1952. Heck, if you were writing about the culture in Iowa today you would find hmosexaulity to be “rare”.
gordo
March 31st, 2008 | LINK
“if you were writing about the culture in Iowa today you would find hmosexaulity to be “rare”.”
That is so not true. There a lot of gay life in Iowa and not just the larger cities.
Timothy Kincaid
March 31st, 2008 | LINK
Iowa has about 3 million residents.
Gaybars.com lists 15 gars in the state. Gaychurches.org lists one predominantly gay church with 65 others that are welcoming. My roommate went to college in Iowa and found his campus to be a welcoming and sheltering oasis in a sea of clueless heterosexuality.
I am absolutely certain that Iowa is a lovely place filled with wonderful people. And I mean no insult to the great state or her people.
But I suspect that any anthropologist that were looking at the culture of Iowans would find homosexuality to be decidedly rare – or at least not a significant part of the dominant culture. Such an anthropologist would probably have to seek out such activity.
That being said, that Iowa has a thriving gay community proves my point . So too did probably some of the 29 cultures in which there was no reference to homosexuality.
Just cuz it ain’t visible up front don’t mean it ain’t there.
Ex-Gay Watch Digest: April 2, 2008 | Ex-Gay Watch
April 2nd, 2008 | LINK
[...] Sally Kern cites Paul Cameron and Exodus affiliated ministry director attends a “Sally Rally” in OKC. [...]
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