Blogswarm: Call Nancy Pelosi, Demand ENDA's Passage
Gays Excluded From Some Clinical Trials
San Diego candidate learns not to buddy up to ex-gay gadfly James Hartline
New military survey on DADT
Episcopal Church approves lesbian bishop
Catholic Church continues to have predatory priest problems
NOM funds DC Candidate with questionable ethics
Thursday's testimony to include pro- and anti-DADT former soldiers
Featured Reports
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 two hundred 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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Steve - Geneva, IL
May 4th, 2008 | LINK
I got to the point, where like you, I thought I had figured out the reasons why I was gay. It was easy to find fault with my dad because nobody’s perfect and then point to that as the reason. The counselor was all too eager to concur with me with that every fault my dad had was a contributing factor. Like you I also became convinced that my attractions were toward the things I never had myself.
Whether those were truly the reason’s I was gay or not (I tend to think not at this point), it was easy take the feeling of success that came from thinking I had “figured it all out” and believe it was success that I was becoming straight. I was married and a father and wanted desperately to be straight.
I’d have to say that even though I said was becoming straight and maybe at some level on the surface I believed it (or wanted to so badly), I always knew in my heart that I was not becoming straight.
I think that is where a large number of the ex-gay “success stories” are at. Especially the leadership. They are in positions where they feel they have no alternative but to be straight so at some level they believe it, but at a deeper level they know its not true. But acknowledging the truth could ruin the lives they have created for themselves and possibly hurt others as well such as wives and children.
How much easier it would be for all of us if we could just grow up in a world where it was ok to be gay from the beginning. How many more gay men and women have to suffer because of what they bury? Because of the guilt they carry for something that they should not feel guilty about. How many more spouses and children need to be victims of marriages that were never meant to be and divorce?
It sickens me that this is all in the name of “family values”.
queerunity
May 4th, 2008 | LINK
thanks for sharing your story, it certainly resonates with me as i used to take the blue moon opposite sex attraction and magnify it.
Regan DuCasse
May 5th, 2008 | LINK
I applaud all of you who have done so much introspection, who have spent so much time actually trying to please the dominant culture, rather than yourselves. I think most of all, I resent how frivolously and callously the hetero world decides for you what’s best for you, and then won’t admit how wrong it is or how much damage it’s caused.
I’m always so aghast at the arrogance of challenging what a gay person knows about and for themselves that heteros engage in.
And I think, worst of all, using God as a rationale (not justification) for the entire attitude.
Heteros don’t engage in so much introspection or consideration that it is THEY who is wrong. Well, some do.
Sometimes it takes a tragedy to get to such an epiphany.
But why it’s harder than pulling a tree from the ground, I have no idea.
I’m not so sure why I myself would rather sit and listen to a gay person and let THEM teach ME and let a gay person speak their own truth.
Maybe it’s just good manners.
I’ve lost patience long ago with the hard headed and hearted tenacity with which some people feel they are holding on to their moral values.
I can say in all honesty, that I’m witnessing more a love of CONTROL, and only on who and what they are still able to demand it.
I know that love is a higher law and I know when one wants control of gay people and when they truly love them.
I admire the patience of gay folks, I really do. I still try to be diplomatic, but it’s NOT an easy thing.
Jim, Daniel…thank you so much for this blog!
zrainswva
May 7th, 2008 | LINK
It’s interesting to me that so little is said about the other consequence of societal pressure on gays to be ‘normal’, i.e. the number of persons who actually remain closeted, marry, and have children. Many–and I know from personal experience that the number must be large, though I’ve never seen statistics–of them continue to ‘dabble’ in homosexual activities while married, and anguish (probably continually) over their ‘deviant’ behaviour and the great lie they live very day. Been there, done that.
Horrible for the person. Horrible for the spouse. Horrible for the children. Is this really what ‘they’ really want?
Much better, in my humble opinion, to be true to oneself, because otherwise you cannot be true to anyone else. Not even God. And the great lie becomes compulsive and the spiritual torment unbearable.
I am _so_ thankful I finally developed the resolve to be true to myself, regardless of potential (and real) societal condemnation and scorn.
Free! I am free at last!
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