Iowans couldn't care less about gay marriage
A Personal Note
Military Times poll shows sharp decline in support for DADT
Today's Question
Our condolences to the Burke family
"Family" Leader Reportedly Confirms Opposition to Uganda's Anti-Gay BIll
Ollie North: Repeal DADT and What's Next? NAMBLA and Same-Sex Marriage
Michigan Christians sue because the Matthew Shepherd Act restricts their rights. They must want to violently attack gay people
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.
quo III
June 16th, 2008 | LINK
What was the source of this information? There doesn’t seem to be a link in this post.
Timothy Kincaid
June 16th, 2008 | LINK
Sorry. Fixed now.
Drowssap
June 17th, 2008 | LINK
That study is a landmark!
A) The studied brain differences aren’t the result of learned behavior. That’s huge!
B) According to the scientists involved these brain differences don’t appear to be the result of genetics. That’s huge!
C) The other Swedish study from yesterday suggests that SSA is 61% to 66% environment. Once again HUGE!
D) WOW!
Yesterday was seismic for people on every side of the scientific debate.
Drowssap
June 17th, 2008 | LINK
Then again things might work out like this Churchill quote…
“Man will occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of the time he will pick himself up and continue on.”
I fear by next week Narth will post a special article on how SSA is the result of faulty parenting and various LGBT sites will post threads that focus on Bailey’s 1991 twin study.
Great Zeus! I fear some things will never change.
quo III
June 17th, 2008 | LINK
I note that there was no comment in that New Scientist article about whether the differences that study found were absolute or simply averages.
quo III
June 17th, 2008 | LINK
Just the way that article is written makes me scornful. The opening sentence is: ‘Brain scans have provided the most compelling evidence yet that being gay or straight is a biologically fixed trait.’
Really, if there’s already ‘compelling’ evidence that being gay or straight is a biologically fixed trait, what was the point of this study?
Ephilei
June 17th, 2008 | LINK
I’m always critical of supposed landmark studies until they’re accepted at large. in this case, what area of the brain did they study and why do they think this area doesn’t change over time? Notice the use of “LIKELY to be fixed at birth.” The study mentions symetry of the size of the hemispheres, but common sense would say that does change. Just compare the head size of an infant and an adult.
Good news is that if this is accurate, they’ll be no selectively aborting gays since i dont know how to perform an MRI in utero.
Drowssap
June 17th, 2008 | LINK
Ephilei
I read the section a couple times and the scientists made it clear that they DO NOT know if the brain changes are set in motion before or after birth.
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Sex difference in brain size has been shown to be present at birth (48), and some volumetric data suggest that sex differences in hemispheric asymmetry exist already in the human fetus (49, 50), although other studies failed to detect them (51, 52). Adult patterns of cerebral asymmetry (53), as well some features of regional sexual dimorphism, are detected already in children (54). Cerebral maturation continues, however, after puberty, especially in boys (31), providing a substrate for effects of social/environmental factors. However, to attribute such effects to the present results would require a detailed comprehension of how specific environmental factors relate to the four groups investigated, and how they affect various cerebral circuits. In the light of currently available information this can only be speculative.
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