News, analysis and fact-checking of anti-gay rhetoric
|
|
Fact Checking the Family "Research" Council Straw Man Argument
FDA to reconsider blood donation ban
Is the Tea Party movement good for gays?
The Lies of Martin Ssempa, Part II
Coalition of Ugandan Catholic, Anglican, Muslim, Other Leaders Unite Against Anti-Gay Bill
The alarmist and misleading new headlines about HIV transmission
Another passenger on board LaBarbera's Wackadoodle Train
Tell GoDaddy To Remove Web Site Advocating Murder of LGBT Kenyans
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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"
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Her fantasy looks something like this:
I can argue why marriage matters for the continuation of civilization. I can tell you about every study that shows without a doubt that children do best with both a mother and a father. But let me cut to the chase: If we don’t win the marriage battle, now on the ballot in California, Florida and Arizona, people who disagree with homosexual behavior will … go to jail. [Ellipses in the original]
© Box Turtle Bulletin. All Rights Reserved.
Posts 
Posts via daily email:
a. mcewen
July 22nd, 2008 | LINK
Every time members of the anti-gay industry talks about those “studies that prove a child does better in a home with a mother and father,” they always omit the fact that the studies never looked at same sex households.
Evan
July 22nd, 2008 | LINK
I’m beginning to wonder if the appropriate response to these mindless twits is to just ignore them.
I mean, more and more of the population “gets it” every day, and the opposition is dying faster than they can perpetuate their morally bankrupt ideas…
Zachary Peters
July 23rd, 2008 | LINK
Interesting comment, especially since it is not that long ago when sodomy laws were abolished.
Michael
July 23rd, 2008 | LINK
Wait, how is this a fantasy? Aren’t we celebrating when bigots like that photographer and that printer get fined? The author of this essay cites several cases that have been discussed here. I know all or most cases involve fines only, but isn’t jail time the inevitable goal we should be pushing for? I thought we were supposed to be happy when Christians get smacked for hate crimes. Now it’s a fantasy?
GDad
July 23rd, 2008 | LINK
It’s not so much that people who “disagree with homosexual behavior” will go to jail. It’s that people who actively discriminate against LGTBQ(etc.) people or who actively seek to harm them will have some kind of legal penalty.
I don’t like actors who take stupid roles, but I don’t think I’m going to jail for refusing to see Talledega Nights. If it ever comes to that, I’ll move elsewhere.
Eric
July 23rd, 2008 | LINK
“Wait, how is this a fantasy? Aren’t we celebrating when bigots like that photographer and that printer get fined? The author of this essay cites several cases that have been discussed here. I know all or most cases involve fines only, but isn’t jail time the inevitable goal we should be pushing for? I thought we were supposed to be happy when Christians get smacked for hate crimes. Now it’s a fantasy?”
Yes. It’s a fantasy. There is a huge difference between being charged with a hate crime, which essentially is an additional charge added to other legal charges; e.g. vandalism that is also a hate crime results in a more severe penalty, and between what this woman is describing.
What she is describing is the Evil Homosexual Menace rounding up the Good Christians who are peaceably voicing their disagreements and throwing them in jail. It’s such nonsense that I can’t really believe that you’re giving that credence.
El Rose
July 23rd, 2008 | LINK
Look. The jail term may be extreme, but I don’t think we can argue that the best place for kids is with their mom and dad.
El Rose
Ben in Oakland
July 23rd, 2008 | LINK
El Rose– I think we can CERTAINLY argue that. ask any kid who has been abused, beaten, thrown out, or born addicted, or born to parents who didn’t want him, or weren’t prepared for him, or have their own emotional issues.
Some people believe that gay people do not procreate. Some have, and some do, when we are not busy adopting and raising the unwanted castoffs of irresponsible heterosexual procreation, many of whom are dying for a home, dying for the love of two parents (of whatever gender), or maybe just dying.
I have a friend who adopted a child with her partner– an unwanted child who would have been raised in poverty and disease, but has been given a chance at a different life with her. M. is now healthy, bright, charming, well behaved, and a joy to be around, instead of merely another piece of 3rd world refuse heading towards an early death because his heterosexual parents neither wanted him nor were prepared to care for him.
Some communities are in fact plagued by children born outside of marriage, born by child mothers to absent fathers, perpetuating cycles of poverty and family breakdown.
Davey Benkof said that lesbians make lousy fathers. My response– a number of FATHERS make lousy fathers.
So, NO, I don’t think we can agree on that
Richard Rush
July 23rd, 2008 | LINK
Ben in Oakland: excellent comments (as always). Whenever I see your comments on a blog I read them carefully, whereas many others I may skim. You always seem able to get to the essence of an issue and express it clearly. Those blogs receiving your comments are very fortunate.
Of course, it helps that I virtually always agree with you.
Just wanted to tell you.
Ben in Oakland
July 23rd, 2008 | LINK
Thank you, Richard. That’s very kind of you.
I think it is VERY important to cut through the bullshit and the unexamined assumptions of our opponents.
I just wish they had the intellectual and moral fibre to do the same.
Jason D
July 23rd, 2008 | LINK
El Rose,
Sorry, but Ben has a point. Just because two people can successfully procreate does not mean they are also the best people suited for the job of raising the kids they produce. Examples include the Jackson Family, The Ramsey’s, Britney Spears. The list can go on for pages.
People often think that being able to give birth somehow magically transforms you into a responsible and mature adult. It does not. Rather than being a contraceptive, stupidity seems to be a combination of a fertility drug & an aphrodisiac.
Is it ideal for a child to be raised by the folks who gave their genetic material? Absolutely! But this is reality. In reality, we have foster homes. In reality we have adoption, because sometimes the birth parents are the LEAST qualified to raise their own kids. Sometimes parents die, abuse, neglect, or outright abandon their own kids.
Ben in Oakland
July 23rd, 2008 | LINK
My two favorites are susan smith, the one who drowned her two children in her car and tried to blame it on an unknown black man, and Andrea yates, who murdered her five children by drowning them. those kids were certainly “better off”, weren’t they?
At least they didn’t try to pin those two on gay people
Leave A Comment