The Daily Agenda for Friday, May 24
Boy Scouts of America Votes To Allow Gay Members, Retains Ban On Gay Leaders
Nevada House votes to reverse marriage ban
The Daily Agenda for Thursday, May 23
It's Not the Principle, It's the Prejudice
Congratulations Mitch!
Gay Couples Excluded from Immigration Bill Markup
How To Spot A Swivel-Eyed Loon
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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Emily K
August 10th, 2008 | LINK
This whole thing reads like bad comedy and worse theology.
Stefano A
August 10th, 2008 | LINK
As a Sinn Fein member of the Northern Ireland Assembly has suggested about Iris Robinson, and County Assessor Leonard Sullivan said about Oklahoma Commissioner Brent Rinehart . . .
Narc
August 10th, 2008 | LINK
And there we have it. I’ve long thought that the objection to gays is really an objection to what they see as a rejection of masculinity. Gay sex makes a man feminine, and that’s bad. It also goes a long way to explaining why these sorts of people fixate on gay men and largely ignore lesbians.
Emily K
August 10th, 2008 | LINK
Narc, they fixate on gay men and not lesbians because that’s who they find threatening. Lesbians are not threatening because 1) we are “only” women 2) when two hot girls have sex it gets them off 3) two women who are attracted to each other has no bearing on the fact that any particular homophobe might secretly have even the slightest attraction to other men.
Men are obsessed with gay men, but more importantly, they are obsessed with the “bottoms.” Being “passive” makes one womanly. Women = less then men, so man::womanly = man::defective
Honestly, scratch an anti-gay, and you’ll get an anti-feminist.
neil h
August 11th, 2008 | LINK
What about all of the straight people (or should that be ‘heterosexualists’?) who read, enjoy and comment on BTB?
John
August 11th, 2008 | LINK
Interesting argument by Gagnon. Certainly there are numerous examples of uses by NT authors of the Septuagint in their writings. It appears to have been referenced by them, not without changes in some cases of course, far more than the Masoretic Text in composing the NT. Yet there is also their use of the Samaritan Text and others nobody has been able to identify. I must say though that I find his line of argumentation to be amusing since many Protestants I know of balk when Catholics refer to possible allusions from the LXX that come from books the Reformation rejected. In discussions of the Biblical Canon it seems, suddenly these allusions become unimportant. Yet somehow we are supposed to draw upon them in making a case about sexuality. Curious that.
John
August 11th, 2008 | LINK
Oops! Sorry, I garbled that a bit. My point was that I find it ironic that Gagnon would rely so heavily upon highly speculative “allusions” in Matthew 7:6 to Deuteronomy concerning sexuality, when his co-religionists balk at this line of reasoning when it comes to Biblical Canon. As far as his claim that the Roman Centurion was a Jewish official and the servant was his son, his is a distinctly minority opinion – regardless of whether one sees a homosexual relationship between the Centurion and servant, or not.
Garrett O'Neal
August 11th, 2008 | LINK
Narc & Emily K,
I’ve always had the question, why? Why are the anti-gays arguing homosexuality to the death? I know now. It makes so much sense. I laughed in disgust when I thought about where the Ex- and Anti-Gays’ comments/arguments are rooted…their view of “passive/receptive” men. How sad! It’s as if they are using the Bible to justify an obsession of their masculinity.
Ben in Oakland
August 11th, 2008 | LINK
I’m glad he thinks of my butt as ‘pearls’– though pearls of great price might be stretching it a bit.
Oh, i’m confused. I thought he was totally aginst it. i’ll have to ask my fiance (one week from today!!! yay!!!)
Pete
August 11th, 2008 | LINK
The word “homosexual” already has enough syllables. Why did this guy have to add another one? Also, it should be noted that his obsession with the gay issue makes me wonder if he is even a “heterosexualist”.
SharonB
August 11th, 2008 | LINK
This (chauvinism) also explains why the ADF has such a jihad against the transgendered. …And then typically spend so little time on the FtM’s.
homer
August 11th, 2008 | LINK
I don’t a single straight man who obsesses obsessively about gay sex. All of my straight male friends are mildly curious about the mechanics, but could care less about whether guys are actually doing it.
Jake
August 11th, 2008 | LINK
So it’s okay to top?
Lynn David
August 11th, 2008 | LINK
Self-described holy ones? I thought qedeshim did mean holy ones in the languages of the Hebrews/Canaanites, in whose temples they were housed (and not sodomite as translated in 1Kings by the KJV and others). Just as the town of Kadesh (Qedesh) meant holy place. It sounds as if Gagnon doesn’t even care to give the Hebrew or Canaanite languages their proper due.
Uh…. Ben in Oakland, the [sacred] pearls would be another man’s semen… the butt in question would be that of a dog/swine. I remember getting this attitude from Gagnon when I read his work sometime back. Anyone who thinks… or desires to think that way has some serious problems/issues/whatever….
And Jake, in the old days of the Biblical lands it was OK to top, though not based upon the Hebrew’s Levitical laws, there both are condemned. And in much of Middle Eastern cultures tops are not considered to be homosexual (which is much as it was with the generally bottom qedeshim in the Canaanite temples). In the bronze age topping was something you did to a defeated foe on the battlefield, if he plead for his life. I guess if the top had a god orgasm, the defeated foe (bottom) could get himself away from the topper (or cut his head off with a discarded sword). Oh well….
Lynn David
August 12th, 2008 | LINK
YIKES! That was supposed to be “good orgasm,” not “god orgasm.” Sorry. I can’t imagine what that would be…. no, really I can’t, I’m an atheist.
Ben in Oakland
August 12th, 2008 | LINK
Lynn David– sounds like some sort of freudian slip to ME!!!
I’ve just informed my husband that Gagnon’s ignorance knows no bounds, and than in fact my pearls are just melons. He said “Typical for those fundamentalists. They can’t get ANYTHING um, aahhh, straight. But at least you’re not a dog or a swine, except when it comes to hte kitchen floor.”
aahh, the gay marriage agenda. Infecting even something as normal and natural as housework.
When will we be free?
Richard Rush
August 12th, 2008 | LINK
Another reason that lesbians may be largely ignored by the anti-gay crowd is that a substantial percentage of straight men are actually titillated by the thought of lesbian action. Lesbian sex scenes are common in straight porn.
revtj
August 13th, 2008 | LINK
Presbyterian homophobia is so complex. It’s more than the usual, “God told me to hate you,” but adds an unchangeable veneer of, “it was pre-ordained that I hate you before time began,” thus judging gays becomes a fulfillment and not a departure from Jesus’ teaching. It is no wonder the denomination has argued this issue for nearly 30 years and made virtually no progress at all. It is comforting to know that well over 50% of the layfolks are sick of the issue, would happily welcome gay people to their congregations, and see their leadership as being strangely obsessed with this issue. Is there something in our reptile brain that makes us want to use the bottom and then blame him? I think so.
revtj
August 13th, 2008 | LINK
PS : My reading of the gospels indicates Jesus was a true submissive. But calling him a “power bottom” is probably a little anachronistic.
Truth* Academy Instructor Series: Robert Gagnon | Asterisk
March 4th, 2011 | LINK
[...] in 2008 in an article directed at Timothy Kincaid of Box Turtle Bulletin. He said… Well, I’ll let Kincaid tell you. You may have heard of Matthew 7:1-6. You may even have thought it was about acceptance and [...]
About Robert Gagnon Rebuking Exodus | RandyThomas.Co
July 6th, 2012 | LINK
[...] at least, he is much more interested in the gospel of stigmatization. He likes to call gay people homosexualists and believes homosexuality is in fact a worse sin than other sins. He also does not believe [...]
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