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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Uh-oh. San Diego’s Christianist gadfly James Hartline is hearing God’s voice again:
Priya Lynn
November 17th, 2008 | LINK
Hartline’s not the only one to suggest the California fires are his god’s punishment for gays. What’s illogical about that is that the fires don’t solely punish gays but also disproportionately hurt those who oppose gays. You’d think it would occur to the Hartlines of the U.S. that if their god wanted to discourage gayness he wouldn’t be punishing those who feel the same way.
R Holmes
November 17th, 2008 | LINK
Dang, and there I was thinking God was punishing Califoprnians for passing Prop 8. It’s just as plausible i.e. not in the frickin’ slightest.
Do these morons actually believe the crap they spout?
TJ McFisty
November 17th, 2008 | LINK
Why doesn’t God just immolate the gays and the gays alone if He’s so damn upset? The landscape/environment didn’t do anything so why punish it?
Oh, right, that whole mysterious ways thing. Mysterious AND inefficient. Great, just great.
Why should we convert if the reward is a horribly mis-managed heaven? Doesn’t make sense at all.
Jim Burroway
November 17th, 2008 | LINK
Mysterious AND inefficient.
Great. Now you’re comparing God to FEMA.
Timothy Kincaid
November 17th, 2008 | LINK
When God punished nations in the Old Testament, it was for choosing evil over good.
Clearly, CLEARLY, God’s angry that California voted “Yes” on Proposition 8. He’s hearing the cry of the oppressed gay community and raining down fire on their oppressors.
…. or its the usual situation of folks building very expensive homes in narrow canyons and not clearing the brush.
TJ McFisty
November 17th, 2008 | LINK
Naw, a God’s more like a reverse NOAA.
B. John
November 17th, 2008 | LINK
Actually, the wildfires were burning BEFORE Saturday (the day of the protests). So, it seems to me the fires started as a result of the passage of Prop. 8.
I don’t claim to be a prophet, but I’m just saying….
Louie
November 17th, 2008 | LINK
These prophets of doom and gloom blaming natural disasters on the gays are so full of baloney!
Just imagine if Prop. 8 had failed and same-gender marriage was still legal in California. These prophets would be saying that God was punishing California with hell fire for NOT passing Prop. 8!
Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
According to these prophets, we’re all just damned!
Strange though. You would think that God would spare California since they did PASS Prop. 8 and stop same-gender marriages.
Yet, in Connecticut they started perfoming same-sex marriages on November 12th and I haven’t read anything in the news about anything devastating happening there.
Oh and also there’s Massachusetts. Today is the 5th anniversary of marriage equality being enacted in the Bay State and 11,000 same-gender marriages later all the news can report is how boring same-sex marriages really are.
Louie
November 17th, 2008 | LINK
Actually, I’m with Kincaid on this one.
Yes, GOD is angry and he is PUNISHING the people of California because they PASSED Proposition 8!!!
And he’s raining down hell fire on all those people’s houses that voted “Yes” on Prop. 8!
But, if some of those burned houses belong to gay people it’s only because God is so old and he just has poor aim.
elaygee
November 17th, 2008 | LINK
The rich folks who voted against Prop 8 have lots of insurance and money and will rebuild what was only their 2nd, 3rd or 4th homes. The trailer/hill folks who lost it all and voted in droves for Prop 8 are toast, quite literally. Who got god’s wrath? The pro people.
Louie
November 17th, 2008 | LINK
Let’s not forget all of those that donated what may have amounted to their “life savings” to Yes on 8 and now they don’t have the money to pay the insurance deductibles or rebuild their lives.
See, how almighty God has punished those with bigotry, prejudice and discrimination in their hearts!
The Supremes better strike down Prop. 8 pronto, otherwise God will make toast of the coast!
Alex
November 17th, 2008 | LINK
I’d rather be the godless, hell-bound, immoral homosexual these Christians say I am than sell my soul to the church and believe their fanatical nonsense.
David C.
November 17th, 2008 | LINK
This is the perfect opportunity to expose such crackpots. They can’t even get cause and effect straight. These shrill Pharisees are quite likely going to stoke up the movement to stop the damage religion has been doing to the human race for the last 5000 or so years. At least, I hope so.
I just wish that when Christianity had the chance, it would have corrected the mistake of anthropomorphizing and imbuing God with all the human weaknesses we’re lugging around in our excess baggage. Of course, the Catholic Church had to come along to cement their hierarchy squarely between Man and God, and throw back to the Cults of Yahweh, dragging the old testament along with, and into, their Good News. Probably a politically motivated move on their part, not wanting to alienate all those readers of the Torah.
Some people can’t get it right even with a third try I suppose.
PDQ
November 17th, 2008 | LINK
If God were pissed at the gays then West Hollywood and Silver Lake would be on fire.
What did James Hartline have to say about the reason for last year’s Poway fires? What was God pissed about then? Days earlier Blackwater had announced plans to build a training facility in Portrero, east of San Diego – was that it? What? The two cities are over 50 miles apart? Damn!
Hartline’s a fool who wants air time and exposure for his lunatic fringe rants.
David
November 17th, 2008 | LINK
Sounds like just one more fictional Bible story to add to the heap. Soon the church be publishing its updated gospel books, one titled The Mos get Marriage. And of course God will have told them it’s alright cuz, well, it’s a new millenium now, or some such dippity drivvle.
Tim
November 17th, 2008 | LINK
So…when God gets mad at us gay folk, he rains fire down on Orange County and the Inland Empire? I LIKE IT!
Angela
November 18th, 2008 | LINK
Oh Hell, and here I was thinking that the fires were caused by dry and hot weather, dry brush, and high winds.
What a dumb ass am I?
Alas, a blog » Blog Archive » A Godless Society Is A Happy Society
November 21st, 2008 | LINK
[...] this going on now, as some fundamentalist Christians are saying that wildfires in California are God’s judgment on fags. And it simply isn’t true. If God punishes societies that violate his commandments and [...]
Louie
November 29th, 2008 | LINK
Well, now it looks like not only fires are raining down from an angry god over how badly his LGBT children are being treated in the Golden State.
Now it seems that even Arkansas is facing the wrath of an angry god! Recall that voters in Arkansas recently passed Act 1, which restricts adoption and fostering only to married couples. Since gays cannot marry, they now cannot adopt or foster in Arkansas. This also affects single straight people as well, of course. But, everyone knows that it was the gays that were specifically targeted by the backers of Act 1.
Now, I read this latest news from Arkansas:
Expert: Small Ark. earthquakes could be warning
God is very displeased with how the gays are being treated in our country. The extreme religious right wing should recognize this and undo all the damage that they have done and give LGBT people equal “civil” rights before more damage is done.
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