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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Jaft
December 11th, 2008 | LINK
“I don’t have General Powell’s experience in the military, but I think that the present policy is working and should be held in place.”
Um…working in what respect? Was our military in such shambles before DADT was in place?
Lindoro
December 11th, 2008 | LINK
This comment has been deleted due to profanity, in violation of our comments policy. — JB
John
December 11th, 2008 | LINK
Quite frankly General Powell is being less than truthful about his involvement in DADT. He was a very strong voice against equality for gay soldiers. He helped galvanize the forces that led to the enactment of DADT.
Even today, why not just come out and say that it should be overturned, it was a mistake in the first place and I regret my involvement in this act of bigotry against law abiding patriotic gay American soldiers.
I realize that many Americans like to fawn all over General Powell. I really don’t share their enthusiasm, because I always associate him with bigotry.
David
December 12th, 2008 | LINK
Ken Blackwell, with his howdi doodie / Stepford hubby smiling, is helping with the death nail to the Republican Party.
I am putting alot of faith in O’bama to pull our country into reality and out of it’s deluded woo-woo religious meanderings.
I certainly hope he wears a bullet proof vest, at all times.
David
December 12th, 2008 | LINK
or death knell (includes a bell in the background), take your pick.
Willie Hewes
December 13th, 2008 | LINK
“It works.”
How? Why? Why do you say that? What do you base that on? If you don’t have Powell’s experience, what do you have? Works at what?
“It works. I just said so. Didn’t you hear me? It works. Next question.”
Who is this guy?
paul J stein
December 13th, 2008 | LINK
As an OHIO GAY AMERICAN, Ken Blackwell is great news for GAYS. He cost the Republican party a LOT of seats in the State House and National government. He is one of the reasons for President Obama’s election. Ohio voters were moved to come out and NEVER let the bullshit happen again at the polls with Bush The Younger 2 “Presidential Appointments”. I was going to enlist in the Air Force at 17. The question came up “have you ever had any homosexual experiences”. I left it blank. The cute recruiter asked me why I left it blank. I replied that if he was asking on a personal level I would talk it over with him after he was off work and out of uniform. If he was asking as a agent of the US government, not his fucking business. Take me as I am and the talents I have to offer or back the f**k off. They contacted me repeatedly for 6 months to try to get me to lie about it and risk discharge at 19 years and 364 days of service. Makes me wonder what talents and benefits this country has lost/never realized due to this policy.
Ben in Oakland
December 17th, 2008 | LINK
What I find interesting is a comment of Colin Powell’s, something to the effect that gay people can be both patriotic and great soldiers, but nonetheless, could not serve their country. So it’s not about fitness to serve. DADT allows for gay people to serve as long as nobody knows they’re gay. So it’s not about the presence of gay people, or their ability to live with straight people even if those people know, guess, or assume that the gay people are gay. (And I don’t buy for a minute that people don’t try to figure out the sex lives of other people they live and work with).
In short, as we already know, gay people are kicked out of the military for no other reason than that they are gay– not for doing, on average, anything that a typical straight soldier might be kicked out for. It’s not really about gay people at all, but as usual, about how much the very existence of gay people bothers some straight people.
And those straight people (or wanna-be-but-ain’t) are willing to express mail our country to hell in a hand basket to prove their point. Firing scarce Arabic translators because they like dick? That doesn’t make any sense.When the anti-gays are honest, and they often have been, at least inadvertently, they will admit that this statement is true: “I so disapprove of/am wigged out by/hate/dislike/judge moralistically/etc. homosexuals that I could not possibly give up my prejudice, not in the name of tolerance, not in the name of compassion, not in the name of freedom, not in the name of fact and logic and experience and reason—and certainly, not in the name of UNIT COHESION.
Yet, so many people have, both in and out of the military, They find out it just doesn’t matter. It’s not important. I they have a little less negative and a lot more positive in their lives.
It is all about BIAS, and nothing but bias. frankly, I do not find that prejudice, bias, dislike, fear, hatred, stupidity, intolerance, and ignorance, or the insistence that those are good qualities to have, constitute a good basis for social policy, law-making, military preparedness, or anything else that might benefit our country.
I don’t need a study to tell me this. I just need to read a history book. It has not helped our society ever– racial, religious, ethnic, lingual, whatever prejudice is du jour– and this case is NO DIFFERENT. I repeat: Firing scarce Arabic translators because they like dick? Straight soldiers are dying for that reason. It doesn’t make any sense. 25,000 moral waivers to convicted felons, but upstanding talented patriotic gay people need not apply because it is GOING TO MAKE SOME BIGOTED, INSECURE IMMATURE, FEAR RIDDEN STRAIGHT BOY UPSET????!!!!
Who exactly is causing the problem?
The unit cohesion argument is just another version of Stanley Kurtz’s lame argument that if gay people are allowed to marry, straight people stop having babies, or some such nonsense. The argument shifts subtly and suddenly from gay people getting married to how straight people feel about that. what’s interesting to me is that in both cases, straight people act very badly (they stop having babies or can no longer fulfill their mission because they can’t get over themselves), and gay people get blamed for it, and must pay the price.
I think this is a very accurate description of the situation.soldiers die, our country suffers, George bush gets elected, talent is lost, time, energy and money are wasted that could be devoted to making our world and country better,and all in service to a prejudice.
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