Ex-Gay Ministry Admits Sexual Abuse; Grateful At Not Being Found Out
Lt. Daniel Choi Arrested In DADT Protest At White House
Another Baptist church not anti-gay enough for Texas
Dutch military disagrees with Sheehan's revision of the Srebrenica massacre
Sheehan blames Bosnian massacre on gay Dutch soldiers
Kathy Griffin Calls for DADT Repeal in D.C.
Ugandan LGBT Activist To Tour Eastern US
Blogswarm: Call Nancy Pelosi, Demand ENDA's Passage
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.
News, analysis and fact-checking of anti-gay rhetoric
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Carol
December 16th, 2008 | LINK
I saw Huckabee on John Stewart give the same runaround last week. He insists he wants to “preserve a 5000-year tradition…” What the right-wingers don’t want to say is that they can’t stand the thought of gay people expressing themselves (sexually), but that would sound too mean or morally judgmental. So they cloak it in sound-bites that have circular logic. For example they also say that gay people should not have sex because they aren’t married. But they don’t want them to get married because that “goes against a 5000-year-old tradition.”
Matt Algren
December 16th, 2008 | LINK
But even beyond what Carol said (and she’s quite right), THE DEFINITION OF MARRIAGE HAS NOT BEEN CONSTANT FOR 5,000 YEARS.
For goodness sake, it hasn’t even been constant for the past 50 years!
Lynn David
December 17th, 2008 | LINK
Gee…. there might be a 10,000+ year tradition of marriage between persons of the same gender in America. Let’s preserve that!
werdna
December 17th, 2008 | LINK
Jim-I think you probably meant to write “why he supported California’s Prop 8.”
As the the substance of what Warren says in that video… ugh, what a frickin’ dishonest and patronizing creep. On the other hand, watching the interviewing toady work his way through his repertoire of sycophantic faces was kind of amusing.
Patrick
December 17th, 2008 | LINK
I’ve come to realize that many evangelical leaders are more than happy to mislead, deceive, and perhaps even lie when it comes to homosexuality. They simply won’t deal with the subject honestly.
And same-sex marriage has existed in cultures throughout the world for as long as we can tell. The 5000 yr old institution stuff is nonsense. The gay community needs to educate itself on the facts so we can publicly show the country how misinformed (or deceitful) the anti-gays are.
homer
December 17th, 2008 | LINK
Rev. Warren is a liar. I was taught by my mother not to lie and I don’t. It is too bad that the fundamentalists who pushed for passage of Prop 8 didn’t have a similar upbringing.
The Lauderdale
December 17th, 2008 | LINK
RE: Patrick,
Same-sex unions have certainly existed across cultures and time periods, with varying degrees of legal, formal and ritual recognition. Examples of same-sex marriage (at least prior to the current century) seem sparser in the literature, but I’ve read convincing testimony of same-sex marriage in Native American Tribes, and obviously they are cited in very negative language in the early Roman/Christian context, basically for the express purpose of prohibiting them. I want to find more examples of same-sex marriages, where they are explicitly referred to AS marriages, in different historical/cultural contexts. For example, I’ve seen allusions to bridal arrangements between women in African tribes, but don’t know if that was just “stuff on the Internet” – I need to hit print resources for research to confirm or deny this: were those marriages or unions?
And arguing about it that way setting up a false dichotomy? I want to explore the distinction, culturally and historically, between “union” and “marriage” in those contexts, prior to the current debate between the legitimacy of civil unions vs. marriage.
Patrick
December 17th, 2008 | LINK
Lauderdale-
Check the following for more information:
Gilbert Herdt (1998) “Same Sex, Different Cultures”
Patrick M Chapman (2008) “Thou Shalt Not Love: What Evangelicals Really Say to Gays” – (in the interest of full disclosure, I am the author and a PhD anthropologist)
For one specific article on how the Azande of Africa used the same word to describe same-sex marriages and other-sex marriages, see:
E. E. Evans-Pritchard (1970) “Sexual Inversion among the Azande”, American Anthropologist 72:1428-1434.
There are also many other examples in the anthropological literature. My book and Herdt’s present a number of them. You will find that the distinction between a union and a marriage is not one many societies would recognize.
I recommend Stephanie Coontz (2005) “Marriage, a History” for more information on marriage in history.
Timothy Kincaid
December 17th, 2008 | LINK
I’m not sure that Rick Warren is lying when he imagines the evils that could await Christians. He’s not a lawyer and he’s been bombarded with lies from Alliance Defense Fund and the Pacific Justice people.
Yes, he should know better.
And yes, he chooses to believe these people when there are plenty of legal voices saying that it’s nonsense.
And yes, he is definitely bearing false witness by claiming to know something to be true when it is patently untrue. But I think he may not be lying, per se. Instead he may just be allowing himself to believe and spread lies.
To wander way off on a pig trail: for those who are from a Judeo/Christian backgroud, bearing false witness is broader than lying. While it forbids stamements that one knows to be untrue, it also forbids making statements about which one doesn’t know the truth.
Interestingly, in our culture we are far more tolerant of those who are wrong than we are of those who lie. We figure that it’s “just a mistake”, even though the person has falsely set themselves up as an authority – which is, unquestionably, a form of lie. We dismiss it as, “he didn’t mean to lie, he just didn’t know the facts”. And churches seldom consider it “a sin” to make a false declaration about a subject over which one is ill informed.
I find that interesting.
OK… pig trail over.
lzr
December 17th, 2008 | LINK
All this talk about the 5,000 year-old tradition of marriage just proves straight people don’t know their musical theater…
From Fiddler on the Roof, which was all about breaking tradition and marrying for love instead of letting the matchmaker pick your spouse for you…
“Tevye: They gave each other a pledge. Unheard of, absurd.
You gave each other a pledge?
Unthinkable. Where do you think you are?
In Moscow? In Paris? Where do think they are? America?
And what do you think you’re doing?
You stitcher, you nothing! Who do think you are? King Solomon?
This isn’t the way it’s done, not here, not now.
Some things I will not, I cannot, allow.
Tradtion! — Marriages must be arranged by the papa. This should never be changed.
One little time you pull out a prop, and where does it stop? Where does it stop?”
Where does it stop!? If you break tradition and let Motel, the tailor, marry Tzeitel, the milkman’s daughter, for love, next thing you know Moishe, the baker, and Ocham, the razor maker, will want to get married too — even though they’re boys!
Josh
December 17th, 2008 | LINK
Is this the same Rick Warren who is supposed to give the invocation during Obama’s inauguration?
Michael
December 17th, 2008 | LINK
How can marriage be a 5000-year tradition when the Earth is only 3000 years old?
Timothy Kincaid
December 17th, 2008 | LINK
Michael,
Biblical literalists believe the Earth to be 6,000 years old
Ben in Oakland
December 17th, 2008 | LINK
This is how Mr. warren does it:
Nobel prize-winner Peter Medawar on Teilhard de Chardin, a catholic priest writing in the early part of this century:
“the author can be excused of dishonesty only on the grounds that before deceiving others, he has taken great pains to deceive himself.”
And quoting one of my very favorite authors–myself:
“A host of good Christians are all happy to tell me how much they love me… right before they tell me how much they hate my child-molesting, disease spreading, country-destroying, religion-despising, marriage-compromising, military demoralizing ways.”
Barack, I have a bone to pick with you. « break the terror
December 17th, 2008 | LINK
[...] bandwagon surrounding same-sex marriage by falsely claiming that Prop 8’s failure somehow would have overturned the Constitution’s First Amendment guarantees of freedom of speech and religion. (It can’t. No law or state constitution [...]
br
December 17th, 2008 | LINK
Recall Brown; annul exitsting gay marriage; ready National Guard to invade SF for failure to comply to annulments; recall gay judges; separate state for P8 counties; then separate country, west midwest, south, and western Canada; build Bering strait bridge to Russia for energy and new alliances that are not gay marriage states.
Positive Liberty » There Is At Least One Sense In Which This Isn’t Totally Crazy
December 17th, 2008 | LINK
[...] Jim Burroway tut-tuts: This is unadulterated nonsense. First, a civil marriage law does nothing to impinge on what a pastor can preach. Divorce is very common, but you can waive all the divorce decrees and new marriage licences [sic] in front of a Catholic priest’s face and he’s not going to marry anyone unless the Vatican has granted an annulment. And he’ll be happy to explain it to the couple in his office, at the pulpit, on the Internet, or anywhere else. It’s not hate speech. [...]
Election '08: Deceptive Cadence « The Nappy Cat Chronicles
December 18th, 2008 | LINK
[...] like Warren, believe that homosexuality is akin to pedophilia; if you, a Christian like Warren, espouse paranoia and a persecution complex; or, if you, a Christian like Warren, claim that you have “many gay friends”, you are a [...]
Pre-christmas construction!
December 18th, 2008 | LINK
[...] the news that Rick Warren will pray — or something — at the inauguration (yeah, the guy can be a douche, but Obama’s right — if we’re all going to try to get along, we’re going to [...]
john williams
December 18th, 2008 | LINK
The real reason for Gay Marriage is Legal leverage. In California, a Civil Union had the same rights as a Religious Marriage, saying that it did not have Federal Recognition was true but as half the states did not have Civil Unions it would have been much more productive to have kept the Civil Union in California and pressed all States to accept the same. In Boston a Catholic Charity that assisted couples with adoption was sued by a Gay Couple, they shut down their operation rather than pay the legal fees.
What kind of victory was that. A Photographer was sued and had to pay $10,000, another great victory, the battle was won but the war was lost/losing. Parents in Mass asked the School to not have their son attend lessons that included the King and King. They were told that their only resolution would be to take their son out of the Public School system.
I worked for the USPS for years and before Civil Unions we would know of couples that were referred to as married. Nobody treated them differently and we always delivered their post and let them sign for the other party. The way the San Fran Community have acted since Prop 8 has passed is embarrasing.
I think it is time for everyone to take stock of the situation and start thinking really seriously about what they want and to be realistic about how to get it. One more thing, be careful about what you want!!!!!!!.
An open letter to Obama about Rick Warren
December 20th, 2008 | LINK
[...] a discuss on Proposition 8, a successful California list magnitude banning same-sex marriage, Dr. Warren pronounced he against matrimony equivalence for a LGBT village in California because “[t]here were all kinds of threats that if that [Prop 8] did not pass, afterwards any priest [...]
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