Another Exodus Conference Is Upon Us. Let's Review.
For Our Opponents: Talking to Your Kids About Same-Sex Marriage
The Daily Agenda for Tuesday, June 18
The Daily Agenda for Monday, June 17
The Daily Agenda for Sunday, June 16
The Daily Agenda for Saturday, June 15
The Daily Agenda for Friday, June 14
South Africa Teen’s Death Shows It’s Time to Ban Ex-gay Therapy Everywhere
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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AJD
April 26th, 2009 | LINK
I’m sorry if this is ethnocentric, but there is something seriously dysfunctional about Islamic cultures. Only a culture that upholds antisocial personality disorder as one of the highest virtues would have people sharing videos of innocent men being forcibly given a diarrhea-inducing drink with their anuses glued shut.
I was against the war in Iraq, and I still am, but I can’t help thinking that the neocons had a point. The Fertile Crescent may have been the earliest birthplace of civilization, but it looks like civilization moved out of there a long time ago.
Bruno
April 26th, 2009 | LINK
Barack Obama included “homophobia” in his speech at the Holocaust Museum the other day. Homophobia is the fear of treating gays equal to yourself. If one doesn’t believe in marriage rights for same-sex couples, isn’t one by definition homophobic? Obama has learned that taking a loose stand against the amorphous concept of “homophobia” helps him. Taking a hard stand against anyone’s actual homophobia hurts him.
The silence outside of LGBT blogs on the issue of the tortures and murders of Iraqi gays is deafening, with Obama and Clinton taking the lead on this silence.
JJQR
April 26th, 2009 | LINK
AJD : I think your summation of the Fertile Crescent area is spot on. But most politically-correct gays will tell us we’ve got “colonialist” attitudes if we criticize non-Western culures, so…
Timothy Kincaid
April 26th, 2009 | LINK
JJQR,
If you want to battle “politically-correct gays”, you will have to do it elsewhere. No one at this site has mentioned colonialist attitudes so your strawman argument is not welcome.
Andrew Conte
April 27th, 2009 | LINK
What is going on in Iraq and other Islamic countries is atrocious. But, we do need to clean our own house out first before we start cleaning out others. We have a president who does not believe in equality. Separate but equal did not work for his ancestors and it is not working for the gay community. We are far from what is happening in Iraq. We are also far from what is happening in Canada, Sweden, Spain, Belgium, Netherlands, South Africa, Norway. The United States is not a leader.
jim
April 27th, 2009 | LINK
I got as far as the mention of the word “clan” and realized that we’re talking about cavemen, not normal people.
AJD
April 27th, 2009 | LINK
Andrew,
It’s true we’re not a leader — far from it — but we’re the ones who invaded Iraq and threw it into disarray in the first place. Gay people were by no means tolerated under Saddam Hussein, but they were able to live in relative safety.
Islam has a rotten core that is causing people to behave in this way, but we bear a lot of responsibility for what’s happening in Iraq as well. It should come as no surprise that after we overthrew an evil but nevertheless secular leader, the mullahs would step in to fill the power vacuum.
Priya Lynn
April 27th, 2009 | LINK
Andrew, the highest priority should not be those closest to you but those in the greatest need. The gays in Iraq are in fare more dire need of help than the gays in the U.S. Have some humanity.
Andrew Conte
April 27th, 2009 | LINK
AJD, you made my point exactly. We are not a leader. We were there for oil and control. Priya, where did I show that I have no humanity. What I was saying is that our attitudes toward gays in this country is far from stellar. It is rather hypocritical to tell someone else they are wrong, when you are wrong too.
Priya Lynn
April 27th, 2009 | LINK
Andrew, the U.S. is not anywhere near as wrong as Iraq is. What you’re suggesting is that someone who is 10lb overweight cannot suggest to someone who is 200lb overweight that they should drop a few pounds.
Andrew Conte
April 27th, 2009 | LINK
priya, Not sure I agree with your comparison. Every day an LGBT is murdered at the hands of a homophobe. The suicide rate for LGBT youth is much higher than the general population. We have kids bullied and beaten at schools every day while teachers and guidance counselors and principals do nothing. A boy just recently hanged himself in Massachusetts. The mother tried to intervene in the school but to no avail. If we were to use your comparison, I might say that it would be like a 100 pound overweight person telling a 200 pound person to lose weight. We have a long way to go. AND, we created the mess in Iraq to begin with. If we had taken the trillion dollars spent and put it to use here, our problems might not be as great. The U.S. is a bully and many in this nation condone bullying in all forms. You clean up your own house first.
Priya Lynn
April 27th, 2009 | LINK
Andrew, not even remotely the same thing. I doubt your suggestion that every day in the U.S. an LGBT is murdered at the hands of a homophobe – any statistics to back that up? In any event the few murders of American LGBTs aren’t being widely sanctioned by the government and the community and the level of torture and murder in Iraq is much much higher than it is in the U.S. I’m sure if you asked any American or Iraqi LGBT where they’d prefer to take their chances, in Iraq or in the U.S. you’d find the U.S. the overwhelming choice.
I don’t at all buy the idea that one must be perfect before one can suggests improvements to others. If that were the case no one would ever encourage better behavior in anyone else, the justice system would let murderers go because god knows every member of it is imperfect and probably some of them even told lies at some point or spoke harshly to their children.
I find your humanity lacking when you suggest looking the other way to what is going on in Iraq. People can walk and chew gum at the same time. Pressure can be brought upon the Iraqi government to improve the situation there while at the same time working to improve things in the U.S. If you want a perfect U.S. before encouraging improvements in Iraq you’ll turn your back on those atrocities forever. Saying (falsely) “where almost as bad” and doing nothing is cooperating with evil.
JJQR
April 27th, 2009 | LINK
Oh, sorry Timmy Kincaid. I didn’t realize we’re only allowed to criticize those who have posted their own views right here on BTB.
Peter LaBarbera Wants To Kill Gay People « Queer Hatred
January 22nd, 2010 | LINK
[...] so Peter doesn’t want to see gay people tortured with electric drills and surgical glues before they are killed. Good to know. But other than that, what does he [...]
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