The Daily Agenda for Wednesday, June 19
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
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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Tom
June 26th, 2009 | LINK
Ireland did NOT pass the civil partnership bill. The government published the bill and promised that it would be law by the end of the year, but so can the Obama administration make such promises about health care and climate change.
See http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2009/0627/1224249653836.html
Lynn David
June 26th, 2009 | LINK
Shouldn’t that graphic have civil unions in a pleasing mauve or other purple pastel. But red, that’s so republican. Liechtenstein sure shines through as a hold-out though.
William
June 27th, 2009 | LINK
Italy next, I hope and pray.
Christopher Waldrop
June 27th, 2009 | LINK
Liechtenstein’s infamous smallness is just emphasized by this, although, Lynn, if you hadn’t mentioned it I never would have even noticed it. And Italy does look awfully lonely down there.
Alex
June 27th, 2009 | LINK
Irish LGBT activists must be doing something right if they could make this happen in a country that’s nearly 75% Catholic. Maybe we can learn something from them?
Jamie O'Neill
June 27th, 2009 | LINK
Tom, there’s no political party in Ireland against the bill, so it’s as certain as may be that it will pass when voted on. Strange to say, polls suggest 80% of the Irish population favour same-sex marriage. But such a step would require a referendum to amend the Constitution, which, written in the arch-Catholic 1930s, is quite finicky about family and marriage. It’ll take another three years, I’d say, before ‘politically’ we’re ready for a referendum. No party in the current financial climate would dream of introducing so costly a measure.
Burr
June 27th, 2009 | LINK
I don’t understand the surprise at Catholic support. Spain has same sex marriage and is also overwhelmingly Catholic. There’s a decent amount of Catholic presence in most of the states here that allow it. You might even dare say there’s a correlation between Catholicism and gay rights (okay not really since I’m sure there’s far more numerous examples the other way, but it hasn’t proven a barrier on its own). It’s only the vocal minority that makes them look bad.. Most of the laity is pretty detached from what their clergymen have to say and have a “live and let live” attitude..
occono
June 27th, 2009 | LINK
If Polls here are right (And there has been a few) then there’s 61% Marriage Equality support and 84% support for this Civil Partnerships Bill. If a referendum for a Constitutional Amendment to allow Gay Marriage were to be held, Polling says it would pass.
There was a protest at Leinster House for Marriage Equality, which seems surprising, I’d think we’d be too timid.
William
June 27th, 2009 | LINK
Yes, Burr, I think that you’re right. This is pretty well what our former Prime Minister, Tony Blair, said a few weeks ago in his interview with Attitude magazine. He was viciously snapped at by the reactionary element among British Catholics, who were probably irritated all the more by the knowledge that it was true.
The traditional “always do what Father O’Whatsisname says” attitude has long been on the wane, and has been further eroded by the revelation of the amount of sexual abuse by priests and religious that has been covered up by the Church authorities. When it comes to light that quite a few of the priests who have been giving you a bollocking in the confessional over birth control or masturbation have been “interfering” with the altar boys or the girls in the Confirmation class, and that even though the vast majority of them haven’t, many have been covering up for those who have, their credibility takes a very hard knock, and so it should.
Suspending priests who come out as gay or who express disagreement with the hierarchy’s pronouncements on homosexuality, and trying to intimidate gay laypeople into leading lives of perpetual sexual abstinence, while merely shunting priests who misbehave with children off to other parishes, hasn’t made the laity any more subservient either. Faced with such disclosures, ever more Catholics decide that they prefer to follow the light of their own reason on matters of sexual morality, thank you very much.
Zeke
June 27th, 2009 | LINK
The Irish consitition does NOT require that marriage receive “preferential” treatment. It only requires that marriage be “protected”. There wouldn’t need to be a constitutional amendment or a referendum to deal with that. Any first year law student could make the case that expanding marriage rights to more people doesn’t threaten marriage and therefore this consitutional mandate does not apply.
This is just another case of spineless politicians unwilling to take a stand for full justice and full equality.
On a happier note: new polls in England show a SURGE of support for gay people and gay rights INCLUDING an overwhelming majority supporting full marriage equality as opposed to the “separate but equal” Civil Partnerships that they have now.
Rev. Loush
June 28th, 2009 | LINK
hopefully one day all the parts of the global map will be green!:)
bb
L
Timothy (TRiG)
June 28th, 2009 | LINK
Dublin Pride parade and party was yesterday. I was there (my first Pride). Quite good fun.
Reprasentatives of MarriagEquality got up on the stage and waved the Civil Partnerships Bill at us. Then they told us that the media had been saying we’d be celebrating it. Then they tore it up and strew the pieces on the wind.
Incidentally, Dermot Ahern’s full title is “Minister for Justice, Equality, and Law Reform”.
The three parties which marched in the parade (Labour, Greens, and Socialist Workers (!)) all favour full civil marriage. Fianna Fail and Fine Gael, the two main parties, don’t, and didn’t appear in the parade.
The Greens are in coalition with FF at the moment (an odd couple), and presumably see civil partnerships as a stepping stone.
***
And now I’m off to the protest outside the Lithuanian embassy.
TRiG.
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