NOM Commits Sodomy
The Daily Agenda for Saturday, February 11
The Daily Agenda for Friday, February 10
Again anti-gays blindly and gleefully shoot themselves in the foot
Rep. Walsh leads with her heart
Advocate, WaPo, AP Get it Wrong On Anti-Homosexuality Bill
Uganda Executive, Parliament Tussle Over Anti-Homosexuality BIll
The Daily Agenda for Thursday, February 9
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 450 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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John Herr
July 24th, 2009 | LINK
I do not understand why people are allowed to vote on the rights of their fellow citizens. One of the major points of our government is to protect the minority from the majority. A citizens initiative runs right over that.
How about we have a citizens initiative to stop these crazy petitions? Or to at least stop the ability to vote out people’s rights. We somehow have to figure out how to stop them, because it’s just an endless battle of gaining rights, petition, losing rights, petition, etc. It’s hard to live with this constantly hanging over you’re head.
Please someone, make the insanity stop!
RMB
July 24th, 2009 | LINK
Oh come on. I’m all for not putting the rights of a minority up for a vote, but this is part of the system. If the legislature passes a law, and they can get enough signatures to put it on the ballot, then that’s allowed.
Same thing with Maine. It’s part of their system. It has nothing to do with “Putting the rights of a minority up for a vote”, it’s “Putting any law up for a potential people’s veto”.
Burr
July 24th, 2009 | LINK
The petitions are for something unconstitutional, so they shouldn’t be allowed to begin with.
I think it’s interesting the D.C.’s initiative power comes with a restriction against voting on people’s rights, which struck down any chance of ignorant mobocracy to reverse a correct decision by the local government.
David C.
July 24th, 2009 | LINK
We can only hope that the signature process has not gone well for the R-71 side on this. In effect, the people will have spoken.
RMB
July 24th, 2009 | LINK
“The petitions are for something unconstitutional, so they shouldn’t be allowed to begin with.”
I don’t believe this.
In DC, it absolutely WOULD have been unconstitutional.
I think it’s clearly debatable in California because you’re talking about amending the Constitution which already has certain protections.
But in Maine and Washington, the law is that any legislation that was *recently passed* can be put up for a possible repeal via vote if enough signatures are gathered. That has nothing to do with the US Constitution. It’s not like you could use the system in Maine and Washington to revoke a woman’s right to vote, homosexual activity, or things like that. It’s annoying for our cause, sure, but it’s not the same thing as California and DC.
John Herr
July 24th, 2009 | LINK
Thanks so much RMB for making me feel even worse. How in the world can you think it’s a good think to be able to vote on people’s marriages?
If I was feeling like crap that my enemies could vote out my marriage, there you are agreeing with it.
Well, I want the chance to vote on everyone’s marriage then too. Let me go door to door and decide.
Now I know why I’m currently drinking. Life sucks, people think they can but into my business, and even our so called friends think this is a good thing. What is the point of electing a legisture, having them spend months or years enacting a law, and then the people can just vote it out? I’m so tired of this!!!!!Just leave us alone!!!!Please for the love of God, leave us alone and let us be happy!!!!
John Herr
July 24th, 2009 | LINK
Okay, let me say one more thing. The reason it’s good that the legislature enacts laws is that they spend months researching a law. What are the ramifications, what are all the possibilities, who will it help, who will it hurt. (at least that is what I imagine happens). But when people vote on it, few of them are doing any research. They are voting a gut feeling, or their own prejudices. It is wrong to base laws on people’s feelings. It’s not a good thing. And what is this 50.1% gets to decide for the other 49.9%? Crap, if you’re going to take someone’s rights away, at least let it be 66%. Or if it’s so important to do away with it, how about 75%? There should be a clear majority before we take rights away.
Burr
July 24th, 2009 | LINK
He’s not saying it’s a good thing. He’s just saying it’s the system. I can respect that argument.
I don’t think what Maine and Washington did was necessarily a “new” law that could be vetoed. As a matter of practice and technicality yes, but pragmatically it was just finally recognizing their constitutional duty and ordering the bureaucracy to carry it out. That’s why I find it (subjectively) illegitimate to seek to rescind that order by a mere majority vote when the mandate comes from much higher.
RMB
July 24th, 2009 | LINK
John Herr, I don’t think you understand the system.
DC has a law prohibiting putting any civil rights of LGBTs up for a vote.
In California, the big problem was that they were amending the constitution.
In Maine and Washington, it has nothing to do with my opinions on whether it is right or wrong. They have a system where any legislation enacted by the legislature during a certain immediate time-frame can be put up for a vote if they get X amount of signatures.
The system in place has nothing to do with anything other than it’s just what their state law says. The people’s veto in those states is not some systemic anti-LGBT anti-marriage equality bigotry written into state law. Recent legislation in those states being vetoed by the people is nothing new there.
You need to grasp the difference between problems in the system and problems with the people using it, and understand the differences in the systems in the first place.
I don’t think the system in Maine and Washington is bad at all. I think it’s quite a decent practice, actually. In our case, yes, it’s an annoying stumbling block, but you need to learn to hate the players, not the game. Petitions in those states cannot be used to undo laws that have already taken effect — that’s the point of the petitions: to try and stop the law from taking effect. John Herr, you mention taking rights away. There are no rights being taken away in Maine and Washington because there have been no rights granted yet. Again, that’s the point of the petitions.
I think the six justices on the California Supreme Court were being ridiculous in their ruling. What good is a Constitution and its protections if it can just be changed willy nilly by petition and majority vote? There, yes, they DID allow the system to enshrine anti-LGBT laws.
But you must understand, in Maine and Washington, with their peoples’ veto, it’s one of the rare times where the system of laws in place has nothing to do with being anti-LGBT. You just have to accept that it is what it is and hope the measures fail.
Burr
July 25th, 2009 | LINK
I think the system is bad, and not just for LGBT issues.
It gives the average, uneducated voter the level of executive power over the government. It renders the governor utterly meaningless. It can be abused for all sorts of silly things and run the state into the ground (like California, which passed all sorts of spending initiatives, but also passed all sorts of restrictions on how they were supposed to pay for them! Ridiculous..)
It’s just not the way representative democracy works.
RMB
July 25th, 2009 | LINK
The system in California is different from Maine and Washington. In California, the people can essentially ENACT any law EMBEDDED IN THEIR CONSTITUTION by petition and majority vote. (It’s utterly nuts, frankly.)
In Maine and Washington, it’s only for recent legislation. And if for some reason it’s repealed, the legislature is always welcome to keep passing it.
BobbiCW
July 25th, 2009 | LINK
I’m against voter referendums because of how much they cost. In this economy it’s just not real bright to be spending money on things like this. On the bright side voter referendums on highly controversial issues might actually keep newspapers and TV stations in business a few extra months.
AJD
July 25th, 2009 | LINK
It turns out they may have succeeded. They just turned in their signatures and claim to have about 138,000. That may not be the 150,000 they’re supposed to have, but they could still have enough.
Bruno
July 26th, 2009 | LINK
There’s nothing inherently awful about a voter referendum, but the way it’s overused in California is ridiculous. And if one believes that LGBT rights should never be voted on, then people need to stop saying marriage equality should come from a legislature instead of a court. Civil rights should be the domain of the courts. In California, further measures need to be taken against the ability of a majority to overturn civil rights, though.
ragarth
July 27th, 2009 | LINK
So, as a tactic the LGBT community can use at a later date, would it be an illegal or questionable tactic to start signing false names into these petitions? Are the checks for false signatures sufficient to catch the siggies or are they questionable enough that doing this might backfire?
ravenbiker
July 27th, 2009 | LINK
Majority rules but one cannot depend on the majority to protect the rights of the minority.
Timothy (TRiG)
July 28th, 2009 | LINK
If someone put a petition like these into my face (especially if they lied about it), I’d be tempted to sign it Micky Mouse. Wouldn’t you?
TRiG.
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