Arizona group to put marriage back on ballot
Exodus International Issues Apology, Hints At Further Developments Tonight
Ex-Gay Leader Sentenced For Criminal Sexual Assault of Male Clients
Andrew Comiskey Doesn't Believe In Apologies
Murkowski makes three
Massachusetts GOP Senate Candidate goes to Pride
The Daily Agenda for Wednesday, June 19
Another Exodus Conference Is Upon Us. Let's Review.
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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Ben in Oakland
August 13th, 2009 | LINK
What is the word?
Pig? Typical? Clueless? Judgmental? Heterosexual? Blind? Stupid? Bigot? Sanctimonious? Asshat?
Does Recto-Cranial-Inversion count as one word or three?
C’mon. give us a hint.
My schadenfruede gland is hyperactive and giving me a rush like you wouldn’t believe. I hope Mrs. M takes him for just about everything, and then donates it to marriage equality in his honor.
Wait. I feel bad. I should never take joy in other peoples pain, no matter how much this santimonious twit deserves to feel it like a sword with a rusty edge stuck where the sun don’t shine.
Oh, never mind. the xanax just kicked in. I’ll enjoy the schadenfruede.
L. Junius Brutus
August 13th, 2009 | LINK
As a gay man, I apologize to Doug Manchester for destroying his marriage. I really didn’t mean to.
Ben in Oakland
August 13th, 2009 | LINK
The fault, dear Brutus, lies in our stars.
Giggle.
Ben in Oakland
August 13th, 2009 | LINK
Whoopsie.
The fault, dear Brutus, lies NOT in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings.
So you see, it really isn’t our fault, according to no less an authority than Shakespeare himself.
It’s our boss’s fault,Old Scratch himself. And he’s laughing up a shitstorm in hell over this one.
elaygee
August 13th, 2009 | LINK
Anyone who can enjoy a good case oif schadenfreude is OK in my book.
Alex
August 13th, 2009 | LINK
Yet another shining example of how to honor “God’s sacred institution.”
Christopher Waldrop
August 13th, 2009 | LINK
This reminds me of the previous post here about Sam Schulman’s ludicrous argument against same-sex marriage.
That would be the same Sam Schulman who’s been divorced at least twice and had some pretty snarky things to say about his wife in his very essay defending marriage.
Timothy Kincaid
August 13th, 2009 | LINK
To be a tiny bit sympathetic:
I assume that “Papa Doug” knows that this makes him look like, well, that word.
When Manchester got into this he didn’t realize just what it was going to cost him: his reputation as a decent guy, a boycott, assigned the title of Hypocrite.
I think the lesson of Prop 8 was this: when your church tells you to give big so you can take away the rights of your neighbor, you’d better be sure that this is the cause you want to become a martyr for. Because we will NOT sit by and act like it’s “just another opinion which should be respected.”
Cole
August 13th, 2009 | LINK
The sanctity of haterosexual-only marriage.
Truth Wins Out - Hotel Millionaire Moralist and Prop 8 Supporter to Divorce Wife
August 13th, 2009 | LINK
[...] Burroway at Box Turtle Bulletin reports today that San Diego hotelier Doug Manchester, whose $125,000 donation to support California’s Prop 8 [...]
Prop 8 Funder Doug Manchester Files For Divorce | Strollerderby
August 13th, 2009 | LINK
[...] one site points out, “Manchester said he made his Prop 8 donation to ‘preserve marriage’ [...]
John
August 13th, 2009 | LINK
“As a gay man, I apologize to Doug Manchester for destroying his marriage. I really didn’t mean to.”
And this is the best comment on this story that I’ve seen yet. Hilarious too!
Johnson
August 13th, 2009 | LINK
Is is me, or have a lot of Prop 8 Supporters been visited by Bad Karma since last November?
Burr
August 13th, 2009 | LINK
The bad karma is because God hates hypocrites. Jesus saved his most wrathful words for them.
paul j stein
August 14th, 2009 | LINK
When the question of equal marriage rights comes up I just ask the room how many marriages have they have legally and sacredly agreed to and if they are on another marriage was it for the money and benefits provided by law?. The sacred holy union crap goes right out the window. Then the room gets a little quieter.
cowboy
August 14th, 2009 | LINK
I do agree. L. J. Brutus’ contribution needs an award for best comment of the week. Perhaps BTB should highlight the best comments of the week in a box somewhere.
And mega kudos to Mr. Kincaid for his longitudinal analysis. Did he ace his Statistics classes in college or what?
Saucy
August 14th, 2009 | LINK
Did you read the story? I’m afraid how I don’t see, with the given facts, how this illustrates Manchester’s own hypocrisy. It’s not clear from the story what precipitated the original separation, but *his wife* filed for divorce. What is he supposed to do: somehow force her not to do this? How?
What evidence do you have that Manchester desired and instigated the divorce?
Requesting a legal separation rather than a legal divorce actually seems to me like a sensible way to put the brakes on a divorce process.
(Now, you may argue he’s only doing so for purposes of $$$ in a settlement…but what’s your evidence for that too?)
You might think he’s a douchebag, but there’s not much here to argue that he’s “thumbing his nose” at the Catholic Church–unless you are privy to some secret information the original story isn’t.
Declan Murphy
August 14th, 2009 | LINK
Actually, the Catholic Church does not condemn divorce. It’s re-marriage after divorce that is the issue for Catholic theology.
Jim Burroway
August 14th, 2009 | LINK
Saucy, let me direct you back to the article itself, which gives the chronology of events:
This isn’t exactly Doug playing the passive victim while his wife flees to a divorce lawyer to file for divorce. In fact, it appears that she was trying to prevent being railroaded into what she considered a financial disadvantage, and it was Doug who was pushing for the divorce.
Tim Hulsey
August 14th, 2009 | LINK
A hypocrite, by definition, is doing something right. The trick is to figure out what it is.
I think the word we’re really looking for here is “cad.”
The Unending Hypocrisy of the Religious « High Desert Musings
August 16th, 2009 | LINK
[...] Unending Hypocrisy of the Religious From Box Turtle Bulletin: San Diego hotelier Doug Manchester, whose $125,000 donation to support California’s Prop 8 [...]
ravenbiker
August 17th, 2009 | LINK
HYPOCRITE. I’m sure that’s the word.
I can see Mr. Rogers now, “Okay, kids. Can you say hyp-oh-krit?”
Manchester owes the GLBT community AND the Catholic Church a sincere and public apology! —that scum!
Chris McCoy
August 17th, 2009 | LINK
Tim Hulsey said:
I think you’re implying definition #2 for Cad:
However, I think Merriam-Webster‘s agrees with Jim’s original diagnosis:
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