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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Ken in Riverside
August 13th, 2009 | LINK
I think that one of the most effective aspects of the Yes on 8 campaign was staging mini-rallies at freeway on/off-ramps. The intent was to demonstrate that the Yes on 8 wasn’t about bigotry and hate, that these were good people from everyday families that wanted to ban marriage equality. It was a welcome to other bigots to come out of the closet, if you will.
It seems to me that the inverse of that would be extremely helpful. It appeared to me, at the time, that the only voices speaking out against prop 8 were gay voices. The only No on 8 bumper stickers I saw were on cars owned by gay people.
I’m convinced our cause is right, just and holy. But I fear that we won’t win until a large segment of heterosexuals see this as their issue too.
Bruce Garrett
August 13th, 2009 | LINK
“…I haven’t seen any acknowledgement from EQ about their mistakes and how they plan to address these as they move forward.”
Likewise. Until they can convince me that they won’t snatch defeat from the jaws of victory yet again, I’m not supporting them. They need to step aside and let someone else who really wants to win do this.
Probably, I’ll support the other group that’s still going to try for 2010, if only to see how well they can fight.
David C.
August 13th, 2009 | LINK
Well, I don’t know how we win in 2010 or 2012, but here is the type of imagery we need to start with.
Burr
August 13th, 2009 | LINK
Perhaps we could pre-empt the “think of the children” argument with a “Mommy we learned about the Qu’ran today, I want to wear a burqa!” ad, that then cuts in and says “Wait.. just because we allow people to be Muslim and allows Muslims to get married doesn’t mean we indoctrinate schoolchildren with it, now isn’t that a silly argument?”
Okay that wouldn’t work because everyone would take it in an un-PC light.. :P
Timothy Kincaid
August 13th, 2009 | LINK
When we go to win in 2010 one tactic we need to employ is to make this a religious rights issue.
We need to get churches fired up that the state is telling them who they can and cannot marry. In the last election we had the nominal support of hundreds of churches but the campaign made them invisible. There are natural networks already established in United Church of Christ, United Methodist Church, and Episcopal Church communities, all of which voted on a state-wide level to oppose Prop 8.
Make this as much their battle over their own religious sacraments as it is over our right for secular marriage.
Timothy Kincaid
August 13th, 2009 | LINK
Correction:
UMC voted in CA, UCC voted nationally, and all of the bishops of TEC in CA issued a letter opposing Prop 8.
Jim Burroway
August 13th, 2009 | LINK
I think avoiding images of gay families in 2008 was pretty dumb.
I mean, I get it when campaigns banning same-sex marriage, civil unions and other partnerships affecting straight people seek to highlight that fact. It’s what worked in Arizona in 2006 against these broad-based bans. When something really does affect straight people, it’s absolutely legitimate to make straight people the centerpiece of the campaign.
But when the ban is directly at gay people only as it was in 2008 in California (and with Arizona’s narrower 2008 ban that left out civil unions and other partnerships), it just doesn’t make any sense to pretend that voters don’t know the campaign is all about gay people. Voters are too smart for that. I mean, the proposition in California was all about denying an existing right to gay couples. How can anyone pretend otherwise that this isn’t what was on the ballot? There’s no hiding that elephant.
There’s a saying, “If you can’t fix it, feature it.” We don’t need fixing, so let us out.
Steve
August 13th, 2009 | LINK
We need to show gay families. We need to make it clear that children of gay people are hurt when their parents can not be married.
cd
August 14th, 2009 | LINK
Yeah, no more running from in the closet. That was so pre-2004. I’d like to think that the exact ‘message’ matters, but I’m not real sure it does. Some photogenic but typical (and courageous) SS families with children will be the facts that make the argument that matters, whatever the fluff of verbiage.
I don’t find that ‘Yes On 8′ strategy all that impressive. It did max out the available votes against gay marriage, true, by providing cover against the bigotry charge. But it didn’t persuade anyone not already biased their way.
For all the inadequacy of the ‘No On 8′ campaign, at least 90% of voters for or leaning for gay marriage voted that way.
I think voters are essentially unpersuadable once they do side on the matter. So, like other Culture War issues, the decisive phenomenon is the dying of the old and conservative and the voting of the young and liberal.
So…mount a good campaign, maximize turnout, reduce the opposition vote at least in its vehemence. But the story is that 1.5-2.0% of the electorate changes in identity per year. And things like gay marriage legalization net gain support as the process goes on. The overall liberal shift on Culture War issues tends to be 1% per year in large populations. So, registration drives targeting Californians in their twenties should be a priority.
Christopher Waldrop
August 14th, 2009 | LINK
Maximizing turnout might be the key, but I think it will also be important to look at geography. Several years ago Tennessean voters added language to the stats constitution banning same-sex marriages. In the area where I live the “Vote No”–bumper stickers and signs were everywhere. I don’t even remember seeing a “Vote Yes” sticker. And yet it passed anyway because the majority in other parts of the state voted for it.
Interestingly no one seems to be addressing Arana’s question about “whether a Machiavellian campaign of disinformation is really an approach we want to adopt.” And I assume this is because everyone realizes a campaign of disinformation would be a really bad idea. It would be stooping to the other side’s level.
Alex
August 14th, 2009 | LINK
A campaign of disinformation would be a huge mistake. Like others have said, we need to make this about religious freedom, and we need to show the people and families who are affected by anti-gay discrimination.
Ben in Oakland
August 14th, 2009 | LINK
Though I did a lot of work against 8, ultimately, I chose not to work with the official campaign above a certain minimum. It was very clear to me that this was going to be a campaign conducted from the closet. In fact, I wrote a couple of articles on the subject, which together constitute as clear a picture of what I saw happening as I could produce. This picture was confirmed to me when I took a training and I received the list of words that we were supposed to avoid, including these three: prejudice, religion, and children.
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