The Daily Agenda for Friday, May 24
Boy Scouts of America Votes To Allow Gay Members, Retains Ban On Gay Leaders
Nevada House votes to reverse marriage ban
The Daily Agenda for Thursday, May 23
It's Not the Principle, It's the Prejudice
Congratulations Mitch!
Gay Couples Excluded from Immigration Bill Markup
How To Spot A Swivel-Eyed Loon
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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Human Rights Watch this morning issued a detailed report documenting the hundreds of gay men who have been tortured and murdered, some by members of Iraq’s security forces, and others by members of the Mehdi Army, the Shi’ite militia operating around Baghdad. Based on interviews with doctors, family members, and other surviving gay men, They Want Us Exterminated: Mirder, Torture, Sexual Orientation and Gender in Iraq indicates that hundreds of men have been killed in Baghdad, with authorities doing little to address the situation.
AJD
August 17th, 2009 | LINK
I’m against religion in general, but I read this and am only further convinced that nothing good can come from the Abrahamic religions. There’s something deeply damaged within them.
Timothy Kincaid
August 17th, 2009 | LINK
To lump in fundamentalist Islam with, say, Reform Judaism or American mainline Christianity is not only intentionally offensive but reveals a deep ignorance about all of the above.
GreenEyedLilo
August 17th, 2009 | LINK
Oh, yeah. “Liberated” ‘em, all right. *spits*
This month’s Marie Claire magazine also has a short and depressing article about how the majority of Iraqi girls have lost years of their education thanks to the fallout from the war. They will be less educated and contribute less to the economy than their mothers.
I look forward to learning what we as Americans can do. Some of our leaders and compatriots did a lot of damage. Those of us who didn’t support the war owe Iraqi LGBTs and women something, I think.
AJD
August 17th, 2009 | LINK
Timothy, I’m not saying there aren’t a number organizations and individuals that aren’t fundamentalist/extremist, but fundamentalism will always have justification among Abrahamic religions, particularly Islam and Christianity, and this type of behavior will not likely disappear from the face of the earth any time soon. This is in contrast to pagan religions, which aren’t based on any kind of holy text, or Buddhism, which explicitly rejects fundamentalist thinking. There’s a reason why religious violence in India was rare until the arrival of Islam and why European pagans often saw the gods of each other’s religions as analogous to their own rather than as “false gods.”
Chris McCoy
August 17th, 2009 | LINK
Timothy Kincaid said:
I think until all non-fundamentalist Christian sects come out and publicly, and vehemently oppose fundamentalist Christianity; and oppose it as harshly as many Americans have publicly stated that Islam should do within it’s own ranks, then they are are guilty of the sin of omission.
Silence lends consent. Evil exists because good men do nothing.
Chris McCoy
August 17th, 2009 | LINK
AJD said:
One of my favorite examples of how this is wrong, is from Joseph Campbell’s Transformations of Myth Through Time. Wherein he relates the story of how the Shaman of the Russian steppes were obliterated, not by Muslims, not by Christians, but by Tibetan Buddhists.
Alan
August 17th, 2009 | LINK
Sorry, having a flashback here. I thought we were back on the atheism vs Christianity thread. ;)
I like Lilo’s point, about how this is another unintended consequence of the invasion of Iraq. I seem to remember that before the invasion gay Iraqis were rarely attacked, unlike now.
Christopher Waldrop
August 17th, 2009 | LINK
As I recall, one of many justifications for the invasion was that we’d supposedly be putting an end to the torture and brutal treatment of the Iraqi people under Saddam Hussein’s regime. It was very hard to argue with the claim that the people of Iraq could be better off under different leadership, but, as we’ve seen, it hasn’t actually happened.
I like Lilo’s point as well, particularly the point about learning what we can do.
AJD
August 17th, 2009 | LINK
Chris, shamanism remains an integral part of Central Asian cultures to this day, including among the predominantly Tibetan Buddhist Mongolians, so I’m not sure what you mean by its being “obliterated.” The shamanistic Bon religion is also practiced in Tibet today alongside Buddhism; there was a lot of competition between the two, but I don’t know of Bon practitioners being burned at the stake for heresy.
Buddhism has a long tradition of debate and questioning. Even the Dalai Lama publicly said that if Buddhists encounter scientific facts that negate their own beliefs, then they should dump their beliefs and adopt the scientific facts instead.
That being said, I’m not trying to make Buddhism out to be innocent — Tibetan lamas have a pretty violent and sordid history. But intolerance among most religions pales in comparison to what’s been happening in the Christian and Muslim worlds practically since those religions’ inceptions.
What’s happening in Iraq right now is nothing but a more violent version of what fundamentalist Christians are doing to us in this country in an effort to perpetuate nearly 2,000 years of sexual repression (not to mention anti-gay hate crimes here, which are unconsciously committed for the same reason). Christian, Jewish and Muslim religious organizations that accept and welcome gays are a very new phenomenon among a family of religions that has spent most of its history hunting down and killing us.
I’m not questioning anyone’s right to practice whatever religion they choose. If you want to change the minds of the world’s Jews, Christians and Muslims, then have at it, but let’s be honest: There is something at the heart of these religions — the idea of a jealous, vengeful, angry and punitive deity and the idea that there is a “One True Faith” — that causes this violence to happen.
Timothy Kincaid
August 17th, 2009 | LINK
AJD and Chris,
Please continue the conversation here.
Burr
August 17th, 2009 | LINK
One of the more compelling arguments against invading Iraq was that it would replace an atheist regime with a fundamentalist Muslim one. Now we’re seeing the fruit of that ill thought out decision.
Thanks again Dubya!
David C.
August 17th, 2009 | LINK
Not to defend him, but Saddam Hussein was staunchly secular and worked to secularize Iraqi government. We are seeing the result of enabling Islam and its traditions to reassert themselves in Iraq. Such is the consequence of supporting self-determination by the Iraqi people through a democratic process.
Feel free to go to the religion thread to discuss the matter of religion per se, but this is a political and religious matter, and worthy of treatment here. Specifically, how can the US, which essentially handed the Iraqi people a democratic system without the wisdom of the US Founders, expect to rein in the influence of Islamic tradition? The answer is, the US can’t because it has little to no leverage on the issue.
A fundamental provision of the Constitution of Iraq is that Islam is the state religion and a basic foundation for the country’s laws, and no law may contradict the established provisions of Islam. There will be people that will take that as license to do many bad things that are contrary to basic decency as measured by US standards, including the violent repression of gay people.
The Constitution of Iraq does not permit the persecution and murdering of anybody, and there are clauses in the constitution that are intended to ensure freedom from psychological and physical torture, and inhumane treatment, but it will be specific laws that protect gay people, and those laws must be enacted by the Iraqi parliament.
Islam is both a political system and a belief system, and it will be difficult if not altogether unreasonable to expect that it can be made over to support a system of full human rights any time soon. Add to this the fact that the constitution is maddeningly vague and incomplete in places, and one can be sure that it will be a long time before gay people are protected in Iraq. The sad fact is that there is little the US can do about that now.
paul canning
August 17th, 2009 | LINK
If you want to practically help send some $$$ the way of ‘Iraqi LGBT’ http://iraqilgbtuk.blogspot.com
They run safe houses inside Iraq as well as supporting refugees in the rest of the middle east.
Whilst the HRW report is good news for raising the profile of the pogrom, only Iraqi LGBT is actually supporting people (saving them from murder) inside the country. But funds are scarce and they consequently have to turn people away.
To find out more, read their annual report which is published on their website.
Alas, a blog » Blog Archive » Link Farm and Open Thread, Factory Wall edition
August 18th, 2009 | LINK
[...] Gay men are being systematically tortured and murdered in Iraq [...]
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