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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Gina9223
September 20th, 2009 | LINK
I’m blonde and totally lost on the logic they used…..and why do they think its ok to show a Playboy to an 11 year old? DOB’s
Burr
September 20th, 2009 | LINK
“After all, homosexuality, we know, studies have been done by the National Institute of Health to try to prove that its genetic and all those studies have proved its not genetic. Homosexuality is inflicted on people.”
Anyone have any idea what he’s remotely talking about here?
If porn made everyone gay.. well.. then we wouldn’t have to worry about equal rights any more. We’d be the VAST majority of the population!
Burr
September 20th, 2009 | LINK
Also, that makes Utah and many other red states that top the charts in pornography consumed some really gay ass states. Go figure!
Rebecca
September 20th, 2009 | LINK
…LOL.
I really have no other reaction.
Mike
September 20th, 2009 | LINK
These people are obsessed! It’s so wacky.
Penguinsaur
September 20th, 2009 | LINK
“After all, homosexuality, we know, studies have been done by the National Institute of Health to try to prove that its genetic and all those studies have proved its not genetic. Homosexuality is inflicted on people.”
They always think pointing out no ones found a gay gene proves something. Have they found a straight gene? I don’t think so, probably because something as complicated as sexuality is affected by so many factors its impossible to point out just one. Not that these bigots care, they know this is BS but it lets them tell the media their campaign to take rights away from fellow americans is somehow protecting anyone.
KZ
September 20th, 2009 | LINK
Is this the same gathering were participants harassed reporters from MSNBC and Fox News? If it is, no wonder people didn’t want the media covering this! It’s disturbing. How does one reason with those who have this bizarre mindset?
Ok. So homosexuality is most likely not genetic. And that means it MUST be inflicted on people??? No, Burr, I haven’t the foggiest. But I’m certain that the audience is drinking this crap up.
Richard Rush
September 20th, 2009 | LINK
I think it’s fair to say that the vast majority of the Values Voters crowd share a belief system that is largely delusional and superstitious, thereby creating a reality for themselves that is mostly fabricated from Magic Truth. So, in their world it doesn’t feel bizarre when one of their leaders asserts that all porn is gay porn. Beliefs that cannot be supported by evidence/reason/logic is perfectly normal for them. Things become true through magic.
And I guess the “all porn is gay porn” notion is also part of a larger strategy of finding ways to blame gays for everything they hate.
David Malcolm
September 20th, 2009 | LINK
Hmmm if all porn is gay porn… then how come there aren’t more hot men?
Edwin
September 20th, 2009 | LINK
That whole group sound like a bunch of ostrich’s with their heads in the sand. If they all had any brains they would do some thinking for them selves. But I guess they follow one leader who doesn’t know up from down.
Just another bunch that don’t know what they are talking about.
Dumb a**es!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Dan
September 20th, 2009 | LINK
You know… They have a point!
I did look at a playboy when I was 11 and from that point I knew I was gay!
What they forgot to mention that same porn turns lesbians straight. I know if I was a lesbian and I look at porn I would definitely go for the guys!
----
September 20th, 2009 | LINK
His “ex-gay” friend: totally made-up, or is actually himself.
Emily K
September 20th, 2009 | LINK
I think these people are missing the definition of “pornography.”
Richard W. Fitch
September 20th, 2009 | LINK
Emily, perhaps more to the point is the fact that there is no single, accepted definition of “pornography”. Some 21st century Victorians consider Michaelangelo’s ‘David’ such; while others claim some of the most bizarre sexual depictions as valid modern art. There is no more likely prospect of reaching agreement here as on any other topic which is ultimately rooted in one’s religious beliefs, or lack thereof. Although to some of us they are ‘certifiable’, they find it quite logical to their worldview.
Emily K
September 20th, 2009 | LINK
Believe me, as a working artist, I know about the strange blur between art-is-porn//porn-is-art and so forth.
I’m just saying that I think they’re missing the point that the idea behind porn is that it’s arousing to the person looking at it and that the person enjoys looking at it. Now there’s all sorts of blurs regarding whether someone is aroused by something in a picture that they would never do in real life – but I doubt these people would understand something that complex.
GreenEyedLilo
September 20th, 2009 | LINK
Wow. I think I broke something I might need later trying to process that. But at least I didn’t break as much of my brain as Michael Schwartz clearly has. I don’t know what he’d do with, say, mixed-sex married couples who enjoy watching pornography together. It might be fun to find out.
Isn’t Tom Coburn a medical doctor? You’d think he’d have at least a little regard for actual science, if that’s the case.
Also, can anyone else imagine someone trying to use this allegedly ace argument against porno in a middle-school students’ Sunday School class? “Boys, if you look at Playboy, it’ll turn you gay!” “Um, what?”
Priya Lynn
September 20th, 2009 | LINK
By the same token all sex is gay sex. Think about it, if a man has sex with a woman he’s experiencing pleasure through the male body as a conduit, he’s getting pleasure from a male body – it’s gay!
Bill S
September 21st, 2009 | LINK
Well, there ARE people who think masturbation is a form of gay sex, since you’re touching someone who’s the same gender as you.
Leo
September 21st, 2009 | LINK
I remember when conservatism was animated by a sense of personal responsibility. In the last 15 years it’s degenerated into endless scape goating and tortured logic directed to evade any personal responsibility.
Now all porn is “gay” even when it’s being made for and by heterosexuals. A straight man watching a Jenna Jamison DVD is engaging in “gay” behavior. An inattentive husband is somehow being “gay”. Sort of how gay marriage is somehow going to ruin the institution for heterosexuals in a country with a 50% divorce rate. There doesn’t appear to be any failing that they assume responsibility for. It’s all being inflicted on them by outside forces. Pathetic and gutless.
Chris McCoy
September 21st, 2009 | LINK
I wonder if Larry Flint and Hugh Hefner know they’re gay, and that their magazines are full of “gay” porn…
R Holmes
September 21st, 2009 | LINK
Yay! Bigot logic roolz.
John
September 21st, 2009 | LINK
I guess he has a point, that is if the teen looking at Hustler only looked at the photos of couples and stared at the guy’s schlong…
JimInMa
September 21st, 2009 | LINK
Maybe they’re just trying to justify their own “conversion” to homosexuality. Because then it will be someone else’s fault when they leave their wives.
Priya Lynn
September 21st, 2009 | LINK
I noticed that porn movies with men and women in them are much more popular than all female porn movies. It suggests to me that most heterosexual males must be a little bit gay or it’d be the other way around.
Mykelb
September 21st, 2009 | LINK
I bet that Hugh Heffner, Bob Guccione, and Larry Flint would disagree with this characterization of pornography. These far right wing fanatics are sex-obsessed and it has placed them even farther into a paranoic, delusional, hate-filled world view.
----
September 21st, 2009 | LINK
By the way…
http://www.enterthejabberwock.com/?p=465
Emily K
September 21st, 2009 | LINK
they’re not just sex-obsessed, they’re MALE obsessed. It’s all about the cock for them.
Timothy Kincaid
September 21st, 2009 | LINK
I owned scissors and tape.
;)
John
September 21st, 2009 | LINK
“I owned scissors and tape.”
I plead the 5th…
[whistles innocently]
Trovore
September 22nd, 2009 | LINK
[This comment has been removed due to violations to our comments policy -- JB]
Maddog’s Ramblings… « A Maddog In The City
September 24th, 2009 | LINK
[...] porn makes you gay?” Yeah. It’s true. I read it on the Internet. Actually Micheal Schwartz, chief of staff for Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) said it at the Focus on the Family, Values Voters [...]
Kubathemaster
December 17th, 2009 | LINK
Too much of anything including porn may change your mind about things
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