Box Turtle Bulletin

Box Turtle BulletinNews, analysis and fact-checking of anti-gay rhetoric
“Now you must raise your children up in a world where that union of man and box turtle is on the same legal footing as man and wife…”
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Featured Reports

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

Daniel FettyThe 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.

Nigerian calls on Anglican Communion to oppose Ugandan “Kill Gays” bill

Timothy Kincaid

November 11th, 2009

Before the current efforts to enact draconian punishment in Uganda for being gay, there was a similar effort in Nigeria. In that African nation, Anglican Archbishop Peter Akinola led the charge for enhanced sanctions which, as does the Ugandan bill, criminalized speech and association. And some leaders in the Church of Nigeria even called for the death of gay men and women.

Although many conservative American Christians revere free speech and free association as being nearly a Christian tenet in their home country, few were outraged by this anti-freedom effort on the part of anti-gay African clerics. In fact, just as in Uganda, it was influential conservative American Christians who lent their credibility to those who called for the restriction on basic human rights. In the United States, Akinola became a hero and a rallying figure for anti-gay Anglicans. Some churches who left the Episcopal Church declared themselves to be under Akinola’s authority.

mac-iyallaAnd gay Nigerians did suffer under the Church of Nigeria’s influence. Especially gay Nigerian Christians who dared speak against the church’s incivility. One gay Anglican in a leadership position, Davis Mac-Iyalla, fled for his life and has since been vocal in making Western Anglicans more aware of the blind hatred towards gay and lesbian Christians within some African churches that is driving the Anglican Communion towards a schism.

Now Mac-Iyalla is confronting the Anglican Church about its inaction in the face of church sanctioned evil in Uganda. He is unwilling to write this off as a “difference of opinion” or a local cultural peculiarity. Mac-Iyalla is directing his call to those most responsible for the Anglican Church’s inaction, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams and the primates of Anglican Churches around the world.

In an open letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury and primates of the Anglican Communion published by The Guardian, Mac-Iyalla calls the Church out to follow its own commitments:

I would like to remind you that the Lambeth Resolution 10 in 1978 recognised the need for pastoral concern for those who are homosexual. Resolution I.10 from 1998 commits the communion “to listen to the experience of homosexual persons and we wish to assure them that they are loved by God and that all baptised, believing and faithful persons, regardless of sexual orientation, are full members of the Body of Christ.” It also condemned the “irrational fear” of homosexuality and called on the communion to assure homosexual people that “they are loved by God.”

Legislation of the kind proposed in Uganda is based on irrational hatred and a desire to entrench the stigmatisation of LGBT people. There is no place for love, understanding or acceptance in such laws. As such, the Church of England has a duty to condemn the anti-homosexuality legislation and put pressure on those MPs who support such laws. Whatever the divisions within the communion about homosexuality as a moral issue, Anglicans should unite in condemnation of violent persecution and discrimination of LGBT people whoever and wherever they are, particularly when it is carried out in the name of Jesus Christ.

With the publication of this letter in a major UK newspaper, Williams can no longer pretend that he is unaware of the situation in Uganda. Nor that he is ignorant of the part that the Church of Uganda, a member of the Anglican Communion, is playing there.

I do not envy Rowan Williams. It cannot be easy to preside over a body in which one segment seeks to treat gay people as they would like to be treated and the other seems intent on defining their identity by the extent to which they hate and abuse gay people. It must be frustrating and challenging to know that the largest, most vibrant, and growing segment of your communion is one which is charged by fear, animosity, and hostility towards a powerless minority.

But we are not judged by our administration of easy solutions. Rather, the measure of a man is his response to challenges in difficult times. And so far, Williams seems to have adopted a Chamberlainian model for administration. He appears to seek appeasement of evil and conciliation of haters out of fear that he would oversee a breakup of the world’s second largest church.

But Williams needs to recognize that history is not kind to those who choose the easy course over that which is right, who allow the bigotry of the majority to dictate the terms of life for the persecuted. Especially if you do so in the name of religion.


BTB’s complete coverage of recent anti-gay developments in Uganda:
Nov 14: Anglican’s Communion’s Tangled Connections To Uganda’s Anti-Gay Pogrom
Nov 11: Nigerian calls on Anglican Communion to oppose Ugandan “Kill Gays” bill
Nov 9: Uganda’s Most Wanted
Nov 9: Uganda’s “Kill Gays” bill is “Providing Leadership to the World”
Nov 9: More American Evangelical Ties To Uganda’s Anti-Gay Politicians
Nov 7: The “Biblical” Worldwide Anglican Communion
Nov 6: Australian Senate Refuses to Oppose Uganda’s “Kill Gays” Bill
Nov 6: Uganda Women’s Group: “Kill the Gays”
Nov 2: Throckmorton Appeals to Ugandan Christians
Nov 2: US Reps Condemn Uganda Anti-Homosexuality Bill
Nov 2: Uganda Parliament Committee, Religious Leaders Weigh Death Penalty for LGBT People
Oct 28: Uganda Religious Leaders All Calling for Anti-Gay Bill… But Maybe Not Death
Oct 28: A Call for Christian Action in Uganda — A Time to Show the Love
Oct 23: Uganda Civil Rights Coalition Denounces Anti-Homosexuality Bill
Oct 22: Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill Put Off Until 2010
Oct 18: Take Action: Tell Uganda To Respect Human Rights And Dismiss the Anti-Homosexuality Bill
Oct 17: Uganda’s Daily Monitor: All Ugandans Should Fear Anti-Homosexuality Bill
Oct 16: Does Exodus Support Criminalizing Homosexuality?
Oct 15: Human Rights Watch, Sexual Minorities Uganda Condemn Anti-Homosexuality Bill
Oct 15: Here It Is: The Text of Uganda’s Proposed Anti-Homosexuality Bill
Oct 14: Uganda Parliament Takes Up Anti-Gay Bill Adding Death Sentence and Bans on Free Speech”
Sep 15: Draft Anti-Gay Bill Circulating In Uganda
Jul 26: Uganda Parliament To Take Up Bill Banning LGBT Free Speech
Jul 6: Sports Figure Latest Victim Of Ugandan Anti-Gay Offensive
Jul 3: Uganda May Ban All LGBT Advocacy
Jun 1: Nazi Comparisons
May 14: Uganda’s Anti-Gay Campaign Snares LGBT People and Rival Pastors, Tabloid Promises More “Outings”
May 4: Uganda Gays Arrested, Blackmail Attempts Reported
Apr 24: Uganda Anti-Gay Activists March, “Storm Parliament”
Apr 20: Alan Chambers Addresses Developments In Uganda
Apr 19: Uganda’s Anti-Gay Vigilante Campaign Is Now In Full Swing
Apr 17: Uganda Government Attacks Human Rights Groups for “Promoting Homosexuality”
Apr 10: Uganda Columnist: “Happy Easter …Irrespective of Sexual Orientation”
Apr 6: Uganda Press Crank Up “Predator” Rhetoric
Apr 3: Uganda to Ban LGBT Advocacy?
Apr 2: Exodus Maintains Month-Long Silence Amid Ugandan Gov’t Calls For LGBT Arrests
Apr 2: Press Release from Ugandan LGBT Advocacy Group
Mar 31: Forced Outings Continue As Uganda LGBT Advocates Allege Oundo Is In It For The Money
Mar 31: Uganda Activist Cites Disbarred “Therapist” As Authority on Homosexuality
Mar 30: Uganda Situation Continues To Deteriorate; Exodus Washes Their Hands
Mar 27: Videos Surface of Ugandan Activist Stirring Anti-Gay Fervor; Fears of Violence Grows
Mar 26: Ugandan Gov’t Poised to Take “Stern Action” Against Gays
Mar 26: The “Ex-Gay” Star of the Uganda Anti-Gay Campaign
Mar 25: More on Uganda Anti-Gay Vigilante Incitement
Mar 25: Another Anti-Gay Vigilante Campaign May Have Begun In Uganda
Mar 23: Schmierer’s & Lively’s Uganda Talks Continue to Reverberate
Mar 17: Lively Defends Forced Therapy Proposal
Mar 16: Commentary: When Good Men Do Nothing
Mar 13: Sanctimony Alert
Mar 13: Scott Lively and Alan Chambers Respond to Questions About Uganda Conference
Mar 13: Exodus Applauds Schmierer’s Part in Uganda Conference
Mar 12: South African LGBT Advocates Condemn Exodus
Mar 12: Ex-Exodus Minister Condemns Uganda Conference
Mar 12: Ugandan Conference Leaders Call For Another Meeting While Pushing Pedophilia Theme; Exodus Continues Silence
Mar 11: Open Letter To the Exodus International Board of Directors
Mar 10: Scott Lively: The Gay Agenda Is “To Turn The Whole World Gay”
Mar 9: Exodus Removes Link To Scott Lively From Its Web Site
Mar 9: EU Group Condemns Ugandan Conference
Mar 8: Uganda Anti-Gay Conference: Day Three — Gays Blamed For Rwandan Genocide & Pedophilia; More Exodus Ties To Holocaust Revisionism
Mar 6: Uganda Anti-Gay Conference: Day Two
Mar 6: Exodus’ Silence About Uganda: Day Five
Mar 6: Exodus Board Member Participates In Uganda Conference Calling For Forcing Gays Into Conversion Therapy
Mar 5: Anti-Gay Conference Kicks Off In Kampala
Mar 5: Warren Throckmorton Speaks Out Against Uganda Conference
Mar 5: International LGBT Group Expresses Concern About Uganda Conference
Mar 2: Anonymous Ugandan Blogger Wants Answers From American Anti-Gay Activists
Feb 24: Exodus Board Member Joins Nazi Revisionist At Uganda Conference

Comments

Richard W. Fitch
November 11th, 2009 | LINK

Rowan Williams has failed as the head of the Anglican Church. He has allowed the unprecedented encroachment of third world primates into the Province of the EC-USA, has taken a ‘let us be patient’ stance on the role of women in much of the communion and has talked out both sides of his mouth regarding gay clergy and bishops in committed relationships. His exclusion of Bishop Gene Robinson from the Lambeth meetings was an affront to the entire notion of the Listening Process and a snub to the American churches. History will not and should not treat him kindly.

John
November 11th, 2009 | LINK

And the word from the Catholic Church about all of this is?

Why, nothing.