The Daily Agenda for Wednesday, June 19
Another Exodus Conference Is Upon Us. Let's Review.
For Our Opponents: Talking to Your Kids About Same-Sex Marriage
The Daily Agenda for Tuesday, June 18
The Daily Agenda for Monday, June 17
The Daily Agenda for Sunday, June 16
The Daily Agenda for Saturday, June 15
The Daily Agenda for Friday, June 14
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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Few hate crimes are specifically preventable. It is not often that the intended violence is known in advance and reported to authorities. Which makes the case of Jayron Martin so frustrating and infuriating.
Shannon Spencer Fox
November 19th, 2009 | LINK
I so very hope that either the kid or his parents are smart enough to get in touch with Lambda Legal, or perhaps the ACLU, about this… and that the school’s prepared for one hell of a lawsuit.
Ken in Riverside
November 19th, 2009 | LINK
This is disgusting.
If anyone hears of a fund to pay for litigation against the “adults” who were supposed to be responsible, please share with the rest of us.
Richard W. Fitch
November 19th, 2009 | LINK
Those living in Fort Worth or Atlanta already know the outcome of any internal, self-investigation.
Burr
November 19th, 2009 | LINK
What makes me sick is it shouldn’t take any special gay-straight alliance or other special awareness to get off your ass, do your job, and PROTECT a kid, regardless of why he’s being threatened.
Where’s the moral values? I don’t see them.
Thank God for the guy with the shotgun, but is it gonna take splattering a homophobe’s brains before these animals back the eff off?
Ben in Oakland
November 19th, 2009 | LINK
It always amazes me how these big macho straight boys can only attack a weak little faggot in gangs.
It reminds me of the Naked Civil Servant, when Quentin Crisp tells agang that they better leave him and his friends alone lest someone figure out which one of them is queer.
homophobia isn’t the fear of gay people. It’s the fear that you yourself may be gay.
I sincerly hope that the mother of this boy sues the hell out of the school district, the priniple, and the bus driver, and the parents of the pathetic bullies. I hope that the onlookers get prosecuted under conspiracy laws. I also hope these fag-bashers get prosecuted under our newly enacted hate crimes law.
I’m wondering how the Religious Reich will manage ot spin this one to make it Jayron’s fault.
Ken in Riverside
November 19th, 2009 | LINK
@Ben, here’s what the magic eight ball says:
It’s Jayron’s fault because he got on the bus instead of calling his mom to pick him up. Who would get on a bus with a group of people determined to attack him?
The assistant principals get told about many threats every day, how were they to know that this one was credible? Anyways, it happened off school grounds so why should they be considered responsible anyways?
Timothy (TRiG)
November 19th, 2009 | LINK
I really don’t understand this level of hate, or this level of recklessness. It boggles my mind.
And it infuriates me.
TRiG.
Rikki B
November 19th, 2009 | LINK
To Ken in Riverside:
I sure hope you are kidding. This sounds like typical Texas Machismo. Gang up on the little fag. Somebody should take a pipe to all those responsible… or at the very least, sue them till they can;t walk.
John
November 19th, 2009 | LINK
Rikki: Ken in Riverside is parroting the BS one hears from homophobes. Indeed, look at the comments found at this article and one finds the exact 2 points he raised.
wackadoodle
November 19th, 2009 | LINK
they comfort their biases with the thought that the student must have provoked the situation or didn’t take the expected steps to protect himself.
I’ve already seen people saying its his fault because he probably hit on one of them. You know, because these same people support the right of women to gang up on a guy and beat him with lead pipes for hitting on them. Its not like they’re just grabbing for straws and every single person defending this would change their tune instantly if it were a straight kid that got beat up.
Rich
November 19th, 2009 | LINK
I read on another site (Huff I think) that the main attacker, a 16 year old, had been arrested and will be charged as a minor; his name will not be released and if convicted, the record expunged when he turns 21. Now imagine if it had been a black kid who had assaulted a white student, gay or not…you know he would be charged as an adult. The depth of double standards here goes deep indeed.
Robert in San Diego
November 19th, 2009 | LINK
Do you know why there has never been a national hate crimes law including sexuality until only what, 2 weeks ago?
Because we don’t go around hitting and killing straight people because they are straight. Can you imagine if we had been doing that for several decades there would of been a hate crimes law covering sexuality immediately so we could be punished to the full extent of the law.
Imagine that…… All we had to do was become them and start straight bashing.
CB
November 20th, 2009 | LINK
All this can be attributed to the Republican Party, the right and religious organizations with their hate speeches who give the green light to bigotry and discrimination towards gays.
The Democrat Party and the left are not much better. All they do is talk the talk of supporting gay’s but take little action. Gay’s are literally stuck between a rock and a hard place.
The only thing the gay community can do is start pulling their support (money) from candidates, especially those who have been in office for sometime who continue to state they support gay rights, but do little in action.
Protests are about the only way any action will be done. A protest at this school and bus company needs to happen until all adults involved are fired and all the children involved are charged as accessories. The Houston gay community needs to organize something for this child. We need to protect our own, since it is apparent our schools and goverments aren’t. The new hate crime law should go into effect in this instance.
This is a child we are talking about and parents expect that their child, no matter who that child is, will be protected when at school or on a bus.
Christopher Waldrop
November 20th, 2009 | LINK
I won’t call for violence against anyone, and I think the response to this should be a call for an end to any violence. What’s perhaps most disturbing is that a neighbor with a shotgun had to be involved to stop what was going on. It frightens me how much more badly this story could have ended, and how unwilling the school administrators were to do anything about it. I understand they hear a lot of threats, and maybe they’ve gotten too much flack for the “zero tolerance” policies that were so popular a few years ago. That doesn’t matter. When one student threatens another, or when a group of students threatens another, teachers and other adults need to step in and investigate. I don’t care that it didn’t happen on school property–although, technically, the bus is school property. The threats obviously started at school.
Timothy Kincaid
November 20th, 2009 | LINK
Paul,
Comments such as that which you posted are entirely unacceptable. It has been removed.
Douglas Parks
November 21st, 2009 | LINK
This story just shows that Americas are not becoming more civilized. I’m appalled when I hear that two assistant principals and a bus driver refuse to aid a student in a situation like this. All three should be summarily fired. But that this behavior continues in the 21st century and no one cares is a sad commentary on our country.
Ben in Oakland
November 22nd, 2009 | LINK
That Sarah Palin is taken seriously is an even sadder comment.
Mr. HCI
November 22nd, 2009 | LINK
As others have said already, no doubt the beaten child will be the one to get the blame. After all, he should know being gay is the worst sin of all; the boys who beat him were merely doing their “Christian” duty.
Kierra Minor
November 22nd, 2009 | LINK
This is rediculous…THATS WHY I HATE THAT SCHOOL….& I WISH I CAN FLY BACK TO HOUSTON TO SEE MY BEST FRIEND & MAKE SURE HE IS OKAYYY.DAMN IMMATURE KIDS..BEATING UP ON THE GAY PPL.MAKING ME UPSET.
gary47290
November 24th, 2009 | LINK
I wish the neighbor had fired.
There is plenty of precedent for a defense of preventing harm here.
shirley
December 22nd, 2009 | LINK
To response about religious people.God love all of whom he created He just don’t like all of our CHOICES. No One has the right to beat anyone. the Bible said in john 8:7 part b states He that is without sin among you,let him first cast a stone at her. meaning none of us is with out sin we just need to do better for God. move self out of the way. That mean we all have work to do until that day when every need going to bow and every tongue going to confess to God. but through it all we still have to love every one no matter what our faults are because he loves us through our faults.
The September Suicides « TRiG's links
October 3rd, 2010 | LINK
[...] school didn't help. Of course they didn't. That school district was the one where, last November, Jayron Martin was threatened by his schoolmates, and reported the threat to school authorities who refused to [...]
Fg68at
January 20th, 2011 | LINK
The School have a GSA since at least 2007 or september 2009 (“first meeting” of the year?).
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=18583443672#!/group.php?gid=18583443672&v=wall
http://schools.cfisd.net/langham/Clubs/GSA_Webpage/index.html
http://schools.cfisd.net/langham/clubs.html
2003 there was no GSA
http://66.160.205.104/news/january2003.html
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