Box Turtle Bulletin
News and commentary about the anti-gay lobby“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…”
News and commentary about the anti-gay lobbyPosts for 2009
May 13th, 2009
Law Dork thinks so. He points to this clause in the New Hampshire constitution:
If any bill shall not be returned by the governor within five days (Sundays excepted) after it shall have been presented to him, the same shall be a law in like manner as if he had signed it unless the legislature by their adjournment, prevent its return, in which case it shall not be a law.
The Union Leader reports that the bill went to the governor on May 6. Law Dork counted off the days (skipping Sunday) and concludes that if the Union Leader was correct, then the bill became law at midnight last night. That’s if the bill went to the governor on May 6.
Update: It looks like the answer is “not yet.” According to Sunday’s Nashua Telegraph, “The Senate-crafted compromise (HB 436) only got to Secretary of State Bill Gardner late Friday afternoon, while the second bill (HB 310) that fixes mistakes made in the first wasn’t there yet. At a minimum, what must follow are signatures from the Senate president, House speaker and key members on the House and Senate Enrolled Bills committee.” The official web page for the bill suggests that the Senate President may have affixed his signature yesterday, if I’m reading it correctly.
[Hat tip: Pam’s House Blend]
May 12th, 2009
Members of the Assembly in a bipartisan vote of 89-52, approved a bill that would legalize same-sex marriage in New York State. The bill had been introduced by Governor David Paterson earlier this year.
During the spirited debate Member of the Assembly, Janet Duprey, R, Plattsburgh, explained why she was changing her vote from two years ago. “The next generation of adults will wonder what the big deal was about.”
When the Assembly considered the bill in 2007, it passed 85-61, but died in the Senate. This time, Senate Majority Leader Malcolm Smith (D) has stated that the Senate will consider the bill this session if it is apparent there are enough votes to pass it.
May 12th, 2009
Per the Boston Herald
A new poll shows New Hampshire residents are evenly split on the issue of same-sex marriage.
Forty-five percent of those polled by Dartmouth College oppose legalizing gay marriage, and 41 percent support it. The difference was within the poll\’s margin of error of plus or minus 5 percentage points.
May 12th, 2009
Per the SJ Mercury News
On a party-line vote, the Assembly Judiciary Committee voted Tuesday for a bill to give domestic partners, whether gay or straight, many of the rights and benefits that Nevada offers to married couples.
Republicans were outvoted by Democrats who control the committee as SB283 moved to the full Assembly. If approved there, it must return to the Senate, where it was backed previously, for a review of Assembly amendments. Gov. Jim Gibbons has threatened to veto the plan if it reaches his desk.
May 12th, 2009
Tomorrow the Rhode Island House Judiciary Committee will hold hearings on two bills concerning marriage.
Scheduled for a hearing is a bill (2009-H 5744) sponsored by Rep. Arthur Handy (D-Dist. 18, Cranston) to broaden the definition of persons eligible to marry to include persons of the same gender. It also provides that members of the clergy would not be required to officiate at any particular marriage.
Also scheduled is a bill (2009-H 5068) sponsored by Rep. Jon D. Brien (D-Dist. 50, Woonsocket) to submit to the electors a proposition to amend the state constitution to define marriage as a lawful union between one man and one woman.
Neither is likely to be enacted.
May 12th, 2009
Boy Culture has an interesting article about the end of an era, the softcore gay porno mags. Specifically, Mavety Media Group is ceasing publication of their gay magazines.
The titles affected include Mandate, Torso, Honcho, Inches (and all of its ethnic permutations) and Playguy. The oldest, Mandate, has been continuously published since April of 1975—just over 34 years.
I’m sure other titles and other publishers will follow. The era when print media in all forms defined our lives is coming to an end.
May 12th, 2009
On May 5, the Illinios Family Institute joined the chorus of those who misstated the APA’s definition of orientation so as to claim that the Matthew Sheppard Hate Crimes Act would protect pedophilia, exhibitionism and various other paraphilias:
The American Psychiatric Association (APA) has defined the broad term of “sexual orientation” to include bestiality, pedophilia, incest, and “gender identity” disorder among 547 forms of sexual deviancy or ‘paraphilias.’
Clearly our Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Religion and the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause, are at risk, not to mention legitimizing and safeguarding over 2 dozen mental/sexual disorders.
H.R. 1913 is an insidious piece of legislation that is aimed at protecting immoral deviant behaviors while inhibiting moral verbal opposition with the threat of prosecution…
We contacted the IFI and referred them to what the APA actually says. They have now issued a correction:
In the article entitled “Hate Crimes Bill Moves to Senate” (5/5/09), we mistakenly stated that the American Psychiatric Association’s actual definition of “sexual orientation” includes paraphilias. The APA’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) classifies “sexual orientation” as heterosexual, homosexual, and bi-sexual. The 547 mental disorders called “paraphilias” specifically involve non-human objects, physical pain, or unwilling partners as in pedophilia. IFI apologizes for the error.
Ok. That’s more of a slur by association than an apology. Which is, naturally, why IFI has been designated a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
And, of course, the IFI went on to oppose the bill in terms of “threats to equal protections”, an argument that did not seem to require attention when other classes of people were offered hate crimes protections.
Nevertheless, I do commend them for taking action to admit their misstatement.
May 12th, 2009
Yesterday the Duluth, Minnesota, city council approved a policy to issue domestic partner registration. (Fort Mill Times)
The city of Duluth will soon begin permitting couples to register as domestic partners, which could make it easier for them to get domestic partner benefits.
The ordinance says domestic partners are defined as those who are “as committed to one another as married persons are traditionally committed.”
May 12th, 2009
Last Wednesday the New Hampshire House approved the revisions made by the Senate to the marriage bill. We all expected this to elicit an immediate response from the Governor.
Then we found that the five day signature window was not from the time in which the legislature approved the bill but from when it reached his desk. And that there were formalities requiring various signatures.
But that was almost a week ago. And we still haven’t heard if the bill is on his desk yet. How are they transmitting this bill to each other for signature, taped to the back of a boxturtle?
May 12th, 2009
Well not really.
But in a debate over marriage equality with Fox News analyst Margaret Hoover, Bill found himself drawn to an argument similar to that which led to the selection of the name of this site.
HOOVER: I don’t buy into the slippery slope argument at all.
O’REILLY: You’d let everybody do whatever they want?
HOOVER: That’s the slippery slope argument. That’s if you allow one thing to happen, then another thing, and another thing.
O’REILLY: Hoover, you would let everybody get married who want to get married. You want to marry a turtle, you can.
For some unknown reason anti-gays just can’t fathom that the union of two people based on shared values, commitment to mutual care, and a deep and abiding love is not the equivalent to a little turtle lovin’.
May 12th, 2009
The Donald has spoken. Carrie Prejean can remain Miss California USA. Trump doesn’t think the pics are so bad. And he should know; he’s a klassy fella who loves opposite marriage so much that he’s had three of them.
TMZ now has new pics of Carrie. They appear to be of the same photo shoot that we were the first to report about on May 1st.
May 12th, 2009
NPR managed to do just that.
A review appeared on NPR of the Kirby Dick’s documentary move Outrage, and nowhere in it does the review mention any of the politicians discussed in the review. There is a photo of Sen. Larry Craig accompanying the review, which hints that he may be one of the movie’s subjects. But nowhere is there any mention of Florida Gov. Charlie Crist or Larry Craig in the review. Those names were cut by NPR editors, citing “a long-held policy of trying to respect the privacy of public figures.” Ironically, Larry Craig’s arrest on soliciting sex in a public men’s room wasn’t a private affair. It was a matter of public record.
Critic Nathan Lee had originally written the piece to include mention of Craig and Crist. When NPR insisted on removing references to those to politicians, Lee removed his byline from the article in protest and lodged a complaint on the NPR site. That complaint was also quickly removed by NPR executives. Lee’s complaint read:
“I asked that my name be removed in protest of NPR\’s policy of not ‘naming names\’ of closeted or rumored-about politicians – even those who actively suppress gay rights, and thus whose sexual identities are of significant importance to the press.” … “I personally disagree with NPR\’s policy – there is no other area of ‘privacy\’ that elicits such extreme tact,” Lee continued in his comment that was excised from the NPR website. “And also feel that it is a professional affront to my responsibility as a critic to discuss the content of a work of art, and an impingememnt of my first amendment right to free speech and the press.”
The whole point of Dick’s documentary was the hypocrisy of closeted politicians who vote against the interest of gay people in Congress, while seeking the comfort of those very same people after hours. As the movie illustrates, the need to preserve the closet can lead some politicians to vote against their very own conscience. When a closeted politician votes against HIV/AIDS prevention programs or LGBT civil rights, it can sometimes be a ruse to throw off suspicians that he may be gay. It’s like the schoolyard bully who picks on the effeminate kid in order to cover his own securities over his sexuality.
The motivations of closeted politicians is absolutely a valid story, one that the mainstream media should be covering. It was huge news when it was revealed that South Carolina Sen. Strom Thurmond had a daughter by an African-American woman. He had been a staunch segregationist for much of his career. Hypocrasy is clearly a real news story. Nathan Lee puts it this way:
The entire point of ‘Outrage\’ is that there is an ‘overriding public need to know\’ about the kinds of men profiled in ‘Outrage\’,” film critic Nathan Lee told indieWIRE on Sunday, “Let\’s say Charlie Crist had a record of voting for vigorous anti-immigration policies, and then it was rumored that he employed illegal immigrants. The press would have absolutely no qualms investigating him to the hilt in the public interest of exposing hypocrisy. Why should it be any different in the case of possibly gay public figures who vote against the civil rights of gay people, or, in the case of HIV/AIDS funding, their very life and death?”
But there really is a different standard at NPR when it comes to closeted politicians. As Movie Line notes:
In the last month, NPR was all too happy to run an editorial about the sexuality of American Idol frontrunner Adam Lambert, wherein writer Linda Holmes snarks on the media outlets that are reticent to fully acknowledge what she presumes is Lambert\’s homosexuality. And this past November, after comedian Wanda Sykes came out as a lesbian at a gay rights rally in Las Vegas, NPR spent minutes of airtime discussing whether it would lead Queen Latifah (who\’s never publicly stated that she is a lesbian) to do the same.
So what interpretation of its own ethics policy allowed NPR to air and publish rumors in those cases?
More to the point, doesn’t Charlie Crist’s sexuality pose far more important consequences to public policy than Queen Latifah’s — especially now that he’s announced his run for the U.S. Senate?
May 12th, 2009
When public figures come out of the closet, the event is usually greeted with joy and applause in the gay community. But when that event is tainted with scandal, the reaction is considerably muted. When New Jersey Gov. James McGreevey announced that he was “a gay American” and was resigning just as a scandal was about to bust open, it was, shall we say, a mixed bag.
And so when the next coming out involves a Catholic Archbishop who was accused of sexual assaulting a seminarian and hiding pedophile priests, I’m reminded that there are those who I really don’t want as a member of my club.
In a soon-to-be released memoir, A Pilgrim in a Pilgrim Church: Memoirs of a Catholic Archbishop
When Weakland resigned as Milwaukee archbishop in 2002 after revelations of a past homosexual relationship and a confidential payout, it was seen as another stunning episode in the unfolding clergy abuse scandal. It was especially painful to liberal Catholics who viewed Weakland as their champion. Weakland was publicly penitent, but other events that year—chief among them the resignation of Cardinal Bernard Law in Boston—made Weakland’s drama a footnote. With this frank and well-told memoir, that’s no longer the case. A Benedictine monk, Weakland is up front about his homosexuality in a church that preferred to ignore gays, and about his failures in overseeing pedophile priests. But this is really the poignant journey of a soul, not a mea culpa about sex, with chapters on his hardscrabble boyhood and fascinating, and sometimes sobering, insights into the life of a bishop and the tensions between the American Catholic Church and the Vatican. At points the narrative has more than enough detail on the life of a globe-trotting abbot. But overall this is an invaluable historical record and a moving personal confession. (June)
Weakland stepped down soon after Paul Marcoux, a former Marquette University theology student, revealed in May 2002 that he was paid $450,000 in archdiocese money to settle a sexual assault claim he made against the Weakland. The incident allegedly occurred more than two decades earlier. Weakland denied the assault, but apologized for concealing the payment.
Weakland was a favorite among liberal Catholics because of his strong stance on social justice issues and liturgical reform. In a recent statement, Weakland said Christians needed to speak more openly about gays in the priesthood without the “hysteria” that often characterizes the debate.
May 11th, 2009
I sometimes wonder how anti-gay activists can knowingly and purposefully say things that simply are not true. I wonder how they can see the decency and normalcy of gay people and yet ascribe to them the most evil intentions and agenda.
Somehow these folks have created a world in which the evidence before their eyes is far less important than a blind faith in the opposite. They choose to believe that all that they see in front of them or hear from those who know is to be discounted, dismissed, and argued away unless it fits with their pre-conceived view of existence.
I believe that a faith that cannot subject itself to scrutiny is not a faith at all; rather it is based in fear – a fear that it we look too closely and see too clearly that what have always believed may disappear leaving us without a foundation or protection, alone. So those whose faith is fear must seek self-blindness, willfully.
Today I ran across an example, a truly tragic story. Cherie Rowe, a volunteer for ex-gay group Exodus International, tells of her struggle over the past 13 years to deal with her daughter’s homosexuality.
Now this is not a tale of “that dangerous lifestyle”. The daughter has a “sweet partner”, wonderful friends who have become family to her, and still tries to keep a relationship with her mother. But despite recognizing that her daughter has a blessed life, Cherie still longs that God work a miracle and remove all that goodness from her daughter.
I do confess that seeing their demonstrations of affection to one another is sometimes difficult, but God\’s amazing grace allows me to accept them and love them without approving of their lifestyle.
I am so aware of how I might have been swayed by the tides of emotion in favor of these same sex relationships, had I not been rooted and grounded in the infallible Word of God.
The extent to which Cherie Rowe’s self-absorption is present on the page is astonishing. And no doubt that ability to see the world only in terms of herself has given her certainty that she and her faith are absolute, steadfast in the face of all evidence to the contrary – so she is careful not to see it.
She is so “rooted and grounded” that she can see love and think that it is evil. She is so “rooted and grounded” that she thinks that her own selfish desire to control her daughter is a passion to see God glorified.
May 11th, 2009
The Civil Unions bill has been stuck in a Senate committee since February. Now its had some movement but it looks as though nothing will happen until next year. (Baptist Press)
The Hawaii bill would have granted homosexual couples all the legal benefits of marriage, minus the name, but deadlocked at 3-3 in a Senate committee in February. Supporters tried but failed to pull it from committee during a floor vote in March, but finally succeeded May 6 when 10 senators — one more than needed — agreed to bring the proposal to the floor. (At least one-third of the Senate was needed for the move to succeed.) But minutes later an amendment to the bill passed, 16-9, killing the bill for this year because the session ended the next day and there was not enough time for the amended bill to pass in the Senate and then in the House.
At the close of the 2009 session, Democrats pushed out a bill, HB 444, to permit civil unions between members of the same sex. It was then amended to stipulate that a civil union was not marriage and that even non-gay couples could use it.
Time ran out for any more action this year, and Senate President Colleen Hanabusa thinks it can be easily handled next year.
“What this bill does is address the middle ground,” Hanabusa said.
Featured Reports
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.
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.
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.
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"
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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