Box Turtle Bulletin

Anti-Gays Rely on Masters and Johnson

William Masters and Virginia E. Johnson were sex researcher in the 60’s through 90’s. Their books Human Sexual Response in 1966 and Human Sexual Inadequacy in 1970 were considered classics that broke through misconceptions and myths about human sexuality.

But unlike their predecessor, Alfred Kinsey, they are not hated and reviled by anti-gay activists. Because in 1979 they released Homosexuality in Perspective, in which they claimed that homosexuality could in most cases be cured. And this is a claim very much treasured by those who seek to deny rights and equality to gay citizens.

For example, Thomas E. Schmidt writes in his article Homosexual Causation: Nature or Nurture? hosted on the Exodus International website:

W. Masters and V. Johnson conducted a study of fifty-four men and thirteen women who expressed a desire to convert or revert to a heterosexual orientation. Therapists chose candidates for their apparently high degree of motivation and for their accompaniment by an understanding opposite-sex partner who could serve as a support during the transition period. The treatment format consisted of an intensive two-week program followed by periodic follow-up over a five-year period. The client couple worked with a man-woman therapy team who focused on nonjudgmental identification and explanation of the influences that had led to the client’s homosexual behavior.

The therapists then worked to reduce these influences within the context of the clients’ value system and to encourage heterosexual function on the part of the client couple. About 20 percent failed during the initial treatment period, but the five-year follow-up revealed no more than a 30-45 percent total failure rate, much lower than even Masters and Johnson had expected.

Such well known and respected names as Masters and Johnson lend great credibility to the insistence that homosexuality is not an orientation and can, indeed, be reversed. See how prominently NARTH displays their names.

Is homosexuality immutable? Is it fixed, or is it amenable to change? The 1973 decision to delete homosexuality from the diagnostic manual of the American Psychiatric Association had a chilling effect on research. The APA decision was not made based on new scientific evidence-in fact, as gay activist researcher Simon LeVay admitted, “Gay activism was clearly the force that propelled the APA to declassify homosexuality” (1996, p. 224).

In reviewing the research, Satinover reported a 52% success rate in the treatment of unwanted homosexual attraction. (Satinover, 1996, p. 186). Masters and Johnson, the famed sex researchers, reported 65% success rate after a five-year follow-up (Schwartz and Masters, 1984, pp. 173-184). Other professionals report success rates ranging from 30% to 70%.

And anti-gay gadflies Stephen Bennett and Peter LaBarbera hauled out a 1979 Time Magazine article about the book as evidence that “a permanent, or at least longterm, switch to heterosexuality is possible more than half the time among gays who are highly motivated to change.”

However, as time passed, other researchers were unable to duplicate Masters’ success.

A study conducted by conservative evangelical researchers Stanton Jones and Mark Yarhouse which sought to validate the reorientation efforts of Exodus International found that a change from homosexual orientation to heterosexual orientation was nowhere near 65%. They reported a “conversion” rate of 15% and defined conversion in such a way as to allow for roaming eyes, sex dreams, and other attributes that are not generally considered to be indicative of heterosexuality.

The study, while the best published to date, is fraught with problems including sample size, measurement and definition of change, comingling of retrospective and prospective samples, and lack of follow-up. At best it could be said that

Perhaps eleven percent of an nonrepresentative sample of 98 highly motivated gay people who went through Exodus programs reported that after four years there was “substantial reduction in homosexual desire and addition of heterosexual attraction and functioning”.

But even that statement is challenged by the fact that one of the eleven successes wrote to the study coordinators to inform them that he was not truthful with them and that he had no change in attraction at all. He simply wanted to tell them what all parties really wanted to be true.

So why then is it that the optimistic results of Masters and Johnson are not readily evident in later studies? After all, Masters was reporting success within the first two weeks.

Well new information suggests that the secret may not be the inferior methods of more current attempts. Rather, the fault may lie with the source.

For more information see Masters and Johnson Gay “Cures” Were Likely Faked

Nevada Senate Passes Domestic Partnerships

According to the Las Vegas Review Journal, the state Senate approved a bill allowing domestic partners most of the same rights as married couples. The bill now goes to the Assembly for approval before facing an anticipated veto from the Governor. Although the bill did not pass with a veto-proof majority, the bill’s sponsor is will work to get the support needed to overcome a veto. One interesting quote came from Senate Minority Leader Bill Raggio, R-Reno:

Raggio said that he has talked with friends who are domestic partners and that they said Parks’ bill goes too far. The rights they want and really need concern medical, inheritance and funeral decisions, he said.

I call bullpoop. While I do think couples did tell him that they need medical, inheritance and funeral decisions, I do not think that a single solitary gay couple encouraged him to vote against the bill because “it goes too far”.

And it’s time that news reporters stop letting these “my gay friends” claims go unchallenged. They are not credible and should not be treated as such.

It’s time for reporters to look the Senator in the eye and say, “Produce them, Raggio.”

UPDATE:

Sources in Nevada tell us that Raggio is scupulously honest. So if he says his gay friends told him it was “too far” then they probably did. They also pointed out that Raggio’s in his 80’s so his friends are probably from a different generation.

UPDATE 2:

We’ve heard from another Nevada source that challenges Raggio’s integrity. This source shares that Raggio has a history of anti-gay attitudes and that his “friends who are domestic partners” may well be fictional.

So again, we are back in a situation in which a politician uses nameless unspecified “friends” as evidence that his position is the correct one. Is he a truthful guy with old conservative friends or is he a shameless politician saying what he needs to say to support his agenda? Unless he trots his friends out, we’ll never know.

Why do we let them get away with this?

Angie Zapata’s Murderer Found Guilty

It has just been announced that a Colorado jury found Allen Andrade guilty of murdering 18-year-old Angie Zapata. He was also found guilty of the additional hate crime enhancement as well as vehicle theft and identity theft. The charges carry a mandatory life sentence without parole.

Angie Zapata was beaten to death with a fire extinguisher on July 17, 2008 when Andrade discovered that she was a transgender woman. Andrade then stole her car, a 2003 PT Cruiser. It was that stolen car which led investigators to Andrade.

During the trial this week, jurors heard a tape of phone call Andrade made from jail to a girlfriend. In that phone conversation, Andrade said that “gay things need to die.” He also joked about his “celebrity” status which should fetch him $50,000 for his life story. That phone call was made just days after his arrest.

Colorado added gender identity to its hate crime law in 2005, making it one of only eleven states to include transgender protections. This is the first case in which Colorado’s hate crime law has been applied in a case involving a transgender person.

Maine’s Marriage Meeting

From the Bangor Daily News:

Same-sex couples from around the state urged Maine lawmakers to pass a bill that would allow them to marry, while opponents asked that it be rejected. A hearing is being held today before the Judiciary Committee at the Augusta Civic Center.

Supporters outnumbered opponents roughly four to one as the legislative hearing got under way about 9:30 a.m. About 3,000 people filled the auditorium.

Meanwhile, a poll of Mainers finds them split evenly on whether the state should pass the marriage bill:

The poll, conducted by a Portland-based firm earlier this month, showed that 47.3 percent of those surveyed support changing Maine statutes to allow marriage licenses to be issued to any two people regardless of their sex while 49.5 percent oppose it. The rest of the Maine residents polled hadn\’t made up their minds on the issue. The poll has a margin of error rate of 4.9 percent.
…
The second question asked those polled which statement came closest to describing their “position on the issue of marriage for gay and lesbian couples and civil unions?”

The poll showed 39.3 percent selected, “Support for full marriage rights for gay and lesbian couples.” Another 34.5 percent said they, “Support gay and civil unions or partnerships, but not gay marriage.” Twenty three percent of those polled said they, “Oppose any legal recognition for gay and lesbian couples.” The remaining survey respondents checked, “Don\’t know.”

Another Anti-Gay Bullying Suicide

Six hundred people gathered this evening to remember Jaheem Herrera, an 11-year-old Atlanta-area boy who hanged himself at home after relentless anti-gay bullying at his elementary school. According to his family, Jaheem came home from school last Thursday and hanged himself with a belt in his bedroom closet.

The DeKalb County schools, where Jaheem attended elementary school, reportedly have an anti-bullying program in place. But one classmate reported witnessing a bullying incident in the boys room that was so severe that Jaheem passed out. According to Jaheem’s mother, she repeatedly complained to school officials about Jaheem’s harassment, but nothing was done.

This latest death follows two other recent bullying-related suicides. Eleven-year-old Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover of Springfield, Massachusetts hanged himself with an electrical cord after repeated bullying with gay taunts. Seventeen-year-old Eric Mohat of Mentor, Ohio killed himself after a classmate publicly dared him in class to shoot himself. He was repeaetedly called “queer,” “fag,” and “homo,” often in front of his teachers.

Orson Scott Card Joins NOM Board

The National Organization for Marriage — the folks who brought you the much-mocked “Gathering Storm” ad — have taken on a real nutcase as the newest member of their board of directors. Joining the board and representing the LDS church is science fiction author and Mormon Times columnist Orson Scott Card. He replaces Matthew Holland, who is the son of a member of the LDS church’s Quorum of the Twelve, who recently stepped down from the board.

Last summer, Orson Scott Card called for the overthrow of civil government if California’s Proposition 8 had failed. Writing for the Mormon Times, he said:

Regardless of law, marriage has only one definition, and any government that attempts to change it is my mortal enemy. I will act to destroy that government and bring it down …

In 2004, Card tried to address the argument that same-sex marriage would somehow diminish his marriage. That’s an argument that many anti-gay activists have had a hard time articulating. Most would concede, “Well, of course it wouldn’t affect my marriage,” but Card was game to give the argument a go. Claiming to have “gay friends” of his own, this is what he came up with:

But homosexual “marriage” is an act of intolerance. It is an attempt to eliminate any special preference for marriage in society — to erase the protected status of marriage in the constant balancing act between civilization and individual reproduction.

So if my friends insist on calling what they do “marriage,” they are not turning their relationship into what my wife and I have created, because no court has the power to change what their relationship actually is.

Instead they are attempting to strike a death blow against the well-earned protected status of our, and every other, real marriage.

They steal from me what I treasure most, and gain for themselves nothing at all. They won’t be married. They’ll just be playing dress-up in their parents’ clothes.

He also thinks he understand why we want same-sex marriage. Raising the most-gays-are-gay-because-they-were-molested canard, he writes:

The dark secret of homosexual society — the one that dares not speak its name — is how many homosexuals first entered into that world through a disturbing seduction or rape or molestation or abuse, and how many of them yearn to get out of the homosexual community and live normally.

It’s that desire for normality, that discontent with perpetual adolescent sexuality, that is at least partly behind this hunger for homosexual “marriage.”

So this is just a small glimpse into the psyche of NOM’s newest board member. Maybe that explains the “Gathering Storm” ad. Scott may well have provided the script. Meanwhile, the parodies keep on coming:

Laurie Higgins Seeks to Justify her Endorsement of Bullying

Laurie Higgins, Director of the Division of School Advocacy of the certified hate-group Illinois Family Institute, is not at all pleased with my observations about her advocacy for bullying.

The homosexual blog Box Turtle Bulletin carried an article last week in which Timothy Kincaid spread pernicious lies about me. I don’t know Mr. Kincaid, so I don’t know if he has a limited capacity for following the logic of an argument or if he has a limited commitment to truth and an unwillingness to provide evidence for his defamatory claims.

The crux of Higgins\’ argument is the indignant insistence that she does not personally bully children but that “There is an important distinction between interacting with individuals and participating in public debates”

In my interactions with individuals who identify as homosexual, I would never articulate my views about homosexuality unless the topic were introduced by them. If the topic were introduced by them, I would speak the truth graciously.

Higgins goes on at quite some length in her “graciously truthful” way, crafting a world in which schools are hell bent on promoting a radical, subversive, ahistorical view about the nature and morality of homosexuality and are conspiring to censor conservative views. This makes it “ethically legitimate for all citizens to participate in the public discussion regarding what best serves justice and the common good.”

But let\’s stop for just a moment and remind ourselves exactly what it is that we are talking about, exactly what it is that Higgins finds so objectionable: anti-bullying programs.

The constant use of “faggot” and “homo” and the constant deriding of students who may not fit the stereotype of sexual norms is pervasive in our public schools. And it is resulting in the staggering truth that children as young as 11 years old are killing themselves rather than face another day of this abuse.

And let\’s also keep in mind that there is nothing whatsoever that these kids can do about it. They did nothing to start it, do nothing to contribute to it, and have no way of stopping it. Many of them do not identify as gay and most of those who do have never engaged in any sexual behaviors of any kind. These are just kids who – for reasons that adults can never fathom – have been declared to be “a fag” and therefore deserving of torment.

Think about this when you read the next paragraph.

The truth is that public schools can find ways to curb bullying without addressing homosexuality. For example, students who engage in promiscuous behavior, particularly girls, are often called “sluts,” “skanks,” and “whores.” Public educators deplore such bullying, and yet even in the service of ending bullying they would never permit books, plays, films, days of silence, newspaper articles, essays, speakers, panel discussions, and “diversity” weeks to be employed in the service of transforming students’ views on the morality of promiscuous behavior. They would find ways to curb bullying of promiscuous teens without ever specifically addressing promiscuous conduct.

I want to be charitable. I want to believe that no one, not even Laurie Higgins, would oppose programs that seek to stop kids calling other kids “skank” or “whore”. I can\’t.

I want to believe that Laurie thinks it wrong to push gay kids into lockers, beat them up, threaten them, and subject them to a constant barrage of insults. I can\’t.

I want to believe that she feels more empathy and a closer association with those being tormented than to those who doing the tormenting of their fellow students. I can\’t.

There simply is no way to avoid it. There is simply no other possible conclusion. Laurie Higgins supports the bullying of gay students, she just refuses to think of it that way. Higgins sees the abuse as the legitimate response of moral kids to the immoral conduct they see in others.

Just like Laurie finds it reasonable to call a promiscuous girl (or one so accused) a slut or a whore, so too is it reasonable to torment gay kids (or those so assumed) with taunts of “faggot” and to physically abuse and threaten them. Because in her world Christians are required to “condemn” objectionable behavior – which means public derision and abuse – even if most of their victims have never engaged in any behavior at all.

To Laurie, Christians students should show contempt and disgust and derision. It is a good thing to abuse their fellow students that they think might be gay. It\’s the Christian thing to do. It\’s just condemnation of sin, not bullying, you see. It keeps society on the straight and narrow way.

And if there is collateral damage, that is of little concern to Laurie Higgins. She has never shown the slightest care for the victims, not even in passing. The important thing to Laurie is that students who share her contempt for homosexuality be unhindered in their efforts to condemn and berate.

And if this results in dead children, that is of no consequence; to Laurie it\’s a small price to pay.

NARTH To Export Ex-Gay Message To London

PinkNews is reporting that two American ex-gay proponents will conduct a conference in London this coming weekend. The conference is sponsored by an organization called Anglican Mainstream, which seeks to push the Anglican mainstream to the far right.

Speaking at the conference will be Joseph Nicolosi, a co-founder and past President of the National Association for the Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH). He is well-known for his “reparative therapy,” which blames a male child’s homosexuality on the father. He is fond of telling stunned audiences, “Fathers, if you don’t hug your sons another man will” Nicolosi used to be a featured speaker at Love Won Out conferences in the U.S. until he displayed his famous temper on CNN.

Jeffrey Satinover is the author of Homosexuality and the Politics of Truth, in which he contends that homosexuality was improperly declassified by the American Psychiatric Association as a mental illness. He contends that there is no such thing as “sexual orientation,” and therefore there should be no civil rights extended for something that doesn’t exist. This line is now a pervasive theme in ex-gay circles.

The conference is to be held at a thus-far undisclosed location in central London. Anglican Mainstream, despite its name, is a far-right organization which cites the work of discredited “researcher” Paul Cameron, as well as holocaust revisionist Scott Lively.

New Yorkers Support Marriage

From Reuters

By a margin of 53 to 39 percent, New York voters said they backed Governor David Paterson’s proposal enabling same-sex couples to obtain marriage licenses, said the poll by the Siena Research Institute at Siena College in Loudonville, New York.

Alan Chambers Addresses Developments In Uganda

April 19, 2009 edition of Uganda

Late yesterday, I posted about the latest disturbing developments in Uganda as the tabloid Red Pepper published a full-page article publicly outing forty LGBT Ugandans. I also wondered aloud what it would take for Exodus President Alan Chambers to finally address the events in Uganda.

Today, Exodus International President Alan Chambers addressed the situation in Uganda with this statement on his personal blog:

A recent hullabaloo over a conference in Uganda has had me thinking and praying about some things. The conference centered on a conservative, presumably Christian, response to gay issues in that country. In Uganda, homosexual behavior is punishable by imprisonment and there is talk of stiffening the penalties. Several American gay activists and even some conservative Christians have raised a ruckus about the event and rightfully so. Uganda’s policies seem reprehensible. Publicly exposing or arresting gay-identified men and women for homosexual behavior or forcing them to undergo therapy is a true violation of free will and a compassionless transgression.

Chambers’ statement departs from Uganda to provide a broader context of past Christian failures toward the LGBT community. He lauded the gay community for having stepped up to the plate to do the hard work that should have been the work of the church, particularly contrasting the LGBT community’s response to the AIDS crisis with the reaction of Christian leaders. He also wonders aloud “what things in California might be like if the Church had spent the $39 million dollars they raised for Proposition 8 to show the love of Christ to the gay community.”

In the final paragraph, Chambers returns to Uganda:

Confession is good for the soul, they say. There’s a reason for that. So, to my fellow Christians in Uganda, California and elsewhere around the world, my suggestion as you engage in social dialogue over this issue is this: pray, confess your own sins and remember where you were before God found you. And to the gay community: it is my great hope that we as a Christian church will give you no more reasons to justifiably doubt God’s love for you. I am sorry for the times when I have contributed to that.

Chambers covers a lot of ground in this confession. It can mark a great first step, but the statement alone remains insufficient. It was action that sparked the latest events in Uganda, and it will take action on Exodus’ part to address what Exodus board member Don Schmierer helped wrought.

This statement and others like it need to get into the hands of Uganda’s media, much like Warren Throckmorton’s statement a month ago. The typical Ugandan, after all, isn’t likely to be a regular reader of Chambers’ blog. In fact, they are less likely to have reliable Internet access at all, hence the importance of following Throckmorton’s example and going to Uganda’s media directly.

It’s too early to know whether Chambers’ statement will remain an exercise in absolving his conscience or if it signals a resolve to try to set right what has been broken. My cynical side says it’s the former, but my inner cynic is wrong at least as often as he’s right. I am hopeful for the latter, but that hope is tempered with the experience of seeing similarly noble sentiments followed by inaction. In either case we will remain watchful.

Click here to see BTB\’s complete coverage of recent anti-gay developments in Uganda.

Who’s Really Being Silenced?

BTB reader Elliot Ryan noticed something about the YouTube webpage which hosts the Illinois Family Institute’s “Dare To Stand” video, and wonders who is really being silenced?

By Elliot Ryan. (Click to enlarge.)

Uganda’s Anti-Gay Vigilante Campaign Is Now In Full Swing

This is what Exodus International helped spark. It is today’s issue of the Ugandan tabloid, The Red Pepper, which featured this “killer dossier.” Yes, those are the Red Pepper’s own words:

April 19, 2009 edition of Uganda's Red Pepper (Scans via GayUganda. Names and faces obscured by Box Turtle Bulletin. Click to enlarge).

This is a killer dossier, a heat-pounding and sensational masterpiece that largely exposes Uganda’s shameless men and unabashed women that have deliberately exported the western evils to our dear and sacred society. …

This is what we have long feared: names, identifying features, places of employment, residences, boyfriends and girlfriends, and other unfounded charges and illicit gossip intended to destroy their reputations and worse. It is a repeat of the 2007 vigilante campaign which was also trumpeted by — you guessed it — the Red Pepper.

The Red Pepper in 2007. (Click to enlarge.)

In fact, this latest article is a retread of the Red Pepper’s infamous 2007 “Homo Terror” article, which was a centerpiece of that year’s campaign. And like before, the Red Pepper doesn’t intend to stop with just this article. Today’s Red Pepper promises to publish “more shocking things you don’t know about Homos” in next Sunday’s edition. Interestingly, this “killer dossier” does not appear in the Red Pepper’s website.

For the latest round, LGBT Ugandans are bracing for the worst while drawing strength from one another:

It is Saturday evening. I debated whether or not to show my face in public. My lover convinced me it was no big deal. Just go, and show my mug. And anyone have a problem, well, to hell with them.

So, I went to my favourite pub. And, found that most other kuchus [gays] had also gravitated there. Showing there [sic] faces.

…But nothing could hide the anger, and the sense of community. We were together to take strength from one another. We have been exposed to the merciless gaze of hate of a homophobic society. We were, and are, hurting. There is little that we can do, but we can brave it out, and give strength to one another. We don\’t know what the actual fall out will be, individually, on a person to person basis. Or, to the community. There were some photos, this time, too. As if the need was that it was necessary to sheer up the believability of the red rug. Just a few photos. But enough.

This is the fruit of Exodus International board member Don Schmierer’s participation alongside Holocaust revisionist Scott Lively in an anti-gay conference in Kampala, Uganda during the first weekend of March. The conference, in which Schmierer was intended to serve as the “ex-gay expert,” announced a policy proposal to change Uganda’s draconian laws against homosexuality to force those convicted into unproven and unregulated “therapies.”

Exodus board member Don Schmierer (left) and Holocaust revisionist Scott Lively (right)

Because Schmierer and Exodus have decided to remain silent about their roles in this fiasco, Ugandan anti-gay organizer Stephen Langa has used Schmierer’s and Lively’s talks to lend legitimacy to a series of meetings which followed the original conference. Those meetings then culminated in a press conference carried live on national television featuring George Oundo, who claimed to be “ex-gay.” Oundo has since been fueling a public outing campaign on radio and in the newspapers, culminating in this long-feared feature in the Red Pepper.

This latest development is very worrisome because the Red Pepper was the major cheerleader in past public anti-gay vigilante campaigns. Those campaigns resulted in innocent people being arrested, tortured, fired, and driven into hiding and exile.

Exodus President Alan Chambers’ only response to Schmierer’s associations is to “applaud” Schmierer’s role. Neither he nor Schmierer have spoken out in any meaningful way, either to forcefully condemn the aftermath of that conference, or to own up in Exodus’ role in facilitating the actions stemming from it. For some inexplicable reason, Exodus remains silent as their handiwork in Uganda continues to exact harsh consequences to innocent people.

For the love of all that is decent and holy, when will Chambers do the right thing? What is he waiting for? What will it take for him to finally man-up and do the right thing? Is he really waiting for bloodshed, as it seems right now? Is that what it will take?

Click here to see BTB\’s complete coverage of recent anti-gay developments in Uganda.

Frank Rich on NOM’s “Camp Classic”

In Frank Rich’s outstanding column in the New York Times yesterday, he sees the National Organization for Marriage’s latest add — which he called a “camp classic” — as a historic turning point:

What gives the ad its symbolic significance is not just that it\’s idiotic but that its release was the only loud protest anywhere in America to the news that same-sex marriage had been legalized in Iowa and Vermont. If it advances any message, it\’s mainly that homophobic activism is ever more depopulated and isolated as well as brain-dead.

Rich notes that the latest news from Iowa and Vermont was, with the exception of the NOM ad, greated with a nationwide yawn. Fox News barely mentioned it, Saddleback Pastor struggled to remake himself into a Prop 8 non-supporter, Dr. Laura Schlessinger decided that committed gay and lesbian couples were a “beautiful thing,” and John McCain strategist Steve Schmidt gave a convincinly conservative argument for same-sex marraige. All of which makes for a very lonely week for NOM.

McCain Advisor Announces Support for Marriage

In September of last year we noted that Steve Schmidt, John McCain’s top campaign advisor, had sought to encourage Log Cabin Republicans (a gay Republican group) at the National Republican Convention.

Today he has made headlines by telling the Log Cabin annual national convention that he endorses gay marriage and will be encouraging Republican leaders to drop anti-gay positions.

It can be argued, although I disagree, that marriage should remain the legal union of a man and a woman because changing it to admit same sex unions would undermine the most basic institution of a well ordered society. It can be argued according to the creeds and convictions of religious belief, which I respect. But it cannot be argued that marriage between people of the same sex is un-American or threatens the rights of others. On the contrary, it seems to me that denying two consenting adults of the same sex the right to form a lawful union that is protected and respected by the state denies them two of the most basic natural rights affirmed in the preamble of our Declaration of Independence – liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That, I believe, gives the argument of same sex marriage proponents its moral force.

and

There is a sound conservative argument to be made for same sex marriage. I believe conservatives, more than liberals, insist that rights come with responsibilities. No other exercise of one\’s liberty comes with greater responsibilities than marriage. In a marriage, two people are completely responsible to and for each other. If you are not willing to accept and faithfully discharge those responsibilities, you shouldn\’t enter the state of matrimony, and it doesn\’t make a damn bit of difference if you\’re straight or gay. It is a responsibility like no other, which can and should make marriage an association between two human beings more fulfilling than any other.

For those who come from a conservative perspective, Schmidt’s speech is a joy to read.

Log Cabin’s convention this year is a bit of a McCainapalooza as in addition to Schmidt, the candidate’s wife Cindy and daughter Meghan will be hosting a reception for major donors tonight. Meghan McCain will also be headlining tomorrow night’s dinner.

Transcript of the entire speech below the break

Uganda Government Attacks Human Rights Groups for “Promoting Homosexuality”

On February 25th the US State Department released it’s 2008 Human Rights Report. Here is what it had to say about Uganda:

The government’s human rights record remained poor. Although there were improvements in a few areas, serious problems remained, including unlawful killings by security forces; mob violence; torture and abuse of suspects by security forces; poor prison conditions; official impunity; arbitrary arrest; incommunicado and lengthy pretrial detention; restrictions on the right to a fair trial and on freedoms of speech, press, assembly, association, and religion; sexual abuse of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in camps; restrictions on opposition parties; electoral irregularities; official corruption; violence and discrimination against women and children, including female genital mutilation (FGM) and sexual abuse of children; trafficking in persons; violence and discrimination against persons with disabilities and homosexuals; restrictions on labor rights; and forced labor, including child labor.

So it is not without cause that human rights organizations are active within the country. But it also should not come as a surprise that governmental officials chafe at the criticism from such groups.

Now they have found a way to strike back. According to Uganda’s government-owned New Vision:

The UN children\’s agency, Unicef, and human rights watchdog Amnesty International are among the organisations promoting homosexuality in Uganda, the Government said yesterday.

Ethics and integrity minister Dr. James Nsaba Buturo, in a hard-hitting statement to Parliament, also implicated Human Rights Watch, Frontline Human Rights Defenders and East Horn of Africa Human Rights in the “racket”.

The organisations, Buturo said, were working with local groups which depend on them for funding, to spread homosexuality in the local population.

They particularly object to UNICEF which they think has “infiltrated” schools with books that “were popularising homosexuality” and accused them of being “promoters of the practice”.

In response, MPs are calling on the government to block press conference that are favorable of lieniency of legalizing homosexuality and to “enact a more comprehensive law that will treat as illegal the promotion of homosexuality and membership to homosexual groups.” If the government in Uganda defines human rights groups as “promoters of homosexuality”, this may be pretext under which criticism of human rights violations can be silenced.

I wonder if American anti-gay groups, including Exodus International, are proud of the part they played.

Click here to see BTB\’s complete coverage of recent anti-gay developments in Uganda.