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
February 6th, 2009
Poor, poor, pitiful me. The flu has made its way to Tucson, and has paid our home a visit. I never get the flu shot because I never get the flu. Famous last words. So now I’m being the biggest crybaby you’ve ever seen. Just ask my partner. He’ll tell you. It’s how I get through these things. Wah, wah, wah…
So I’m not blogging, and Timothy’s been very busy this week (Thanks for the Wyoming update, Timothy. Great news!) So there’s not much being discussed here. Which leaves me to this open thread:
If we were all blogging about all the things we should be blogging about, what should we have covered by now?
February 6th, 2009
Today the Wyoming House determined that it would not put an anti-gay marriage constitutional amendment on the ballot. (AP)
The Wyoming House has voted down a bill that would have allowed Wyoming voters to decide whether to amend the state constitution to deny state recognition of same-sex marriages.
Rep. Owen Petersen, R-Lyman, sponsored House Joint Resolution 17. It failed by a vote of 35-25 after frequently emotional debate that lasted more than an hour on Friday.
And according to Michael Petrelis, the House also defeated, by the same margin, a motion to ban the state from recognizing out-of-state gay marriages.
This is especially encouraging when one considers that Republicans have a 41 to 19 advantage over Democrats in the House.
UPDATE: According to the roll call vote, 16 Republicans joined all 19 Democrats to defeat this resolution.
February 5th, 2009
Jim David Adkisson, the man who opened fire at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church in Knoxville, Tennessee and killed two people, will receive two concurrent life sentences without parole for each of the two slayings in exchange for a guilty plea. Adkisson will also receive concurrent 25-year prison terms for six counts of attempted murder.
On July 27, 2008, Adkisson walked into the church carrying a shotgun he head hidden in a guitar case and opened fire. A children’s performance of the musical “Annie Jr.” was just getting started when Adkisson began firing indiscriminately. Greg McKendry, 60, was the first to confront Adkisson, and he was killed instantly. Also killed was Linda Kraeger, 61, who was a visitor to the church. Church members were able to wrestle Adkisson.
During the investigation following the shooting, police found a manifestoin Adkisson’s truck in which, according to police, he expressed “hatred of the liberal movement, Liberals in general, as well as gays.” Despite calls to release the letter, it hasn’t been publicly released.
February 5th, 2009
The New Hampshire House Judiciary Committee today will hear testimony on two competing bills on same-sex marriage. One bill would repeal New Hampshire’s 2007 civil unions law and further ban same-sex marriage. The bill one would enact same-sex marriages, and provide couples who already entered into a civil union the right to upgrade their legal status to that of a marriage.
New Hampshire Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson will testify in favor of legalizing same-sex marriages.
February 5th, 2009
There’s more from Grant Haas’ appearance on Michelangelo Signorile’s show this week. If you want to know more about “Ted Two,” you’ll have to check that out on Michael’s web site, along with his defense of why he thinks it’s newsworthy. I’m not so sure, myself. But this one, I think, is. It’s where Grant Haas describes the first time he revealed his “struggles” to Ted Haggard.
An unofficial transcript of this interview is available after the jump.
February 4th, 2009
This is the third post in a five-part a series about anti-gay arguments that get the short shrift in public debate. We examine them here. Readers are encouraged to contribute to the discussion below.
#3: Being gay is against the natural order of things; it is against evolution; if everyone were gay humanity would end.
These are slightly separate arguments, but they are fundamentally related: at heart, they are all religious arguments against homosexuality recast in biological/evolutionary terms.
Given that homosexuality occurs in — is a product of — nature, something different is meant here by “not natural.” Most often what is being said is that gay couples do not reproduce. And because the point of existence according to evolution is to reproduce and “pass on genes,” gay relationships are against the order of biology, against evolution — in short, “against the natural order of things.”
It has often been difficult for me to explain why this argument is faulty given the high-school version of evolutionary theory most people have. The central fact that I have trouble getting across is that evolution has no transcendent goal; it is epiphenomenonal. John Wilkens of the University of Sydney explains this point well in an essay on evolution and chance:
Darwin called his principle of the evolutionary process “natural selection”, a term that has given rise to almost as much confusion as the malignant phrase donated to him by the philosopher Herbert Spencer, “survival of the fittest”. It has been understood to mean that the natural world is an agent, selecting according to some purpose or goal; that nature aims to perfect or complete the potential of a species. Nothing could be further from the truth.
This is not to say that evolution is an entirely random process. Some genetic mutations are random, others related to other biological processes. The fact that some traits are reproduced in subsequent generations is mediated by environment and by the organism’s ability to reproduce; one cannot say this process is entirely “random.”
However, the fact that evolution is not an entirely random process does not make it suitable as a moral principle or imperative. “Evolution” is not agentive. It has no point. Evolution is the by-product of genetic, biological and ecological processes and is incapable of caring whether an organism lives or dies, whether a species continues, or whether a person passes on his or her genes. When someone is born with what is labeled a genetic abnormality, it is not that biology “messed up”; we have simply imposed an idea of what nature should do and called this product “not natural.”
One need only look at other phenomena that operate according to evolutionary principles — AIDS, sickle cell anemia, the flu, etc. — to realize nature’s abiding indifference to the human condition — and its inadequacy as a moral metric.
Part of the failure of understanding results, as Wilkins laments, from the lexicon we have inherited to talk about evolution — “success,” “failure,” “survival of the fittest,” “natural selection.” These terms, while useful shorthand for the scientific community, perhaps give the false idea that life is a genetic competition according to evolution. But what we call evolution is an observation of the natural world, a statement of the facts; it is not prescriptive. It is silly to say something is wrong because it “goes against evolution” because “evolution” couldn’t care less.
When someone says some behavior — contraception, gay marriage, riding a bike, getting your tubes tied — is not evolutionarily “advantageous,” my response is, Who cares? People typically treat reproducing and being reproductively fit as if it were a duty. The principle behind this is not evolution; it is “be fruitful and multiply.” So when people cite evolution or biology as an argument against homosexuality, they are really just casting a religious argument in biological terms. (How about we stop worrying about passing on our genes and enjoy life?)
If everyone were gay then humanity would end!
(A very simplified and silly application of the categorical imperative.)
This is true only if you rule out scientific advancements like in-vitro fertilization etc. and many people assume that unless we reproduce like cavemen in the wild, the reproduction doesn’t count. But the point is that gay people can reproduce, even if it’s not with each other.
If you insist on the fact that gay people can only reproduce with the stuff they have in the cave, then of course humanity would end if everyone were gay. But for whatever reason, this is not the case; at least for the foreseeable future, there will be straight people to propagate the species and there is no evidence that gay people are about to end humanity.
One unorthodox view is that if humanity ends, so what? Setting aside the famine that would ensure if this were the last generation for the sake of a theoretical point, if you think about it, no one who is alive now will be alive in 120 years (oldest person on record was 120). The human population reproduces, but it is superstitious to think that this somehow keeps all of us alive. Everyone living now will die whether or not they reproduce. This argument is not very appealing given that it makes people think of their mortality, but it is a thought I have always had.
A more pithy response to the if-everyone-were-gay-then-humanity-would-end argument is: if everyone were a woman, humanity would also end, but that doesn’t make being a woman wrong.
February 4th, 2009
Grant Haas, the young man who came forward last week with new allegations about Ted Haggard, appeared on Michelangelo Signorile’s program yesterday and spoke for about an hour and a half. Mike will be posting shorter audio portions over the next few days.
Today, he posted an edited clip of their discussion of New Life Church’s 24/7 program. This was, as Mike describes it:
…a sort of Bible boot camp where young men, 18-23, are worked out intensely and get all cut up and muscled while also praying to Jesus, immersed in this 24 hours a day, often being woken up at all hours of the night. Haggard and another man who is described as “struggling with homosexuality” often oversaw the program, including going to the gym with the young men in the morning to work out and shower with them. They often went on training missions — including simulated counter-terrorism missions, as Christians under attack, and you’ll hear about all of that. (Please don’t mind the grimaces on my face throughout: I really wasn’t that shocked and disgusted about what I was hearing! We had some technical/sound issues in the studio, and I was trying to cope with those problems, on the computer and to my producers, and was pretty frustrated by them, hence some of the looks on my face).
As we reported yesterday, Pam Spaulding live-blogged the interview. Her highlights included:
February 3rd, 2009
Human trials are about to begin on a form of gene therapy that could immunize people against the most common type of HIV. Recruiting for the human trials began yesterday.
According to Wired.com:
Since the discovery that a small portion of people who are exposed to HIV do not get infected, scientists have been working to discover the secret to those people’s resistance and how to make others resistant as well.
It turns out that most people have a gene called CCR5, which makes them vulnerable to HIV infections. The naturally resistant people have mutant CCR5 genes that inhibit HIV.
Previously, scientists found that by cutting the CCR5 gene out of white blood cells involved in the immune response known as T-cells, they could protect a tube full of human cells from the virus. The gene editing technique relies on proteins called zinc finger nucleases that can delete any gene from a living cell.
Zinc finger nucleases are compounds that can slice open molecules. This one is is designed to go after the CCR5 gene. The treatment calls for removing CD4 T-cells,the immune cells affected by HIV, treating them with the drug, and re-infusing them into the patient. The hope is that these damaged cells will multiply and give the patient an immune system which is resistant to HIV.
The human trials are being conducted by Sangamo BioSciences, Inc., a California biotech company. The first phase is meant to look at safety and tolerably of a single infusion. The first people to receive the new treatment will be six patients who have developed drug-resistance to HIV and six other patients who are currently responsive to their existing drug regimen.
February 3rd, 2009
Last week, a Utah Senate committee killed a bill allowing individuals who rely on a breadwinner to sue for wrongful death. The vote to kill the measure was on a strict LDS-membership vote. Equality Utah isn’t taking that set back lying down.
Over the weekend EQ UT began a billboard, radio and newspaper ad campaign reminding Utah legislators of the LDS statement that there is “common ground” on some rights for same-sex couples short of marriage. The newspaper ads appeared in The Salt Lake Tribune and Deseret New. Equality Utah’s Common Ground initiative seized on the LDS statement and proposed five specific bills for the Utah legislature’s consideration:
February 3rd, 2009
Grant Haas, who came forward last week with fresh allegations about Ted Haggard’s sexual inproprieties and drug use, was on Michelangelo Signorile’s radio program today. I wasn’t able to hear it, but according to Pam Spaulding, he really spilled quite a few beans:
Classic sleaze: Haas was asked by Haggard about the young man’s sexual preferences in the bedroom — bondage, toys, groups, bathhouses, top, bottom, versatile, drugs. Ted told Haas that “since I preferred to be in a “top” position that it would be easy to become straight because “an asshole is similar to a vagina.” …
After going on and on in detail about same-sex action, Haggard would then back off and tell Haas that he needed to find a good woman to marry. And listen to this: Haggard offered up his daughter as a dating/marriage prospect for Haas! Knowingly offering to guide his own daughter into a relationship with a closeted man!
There’s more at Pam’s place. Some of it — “Ted Two” specifically — is definitely TMI, but all of it is disturbing. This definitely shows a man who is deeply troubled. I look forward to the audio of the interview being posted online before too much longer.
February 3rd, 2009
A pitch for adultery found a home in Houston, where local television stations aired a commercial for AshleyMadison.com, an online dating service for married people looking for outside lovers.
Even though heterosexuals like to talk a blue streak about the virtues of monogamy, the Toronto-based dating service — their tagline is “Life is short. Have an affair.” — signed up a quarter-million members in the past few months. Maybe those quarter-million new members were drawn by AshleyMadison.com’s Have-an-affair-or-your-money-back guarantee.
Houston, Dallas and San Antonio are AshleyMadison.com’s fastest-growing markets. Even though the ad had been banned from national broadcast by the NFL and NBC, Houston’s KPRC elected to show it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwJSD46JSoMHey, at least they didn’t interrupt their broadcast with straight porn with full frontal male nudity (NSFW).
There’s more heterosexual outrage here and in our report, “The Heterosexual Agenda: Exposing the Myths.”
February 3rd, 2009
Peter LaBarbera has his hair on fire over openly gay Ron Huberman being named CEO of Chicago’s public schools. He’s afraid that Huberman’s appointment will send a message that being gay is “normative to impressionable Chicago students.” Perhaps LaBarbera should show more concern about some very direct messages — in the form of text messages — that some educators are sending to young impressionable students:
49-year-old female teacher from a Phoenix elementary school was arrested at a hotel Saturday after luring a 14-year-old boy there through text messages that portrayed herself as a sexually active teenager, according to the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office. Rosanna Brown of Chandler, an English teacher at Ed Pastor Elementary School, 2101 W. Alta Vista Road, admitted to having sexual relations with the boy, according to the sheriff’s office.
… Brown had checked into the hotel on Saturday and when the boy arrived at the hotel, he claimed the room was dark, and believed he was having sex with a teenage girl, [Sheriff Joe] Arpaio said. But then the boy realized it was his English teacher, Arpaio told the Tribune.
You can read more about the misery and emptiness of the heterosexual lifestyle here and in our report, “The Heterosexual Agenda: Exposing the Myths.”
February 3rd, 2009
Via Andrew Sullivan, we read this outburst from Peter Hitchens:
If I never again had to read or write a word about homosexuals, I would be very happy. I really don’t want to know what other people do in their bedrooms. But these days they really, really want us all to know. And, more important, they insist that we approve. No longer are we allowed to keep our thoughts to ourselves, while being polite and kind.
Hitchens is wrong. We really, really don’t want them to know what goes on. Or, perhaps more accurately, the vast majority of us would prefer that they simply butt out of things that are none of their business. Which is why we don’t talk about what goes on in our bedrooms. In all of the political campaigns surrounding marriage, adoption rights, employment discrimination, hate crimes, safe schools, “what other people do in their bedrooms” has never been part of the discussion — unless LGBT opponents bring it up.
The fact is, we can see straight couples, married and unmarried, having dinner in restaurants, going to the movies, pushing baby strollers, showing up for work, going out for drinks afterwords, volunteering at school and in the community — and nobody thinks about what they’re doing in their bedrooms.
But people who regard public acceptance of LGBT people as evidence of a cultural pathology carry a huge burden. When they are fighting against marriage or partnership rights, adoption rights, or even against the simply dignity of hospital visitation rights, all they can think about is what they imagine we’re doing in our bedrooms. And whenever they meet with us face to face, their own personal imaginary porno flicks prevent them from seeing the real people standing before them.
If there is a pathology, that’s it. People suffering from schizophrenia sometimes see and hear things that aren’t there. Apparently, so do many who oppose LGBT equality.
February 2nd, 2009
While Arizonans are nursing the close loss of their beloved Cardinals in yesterday’s Super Bowl, Tucson-area Comcast subscribers are talking about a very different ending to the game:
A short clip of a pornographic movie cut into a Comcast broadcast of the Super Bowl in homes in and around Tucson. Officials at Comcast confirmed that its signal was interrupted during the Super Bowl, but the company is still working to figure out how porn broke into its cable feed. Engineers at Comcast will be working throughout the night to determine what happened, said Kelle Maslyn, a Comcast spokeswoman.
The Star newsroom erupted with calls from irate viewers shortly after 7:30 p.m. who said that the porn cut into the broadcast just after Cardinals player Larry Fitzgerald scored a touchdown on a pass from Kurt Warner to give the Cardinals the lead with less than two minutes in the game. Callers said that the clip showed a woman unzipping a man’s pants and included full frontal male nudity.
We’re Dish subscribers, so I missed this particular “interception.” But it sure is the hot topic of conversation at work this morning.
February 2nd, 2009
From Xenia, Ohio, we have a father who disciplined his children by using shock collars:
The Caesarscreek Twp. man who used a shock collar and water torture to discipline three of his four children was sentenced to 16 years in prison by Greene County Common Pleas Court Judge J. Timothy Campbell Monday. David O. Liskany, 39, of Hussey Road, was sentenced to six years each for two counts of second-degree felonious assault and to four years for one count of third-degree attempted felonious assault.
“The only thing you didn’t do was wrap their faces in cheesecloth. They basically were waterboarded,” Campbell said before handing down his sentence, which was far harsher than the 4 years in prison recommended by state probation authorities. According to Campbell, Liskany abused three of his four children — who were 13, 11 and four at the time of the abuse — by using a dog’s shock collar on them, holding them underwater, subjecting them to cold showers and spraying water up their noses.
Authorities found out when the older boy ran away from home, walking fifteen miles to a relative. Liskany’s ex-wife Wendy Liskany pleaded for the court to not jail her ex-husband. “I don’t feel that incarcerating him will help,” she said.
Maybe Liskany had to use such creative measures because they spoiled their children when they were younger. These parents from New York were determined not to make that mistake:
A 5-month-old child is in critical condition Saturday in what police suspect is a child abuse case. Police say they have charged the girl’s father, Scott Archbold, 41, with causing the injuries including multiple bone fractures, internal bleeding and signs of prior abuse. Christina Benjamin, (above right) the infant’s mother, has been charged with child endangerment for allegedly failing to get the child medical attention after the infant’s grandmother suspected the abuse.
But at least Liskany and the Archbold-Benjamins didn’t just kill their entire families outright.
Armed with a handgun, [Ervin Antonio] Lupoe evidently roamed room to room starting as early as Monday evening, fatally shooting his wife and five young children — including two sets of twins.
Early Tuesday, Lupoe faxed a bitter, rambling two-page letter to a local television station blaming his employer for his actions. Though his wife and children were already dead, he also called the station threatening to kill his family, investigators believe. He followed this up with an incongruous call to police saying that he had returned home and that “my whole family has been shot.”
Fortunately, not all heterosexuals are so violent. This father loved his daughter so much, he had four children by her. He didn’t care much for his grandchildren-children though:
The father, Danial Rinehart, 47, is scheduled to appear in court Thursday. Authorities say three of the four babies he fathered by the second-oldest daughter, who is now 19, are dead. A 3-year-old boy is alive and in state custody. Rinehart is charged with second-degree felony murder, child endangerment, two counts of incest and two counts of abandonment of a corpse. The remains of two infants were found in chest-type coolers.
His wife, Linda Rinehart, is charged with child endangerment. Authorities say she was jealous of the relationship between her husband and daughter but helped with the babies’ deliveries.
Obviously, we need to put a stop to this sort of abusive family dynamics. That’s why a Tennessee state legislator is introducing legislation to ban adoption by same-sex parents. It’s also why a West Virginia judge thinks a 2-year-old girl would be much better off if she were ripped from the only parents she has ever known. Her lesbian fostor parents have cared for her since birth and now want to adopt her.
You can read more about the misery and emptiness of the heterosexual lifestyle here and in our report, “The Heterosexual Agenda: Exposing the Myths.”
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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