The Daily Agenda for Friday, May 24
Boy Scouts of America Votes To Allow Gay Members, Retains Ban On Gay Leaders
Nevada House votes to reverse marriage ban
The Daily Agenda for Thursday, May 23
It's Not the Principle, It's the Prejudice
Congratulations Mitch!
Gay Couples Excluded from Immigration Bill Markup
How To Spot A Swivel-Eyed Loon
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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Timothy Kincaid
May 20th, 2010 | LINK
No insult to home schoolers or private schools. I know that not all of them are bad. I went to a few private schools and one of them had quite high math standards.
Grant
May 20th, 2010 | LINK
I just texted my partner who is a Sr. VP at a credit union here in SoCal, to ask if they use MFC. Whether or not they do, he’ll be interested to know this about Mr. Adair’s company.
Richard Rush
May 20th, 2010 | LINK
“Magic math” is just one small part of the Super Christian world of
Magic Truth.
marc
May 20th, 2010 | LINK
I’m guessing that Mr. Adair is associated with the Merchants First Choice business mentioned at the end, but there is no documentation presented to demonstrate that.
KZ
May 20th, 2010 | LINK
“For every ONE GLBT member that you support, there are FOUR HUNDRED more of us, standing together, in opposition.”
What vitriol! I guess someone hasn’t been getting the attention he so desperately wants. If this goes anyway like the idiotic AFA boycotts, I’m not worried.
Boo
May 20th, 2010 | LINK
Do they really think that gays only make up less than one quarter of one percent of the population?
Nope, you read it wrong. He’s not claiming there are 400 heterosexuals to every homosexual, he’s claiming there are 400 homophobes to every homosexual, so the ratio of hetero to homo would be quite a bit higher.
Candace
May 20th, 2010 | LINK
Cathy and I both have Progressive insurance, so we already canceled out Jamil’s 1-man boycott.
P-Pete seems a little edgy today, what? The single-tail must be in for repair.
Timothy Kincaid
May 21st, 2010 | LINK
marc,
I am certain of the connection.
Mr. Adair is the president and CEO of Merchants First Choice. The corporation is registered under his name at his home address. I followed up with Mr. Adair at the email provided by MFC and he confirmed that he wrote the letter.
Jason D
May 21st, 2010 | LINK
“Do they really think that gays only make up less than one quarter of one percent of the population?
Nope, you read it wrong. He’s not claiming there are 400 heterosexuals to every homosexual, he’s claiming there are 400 homophobes to every homosexual, so the ratio of hetero to homo would be quite a bit higher.”
Unfortunately he read it right. Adair, the Peter, etc assume that that gay people are the only people who support gay rights. Somehow our Parents, Friends, Coworkers, Family, Neighbors, and random progressives don’t exist to Adair.
Maurice Lacunza
May 21st, 2010 | LINK
Thank you for the tip. As a pro-gaytagonist, I immediately emailed the merchant company and advised them that I would spread the word of their bigotry to my church, family, friends and acquaintances. I advised them to seek such merchant services elsewhere.
Maurice Lacunza
May 21st, 2010 | LINK
From: Jamil (merchantschoice@earthlink.net)
To: Maurice Lacunza
Sent: Fri 5/21/10 2:54 PM
Good.
=================
I think Jamil really has it in for gay people. Hopefully this won’t have repercussions for me. But stand up, I will.
justsearching
May 22nd, 2010 | LINK
This man is an absolute clown. Because he is against equality when it pertains to sexual orientation (or he denies the validity of that construct) he sees himself as “the bigger kid on the playground that pulled the ‘bully’ off the smaller kid.”
And when he refers to “Action” in quotes, is he referring to gay sex? I can’t think of what else it could be.
And the 400 to 1 business; that’s utterly beyond me. A majority of Americans are against DODA. Near a majority would be OK with civil unions. A small minority of Americans are so homophobic that they would change insurance policies over the company’s policy on LGBT causes.
I think what this man is trying to tell us is that he knows FOUR HUNDRED homophobes and only ONE LGBT person. That’s probably the basis for his stats.
justsearching
May 22nd, 2010 | LINK
“Progressive’s website boasts of the company’s 100-percent ranking on the Human Rights Campaign’s rigged pro-homosexual ‘Corporate Equality Index.’”
If the stats are rigged, then the company isn’t 100% pro-homosexual and Barbera should be happy. If the company really is 100% pro-homosexual than the stats aren’t rigged. Barbera must be having a grouchy bad day.
mikeksf
May 22nd, 2010 | LINK
Yesterday, Friday 5/21, I followed your link to Merchants First Choice and called their 800#. I left a message for Mr. Jamil that I would be contacting all of my business associates and associations to make sure they were aware of his positions and his relationship with LeBarbera. About an hour later I received a return call from Mr. J himself. He told me I was the first call he’d received and that these were his personal views and not those of his company. Of course, he thought gays should not be fired, he was only protesting Progressive support of the homosexual agenda to indoctrinate his children and he had the right to express his religious views, bla, bla, bla. When I asked which groups he of course couldn’t name them (“I don’t have those notes”). We had quite a spirited discussion, fairly civilized all things considered, no screaming names and, actually, I thought it was sort of a fun exercise. Of course one of total futility.
Steven R.
May 23rd, 2010 | LINK
How well does Mr. Adair know the man with whom he is hooking up? Does Mr. Adair know about the gay porn collection, the attendance at a sadomasochism event for gay men dressed in a “leather man” disguise, the photographic documentation of prurience at a fetish fair in San Francisco? The bizarre, endless, diagnosable obsession with homosexuality? Or the curious complete silence about the George Rekers situation?
There is some rough truth, by the way, to Mr. Adair’s assertion that he speaks for 400 other people who aren’t writing to the company. It may not be exactly 400, but large businesses do presume that for every person who takes the trouble to write or call to complain, there were many more who hold the same views, but don’t bother to write or call. But, the trouble is for Mr. Adair and Mr. LaBarbera, the reverse here is true as well: Progressive improves its brand image with many hundreds of thousands of people by advertising in gay publications (including websites) and otherwise being gay-friendly. But probably very, very few gay people are going to write — at least without explicit provocation — to Progressive and thank them, because it’s kind of insulting to feel like a company needs to be “thanked” for basic decency — like writing a company to thank them for not engaging in racial discrimination. But masses of gay and gay-friendly people nonetheless are quietly left with a favorable impression. Favorable impressions are extremely valuable to Progressive: They plant seeds for future sales.
I think Progressive knows, darn well, that their gay-friendliness is good for their bottom line. I admit to having no data on this whatsoever, but probably gay people tend to be good customers for car insurance companies, while the American Family Association types probably are not. If have you a crazy belief system, you probably don’t have good judgment or due caution in driving. If you don’t believe in evolution, your sense of scientific laws generally, including those relevant to safe driving (e.g., the number of seconds needed to decelerate safely), is probably not very good.
It’s similar to the reasons insurance companies offer discounts to “good students.” Being an “A” student is probably correlated with wise, safe driving habits. Likewise I imagine homophobes tend to be bad drivers — both because ignorant people tend to be bad drivers, and angry and tense people tend to be bad drivers.
Meantime, I’m happy to refrain from giving business to Merchants First Choice, and encourage other prospective Merchants First Choice customers to do the same.
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