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
The Daily Agenda for Wednesday, May 22
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.
Gueney
June 27th, 2010 | LINK
Wow, when there’s an agenda, they mean business. How do you even combat that nonsense?
tim
June 27th, 2010 | LINK
Kincaid – you have a real problem with perspective. Posting that picture has nothing to do with the vileness of LaBarbera. Even if it was inaccurately attributed. The fact that you can’t make a distinction between the two makes your reporting more suspect every day.
Btw – even with the ruling allowing evangelicals to give out literature at Twin Cities Pride – it went without a hitch this weekend. A win for the first amendment and for our rights.
paul j stein
June 27th, 2010 | LINK
http://www.kansascity.com/contact_us/ send them a comment, I did !
Neil D
June 27th, 2010 | LINK
If transgender people are worthy of inclusion in our community, so are nudists!
God love ‘em!
There is value in sticking your finger in the eye of our enemies.
johnathan
June 27th, 2010 | LINK
Timothy:
I’m going to agree with tim on this one. It seems you didn’t read the caption on the photo. It clearly read:
“FILE – A member of the Mike’s on Bike rides his bike nude down Market Street during the San Francisco’s 39th annual gay pride parade on in this June 28, 2009 file photo. San Francisco’s 40th annual gay pride weekend drew thousands to Civic Center Plaza, with even more expected Sunday June 27, 2010 for a parade, a Backstreet Boys concert, and a prerecorded address from U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Read more: http://www.kansascity.com/2010/06/26/2046171_sf-gay-pride-parade-celebrates.html?storylink=omni_popular#ixzz0s6g0PLoV”
Having that information included doesn’t create such a biased newspaper, at least in my opinion.
Emily K
June 27th, 2010 | LINK
Last I checked, naked men were what being at a gay event was about 3 decades ago.
I get that people here mourn the loss of the by-gone promiscuous gay ghetto culture, but it’s time to get over it. I’ve never seen anything like this at Philly Pride. You usually see this as Naked Bike Ride. But that’s different. And it’s not even a gay event.
Just because it goes against the same kind of reserved attitude that bigots and Christians might have doesn’t mean gay people don’t also have it. Nudists are fine but when the mainstream media still brings up pictures of naked men hanging out in public when people search the terms “gay pride” on the internet, this is a step backwards.
Unless people stop seeing us as stereotypes, we’re not going to be seen as human by people who aren’t gay and have little to no contact with gay people in their lives (uncloseted gays, that is). This photo doesn’t help.
And aside from that, it’s a year old, and it happened on a different coast. That’s just shoddy.
Lindoro Almaviva
June 27th, 2010 | LINK
and not the best angle or bun either.
penguinsaur
June 27th, 2010 | LINK
Ah the old trick of ‘accidentally’ putting up the most embarrassing, insulting and stereotype reinforcing picture you can possibly find, even if it has no relation to the story, next to an article about something. This reporter has a future at FOX News.
johnathan
June 27th, 2010 | LINK
Let me modify my comment just a wee bit. I agree with tim in the point that the inclusion of that picture does not equate to the KS Star reporter to Peter LaBarbera. That was a far stretch, and in my opinion, a little too biased for my tastes.
On the other hand, as a younger person, I am quite put off by the inclusion of nude men, and all of the other embarrassing, insulting, and degrading scenes of pride as being the sole representations to the outside community of what pride represents. Further, the KS Star was irresponsible in not placing pictures of the grand marshals or happy families with rainbow flags is suspect. But vile a la Peter LaBarbera — NO!
That is the point I was trying to make, and while I cannot speak for tim, it was his first paragraph with which I found agreement.
Jonathan Barnett
June 27th, 2010 | LINK
The article is from AP and the photos are probably AP file photos. That could also explain why they are at the top of any Google search (though not the one I just ran).
The way the Star chose to run them in this report is a throwback to the last century and not representative of the paper the last few decades. I know, because as editor of a gay publication, I covered their progressive policies on domestic partnership rights for their employees, as well as the issue of publishing gay survivors in obits in the 1990s.
Must have been a weekend editor that let the article post the way it is, though that is a pretty lame excuse.
Muscat
June 27th, 2010 | LINK
while i agree with the general sentiment that this was irresponsible and probably deliberately chosen to reinforce stereotypes, nude men (or people in general) are not embarrassing, insulting, or degrading.
Mortanius
June 28th, 2010 | LINK
I’ve noticed Kincaid’s views before regarding the Leather Community. Seems if he had it his way, there would be no diversity in our Gay Pride events that do not match his ideal world of Diversity. Which would be married gay couples wearing traditional wedding bands, dockers/slacks, dress shirts or appropriate DINK/Suburbanite clothing. The only way to distinguish them from any hetero-sexual couple would be that they are walking hand in hand. Other than that, his view of diversity ends there.
We are to drive the same vehicles, live in cookie cutter homes, raise children just like the Hets.
I’ve also noticed a lack of reporting on the fact that this year’s International Mr. Leather is a Transman, but reporting on the “freaks” of the GLBT community is not what this site is about.
I still like the reporting, just saying that everybody has a bias and sometimes Kincaid’s can come through as is his right to do so, since it is his site.
Wulf
June 28th, 2010 | LINK
Lt. Dan Choi was the Grand Marshal. He appeared in the march* in uniform. But, did the MSM or the star focus on that? Or show photos of that? No, of course not. Instead, they show a participant who’s a throwback.
*Yes, it’s a MARCH–officially and technically–but, sadly, not in spirit much anymore. It’s the Heritage of Pride March, the organization behind it for years is Heritage of Pride (HOP).
Corporate-sponsored celebration isn’t wrong or unworthy or unhelpful; but, there are still RIGHTS to be FOUGHT for.
David Wood
June 28th, 2010 | LINK
This photo was from San Francisco’s 40th Pride parade yesterday not last year’s. He appeared on the live comcast telecast. He was part of the “Mikes on Bikes”contingent. Why is this any worse than the nude bike events that occur all over the world?
Jarred
June 28th, 2010 | LINK
while i agree with the general sentiment that this was irresponsible and probably deliberately chosen to reinforce stereotypes, nude men (or people in general) are not embarrassing, insulting, or degrading.
I agree with the bolded part. (Actually, I agree with it all, but I want to focus on the bolded part.) I’d also like to go a step further and suggest that part of the reasons such sloppy journalism continues to hurt us is because, despite quickly tossed out disclaimers saying the opposite, many in the LGBTQ community still react as if there is something wrong with nude men and nude people in general.
Jonathan Barnett
June 28th, 2010 | LINK
There are two photos published with the AP story in the KC Star. Both are attributed as 2009 file photos. What’s not clear is if they are AP file photos or KC Star file photos. Maybe Mikes on Bikes is a regular feature at the SF parade? The other photo is of a pair of outrageous men celebrating 30 years together.
There is nothing “wrong” with nudity OR outrageous attire. What’s wrong is presenting either as being representative of the gay parade, let alone the gay community.
It is a habit that the MSM has had trouble breaking and that made it worth pointing out, imo.
If they were two of dozens of pictures of various elements of the community in a slideshow it would have been different.
It is also pretty inexcusable that they weren’t even from this year’s event, since that is what the headline touted, given the current state of technology.
Jarred
June 28th, 2010 | LINK
What’s wrong is presenting either as being representative of the gay parade, let alone the gay community.
Realistically, is that’s what being done. Is any picture supposed to be taken as “representative” of the whole of an event or group that is being discussed in an article?
And even if it is, then what picture should be chosen as representative? Single and childless LGBTQ people may not find pictures of kids being pulled in colorfully decorated wagons as representative. Jocks may not find men dressed in business suits as representative.
No one picture or pair of pictures is ever going to be truly representative of the parade, let alone the gay community. So why are these two particular non-representative pictures more objectionable to other non-representative pictures you might prefer the paper to use?
Priya Lynn
June 28th, 2010 | LINK
Jonathan said “There is nothing “wrong” with nudity OR outrageous attire. What’s wrong is presenting either as being representative of the gay parade, let alone the gay community.”
I agree.
Jarred said “No one picture or pair of pictures is ever going to be truly representative of the parade, let alone the gay community. So why are these two particular non-representative pictures more objectionable to other non-representative pictures you might prefer the paper to use?”.
Because nude people is a rarity at this parade and a picture of casually dressed participants would have been much more representative because that’s what typically is seen.
Burr
June 28th, 2010 | LINK
It’s definitely an AP photo because I saw the same photo on articles about gay pride parades on several websites. Take it up with them.
Shouldn’t a photo representing the parade have a picture of.. oh.. I dunno.. a parade? Instead of just one guy?
It’s just way too obvious what they’re trying to pull.
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