The Daily Agenda for Wednesday, June 19
Another Exodus Conference Is Upon Us. Let's Review.
For Our Opponents: Talking to Your Kids About Same-Sex Marriage
The Daily Agenda for Tuesday, June 18
The Daily Agenda for Monday, June 17
The Daily Agenda for Sunday, June 16
The Daily Agenda for Saturday, June 15
The Daily Agenda for Friday, June 14
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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Thomas Kraemer
July 1st, 2010 | LINK
I was a member of Jack Baker’s gay liberation group when he was taking his marriage case to the U.S. Supreme court and I clearly recall two things:
First, Baker bragged about using a “loophole” that forced the U.S. Supreme Court to actually issue a ruling on his case. Baker knew that the court typically refuses to hear a case and merely allows the lower court ruling to stand. My understanding is that the legal trick Baker employed is no longer available. It appeared that the Supreme Court was irritated by this law student’s gamesmanship and so they responded, with equal gamesmanship, by issuing a very unusual and ambiguous one sentence ruling. As a result, for several decades afterward, no court fully recognized Baker’s case as being precedent. No court cited Baker as central to their rulings on numerous gay rights cases, even though anti-gay lawyers have always cited Baker’s case in their arguments. All courts have viewed this case as being merely a law student’s gay activism project, which was not supported by the mainstream legal community. Courts have correctly viewed the ruling as having little legal reasoning behind it.
Second, I recall that Baker was angrily denounced, by both straights and virtually all gay people, for seeking to legalize gay marriage. The straights hated him for the same homophobic reasons as today, and virtually all younger gay people thought that marriage was contrary to the goals of sexual and gay liberation at that time.
Another law student friend of mine took me to his constitutional law class one day when a very liberal law professor expressed his fear that Baker’s then pending marriage case would set a dangerous precedent and would setback gay rights efforts in the future. This professor told Baker that a more successful path would be to pursue a series of incremental gains in civil rights for gay people instead of trying to win the most controversial gay rights first. Fortunately, the professor was wrong about Baker’s case setting gay rights back, but he was correct that the case would be cited for decades to come. Hopefully, no future court will cite it as the reason to ban gay marriages.
Ginger
July 2nd, 2010 | LINK
Reading between the lines here, I think that means that it doesn’t have any significant precedent. We also know she is pro gay from her D.A.D.T. answer.
Priya Lynn
July 3rd, 2010 | LINK
But Ginger, Kagan has previously come out and said there is no constitutional right to equal marriage.
Burr
July 3rd, 2010 | LINK
Kagan is a bad pick for several other reasons (especially as regards the first amendment), but these hearings are just a charade anyway..
Michael Ejercito
July 19th, 2010 | LINK
Baker had been cited in state and federal court rulings, such as Hernandez v. Robles, 2006 NY Slip Op 05239 [7 NY3d 338] and Wilson v. Ake, Case No. 8:04-cv-1680-T-30TBM, and Adams v. Howerton, 673 F.2d 1036.
As for cases to cite to justify banning gay marriages, there are plenty to cite aside from Baker. The anti-bigamy Supreme Court cases (Reynolds v. United States, 98 U.S. 145, Murphy v. Ramsey, 114 U.S. 15, and Davis v. Beason, 133 U.S. 333). The most significant is Murphy, which was cited in Davis.
From Murphy:
“f we concede that this discretion in Congress is limited by the obvious purposes for which it was conferred, and that those purposes are satisfied by measures which prepare the people of the territories to become states in the Union, still the conclusion cannot be avoided that the act of Congress here in question is clearly within that justification. For certainly no legislation can be supposed more wholesome and necessary in the founding of a free, self-governing commonwealth, fit to take rank as one of the coordinate states of the Union, than that which seeks to establish it on the basis of the idea of the family, as consisting in and springing from the union for life of one man and one woman in the holy estate of matrimony; the sure foundation of all that is stable and noble in our civilization; the best guarantee of that reverent morality which is the source of all beneficent progress in social and political improvement. And to this end, no means are more directly and immediately suitable than those provided by this act, which endeavors to withdraw all political influence from those who are practically hostile to its attainment.”
This quote was cited as a justifying rationale in Davis, which upheld a law prohibiting bigamists from voting against a First Amendment challenge. First Amendment challenges use a level of scrutiny at least as high as the level of scrutiny used in equal protection claims, so the rationale in Murphy should be sufficient to uphold gay marriage bans.
And one last thing to remember is that neither Baker, Reynolds, Murphy, or Davis would be sufficient to stop passage or ratification of a gay marriage amendment, except as their arguments can persuade the members of Congress and the state legislatures, any more than Minor v. Happersett stopped the passage and ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment.
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