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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The ex-gay nutcake of San Diego strikes again:
Timothy Kincaid
July 23rd, 2010 | LINK
Who knew the emergent church was going so strong in Argentina?
Priya Lynn
July 23rd, 2010 | LINK
Judging from all the things that have gone wrong as a result of equal marriage its clear that if gays weren’t allowed to marry anywhere nothing bad would happen ever again.
Ben in Oakland
July 23rd, 2010 | LINK
The pennggins. the penngins. Won’t nobody think of the innocent pennggins?
Paul in Canada
July 23rd, 2010 | LINK
Truly a whackadoodle nut job!
DN
July 23rd, 2010 | LINK
I’m saddened these penguins died before they had the opportunity to be proseltyzed to, and have now died without the Grace of Jesus Christ and are roasting in Hell.
:(
Ryan K.
July 23rd, 2010 | LINK
This guy needs professional help, and not the NARTH kind.
Richard Rush
July 23rd, 2010 | LINK
Breaking news:
In the wake of Argentina legalizing same-sex marriage and then the subsequent penguin deaths, God announced today that He was responsible for the killing of 500 penguins and then dumping their bodies on a beach in Brazil. In His press release, God said, “It was meant to serve as a stern warning to Brazil that if they don’t legalize same-sex marriage soon for His gay children, there would be more dead penguins.”
Christopher
July 23rd, 2010 | LINK
I’d just like to state for the record that, in fact, I was responsible for the penguin deaths. They’re pretty tasty. You can barbecue penguin, boil it, broil it, bake it, saute it. There’s penguin-kabobs, penguin creole, penguin gumbo. Pan fried penguin, deep fried penguin, stir-fried penguin. There’s pineapple penguin, lemon penguin, coconut penguin, pepper penguin, shrimp penguin, penguin stew, penguin salad, penguin and potatoes, penguin burger, penguin sandwich.
That’s about it.
Priya Lynn
July 23rd, 2010 | LINK
Mmmmm, penguin…auugchahcahuc [/homer simpson]
GDad
July 23rd, 2010 | LINK
I wonder how difficult it would be to write a program that would take random news articles from web sources and apply some kind of juju to create a Hartline/FRC/Whatever anti-gay news release that people would believe actually came from one of those sources.
Sometimes I suspect that it has already been done.
Jonathan
July 23rd, 2010 | LINK
Mr. Hartline takes insanity to a new low level. The bar has been reset.
Timothy Kincaid
July 23rd, 2010 | LINK
Actually, guys, Hartline does suffer from mental illness. He has spent time in a mental hospital and is the sad example of what a life of mental illness and excessive drug use can do to an intelligent man.
Regan DuCasse
July 23rd, 2010 | LINK
I heard the 911 recordings of a mother who killed her two young autistic children because she wanted ‘normal’ children.
It’s appalling in how cold blooded she is, and her twisted reasoning. In fact, I woke up to all kinds of mayhem where mothers killed their children or the fathers wiped out their entire family. Or tried to.
There’s another where a teen boy slashed the throats of his mother and sibs, then set the house on fire.
I just wrote Brian Brown and told him of these events, and asked him why his tour wasn’t about raising awareness of domestic violence. Why not rally in front of family courts and jails…places representative of what happens when families implode.
Or at the very least, raise awareness of how many people are IN these places because of domestic violence.
I am so sorry about what happened to these beautiful birds.
But there are beautiful children who need attention.
Children out there in danger, from their own parents…or vice versa.
NOM is so redundant, given the other reality. What kind of person are you, who goes around the country saying that marriage is threatened by people who want to get married, than by people who violate members of their own family?
Is this one of those times when it’s appropriate to say when homophobes love children more than they hate gay people, maybe the real work of helping children can be done?
Regan DuCasse
July 23rd, 2010 | LINK
Timothy, hey brother. Then the Phelps and the Hartlines have something in common. And a lot of irrational and mentally ill people have religious delusions. In fact, it’s a good bet that what the Bible says, how Mormons were founded by J. Smith and so on, could be profiled as mental illness.
Mental illness is sad and tragic, but whole socio/political campaigns shouldn’t be started with people who exhibit certain kinds of singular obsessions.
Human history is rife with the legacy of what happens when some people are let loose to do so.
I don’t think a religious test should be the artbiter of fitness for public service…but forensic examinations by credible psychiatrists.
Timothy Kincaid
July 23rd, 2010 | LINK
Regan,
I disagree.
It isn’t that Hartline is just obsessed or wacky like the Phelps family. He actually suffers from a clinically diagnosed mental illness.
The Phelps family has peculiar beliefs based on their religion. And they are gadflies seeking attention for their views. They are wacky and evil but their hate and bile has some logical consistency.
They don’t think that God talks to them from their television set or that God has planned the future of the world around them in particular.
William
July 23rd, 2010 | LINK
So the righteous penguins fled from Argentina in disgust at the introduction of same sex marriage, just as the righteous Lot fled from Sodom with his virgin daughters (whom he later shagged in a cave), and God punished the penguins (not the Argentines) by killing them and washing up their dead bodies on the shores of Brazil. What does this tell us, I wonder?
We’ve had this sort of thing before. In 2001 when the UK government equalized the age of consent, Pastor Ray Borlase (not far from where I live) claimed that this was what had caused the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease among British cattle. He pointed out that God had punished our cattle in exactly the same way back in 1967 when gay sex for those over 21 had been legalized. What further proof do you need?
Timothy Kincaid
July 23rd, 2010 | LINK
If you want to understand Hartline, it helps to know his history. San Diego Citybeat did an interview in 2005 that has a lot of information.
ricky
July 23rd, 2010 | LINK
don’t cry for me argentina, the penguins are in brazil….
MaskedBandit
July 23rd, 2010 | LINK
Thanks for the link, Timothy. I frequently wonder just how much mental illness has affected the course of human history. I’m thankful that scientists and psychologists have identified mental illness and, in most cases, have identified means of treating and reducing its effects on the individual.
Regan DuCasse
July 23rd, 2010 | LINK
Point taken, Tim.
And how many people agree with him, take him at his word and would chastise you for saying such a thing because Hartline and his son, speak The Truth?
If those folks don’t differentiate…look out below!
Candace
July 23rd, 2010 | LINK
Timothy’s right– the Phelps clan is evil and wants to force the world to live in their twisted version of reality– but they never BREAK with reality. That’s the definition of “psychosis,” and Hartline’s history and current speech certainly give evidence that he spends much of his time in psychotic episodes.
Incidentally, this is why I did every drug known to mankind but wouldn’t touch ecstasy. I’ve known a long list of people who had nominal, neurotic disorders, who started on X and ended up schizophrenic permanently. If looking at the tranwreck that is Hartline doesn’t convince people to stay away from that stuff, I don’t know what will.
emma
July 23rd, 2010 | LINK
I wonder what color the sky is, in Hartline’s world
Marlene
July 25th, 2010 | LINK
I think ol’ Jimmy’s trying to be the successor to Pat “don’t call me Marion!” Robertson’s wingnut religious “revelations”!
RobNYNY1957
July 25th, 2010 | LINK
“Actually, guys, Hartline does suffer from mental illness.”
Not quite right. He _has_ mental illness, but we suffer from it.
Taylor Siluwé
July 25th, 2010 | LINK
Excellent distinction RobNYNY1957, for we all suffer from his mental illness and the similar maladies of his ilk.
@ Chistopher: Thanks for the penguin recipes. Who knew they were so tasty? Oh, and I promise not to alert PETA about your proclivities.
@ Regan DuCasse: You are SO correct. All religious traditions began with some nutjob declaring himself a prophet chosen by God in a dream (or a bush, or by a face on an oddly toasted grilled cheese sandwich).
All those obsessed with Heaven to the detriment of peace on earth need therapy, not followers.
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