The Daily Agenda for Saturday, May 25
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
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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Another day, another gay teen is dead:
Bernie
September 29th, 2010 | LINK
SWEET JESUS!! THIS HAS GOT TO STOP!
What is this like the 4th child in 3 weeks?!
It’s become so that I don’t even want to look at the news. All I do is sit and weep for these children. It it’s me in a peculiar sense because I thought of killing myself when I was coming of age.
May God Almighty have mercy on their souls. May God have mercy on the ambivalent school officials.
As far as the FRC, FOC, AFA goes, may God have mercy on your ignorant, IGNORANT poor excuse for souls, for promoting your disgusting propaganda.
Something has to be done to bring this light, nationally. The charlatans like Dobson, Perkins, and Fischer have to be EXPOSED for what they are!!!
Leonardo Ricardo
September 29th, 2010 | LINK
The irresponsible nasty hate-mongers didn´t think this would happen? Don´t be silly, the San Joaquin adult hate machine has been operating at full throttle for decades…these young thuggets grew up amongst grandstanding adults with warped minds and now they have blood on their hands!
Raymond
September 29th, 2010 | LINK
Being a gay person myself and 15 years old, I know how this kid felt. Maybe he thought it was the only way out, but it’s not. Why can’t people just just understand people are people, gay or straight or whatever? I hate society.
Lou H
September 29th, 2010 | LINK
This is NOT a new problem. It’s been going on for many, many years. Most school teachers, counselors, and administration just don’t want to deal with it. Let someone raise a hand to a football player and all kinds of attention gets paid to him. Let a young gay man/lady hang themselves and it’s all about what MIGHT HAVE BEEN DONE to prevent it.
Emily K
September 29th, 2010 | LINK
several of the kids broke down in tears, eh? since when do crocodile tears get one a free pass for horrific actions?
what the hell did these kids THINK would happen? What did they WANT to happen?
Regan DuCasse
September 29th, 2010 | LINK
I, who is often mouthy, is now beyond words…
Regan DuCasse
September 29th, 2010 | LINK
Ok…’bullying’ doesn’t have a criminal definition, but assault and battery does.
Pushing, shoving, verbal abuse, stalking, harassment…all ARE under a criminal code.
Just because this involves CHILDREN doesn’t make it any less a criminal issue.
I know there are legal advocates who know this and we’ve had Senate Bills AND assembly bills that have anti bullying laws in place requiring schools to be accountable.
WTF?!
I have some phone calls to make.
Andrew McKeown
September 29th, 2010 | LINK
Raymond – you are a strong, courageous 15 year old gay person and I admire you for posting on this story!
I am a 34 year old gay man. I remember being 15 and I know it can be confusing and painful. Please know that there are people out here in this world just like you. Keep true to yourself.
This story breaks my heart. All of us need to rally behind our anti-bullying laws in our states. We have to be courageous like the young man who posted on here. We just have to.
Timothy Kincaid
September 29th, 2010 | LINK
Remember that Bakersfield was the center of support for Proposition 8. It was in Kern County that they refused to perform any civil marriages if they had to let gay people get married as well.
This kid lived in the very heart of intolerance and hatred. There simply is no cultural message that picking on gay kids is not acceptable.
I can’t imagine the hell he endured on a regular basis. My heart goes out to him.
cowboy
September 29th, 2010 | LINK
Is it Bakersville or Bakersfield?
TomTallis
September 29th, 2010 | LINK
It’s Bakersfield. Take it from a Southern Californian, when mother nature breaks wind, it comes out in Bakersfield.
Bakersfield is also represented in the state Assembly by that virulently anti-gay legislator who was caught coming out of a gay bar in Sacramento.
Some of those San Joaquin Valley towns have an anti-gay church on every streetcorner. Bakersfield (and Visalia) have them in the middle of every block, too.
Jim Burroway
September 29th, 2010 | LINK
It is Bakersfield. Sorry for the confusion.
Emily K
September 29th, 2010 | LINK
Raymond, stay strong and courageous! If things ever get too tough and you need someone to talk to who also came out at 15, i can give you my email.
Candace
September 29th, 2010 | LINK
“As far as the FRC, FOC, AFA goes, may God have mercy on your ignorant, IGNORANT poor excuse for souls, for promoting your disgusting propaganda.”
You all need to get one thing clear in your mind: THIS IS NOT DONE OUT OF IGNORANCE: IT’S DONE DELIBERATELY.
To anti-gays, the only good gay is a dead gay. They don’t care if we ALL committ suicide– in fact, they hope we do.
They want to wipe us off the face of the earth. All of us, every single last one of us. That’s how deep their hatred runs, and I don’t see how anyone can NOT see that.
We MUST protect our young and stop worrying that–God forbid!– that if we mentor vulnerable gays, somebody might think we’re not JUST LIKE the hetero couple next door! Well, we’re NOT like the hetero next door, we’re GAY and LESBIAN and we need to stop cringing around being so politically correct and not wanting to make waves that we allow THEM to destroy what is OURS.
I’m not a politician and I’m not a social worker and I’m not an activist, but I know there HAS TO BE SOME WAY that we can come together to tell the world F*CK YOU, we’ll protect what is ours.
I already buried my 20 year old daughter over the same thing and every child on the news is like a new knife in my chest. I want to do something, but I don’t know what to do. It’s obvious that the approach we’re taking now isn’t working.
We can’t just keep looking at the faces of our dead, writing a couple of posts about it, and getting up from the computer and going with our lives. SOMEBODY has to come up with a better plan of action that what we have.
Seraphiel
September 29th, 2010 | LINK
I stand by my statement that this will continue until *school officials* start going to prison for criminal negligence.
John in the Bay Area
September 29th, 2010 | LINK
I think that it is positive that we are talking about these suicides and putting faces on the problem, even if the parents of the victims aren’t always happy about it. This problem is real. It is tragic. We as a nation need to address it. But we are only going to start addressing it, when we start talking about it. And as sad as it is, a picture showing just how much of a kid the victim was helps jar people out of their ideology.
Mark F.
September 29th, 2010 | LINK
I’m wondering about this boy’s parents. Why didn’t they do anything if this had been going on for such a long time? I wonder if he told them anything.
lurker
September 29th, 2010 | LINK
this epidemic of kids who cannot bear living anymore due to harassment must just be the tip of the iceburg.
For every kid who has it so bad that s/he committs suicide, there must be hundreds living with PTSD-like symptoms from the psychological wounds they’ve managed to survive.
Theo
September 29th, 2010 | LINK
I just want to echo what Regan said above: “bullying” may not be a defined crime under CA law, but a whole host of acts that may comprise bullying – assault, battery, terroristic threats, unlawful restraint, etc. – are crimes. Unless we hear from all parties that the bullying in this case involved only name-calling and no physical acts, no destruction of property, and no threats of violence, then we should assume that the police are covering for the bullies.
I don’t care if these bullies shed some tears on cue. When I was a teen, I could put on a performance worthy of Bill Clinton and then be laughing about it 30 minutes later. We shouldn’t let this story drop.
Bernie
September 29th, 2010 | LINK
Candace, I am right there with you. The thing is, I tell everyone , friends, and everyone I meet. I make it MY BUSINESS to promulgate the lies and hatred that are being proliferated by these disgusting Un-Christlike bigots.
I send letters to the FRC, but the cowards never respond.
I think it’s high time that Morris Dees and the Southern Poverty Law Center starts investigating.
Rayomond, NEVER, EVER lose hope or your courage, young man. God does not make junk! It’s the evil that dwells in the hearts of people that allow things like this to happen.
Mark F.
September 30th, 2010 | LINK
Yes, bullying often involves real crimes (not just calling names) and the children who bully and the adults who cover for them should be held accountable.
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