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
October 15th, 2010 | LINK
Three cheers for the Nassau County police.
David Malcolm
October 15th, 2010 | LINK
That’s insane… I hate to say it but I hope they make an example of these kids.
Pender
October 15th, 2010 | LINK
Worth a note that this is not just bullying but actual assault and battery. I think there’s a tendency to sweep what would be called criminal violence among adults into the euphemistic category of bullying when children are involved.
Matthew
October 15th, 2010 | LINK
As a Nassau County resident, I am thankful for the justice system!
Richard W. Fitch
October 15th, 2010 | LINK
With all this going on, someone proposed that we begin to look at these events in degree: teasing, bullying, peer abuse and criminal harassment. The lines between each may be a bit fuzzy at times, but actions that lead to physical and psychological injury to our nations young go beyond just the normal rites of passage. When adults are complicit with the peer ‘bullies’ by ignoring their actions, the adults should also be held legal liable for the abuse of the victims.
andrew
October 16th, 2010 | LINK
Frankly, with the pursuit to the back of the bus, you could add in unlawful detainment, and potentially attempted murder charges.
And, on another posting, I pointed out that this is nothing short of criminal behavior.
But, as a bullying victim for 15 years, I tend to get emotional and lose perspective on this issue. So, I need to stop and think a bit:
I’m not sure what we do with these kids. I’m also a fierce advocate for NOT treating child offenders as adults. I know from personal experience that these child bullies almost always grow out of this mindset and behavior. I can’t tell you how many peers approached me at my 10 year HS reunion to apologize — people who are now leading truly upstanding, moral lives in the community and would deplore the kind of behavior they espoused as pre-formed teens.
I think maybe the issue is supervision and leadership. Lord of the Flies anyone? Until children have the fully formed brains necessary to make good decisions, they need the help of adults to make sure that behavior stays within reasonable boundaries. Too often adults look away or worse signal that the behavior is perfectly fine.
Perhaps this is a case where you make sure these kids get into a counseling program… and then you slam the bus driver and matron with will indifference charges and give THEM the jail time.
andrew
October 16th, 2010 | LINK
sorry, that was supposed to be “willful indifference”
Regan DuCasse
October 16th, 2010 | LINK
Andrew, what needs to happen is at the beginning of a school year, parents AND children should be required to take instruction on the criminal and legal implications of such assaults.
If a workplace had one or more persons who routinely verbally abused, followed someone around the factory and hit them day after day, it’s considered criminal stalking, battery and as you point out, wrongful detention and attempted murder. If an instrument is used, it’s an ADW (assault with a deadly weapon).
The school would have to employ regular patrolling personnel, or have parents volunteer their time as a security force.
At BEST, there should be arrests and expulsion if these regulations are violated. A criminal hearing and community service can come later, if the degree of assault warrants it. Thus saving a young person a jail sentence and permanent record of violence, but at the same time, giving them AND their parents the sense of gravity of their actions and a means of making amends for it.
Churches need to get in on this, and quit their anti gay rhetoric and own up to contributing to this violence. If they don’t want to, and consider it a compromise to THEIR religious freedom, then they have to be held to account for how inconsistent they are regarding protection under the Constitution, while supporting another citizen’s lack of it.
That’s a moral contradiction no church or other religious institution could defend.
They deserve to be shamed over this inconsistency.
As do violent kids and their parents who allow it.
It’s not gay kids or those thought as such who deserve to be shamed and accountable, but people who let violence resolve their anger and institutions that teach the opposite of the golden rule.
A
Scott P.
October 16th, 2010 | LINK
andrew, I’m not sure I agree with you about teenagers being let off the hook because their brains aren’t fully formed. They know what they did was wrong, and criminal. In the eight grade a kid sat behind me and would stick pins in my back all through class. I knew if I complained, or reacted, that I’d get blamed (it happened every time I had to go to the vice-principal’s office) and that he’d get a group of friends together after school to gang up on me. He knew what he did was wrong, but he was popular and I wasn’t, he just thought himself above considering me a human being. If he had gone to jail, or been held accountable I might not still feel bitter about it now, over 40 years later. And he’s just one of dozens who used me as a punching bag. I was hit, kicked, slapped, spit on almost every day until my junior year of high school. Once a little bastard tried to kick my leg (it was in a cast) out from under me as I went down the stairs. I kicked out at him, he ran to a councilor, who blamed me and forced me to apologize for defending myself. I consider everyone of them, students, teachers and staff as lowlifes I’d happily run over if I could get away with it!
rlk
October 16th, 2010 | LINK
Enough already! No civilizied person condones violence, but it is time for us to fight back. There is nothing wrong with a man defending himself. It is a shame in more ways than one, when a gay kid is bullied because of some perceived weakness. Yet,there are surely other gay kids in the same school that easily blend in with the in-crowd that are likely quite popular but suffer in silence whether it is the guy on the football team or the cheerleader. This silence kills just as much as the actual bully. We need them to step up to end homophobia otherwise this cycle will continue.
MIhangel apYrs
October 19th, 2010 | LINK
“I’ve asked before when will the time come when school administrators and personnel are held responsible for bullying that takes place on their watch. ”
Possibly when some victim cracks, and instead of killing him/herself, takes a lethal weapon to scholl and kills his/her tormentors and staff who did f*all
MIhangel apYrs
October 19th, 2010 | LINK
um…
“school”
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