House of Commons officially passes marriage equality
British Commons Approves Marriage Equality Bill
Email address of Attorney General prosecuting 18 year old Florida lesbian
Gay Man's Murder Sparks Massive Rally
The Daily Agenda for Tuesday, May 21
Connecticut Scouts simply announce that they are accepting gay scout leaders
Church of Scotland allows ministers in relationship
Last Minute Bid to Sink Marriage Bill Fails in British Commons
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
Posts 
Posts via daily email:
From Veja (translated by Google)
enough already
May 5th, 2011 | LINK
Good for them!
I wish all the Brazilians well.They’ve come a long way in a short time, I remember the days of the dictatorship.
And now, yet another nation joins the ranks of the civilized countries.
James
May 5th, 2011 | LINK
Even more interesting as I watched this unfold in Brazil (where I live) – the final vote was unanimous. All ten of the justices supported this, the eleventh having recused himself owing to having been an advocate for one of the cases on its way to the Supreme Court before himself being appointed a justice.
Lindoro Almaviva
May 5th, 2011 | LINK
Have the justices created a separate category? Am I reading this right? Obviously, civil “unions” mean something completely different here in the USA and maybe I am assuming that they are something completely different from marriage.
Clarification please
Embarcadero
May 6th, 2011 | LINK
Congrats Brazil, and especially to Arco-Iris, GGB and the other groups that have been instrumental in bringing this to the Court.
But I also have to gloat in the irony of this situation, an outstanding example of how Catholic judicial activism can have unintended consequences.
Back in the 1990s, a law called “Lei do Concubinato” made de-facto marriages very easy to establish. This law meant that if a couple (male/female, at the time) was involved over time and if knowledge of that involvement was public, they had to assume legal obligations of a legally married couple.The rationale was that this would undo what divorce permitted: men could no longer abandon their spouses and children, or ditch their mistresses in a time of need. If they didn’t want to step up to their obligations through a legal marriage, the state would do it for them.
The effect was to impose marriage on couples who had chosen to not be married. After the passage of this law, it became legally impossible to choose to be an unmarried adult if you were in an ongoing relationship with someone of the opposite sex.
Under Brazilian family law, parental and spousal obligations may persist over a lifetime, even in case of divorce. A parent may not legally disinherit a child – under any circumstances. This law was intended to stop Brazilian men from fooling around, cheating on their wives or having “frivolous” sexual relationships. Doing so could mean a very serious drain on one’s personal net worth.
Same-sex couples, on the other hand, could never be married and were categorically barred from the kinds of rights and obligations that all opposite sex couples had – even if they made a decision not to get married.
Fast-forward 20 years, and the glaring inequalities generated by a state that forcefully marries all opposite sex couples and denies that relationship to same-sex couples becomes so absurd that we see 10 of 11 Ministers voting in favor of extending state-mandated marriage to all “stable” couples.
I’m absolutely tickled with this outcome, in no small part because I’m sure the Brazilian Council of Bishops has come to regret their insistence on the Lei do Concubinato.
ali
May 6th, 2011 | LINK
it so shamefull for Brasil,very bad decition from the court.
Timothy Kincaid
May 6th, 2011 | LINK
Lindoro,
You have the advantage on me here. Most of the news coverage has been in Portuguese or Spanish (and, if I recall correctly, you speak Spanish). I rely on Google Translate and what few words and phrases I know.
Embarcadero
May 6th, 2011 | LINK
Lindoro,
I’ll answer as best I can. I am in close contact with a few groups in Brazil and have worked extensively there. I have a good command of Portuguese, including a non-professional grasp of the legal terms used here.
To the best of my knowledge, the primary distinction between a “casamento” and a “união” is the mechanism for entry. A marriage is initiated by the issuance of a civil license. The “união” is initiated by a declaration in front of a notary, through legal demand of a de-facto spouse or through a petition for some government agency to recognize the union and provide benefits to the de-facto spouse.
The Supreme Court has declared that, for certain purposes, there is a hierarchy of relationships. Legal spouse is superior to “companheiro” (as in a “união estável”), which is superior to a concubine. This hierarchy is important primarily for determining inheritance. However, because same-sex couples do not have access to marriage, it is unclear how this principal will operate. One cannot have both a “união estável’ and a marriage at the same time, so spouse and “companheiro” would not likely be competing for an inheritance. A “companheiro” could compete with siblings for inheritance, in which case this hierarchy might come into effect – and be challenged. If the deceased has both a “companheiro” and a concubine (defined under the “lei do concubinato” of 1994), both have rights to an inheritance.
These points are somewhat esoteric, but they are the only substantive differences I can find in the Brazilian Civil Code (2002). If anyone knows any different, or can elucidate further, that would be appreciated.
In the Brazilian system, laws must be coded into a regulatory and adminsitrative structure before they can be applied more generally (this is called “regulamentação”). This has not happened here, so the only way to apply this decision to the world of actual people is by judicial order.
So, until this decision is “regulamentada”, another important difference between marriage and “união” is that the latter might require the intervention of a judge to enforce rights/obligations.
Leave A Comment