The Daily Agenda for Monday, May 20
Gay Man Shot To Death In NYC Hate Crime
The Daily Agenda for Sunday, May 19
French President Hollande Signs Marriage Bill
The Daily Agenda for Saturday, May 18
Fox News Ignores Marriage Equality Wins
The Era of Civil Unions Is Coming To An End
Orthodox Priests Lead Violent Attack On LGBT Rights Rally in Tbilisi, Georgia
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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Who’s Rick Welts, you ask? He’s the President of the NBA’s Phoenix Suns. And in the sports pages of today’s New York Times — which I totally would never have read otherwise — there is a lengthy and touching profile of his decision to come out in an industry that is not at all known for its welcoming attitude towards LGBT acceptance.
Ben In Oakland
May 15th, 2011 | LINK
I’ve been thinking a lot about this.
Part of me wants to praise him for doing it, recognizing that in his prison/closet of a mind, he was taking a major chance. But that is a perfect example of the thoroughly corrosive nature of the closet. You become your own worst enemy. You become your own oppressor. And as his wrecked relationships show, you become the enemy and the oppressor of those you love.
Part of me wants to scream at him. “You’re fifty seven goddamned years old. Why did it take you so long to stop lying to the world about who you really are?” I came out in 1971– that was my public admission, ready to take the consequences. I knew I was gay in 1956.
But then the real truth hit me.
He didn’t finally come out. He’s been out socially for years. He finally grew a pair, manned up, and decided to do what was right, rather than what was comfortable.
He deserves praise and thanks for that. But like a lot of other people who enjoyed the benefits of other people’s sacrifices while sacrificing nothing of his own (except his relationships), he has a great deal to atone for.
I hope he does so.
Kate
May 15th, 2011 | LINK
His friends and close acquaintances in the sports world may have known, but all it would have taken to make his life and career hell was a reporter looking for a story…I’ve read the biographies of some of pro sports’ big names who came out after they retired, and just trying to stay under the radar of the press was a constant pressure in their lives. It sounded like a miserable way to live, but it was part of what they had to do to continue to play, given the probable response from both teammates and management.
I’m glad he found supporters in the NBA who said they would support him, or at least not distance themselves from him. And I’m glad he says he wants to be a role model or mentor for gay athletes in professional sports. I’m just not sure how that could work…how could he really help a professional athlete who is right now trying to decide how to balance his/her professional and personal life?
I’m not trying to downplay the importance of his decision – it says a lot about the NBA that the management is willing to express support rather than go into damage control mode. But I’m still waiting for a currently playing, actively participating professional athlete to prove that his or her athletic skill and team contributions are more important to their sport, their management and their fans to take that step out of the closet.
Ben In Oakland
May 15th, 2011 | LINK
Kate– that, too.
Regan DuCasse
May 15th, 2011 | LINK
I can certainly defer experience and what the closet does and means to my gay friends and learn from what they have to tell.
I think what bothers me more, is the hypocrisy surrounding the behavior that’s accepted in men’s sports. The violence and assaults on women. The adultery and drug use, to say nothing of just plain old fashioned crimes and misdemeanors that are allowed to inflate the fat egos in that industry.
They are more accepting of felonious behavior, than they are of gays and lesbians who don’t and wouldn’t commit such things. Or, if they did, they wouldn’t accept it. Might use it as a vehicle of outing.
Ridiculous
Rob in San Diego
May 15th, 2011 | LINK
Way to go bro, welcome to the club!
daftpunkydavid
May 15th, 2011 | LINK
oh my oh my oh my:
“He deserves praise and thanks for that. But like a lot of other people who enjoyed the benefits of other people’s sacrifices while sacrificing nothing of his own (except his relationships), he has a great deal to atone for.
I hope he does so.”
i mean, really? who are you to say that “he has a great deal to atone for”? get off your high horse, geez. he doesn’t owe you anything.
Ben In Oakland
May 16th, 2011 | LINK
He doesn’t owe me a thing.
He owes it to every kid who thought about committing suicide, every athlete who decided not to compete because she was gay, every queer that lost a job because they weren’t protected by the privileged hypocrisy of the closeted, every boy (and I was one of them) who got beat up because they were perceived to be a little bit different.
It took me about two years after I came out in 1971 to understand that this was about far more than what makes Private Johnson snap to attention.
I don’t care whether he atones or not. That’s his business, though i hope he does. My own sense of justice and morality tells me that it is the only thing to do.
As I said, ““You’re fifty seven goddamned years old. Why did it take you so long to stop lying to the world about who you really are?”
Ben In Oakland
May 16th, 2011 | LINK
Here’s what don lemon had to say on This Very Subject:
“There was a time when I was terrified of revealing these things to the person I love most in this world – my own mother. But when I finally mustered the courage to tell her that I had been molested as a child and that I was born gay, my life began to change in positive ways that I never imagined possible. Yet I still chose to keep those secrets hidden from the world. I, like most gay people, lived a life of fear. Fear that if some employers, co-workers, friends, neighbors and family members learned of my sexuality, I would be shunned, mocked and ostracized. It is a burden that millions of people carry with them every single day. And sadly, while the mockery and ostracizing are realized by millions of people every day, I truly believe it doesn’t have to happen and that’s why I feel compelled to share what I’ve written in Transparent”
Timothy Kincaid
May 16th, 2011 | LINK
Perhaps it took him so long to come out because he just didn’t have the courage to face a bunch of people screaming “Why didn’t you come out sooner”
I’m kidding, of course, but really, is that the first thing you want to hear when you take a step towards openness? Do we really want people like this to unexpectedly find support from the homophobic sports world but find rejection and recrimination from us?
This hardly is encouragement for anyone else out there wondering if just maybe they should follow his lead.
C’mon guys. I’m sure that Welts will beat himself up enough for not facing his fears. At this point in his life, our role is to be supportive and help him through this phase. Once his life has stabilized, we can pressure him to make up for lost time. Give him space.
Jennifer
May 16th, 2011 | LINK
I’m disgusted with the sexist terminology
(“grew a pair, manned up”). Equating courage with male anatomy or maleness is as offensive as using “gay” as a derogatory term.
Mark
May 17th, 2011 | LINK
Hey Ben in Oakland (no wonder),
Dont be such an ass. We all have different circumstances, and different reasons for doing different things. “what took him so long”, you ask. “I came out in 1971″ – or whenever you did (century’s ago, it appears from your ignorant reply- who cares about YOU? That was YOUR decision. It’s nobody elses! Dont be so ignorant as to assume that because you came out, everyone needs to. That is such bull, so hypocitical, so shortsightedness. Give me a break. Oh, because I did – you have to. Shut teh FCUK up! idot from Oakland…jeeze…
Ben In Oakland
May 17th, 2011 | LINK
Politeness, like good spelling, is a virtue.
Name calling is not.
I’m also quite well aware of your points, and believe it or not, I agree with them, though not with your spelling or your name calling.
Mine is simply this. The enemy is and always has been the closet, not people. The closet is where some people get their power to cause other people to cower in the closet. The closet is what enables depression, suicide, blackmail, and every other social ill associated with it. The closet is corrosive to human health and happiness.
I agree with Timothy. Give him some space to do more of what is right. I just hope he does.
I quite firmly believe that barring a threat to one’s physical safety, coming out is always the healthier option. I came out at a time when it was not safe to do so– centuries ago, as you say. Quite possibly before you were born.
I put my ass on the line, so that you could do what you want with yours. It cost me a couple of jobs, a few attempts to get me fired from jobs, and what little relationship I had with my family, perhaps a few friendships when I was young, a thousand ages gone.
And I don’t regret any of it. I regret the kids who have been beaten up or who committed suicide. I regret the marriages that were failures from thre get-go. I regret the kids and adults that have learned to hate themselves to please the bigots and their equally bigoted small-g god. I regret the careers that have ended. I regret the millions and millions, if not billions, that have been spent attacking people who have harmed no one.
And on and on and on.
I regret all of it. What do you regret?
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