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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Christopher
July 20th, 2011 | LINK
This is what happens when European religion is foisted upon an unsuspecting triabl culture.
As if smallpox was not enough…
A Frequent Visitor
July 20th, 2011 | LINK
So sad to read this. I refuse to blame it on western religion. I am a west African living in the US. Western religion forbids polygamy, but polygamy is still being practiced by some Christians in those countries and I don’t see any govt officials trying to ban it !!!
News like this makes me so sad when I read of what our LGBT brothers and sisters have to go through in those countries.
Thank you for informing us and for the great work you are doing. There are many people in foreign lands that benefit from your advocacy.
justme
July 20th, 2011 | LINK
Feel free to blame it on Western religion, AFV.
The cult known as The Family — the secretive extreme right-wing group that has been influencing Washington DC politics for decades, a group that actually has a house in DC where Republican congressmen live, plot, and conspire to cover up each other’s crimes and scandals — is behind this.
It’s been covered extensively in the press, but Rachel Maddow has done a particularly good and comprehensive job of exposing this genocidal plot as all theirs.
Think about that the next time Obama or any other Democrat attends The Family’s annual National Prayer Breakfast.
Ben In Oakland
July 20th, 2011 | LINK
Famine, poverty, disease,no jobs, no edeucation, bad water, too many people, infant mortality, maternal mortality, AIDS, and at least a few morde things.
but there is always time to blame the queers,
chelovek
July 21st, 2011 | LINK
Believe it or not, they tried this at the beginning of communist control in China.
Amazingly, without the existence of any homosexuals as examples, a rather reliable percentage of the following generations “choose” to be gay.
They can commit genocide – and it will temporarily work – but those pesky breeders just keep making more of their offspring to “choose” to be gay. If those heterosexuals would stop having children – THEN – there will be no more gay people in society.
Obviously, there will also be no society as well. This business of heterosexual reproduction and the continued existence of gays in society appears to be inextricably intertwined as demonstrated by the failed Chinese experiment. The same may be said of the WWII death camps and the slaughter of vast numbers of gays. Mysteriously, Europe is, yet again, hosting a rather reliable percentage of its own gay population in European society.
Still, the ignorant and self-righteous will insist that homosexual orientation is a choice no matter how many times God proves the exact opposite to them throughout one history in the form of repeated genocide against gays in various societies at various times.
It is God who thwarts these efforts. Perhaps those who believe they know better than God should open their eyes and hearts.
Don
July 21st, 2011 | LINK
With few exceptions, the countries where you’re most likely to encounter this type of violence and repressive laws directed against LGBT tend to be former colonies of the UK (along with fundamentalist Islamic countries). This trend is especially apparent in the Caribbean and Africa. Former French, Portuguese, Dutch, Belgian, and Spanish colonies in contrast tend mostly to have decriminalized homosexuality. It’s not just about imported Christianity, it’s about the particular brand of Christianity and Victorian morality imported by the British during the 19th Century.
Fred
July 21st, 2011 | LINK
I agree. It is the twisted puritanical version of religious beliefs that cause bigoted and hateful behavior. That problem is ever so evident here in the good old US where we waste valuable time in our legislature debating sexual issues because the extremist fringe has taken over the Repugnican party and forces us to deal with non-issues that distract us from real problems like poverty, health and war. In Florida they even got an UNconstitutional amendment passed to ban gay marriage. WHy? Who is helped? Corporations that won’t have to pay domestic partner benefits? Surely no one else…
Timothy Kincaid
July 21st, 2011 | LINK
Fred,
And even those Corporations are increasingly not seeing this as help at all. Many employers WANT to treat their employees with dignity and respect (it increases loyalty and productivity).
This anti-gay amendment also bans employers from adding the gay employees’ partners on their health insurance. And for those benefits that they are allowed to offer, the amendment requires time and energy (and likely hurt feelings) trying to decide how someone should qualify.
We are now seeing major corporations funding opposition to anti-gay stuff. And one of the Republicans who voted “yes” on marriage in New York was approached by a major corporation who is the largest employer in his district and told in no uncertain terms that they wanted the marriage equality bill to pass.
paul canning
July 24th, 2011 | LINK
Jim
“8,000 who signed up at an HIV/AIDS workshop funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).”
This is not what happened according to my source, in Ghana.
See http://madikazemi.blogspot.com/2011/07/audio-in-ghana-is-it-getting-worse-for.html
This media attention and debate has actually been going on for a while. It’s a sign of a civil society which is pushing for debate. My sense is that the regional Minister’s reaction, which was to Church and Mosque agitation, is empty but is also a reaction to that debate.
Ersjub
August 6th, 2011 | LINK
it is time people from the west are made aware that Ghana is a soverient stage, for that matter, no, i mean no person or group of people can intervere the way the state handles LGBT issues.
The people of western region are mostly Christians and Muslims which believes L&G are firty culture imported into the country and will go all out to make people who practice this ‘animalist’ act misarable in the region. We will also opose any forien pressure and enpower leaders who pursue our agenda in flashing this horendous act from our society by endorsing them during elections irrepective of their political affiliations.
Timothy Kincaid
August 8th, 2011 | LINK
And it is time that people in Ghana are made aware that how they treat GLBT people will no longer be a matter that has no consequence.
As Christians, I’m sure that you observe Christ’s commandment to do unto others as you want done to you.
So as you are choosing to make gay people miserable, then this is quite obviously what you, as Christians, want done to you. And I assure you that the West has the resources to make Ghana very very miserable.
F Young
August 24th, 2011 | LINK
@Ersjub
“it is time people from the west are made aware that Ghana is a soverient stage, for that matter, no, i mean no person or group of people can intervere the way the state handles LGBT issues.”
Your view is a commonly expressed rationale for anti-LGBT discrimination, but it is incorrect.
In today’s world, the ancient concept of sovereignty survives only in a qualified way. Once a state signs an international human rights instrument, it cannot legitimately claim the sovereign right to violate those human rights with impunity. States that violate internationally recognized human rights risk facing international sanctions.
Ghana has signed a number of international treaties at the world and African levels that obligate it to respect certain human rights. The international community has in some cases the right or obligation to intervene when a country fails to meet certain human rights obligations, genocide and apartheid for example.
The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, the International Criminal Court and the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights were set up for this reason.
http://www.unictr.org/
http://www.icc-cpi.int/Menus/ICC/About+the+Court/
http://www.african-court.org/en/
Arms embargoes, trade sanctions, the severing of transportation, sports, fiscal and cultural links and divestment rules that prohibited businesses from doing business in South Africa were examples of international intervention about apartheid.
In some cases, military intervention is justified due to human rights violations, as was the case in Bosnia.
Ghana has signed the following human rights instruments, among others:
The United Nations has published an expert consensus interpretation on how several United Nations human rights instruments protect LGBT persons: it is called the Yogyakarta Principles.
http://www.yogyakartaprinciples.org/
So, the international community is certainly justified to express its oppostion at the type of sexual cleansing that has been proposed in Ghana. In a worst case scenario, there is always the risk that one of these anti-gay histeria campaigns may lead to outright genocide.
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