Box Turtle Bulletin

Box Turtle BulletinNews, analysis and fact-checking of anti-gay rhetoric
“Now you must raise your children up in a world where that union of man and box turtle is on the same legal footing as man and wife…”
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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

Daniel FettyThe 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.

Priorities and perspectives in Illinois

Timothy Kincaid

November 16th, 2011

The American Family Association has, unintentionally, the most revelatory article on the final cessation of the foster care program of the Catholic Charities of Illinois. Although the Catholic Church had appealed the state’s decision to allow gay couples to be foster parents, time has run out so they are dropping their appeal.

And so they are ceasing their 90 year old program. Because, unlike 90 years ago, the current Catholic Church is unwilling to fund a foster care program out of their own pocket.

But it is two statements within the article that caught my attention:

Now the state will only be dealing with organizations that are willing to hand children over to homosexuals.

There is something about that which is so bald, so unfiltered, that I caught my breath. The implications are astonishing.

This isn’t about “the best environment for children” or “denying a mom or dad” or any of the other catch phrases. Rather, there is a broadly shared assumption that gay people not only would be harmful to children, just by their being gay, but also that there is some nefarious element involved.

To Charlie Butts and Bob Kellogg, the authors of this article, being homosexual is cause not to have access to children. By default. And, like Catholic Charities, they would never “hand children over” to someone like you or me.

One of my themes in writing here, indeed one of BTB’s underlying themes, is to provide a more nuanced perspective on the views, goals, fears, and concerns of those who oppose our political equality. We don’t often use language such as “bigot” or “hater” here. Not only is it not particularly effective, it often isn’t an accurate portrayal of the motivations, thoughts or intent of those being called bigot and hater.

But there is something about that sentence – presented alone as its own paragraph – that is so full of contempt, so full of animus, that I have a hard time finding any motivation that isn’t based in hatred.

But then at the end of the article I read the words of a Catholic man, words which bring me hope and faith. I also found an irony, a sadness, and a recognition that while his church may have their own priorities, he needn’t follow their lead. Oh, I’m sure that AFA didn’t see it – and, indeed, he may not have seen it – but Gary Huelsmann could not have said it better.

Meanwhile, an organization once known as Catholic Social Services of South Illinois has severed its ties with the diocese in order to comply with the state law. Gary Huelsmann, executive director of the agency, recently told LifeSiteNews that it “boiled down to the Catholic Church needing to stay true to its core beliefs and the agency needing to take care for all of the abused, neglected children.”

Comments

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Ben In Oakland
November 16th, 2011 | LINK

“I have a hard time finding any motivation that isn’t based in hatred. ”

Well, stop looking in their dark hearts. Go over to the NOM website. The light is so much better.

tim
November 16th, 2011 | LINK

I’m just shocked that Mr. Kincaid acknowledges a world outside of West Hollywood. Perhaps there is hope for him yet.

(unlikely)

Bose in St. Peter MN
November 17th, 2011 | LINK

I love this phrase, too: “an organization once known as Catholic…”

Catholicism was once known to offer loving care to all… schools have typically welcomed non-Catholic families, for example.

So, it strikes me as appropriate that a genuinely compassionate, professional, social service agency would no longer identify as Catholic.

dn
November 17th, 2011 | LINK

It is a hairsplit, but for me, I don’t think they’re motivated by hate, but by a sense that they are better than gays. Hard not to see hatred there, I admit… But somehow it feels more accurate. Besides, it also allows them the benefit of the doubt insofar as it could be a non hate based superiority. Like I said, its a hairsplit.

CPT_Doom
November 17th, 2011 | LINK

Sadly, I see the most recent uptick in the assault on gay rights by the Church as pure political calculation. The Church desperately needed a scapegoat for the decades-long (if not centuries-long) criminal conspiracy to cover up the sexual assault of minors. Even though their own researchers determine sexual orientation was not a factor, they have people like Bill Donohue out there making the charge that the Church’s problem was too many homosexual priests and then back that up with their political assault on equality in housing, employment, public accommodations, marriage and adoption. The point is to deflect the focus away from their continuing cover up.

I believe this because their reasoning is simply unbelievable. For years the Church’s social service agencies, hospitals, schools, universities and colleges all complied with Civil Rights laws that protected both religious belief and marital status. Thus, even though the Catholic Church regards remarriage after divorce as adultery, a Catholic hospital could not deny the second husband of one of their nurses health benefits. So why now, and only with homosexuality, is the Church so concerned about their religious beliefs? Heresy, blashpemy, fornication and adultery are all sins equal to, if not worse than, homosexuality, but there has never been a protest by the Church about having to treat the people who choose to live in those sins equally to faithful Catholics.

IMO, as a former Catholic, that only makes their actions sadder. Any Catholic I know, myself included, can point to warm, loving and wonderful gay priests who truly met all the expectations one should have someone in that position. The leadership of the Church must know them as well, so they know their own actions have no foundations. They would have more integrity if they were mere bigots.

Reed Boyer
November 17th, 2011 | LINK

“Willing to hand children over to (*gasp!*) homo-sex-uals” . . . wow!

The phrase just begs to be completed, and seems to lead to either “for white slavery” or “for” some darker purpose involving human sacrifice, cannibalism, and an eventual zombie apocalypse.

The AFA reeks of sanctimony and santorum (Google it).

Priya Lynn
November 17th, 2011 | LINK

CPT_Doom said “Thus, even though the Catholic Church regards remarriage after divorce as adultery, a Catholic hospital could not deny the second husband of one of their nurses health benefits.”.

Thankyou for bringing that up. I had never thought of that and that rank hypocrisy is valuable in pointing out the disingenousness of the claim that treating married gay couples as married “infringes” on their religious “freedom”.

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