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
France's Marriage Equality Bill Clears Final Hurdle
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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Hunter
November 18th, 2011 | LINK
Point of information: The Hawaii Supreme Court found Hawaii’s marriage statute unconstitutional in 1993. That decision was superseded by the adoption of a constitutional amendment in 1998 limiting marriage to one man/one woman.
So Massachusetts was, strictly speaking, not the first, but it was the first in which the decision stuck.
Albert
November 18th, 2011 | LINK
Point of information: You forgot to mention that Massachusetts had the lowest divorce rate in the US both before and after the beginning of gay marriage.
Jim Hlavac
November 18th, 2011 | LINK
And don’t forgot to mention that Mass. had a Republican governor when gay marriage came into being. Poor Mitt, he’s being pilloried about it right now. Oh well.
Meanwhile, a thing on the Transgendered Day of Remembrance — while I’m certainly against murdering T-folks,or anyone else for that matter, and I wish them to be accorded all the rights in the world to live in peace and be whom they are — I have never understood what they have to do with rights for gays? For as I understand this, they think they are women trapped in male bodies, and they want to become physical women and find a guy and get married — which, strangely, they can do if they get their birth certificates changed. That sounds very heterosexual to me. Or in the much rarer instance, they are men in women’s bodies, like Chaz Bono, who got himself a girlfriend (and good for him,) and thus is, I guess, heterosexual, but gay friendly, no doubt. But again — I’ve been confused as to why this is part of the quest of gay men to be accepted as we are.
This linkage, all it seems to do is insert into the average hetero mind that us gay guys are gender confused and want to be women. And so while I have to argue to heteros for a shred of acceptance of me as a gay man, I find I also now have to defend the fact that I’m not at all gender confused whatsoever and have no desire to be a transgendered person at all, and that I also have to defend people who want to become heterosexual versions of their preferred gender. It does confuse me; maybe I should jump into the newly arriving “Q” in our ever growing acronym “LGBTQ,” which sounds more like a sandwich now, than anything my gay man’s life actually resembles.
Strangely, in this constellation of different people, the L, B and T are far more accepted than we G are, and we G are still the boogie men of society, the threat to it all.
Maybe next we should include “S” for straights, to show we care about them too, eh? And get back to who we are as individuals, and not whom we are as a group.
Priya Lynn
November 18th, 2011 | LINK
Jim H said “For as I understand this, they think they are women trapped in male bodies, and they want to become physical women and find a guy and get married — which, strangely, they can do if they get their birth certificates changed.”.
In some states, but not in others, having a sex change and birth certificate changed (which can’t be done in all states either) is no guarentee that a trans woman can legally marry a man.
Jim H said “That sounds very heterosexual to me.”.
And it would be if transpeople were legally, universally, and completely accepted as the gender we’ve transitioned to. Unfortuantely we are not and there are still huge barriers to living our lives as equals to heterosexuals which gives us common cause with gays and lesbians. We are both discriminated for not fitting into traditional gender expectations and so we are one. Also, some transpeople are gay, for example, a transwoman is attracted to and wishes to marry a woman, once again, allowed in some states, but not in others.
Jim said “Strangely, in this constellation of different people, the L, B and T are far more accepted than we G are, and we G are still the boogie men of society, the threat to it all.”.
I think its easy to feel that way due to subjectivity but it is also inaccurate. Not only are Transpeople and bisexuals rejected by the larger community we are also rejected by a significant minority of gay men such as yourself whereas I have never heard of a bisexual or trans person who wants to eject gays or lesbians from the LGBT community.
I’m sorry if the existance of transwomen leads some people to believe that you as a gay man want to be a woman, but that is not our fault and is not a valid reason for you to hate us and wish to split from our community.
Theo
November 18th, 2011 | LINK
You forgot to mention the most bizarre consequence of the MA Supreme Judicial Ct’s ruling. It seems that as a result of the decision, public schools in MA were required to teach about gay marriage. At least that is what NOM and the FRC keep telling me.
But the really strange thing is that, after 7 years, and with 1.5 million children entering, attending, or having graduated from MA public schools, there have been only 2 complaints – both from the same school 5 years ago. So the real question is: how has the powerful gay lobby managed to trick 1,499,998 students and nearly 3 million parents into thinking that there is no problem. And why have neither the Parkers nor the Wirthlins, who filed the only complaints 5 years ago, had any occasion to complain since? Clearly, there is a grand conspiracy at work in MA to make NOM and FRC look like a bunch of liars.
occono
November 18th, 2011 | LINK
How did Hawaii manage to ignore the ruling for five years?
Theo
November 19th, 2011 | LINK
I’m sorry if the existance of transwomen leads some people to believe that you as a gay man want to be a woman, but that is not our fault and is not a valid reason for you to hate us and wish to split from our community.”
He doesn’t “hate” you. He said explicitly that he doesn’t hate you. He seems to support trans rights. I know for myself, I support something like 95% of trans activists’ goals. But that is entirely distinct from the question of whether there is one “community”. As Hlavac correctly points out, there is no logical reason why gays should be grouped into one community with trans. There might be a case for being allies on particular issues, but as far as I can see, there is no persuasive case for recognizing this artificial unitary entity called LGBT.
To the extent that activists, whether gay or trans or whatever, continue to promote this concept and to the extent that this leads to the larger society conflating gay and trans, then yes, those “LGBT” promoters are very much to blame for the confusion.
Hlavac, keep raising this issue. You are certainly not alone. There is definitely rising opposition to LGBT. LGBT was never given a full and open debate. It was speedily foisted on us and on the trans community by a group of unelected activists some 15 years ago. And it has been sustained by blogs like BTB which mindlessly and uncritically use the term as a substitute for “gay”. But it makes no sense and it won’t endure.
Priya Lynn
November 19th, 2011 | LINK
“He doesn’t “hate” you. He said explicitly that he doesn’t hate you.”.
His other words say something his denial doesn’t, as do yours. I have no doubt you both will give the obligatory denials but your complaints contradict you.
“As Hlavac correctly points out, there is no logical reason why gays should be grouped into one community with trans.”.
I see many logical reasons and fortunately so do the majority of gays and lesbians. You and Hlavac are in the minority and for the good of us all I hope you remain that way.
Priya Lynn
November 19th, 2011 | LINK
“He doesn’t “hate” you. He said explicitly that he doesn’t hate you.”.
Upon re-reading, no he did not explicitely say that although I’m sure he would if pressed just as Maggie Ghallager or Peter Labarbera say they don’t hate gays.
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