Box Turtle Bulletin

The false marriage choice

“I need a new bike,” Joey told his father. “I’m getting to big for this one and sometimes my knees hit the handlebars.”

Oh,” his father replied, “instead of a new bike, how about a trip to Disneyland for vacation?”

Joey thought for a moment. A new bike would be something he could enjoy for a long time, but he’d been longing to go to the Magic Kingdom ever since his neighbor came back last year with tales of boat rides through pirate caves and whizzing through the Alps past yeti.

Finally, he said, “I can ride the bike I have now for a while longer. Let’s go to Disneyland!!”

That night Joey could hardly sleep. Vacation was only a few weeks away and visions of flying elephants, mansions full of ghosts, and a car just his size that he could drive filled his dreams and his imagination. The next day at school he bragged to his friends and basked in their envy. Joey promised to bring each of them back a souvenir from his trip.

But on the morning when Joey was all ready to pack for his trip, his father made an announcement.

“Change of plans,” said Joey’s dad, “We’re going to stay home for vacation. There’s a swingset in the park and you have your videogames. I’ve decided I need the money for new golf clubs.”

Everyone can agree that in this story the father is cruel and selfish. He offers a choice, but when one is selected it is snatched away and replaced with something far inferior. The Disneyland option wasn’t real, it was just a flash and promise offered to distract Joey from what he needed.

In this same way, anti-gay activists have gone about confusing and distracting voters.

No, you don’t want equality, they say. Instead why don’t you select “traditional marriage”, and “every child deserves a mom and a dad” and “the way its been for 5000 years”.

Buses roll by with pictures of two opposite-sex adults with a little boy and a girl. Ads run of happy families sharing a meal in a bright upper-middle-class kitchen nook.

All of this is possible, but only if you limit marriage to heterosexuals. And, they said, if instead you choose gay marriage then all of this goes away. Allowing gay folks to marry will destroy the very foundations of society.

That really isn’t that difficult of a decision. If the choice were truly between allowing a small percentage of people the right to be included in the institution of marriage and thereby destroying civilization or instead having a nation of people in a stable family structure, I would vote for stable families. And you would do the same.

And so American voters in 31 states looked at those two options and decided to delay the equality that they really need in exchange for a bright shiny Cinderella fairy tale.

But now that they’ve selected “every child needs a mom and a dad” and “marriage as its always been” and the nuclear family in the upper-middle-class kitchen nook, what have they received?

Well it’s certainly not the ideal television family structure they were promised. In fact, it looks a lot more like a swingset in the park than a glass slipper in a magical carriage. The Pew Research Center has released a new analysis that illustrates just how dishonest of a bait and switch game that the National Organization for Marriage and other anti-gays have played.

In 1960, only 11% of children in the U.S. lived apart from their fathers. By 2010, that share had risen to 27%. The share of minor children living apart from their mothers increased only modestly, from 4% in 1960 to 8% in 2010.

According to a new Pew Research Center analysis of the National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG), more than one-in-four fathers with children 18 or younger now live apart from their children—with 11% living apart from some of their children and 16% living apart from all of their children.

And on closer inspection, it looks like the swingset may be broken…

…nearly one-third of fathers who do not live with their children say they talk or exchange email with them less than once a month. Similarly, one-in-five absent fathers say they visit their children more than once a week, but an even greater share (27%) say they have not seen their children at all in the past year.

…and there may be cat poop in the sandbox.

According to the NSFG, nearly half of all fathers (46%) now report that at least one of their children was born out of wedlock, and 31% report that all of their children were born out of wedlock. In addition, some 17% of men with biological children have fathered those children with more than one woman.

This is not what NOM promised.

And to add insult to injury, evidence seems to suggest that those areas in which marriage equality has been established have an increased respect for the institution. And further, when gay people are allowed to establish socially recognized families, they are stepping in to repair some of the damage done in heterosexual families. (NYTimes)

… the percentage of same-sex parents with adopted children has risen sharply. About 19 percent of same-sex couples raising children reported having an adopted child in the house in 2009, up from just 8 percent in 2000, according to Gary Gates, a demographer at the Williams Institute on Sexual Orientation Law at the University of California, Los Angeles.

“The trend line is absolutely straight up,” said Adam Pertman, executive director of the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute, a nonprofit organization working to change adoption policy and practice. “It’s now a reality on the ground.”

That reality has been shaped by what advocates for gay families say are two distinct trends: the need for homes for children currently waiting for adoption — now about 115,000 in the United States — and the increased acceptance of gays and lesbians in American society.

It’s almost as if Joey’s dad hid from him a promotion at the bike store: buy a new bike and get a free trip to Disneyland.

But there are a few bright points to give us hope.

The same analysis found that those fathers that are in the household are spending more time fathering. Joey’s dad may be on the golf course, but others are not.

In 1965, married fathers with children under age 18 living in their household spent an average of 2.6 hours per week caring for those children. Fathers’ time spent caring for their children rose gradually over the next two decades—to 2.7 hours per week in 1975 and 3 hours per week in 1985. From 1985 to 2000, the amount of time married fathers spent with their children more than doubled – to 6.5 hours in 2000.

So there is hope that while perhaps fewer heterosexuals appreciate the value of a stable two-parent family, those who do are taking it seriously.

And the second bright point is that people are coming to realize that they’ve been sold on a false dream. They look around and see that things have gotten worse instead of better for the “traditional family” since they voted to ban gay marriage. They are coming to realize that Brian and Maggie are horrible ‘parents’ who lied to them and distracted them with promises that they had no ability to keep.

It has been, I believe, a painful awakening for some. They will never again trust their parental figures in church and politics in the way that they had. There are some Joeys who have become sadly disillusioned.

Rap Artist Issues Anti-Homophobia Challenge

Nicolosi Responds To Questions About Rekers’s Research

Joseph Nicolosi, co-founder and past president of the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH), was interviewed by conservative dissident Anglican activist David Virtue. (It’s worth pointing out that Virtue has uncritically championed the discredited research of Nazi-sympathizer Paul Cameron.) This interview came about in response to last week’s revelations here on BTB and on CNN that George Rekers’s most famous case study and success story, a four-year-old boy named “Kraig” (Rekers’s pseudonym for Kirk Murphy) had actually grown up to be a gay man who family and friends say was severely damaged by the treatment. He tried to commit suicide when he was seventeen and finally hanged himself at the age of 38. Nicolosi appeared on the third segment of CNN’s three-part series, in which he hailed Rekers’s “pioneering work in this for many, many years.”

In Nicolosi’s interview with Virtue, he asserted that gays were inherently pathological and incapable of forming legitimate romantic relationships with each other. Nicolosi then went on to stretch that assertion to include non-romantic and non-sexual friendships:

Homosexually oriented men tend to find themselves entwined in excessively close friendships with women-particularly, with narcissistic women who do not understand that men cannot in a healthy way, be their “best friends” – and this reactivates old, negative memories of unhealthy entanglement with their mothers.

But back to the subject of Rekers’s, Nicolosi again brushed off the allegations against Rekers, both in the Kirk Murphy case as well as last year’s scandal in which it was learned that Rekers had returned from a European vacation in the company of a male escort.

VIRTUEONLINE: Turning to the AC360 TV series, was the “Sissy Boy” experiment aimed at changing him? That is making feminine boys more masculine? It seems he was deeply damaged all his life and much later committed suicide. Was this a result of therapy gone wrong?

NICOLOSI: Who can know what happened in his case? But to put it in context, homosexually oriented people have a much higher rate of psychological problems, substance abuse, disordered family backgrounds, and suicide attempts. This is a known fact. Why did the show not reveal this fact?

…

VIRTUEONLINE: George Rekers who worked for NARTH as a therapist was cited in a lot of your research as “gays who can overcome their same-sex attractions” yet in the end he was seen taking a young man with him on a trip to Europe who later said he had “massage sex” with Rekers. Does that invalidate all his research?

NICOLOSI: If it happened, it was a grave indiscretion, but I will stay out of that controversy. The real issue is, does Dr. Rekers’ research stand up? Do his theories make sense?

Of course, if we threw out the work of every gay-activist researcher accused of being involved in a personal scandal, there would be no literature on their side of the issue, would there?

Dr. Rekers dedicated 30 years of his life to very important work which has become a well-respected part of the scientific literature.

The Daily Agenda for Thursday, June 16

TODAY’S AGENDA:
Netroots Nation: Minneapolis, MN. The annual gathering of progressive activists, politicians, and citizen journalists begins today. As the conference continues through Sunday, participants will hear from Sen. Russ Feingold, Sen. Al Franken, Gov. Howard Dean, Van Jones, Sen. Ben Cardin, Rep. Keith Ellison, Rep. Donna Edwards, Rep. Jerrold Nadler, Rep. Tim Walz, State Sen. Chris Larson and many, many more.

AIDS Walk: Oakland, CA.

Pride Celebrations This Weekend: Baltimore, MD; Bisbee, AZ; Boise, ID; Bozeman, MT; Calderdale, UK; Columbus, OH; Denver, CO; Flagstaff, AZ; Ft. Lauderdale, FL; Grand Rapids, MI; Iowa City, IA; Lancaster, PA; Las Cruces, NM; Louisville, Ky; Memphis, TN (Black Pride); Nashville, TN; Norwalk, CT; Portland, ME; Portland, OR; Providence, RI; Syracuse, NY; Tijuana, BC and Vienna, Austria.

TODAY IN HISTORY:
Rocky Horror Show: 1973. The stage musical The Rocky Horror Showpremiered in London at the Royal Court’s Theatre Upstairs, a tiny 63-seat venue set aside as a project space for new works. Starring Tim Curry as Dr. Frank-N-Furter — a the “sweet transvestite from Transsexual, Transylvania” — the musical (set in Ohio!) follows the adventures of young lovers Brad Majors and Janet Weiss when they enter the doctor’s castle, needing to call a cab when their car develops a flat tire. The production features lots of catchy songs (“Time Warp” and “Science Fiction, Double Feature”), risqué sexuality and of course, lots of makeup. The show was an instant hit, and the cast was signed for a soundtrack album right after the show’s second night. By the time the show closed seven years and four venues later, it has gone through 2,960 performances and picked up several added songs along the way.

The Rocky Horror Show opened on Broadway on March 10, 1975, but critics panned it and the show closed just three weeks later. That same year, the play was adapted for the film, retitled The Rocky Horror Picture Show. It becomes a must-see cult classic that has kept art houses in business for the next 36 years. Because it is still officially in limited release, The Rocky Horror Picture Show is the longest-running theatrical release in film history.

If you know of something that belongs on the agenda, please send it here. PLEASE, don’t forget to include the basics: who, what, when, where, and URL (if available).

Michele Bachmann isn’t insane

I mean, not as in literally incapable of perceiving reality. She’s not actually mentally challenged.

Right?

I mean, surely it would be obvious. Surely someone in the Republican leadership would say, “hey, she’s not just opinionated, she’s actually certifiably nuts!”

Right?

But I just have no other way of explaining this story:

In April 2005, Pamela Arnold wanted to talk to her state senator, Michele Bachmann, who was then running for Congress. A 46-year-old who worked at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, Arnold lived with her partner, the famed Arctic explorer Ann Bancroft, on a farm in Scandia, Minnesota. Bachmann was then leading the fight against gay marriage in the state. She’d recently been in the news for hiding in the bushes to observe a gay-rights rally at the Capitol. So when members of the Scandia gay community decided to attend one of Bachmann’s constituent forums, Arnold, wanting to make herself visible to her representative, joined them.

A few dozen people showed up at the town hall for the April 9 event, and Bachmann greeted them warmly. But when, during the question and answer session, the topic turned to same-sex marriage, Bachmann ended the meeting 20 minutes early and rushed to the bathroom. Hoping to speak to her, Arnold and another middle-aged woman, a former nun, followed her. As Bachmann washed her hands and Arnold looked on, the ex-nun tried to talk to her about theology. Suddenly, after less than a minute, Bachmann let out a shriek. “Help!” she screamed. “Help! I’m being held against my will!”

Arnold, who is just over 5 feet tall, was stunned, and hurried to open the door. Bachmann bolted out and fled, crying, to an SUV outside. Then she called the police, saying, according to the police report, that she was “absolutely terrified and has never been that terrorized before as she had no idea what those two women were going to do to her.” The Washington County attorney, however, declined to press charges, writing in a memo, “It seems clear from the statements given by both women that they simply wanted to discuss certain issues further with Ms. Bachmann.”

Ya know, you can be a little eccentric and still be elected to Congress. It might even help. And you can be, shall we say, less than fully informed about the minutia of American History (okay, you may not have the faintest clue about much of anything including where Russia is located and what Paul Revere’s ride was all about) and still have many Americans give you the benefit of the doubt.

But while we like Aww Shucks home folk and Good ‘ol People like us, Americans aren’t so fond of crazy. And we really don’t like it when you demonstrate irrational fears of little ol’ nuns (or killer rabbits). We want our presidents to have irrational bravery instead. We expect our presidents to take a bullet and walk to the hospital. We want them to stare into the cameras and demand that African presidents resign. We like them best when they take on the Challenges of The Day in a bigger, grander, and definitely braver way than we would. It’s gravitas.

So if Michele Bachmann hopes to win the Republican nomination for 2012 Loser to Obama, she’d best be reeling in the crazy, especially the paranoid fear of tiny women. It just doesn’t seem… presidential.

(Read the entire Daily Beast article here. Go on. Read it.)

Christie on gays, sin, and civil unions

I may have misjudged Chris Christie when he won the Republican nomination for Governor of New Jersey:

Christie is no friend of our community.

Statements he has now made to Piers Morgan suggest a man who is less antagonistic than I presumed.

While this is still a position that is a disappointment for New Jersey, where marriage seemed a likelihood a few years ago, I’m sure there are plenty of gay folk who would happily trade their governor for him.

What is interesting about this interview is that Christie felt no need to note that his view was “perhaps in disagreement with others in the party” nor did Morgan seem shocked by the “liberal” stance. And this bodes well for the future of our rights. While the current batch of clowns dancing around the calliope hoping to get the privilege of losing to Obama in 2012 are all dedicated to heterosexual supremacy, Christie’s position gives recognition – and permission – to the growing number of Republican politicians who are abandoning the rhetoric of sin.

Boehner lets DOMA ruling stand

On Monday the judges of the Central California Division of the United States Bankruptcy Court ruled that DOMA Section 3 is in violation of the US Constitution
. House Speaker John Boehner, who has hired attorney Paul Clement to defend the bill and instructed the House General Counsel to oversee the defense, has indicated that there will be no appeal of this decision. (LATimes)

A spokesman for Mr. Boehner, Brendan Buck, said the ruling would not be appealed.

“Bankruptcy cases are unlikely to provide the path to the Supreme Court, where we imagine the question of constitutionality will ultimately be decided,” Mr. Buck said. “Obviously, we believe the statute is constitutional in all its applications, including bankruptcy, but effectively defending it does not require the House to intervene in every case, especially when doing so would be prohibitively expensive.”

Paging George Orwell

Sometimes I’m just staggered by the sophistry coming from our opponents. Take these statements from New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan:

Last time I consulted an atlas, it is clear we are living in New York, in the United States of America – not in China or North Korea.  In those countries, government presumes daily to “redefine” rights, relationships, values, and natural law.  There, communiqués from the government can dictate the size of families, who lives and who dies, and what the very definition of “family” and “marriage” means.

Exactly!  Except…the archbishop misses his own point. Those communiqués in North Korea limit the choices made by its citizens, narrowing down what people are allowed to do with their own lives. And now, here, in America, which side is trying to do that? The side trying to ban same-sex marriage.

Dolan continues:

But, please, not here!  Our country’s founding principles speak of rights given by God, not invented by government, and certain noble values – life, home, family, marriage, children, faith – that are protected, not re-defined, by a state presuming omnipotence.

Actually, our founding principles speak of citizens who are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights — not by any specific sectarian God. Further, thank the Creator that the government has redefined marriage in the past, unless you believe we were better off when wives could not own property, when they could be legally beaten (gently) and raped (but only if they were uncooperative) by their husbands.

And as for the “omnipotent state”? Seriously? Which government is claiming more power? One that lets people marry adults of either gender, or one that issues a communiqué dictating that only opposite-sex marriages are allowed.

Dolan goes on:

Please, not here!  We cherish true freedom, not as the license to do whatever we want, but the liberty to do what we ought; we acknowledge that not every desire, urge, want, or chic cause is automatically a “right.”  And, what about other rights, like that of a child to be raised in a family with a mom and a dad?

This is truly chilling. True freedom is the liberty to do what you ought? Every tyranny in history could call itself a free country by that definition. Even North Korea can say it gives its citizens the liberty to do what they ought.

I’ll skip past his insult that my desire to build a committed life with my partner is nothing more than a random urge. Instead I’ll marvel at this irony: a man who speaks of the right of a child to be raised in a family with a mom and dad represents a church whose adoption agencies would rather leave kids with no parents at all than place them with a same-sex couple.

Can we sum up this Orwellian manifesto?

• The more a government restricts your choices, the more freedom it gives you.
• A government that offers you more control over your personal life is presuming its own omnipotence.
• True freedom lies in the liberty to do what the government believes you ought to do, and nothing more.
• A child’s right to a mother and father means some should grow up with neither a mother or a father.

Yeah. Just like war is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength.

And, apparently, 1984 is 2011.

The Daily Agenda for Wednesday, June 15

TODAY’S AGENDA:
Netroots Nation: Minneapolis, MN. Netizens from all across the country will gather for tomorrow’s kick-off of Netroots Nation, the annual gathering of progressive activists, politicians, and citizen journalists. There will be a pre-conference activity today for LGBT bloggers and activists. As the conference continues through Sunday, participants will hear from Sen. Russ Feingold, Sen. Al Franken, Gov. Howard Dean, Van Jones, Sen. Ben Cardin, Rep. Keith Ellison, Rep. Donna Edwards, Rep. Jerrold Nadler, Rep. Tim Walz, State Sen. Chris Larson and many, many more. Given the recent internet hoaxes, there should be plenty to talk about between sessions.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAY:
Neil Patrick Harris: 1973. His Doogie Howser days are long over, and since then NPH has been able to cross two important acting barriers. A former child actor, he was able to successfully navigate the difficulties of becoming an adult actor in Broadway, film, and television. And he has also navigated the difficult transition from assumed-straight actor to a highly visible gay one — complete with a partner, David Burtka, and twin children who were born just last September.

If you know of something that belongs on the agenda, please send it here. PLEASE, don’t forget to include the basics: who, what, when, where, and URL (if available).

If You Came Here From CNN…

It’s probably because you’re trying to figure out who that inarticulate guy was you saw on AC360. More specifically, you’re probably interested in our extensive report on the aftermath of four-year-old Kirk Murphy’s treatment by George Rekers in 1970. You can find that in our original investigation, “What Are Little Boys Made Of?”  And if you are interested in learning more about the so-called “independent investigations” which supposedly showed that Kirk’s treatment rendered him straight and mentally healthy, you can find out about that in our epilogue, “The Doctor’s Word.”

One other thing. I mentioned the lack of resources for ex-gay survivors. I really do wish that there was a national hotline or a referral web site where people can find a local therapist who can help in recovering from the ex-gay experience. But there are at least a couple of resources I can recommend. First, there is the web site, Beyond Ex-Gay, where you can read personal testimonies from others who have gone through the experience and lived to tell the tale. It helps to know that you’re not alone, and the people who have posted their own stories on that site are proof that there really is life after ex-gay therapy.

And second, I heartily recommend Jallen Rix’s book, Ex-Gay No Way: Survival and Recovery from Religious Abuse. This book is an excellent resource from a San Francisco-based therapist who himself is an ex-gay survivor. He describes his journey from a Christian music minister at his church to an ex-gay struggler, to someone who has come out the other side and integrated his faith with all the other gifts God gave him, including his sexuality. And now his work is dedicated to helping others along the same path that he has been through. I think a lot of ex-gay survivors will recognize themselves in Jallen’s thoughtful book. It’s available in paperback and Kindle.

Update: If you are a therapist interested in resources in helping ex-gay survivors, the Association of Gay and Lesbian Psychiatrists is a good resource for you. Lay people, including ex-gay survivors, can also obtain help and information there.

I Know You’ve Heard This Before…

I’ve just heard that my interview about last week’s investigation, “What Are Little Boys Made Of?“, is slated to appear in the second hour of Anderson Cooper 360 tonight, which would put it at sometime after 11:00 p.m. Eastern, 8:00 p.m. Pacific. Yeah, I know, you’ve heard that one before…

GOP Presidential Candidates Debate Marriage, DADT

Last night, seven candidates for the GOP presidential nomination appeared in a debate in New Hampshire, home to the nation’s first primay. Participating were Godfather Pizza magnate Herman Cain, former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty, Texas Congressman Ron Paul, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, former House speaker Newt Gingrich, Minnesota Congresswoman Michelle Bachman, and former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum. And of course, LGBT issues came up in the debate.

Only Herman Cain and Ron Paul opposed a Federal Marriage Amendment to ban marriage equality in the states.

Herman Cain said that he didn’t support repealing DADT, but he didn’t want the distractions that it would take to put it back into effect. Pawlenty says that he would seek the advice of “combatant commanders.” This wiggle room leaves open the likelihood that he would re-instate DADT. Ron Paul appeared to say the would keep it in place. He talked about punishing behavior, without specifying whether a consensual relationship between two people of the same gender would be punishable. Romney dodged the question altogether, saying that DADT should not have been repealed “until this conflict is over.” Gingrich answered by building a case for its reinstatement, an indication that he would work to restore the discriminatory policy. Bachmann said she “would keep the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy.” When asked to clarify, she indicated that she would reinstate the policy after sufficiently cloaking it with “advice” from the military. Santorum took a lot of words to more or less repeat what Ron Paul said, but given the context of Santorum’s overall policies and attitudes toward gay people, I don’t think his eagerness to reimpose the policy would be much in doubt.

Not one candidate spoke about gay people as though they were taxpayers, patriots, or fellow citizens.

LezAin’tReal (Continued)

Karen Ocamb counts five very specific ways in which the “Amina” blogger hoax has put real people in real danger — all because of Tom MacMaster’s narcissistic exercise in creative writing. When one considers that people really are being rounded up by Syrian authorities and are disappearing off the street, MacMaster’s self-indulgence means that Syria’s state media gets to label those reports as fiction and they have MacMaster’s posts as “proof.” Meanwhile, people really are being detained while the media is now distracted over trying to figure out what’s up with MacMaster.

And pivoting off the second blogger hoax that is the Paula Brooks/LezGetReal debacle, Ocamb continues:

OK – now let’s bring that home. What will journalists and accuracy-minded bloggers do when they come across a blog with a horror story about same sex domestic violence – but the blog only uses anonymous sources? Or what about an email from someone who claims to be a gay person in the military or the loved one of someone suffering under Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell who needs to get an important story out about discrimination – what proof will we now require that this person is not a fraud?

How many stories will we now pass up for fear of being duped?

I’ve been burned by using what has turned out to be unreliable sources. My response? Retract and apologize as soon as possible, and vow never to rely on that source again. And so to answer Karen’s question, I have already passed up stories for fear of being duped, and sometimes I think I haven’t passed up enough stories. These latest hoaxes will certainly only make me even more cautious.

Now to be honest, I didn’t post about Amina’s dissapearance mainly because I was so busy preparing for the release of our own massive exercize in online journalism. I simply didn’t have time to delve into the details. If I had, and if I had noticed that the news of “Amina’s” abduction came from a relative who figured out how to post to “Amina’s” blog, I probably would have held back. If I had noticed that detail, it would have been a familiar red flag. I’ve seen bloggers disappear/be murdered/get beaten up and hospitalized before, and have “learned” of those events when a friend/relative/boyfriend somehow managed to get the blogger’s account data to post an update on the terrible catastrophe that has befallen said blogger. Only to discover that it was a hoax.

But without stronger evidence of it actually being a hoax, I probably wouldn’t have raised that alarm either. Instead, I would have just sat on it. And that’s the tragedy, isn’t it? There may have been an opportunity to put an earlier halt to the madness before it reached the point where the U.S. State Department got involved and it had the potential to harm the brave people of Syria. Conversely, we can also predict that someday, somewhere, a blogger or a journalist will really get into serious trouble, and at some point it will be up to a trusted colleague or relative to get the word out. Will we believe it when it happens? Or will we hold back fearing that it is a narcissistic stunt?

Hoaxes have huge consequences, and as they say, you cannot unring a bell. Amina and LezGetReal, in my book, are toast. They are permanently damaged brands. It’s too bad though that the damage won’t be contained to those two sets of URL’s. Instead, the damage will continue to emanate throughout the blogosphere. Anyone who reads a blog today (including this blog), knowing what we learned the past two days, would be wholly justified in questioning, “is this blog reliable?” And so in that way, all of us have been damaged to some extent. All of us are now suspect. And once again, each of us has something to prove as though we were writing for the very first time: that we can be trusted to be who we say we are, and to report the truth to the best of our abilities.

Ex-gay Pickup in N. Ireland

An ex-gay with the unfortunate name of David Pickup headed off to North Ireland to share his message of recovery. And about 65 people showed up for the seminar, though 50 of them were there to protest. (BBC)

Mr Pickup said people who came to him were “usually distressed”.

“I don’t cure anybody – The client always determines if there are root causes for homosexuality,” he said.

“I don’t force anybody or cure anybody – a client naturally spontaneously grows into his authentic heterosexual self.”

Rather than try to explain Pickup’s methods, I’ll let him speak for himself. Here’s his video advertisement:

You too can feel your own sense of increasing manhood. Go deep.

hat tip to Ex-Gay Watch. No this is not a parody.

Marriage bill introduced in New York

Andrew Cuomo must be pretty confident with his vote count. He’s introduced a marriage bill in the NY Senate.

In addition to providing for same-sex marriage, it has broad protections for “a corporation incorporated under the benevolent orders law or described in the benevolent orders law but formed under any other law of this state or a religious corporation incorporated under the education law or the religious corporations laws.”

Some will no doubt be annoyed by this inclusion, but it appears that this will purchase safe passage in the Senate. And while there may be some religious universities that refuses to recognize a professor’s spouse for insurance purposes, this exclusion will not impact very many. Catholic hospitals already have to recognize the patient’s designation of who is “family”, and we really have no interest in making some anti-gay church rent us their reception hall.

A second Republican has pledged support for the bill, leaving only one more to go (New York Post Daily News Courier Tribune Bulletin Times):

New York is within a single vote of legalizing gay marriage, after a second Republican state senator said on Tuesday that he would support the measure should it come to the floor this week.

The senator, Roy J. McDonald, from the capital region, made his comments to reporters amid growing indications that Republican leaders would bring the bill to an up or down vote on Thursday or Friday. Three other Republican state senators, speaking on condition of anonymity because their conference had not yet formally debated the measure, said they believed the bill was almost certain to come up for a vote and that it would likely pass, making New York the sixth and largest state in the nation to legalize same-sex marriage.

Earlier today, Sen. Alesi, the first Republican to pledge support, predicted that the bill will pass with 6 Republicans in support.