News, analysis and fact-checking of anti-gay rhetoric
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The Daily Agenda for Thursday, May 23
It's Not the Principle, It's the Prejudice
Gay Couples Excluded from Immigration Bill Markup
How To Spot A Swivel-Eyed Loon
The Daily Agenda for Wednesday, May 22
House of Commons officially passes marriage equality
British Commons Approves Marriage Equality Bill
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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"
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
A Mormon family with two wives and nine children, about 1889
The LDS Church has responded to the Prop 8 ruling:
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints regrets today’s decision. California voters have twice determined in a general election that marriage should be recognized as only between a man and a woman. We have always had that view. [Emphasis mine.]
Ahem.
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Roger Klorese
February 7th, 2012 | LINK
Well, to be fair, they always HAVE believed that a marriage is between a man and a woman.
They’ve just believed that a man can have more than one of them at a time…
TN
February 8th, 2012 | LINK
It boggles my mind how undoubtedly smart people think that it’s OK to have tyranny of the majority. What if we had had a vote on Mormon’s existence in 1850? There would’ve been no more Mormon church in the United States.
Gus
February 8th, 2012 | LINK
Funny how they think they can ‘reject’ the law and the Consitution.
Jonathan Justice
February 8th, 2012 | LINK
While we are looking at the somewhat delirious effort to continue privileging heterosexual marriage it is more than a little important to recognize that what the familial aggregation pictured here is about is child labor. Whatever metaphysical benefits may accrue to the “faithful” adults pictured, we may be pretty sure that each of the surviving children is going to contribute a decade or considerable labor to the familial enterprise before they go rocketing off to take charge of a similar aggregation of their own. Middle class people were already working to reduce the numbers of children they bore because they recognized that handing down middle class life required privileging children rather than exploiting them. Louisa May Alcott’s children’s novels were full of smaller families, cooperative child care, diligent study, and serious expectations of going to college years before the picture was taken.
TampaZeke
February 8th, 2012 | LINK
How many wives did Brigham Young have?
Oh yeah, 27!
Richard Rush
February 8th, 2012 | LINK
I think it’s reasonable to assume that marriage between one man and multiple simultaneous wives would still be practiced among Mormons if it had not been for external pressures to conform to the one-wife-at-a-time demands of the conventional Christian majority. If Mormons really believed all the other church teachings, starting with the tale of the gold plates, why else would polygamy have been abandoned?
I suppose their thinking is that if Mormons had to conform to the will of the majority, then everyone must.
Reed Boyer
February 8th, 2012 | LINK
“Always?” Perhaps in some alternate universe, with time lords and TARDISes. Or perhaps “always” isn’t as eternal as it used to be.
andrewdb
February 8th, 2012 | LINK
Everyone talks about the Mormons, but Martin Luther had some interesting opinions on bigamy too, which is really interesting when you consider that Michelle Bachmann is a member of the conservative Missouri Synod Lutheran Church. See more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_I,_Landgrave_of_Hesse#Bigamous_Marriage
Claire Vinet
February 8th, 2012 | LINK
This response of righteous indignation from the people who wrote the book on alternative marriage just amazes me. These people need to mind their sacred underwear and stop trying to trample on the rights of others.
PLAINTOM
February 8th, 2012 | LINK
Mitt Romney’s grandfather must be rolling in his grave surrounded by his multiple wives.
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