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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andrew
March 20th, 2012 | LINK
Interesingly, read Orson Scott Card… he pegged the affinities between the Catholic and Mormon cultures 20 years ago in his fiction.
Lucrece
March 20th, 2012 | LINK
Well, the LDS dictum replacing the Catholic hierarchy’s isn’t that much better a position to be in.
Romney openly campaigned with the intent to support a federal constitutional amendment. Both options are disastrous for gay people.
Priya Lynn
March 20th, 2012 | LINK
The Catholics I know don’t consider the pope their leader, to them Catholicism is more a personal thing and they make their own decisions about what it means to be a Catholic and what they feel is right.
Jim Burroway
March 20th, 2012 | LINK
I think many Catholics would beg to differ with Orson Scott Card’s “affinities” in Mormon culture. In fact, they would differe with Card in an awful lot of things.
That said, and as I wrote earlier today, it is highly predictable that very few Catholics are going to vote for Gingrich, and even fewer for Santorum, both of whom are Catholics and who are running on a very socially conservative agenda, moreso than Romney (at least they, like most other people, see Romney’s social conservatism as opportunism rather than conviction.)
To the extent that there is a Catholic voting block — and I believe there is not one and there never was one (prior “voting blocks” were based more on immigrant and economic status when the Catholic church in America was much less heterogeneous) — those Catholics who vote Republican are generally going to shy away from the kinds of candidates who remind them of the bishops and popes who they may like for other reasons but who they have long rejected as an authority on sexual matters. This goes all the way back to 1968 and Humanae Vitae, which institutionalized the ban on birth control. Most polls show that 98% of all Catholics, as well as similar majorities for devout Catholics, have long rejected that position. They are definitely not going to eagerly embrace a candidate who has voiced support for banning birth control as a matter of policy.
Timothy Kincaid
March 20th, 2012 | LINK
The funny thing is that evangelicals don’t support those positions either.
I don’t know of a single protestant church that has a blanket prohibition on birth control (though there are some nutcases at the edge, like the Duggars). It really is Bizarro Land when hard-core protestants who think that the Catholics are a bunch of idol worshipers are voting for a guy who unapologetically wishes to implement the Catholic Church’s teachings through federal law (or at least through the Justice Department and the laws which they defend or pursue).
Donny D.
March 21st, 2012 | LINK
Apparently Santorum is responding to the news that he doesn’t do well generally with Catholic voters by saying that he does do well with people who take their faith seriously:
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/santorum-says-he-loses-catholic-vote-because-he-only-does-well-among-people-who-take-their-f
Blake
March 21st, 2012 | LINK
Ah thanks Donny D. I forgot that there’s only 1 good way to be Catholic & it’s Santorum’s way. Evey Sperm is Sacred, y’all. Either take ridiculous pronouncement seriously or get out of my church!
But I wonder. All Churchs’ membership numbers have been in decline. This theology of “I’m Right!” represents a new strategy. People do prefer black/white dichotomies & perceived order versus complex realities and a nuanced worldview. On a gut level, I wonder if expunging doubt allows for a more convincing religious experience.
Andrew
March 21st, 2012 | LINK
Jim, I tend to agree with you… I did say cultures, not faiths. In his case, he was predicating his worldview on a situation in which population limitations had been severely mandated, making intermarriages plausible (!). Heck, it’s science fiction. They’re also two religions used to being looked at skeptically by a Protestant majority (it was drummed into me in CCD that I would almost certainly be persecuted for my Catholicism). And, written from the Mormon point of view, Card can probably be excused for not realizing that American Catholics had already moved on from the 1960′s at the time of his writing. But yeah, none of the Catholics in my extended family thinks that much of Santorum.
Paul in Canada
March 22nd, 2012 | LINK
I believe that the Pastor’s ‘introduction’ to Santorum screaming that liberals and non-Christians should ‘get out’ of America is a turning point in this GOP election cycle. It was so over the top, that any thinking person would have to discount him as a viable candidate.
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