News, analysis and fact-checking of anti-gay rhetoric
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Ex-Gay Leader Sentenced For Criminal Sexual Assault of Male Clients
Andrew Comiskey Doesn't Believe In Apologies
Massachusetts GOP Senate Candidate goes to Pride
The Daily Agenda for Wednesday, June 19
Another Exodus Conference Is Upon Us. Let's Review.
For Our Opponents: Talking to Your Kids About Same-Sex Marriage
The Daily Agenda for Tuesday, June 18
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.
This video was premiered at a conference of LGBT-affirming Mormons that took place in Washington, D.C. over the weekend. The video is sponsored by EmpathyFirstInitiative.org and MormonStories.org. The second web site was founded by John Dehlin, who also founded the Mormons for Marriage web site in 2008 to support marriage equality for LGBT Americans.
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Soren456
April 23rd, 2012 | LINK
If you could say that these people abide anywhere near the heart of the church, this would be an overpowering statement.
But they aren’t at the heart of the church. Like their gay children, they are at the margins. And their statement is wrenching in its futility.
“It gets better” does not apply to the Mormon church.
Jay Jonson
April 24th, 2012 | LINK
More Mormon propaganda. These people do not speak for the Church. Indeed, they seem to endorse the Church’s position. They speak of “same-sex attraction” as though homosexuality is a disease. While the individuals in this video may be sincere, they are merely pawns in a pr campaign to soften the image of the LDS Church in advance of the Romney campaign. It is outrageous that they have been able to highjack the “It Gets Better” project. A lot of the kids these people say they love will wind up either killing themselves or hospitalized for depression because they are encouraged to remain in the very circumstances that lead to their suicidal impulses: the spiritual terrorism practiced by the Mormon church.
palerobber
April 24th, 2012 | LINK
first, the suggestion that LDS church PR people would foster or even smile upon a video like this is laughably ignorant.
Soren is correct that these people in the video are still at the margins, but that *is* starting to change and Soren is demonstrably wrong that the LDS church — as an institution and as members — never gets better on this issue.
there are signs of green shoots all over the place, but all people here want to do is piss on them.
palerobber
April 24th, 2012 | LINK
Jay:
no shit, Jay.
did you somehow miss the part of the video where the entire video was aimed at extending a hand of love, acceptance, and understanding to exactly those at-risk kids?
Reed
April 24th, 2012 | LINK
Maybe it was the cellos, or the lighting, or the “same-sex attraction” buzzword near the beginning, but I found this depressing rather than uplifting.
I hope these nice folks band together in some sort of Mormon PFLAG.
Soren456
April 24th, 2012 | LINK
@palerobber:
I’ll stick with what I said.
Which was that “it gets better” does not apply to the Mormon church. And powerful as the video statement is, it is an exercise in futility.
Why?
Because the Mormon church has no mechanism for doctrinal change. Aside from a “revelation” from God, their doctrine is open only to obedience, not to dispute. Mormonism has painted itself into a corner on this topic (and many others), and cannot back out. They have no means to retract what has been.
Nor are they looking for one. So, you can comfort, console, affirm, weep with and otherwise soothe your gay children and yourself (as this video does), but nothing changes. You and your child are still at the margins; there is still no role for homosexual persons in the life of the church.
Which is the aim, of course: Full participation and full worth in church life. Not even the false parity of separate-but-equal, but the real thing. All of it.
Mormons have a theological glass ceiling through which gay persons may see, but not ascend. True, many in the church do see the evil of this, and there are “green shoots all over the place” just as you say, but until God speaks, the ceiling stays.
“It gets better” does not apply to the Mormon church. Neither logic nor science nor tearful yearning will change that
Jay Jonson
April 25th, 2012 | LINK
Palerobber, I’ll also stick with what I said, the whole passage: “A lot of the kids these people say they love will wind up either killing themselves or hospitalized for depression because they are encouraged to remain in the very circumstances that lead to their suicidal impulses: the spiritual terrorism practiced by the Mormon church.” Things will not get better for them until these kids escape the spiritual terrorism they face within the Mormon cult. Their parents are not helping them by encouraging them to stay there and assuring them, falsely, that things will get better.
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