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
The Daily Agenda for Friday, May 17
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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Another eyewitness to Gov. Mitt Romney’s scissors assault has come forward:
Eric in Oakland
May 10th, 2012 | LINK
I guess he bullied so many people it is difficult for him to remember one particular incident?
ebohlman
May 10th, 2012 | LINK
Let’s not forget how we came to know about the dog incident: he (or maybe it was one of his kids) actually bragged about it.
Zaylinda
May 10th, 2012 | LINK
You know… until today, I didn’t think Mittens was a bad person.
Misguided, out of touch, and old-fashioned, yes… but not, at his core, ‘bad’.
I now feel differently.
walterpc
May 11th, 2012 | LINK
Romney is claiming that he doesn’t remember! Doesn’t he realize that that’s worse? To have so degraded, dehumanized and defiled another human being, and then have it not even register in his consciousness? If, as he matured, his concience had been troubed by the incident, that would be at least understandable. Many people do things in their youth that they later regret. But for it to not even register! That sounds like the behavior of a sociopath.
anteros
May 11th, 2012 | LINK
does obama still need to campaign?
Emily
May 11th, 2012 | LINK
I think the “Not Evolved” pronouncement for Romney from a few days back applies to more than just his stance on marriage equality. It seems he’s also missed out on the part of the evolution to adulthood that involves feeling remorse for mistakes made earlier in life.
CPT_Doom
May 11th, 2012 | LINK
Thank you Jim for pointing out the really atrocious part of this story – Romney’s laughter. I totally don’t think a politician should be held accountable for something he did in high school – we were all a-holes as teenagers in some way. But to dismiss what is in all likelihood a felonious assault and battery on an innocent individual as “pranks and hijinks” and to laugh about it as if to say “no I don’t remember it, but damn isn’t that a great joke to play” sickens me.
I’m with Zaylinda, I used to think Romney was a relatively harmless doofus. Now I really can’t stand the man.
Ben in Oakland
May 11th, 2012 | LINK
I had some bullying issues u puntil the time I was about 13. As the obvious gay kid, I had been bullied a lot as a child. When I got into junior high school, I was ready for some payback. Unfortunately, the payees were victims just as I was.
I learned how bad it and I was when the bullying directed at me got worse. I stopped. I’m not proud of it, but I stopped.
And I still remember the two kids I bullied, and I still remember their names– 50 years later.
Sorry mittens, it doesn’t wash.
Timothy Kincaid
May 11th, 2012 | LINK
Not to defend, but it’s also possible he forgot because to him it wasn’t a big deal.
We’ve all done things that we thought were trivial but which mattered a great deal to someone we loved and we’ve all had the “I’m sorry I was just being silly and didn’t know…”
Lauber’s hair was important to him. His sisters mention that he kept it bleached for the rest of his life. And though it’s seems odd today, it is, I suppose, possible that Mitt wasn’t hair conscious and if someone held him down and cut his 18yo hair he would have laughed at the prank. (possible, I said)
I don’t know why the terror of the situation didn’t sink in. I don’t know why so many others were deeply impacted and Mitt forgot.
But let’s remember that we can’t know more than we know and while this should flavor our evaluation, this single incident shouldn’t be perceived as some clear indication of his character.
Priya Lynn
May 11th, 2012 | LINK
Timothy, the thing that makes Romney’s claim to not remember unbelievable is that he also said “I know we weren’t concerned about his sexual orienation”. He can’t know that if he didn’t remember.
Jim Burroway
May 11th, 2012 | LINK
Keeping in mind that Timothy said, “not to defend…” I understand that you’re not defending, and offer this as a my reason why I find it implausible.
The reason I think it’s implausible that Romney doesn’t remember is the very specific violence of the assault itself.
I find it very hard to beleive that Romney doesn’t remember chasing someone down, pinning him to the floor, brandishing scissors and cutting the guy’s hair while he’s screaming and crying.
I find it unfathomable that he doesn’t remember something as physical and as specific as that.
Unless he can’t remember which incident we’re talking about where he chased someone down, pinned him to the floor, brandished scissors and cut the guy’s hair while he’s screaming and crying. Which I also don’t believe.
But if the cruelty that he exhibited that day was so casual that it doesn’t stand out in his mind — and again, I find that highly dubious because of the very specific and very unusual details of this assault — then that means that Romney (like Dharum Ravi) was a horribly dispicable and inhumane eighteen-year-old.
As others in this forum have rightly pointed out, what he did at eighteen years old, by itself, doesn’t say anything about what kind of a person he is today. I agree with that argument 100%.
I say that as someone who joined my classmates in an act of bullying when I was thirteen years old. It is an episode in my life that I have re-lived and regretted ever since. It wasn’t physical bullying like Romney’s, but that’s a distinction without a difference. It was incredibly cruel, and those episodes probably messed that girl up for the rest of her life. Believe me, it is not something I would ever laugh at.
And that’s why this story is important. It’s because Romney is now reacting to the incident as a sixty-five year old man after he has had nearly five decades to reflect on his behavior as an eighteen year old. He could have been a man, a grown-up, and turned the episode into a teachable moment about the horrors of bullying. But his reaction is to dissemble, offer a non-apology apology and laugh it all off — and yes, listen to the audio: he laughed! That does tell us what kind of a man he is today.
And that is 100% relevant.
Joe Beckmann
May 11th, 2012 | LINK
The real difficulty of Romney’s absurd claim to “not remember” is that, if ever he really does a serious apology, it is therefore meaningless.
Don’t ignore that THAT error is not an error of an 18 year old, but, rather, the error of a Presidential Candidate. What does that forecast for a presidency: “Ok, I forgot we were going to test the H-Bomb in Afghanistan.” “Oh, it didn’t occur to me that those showers had gas lines attached.” “Well, it’s not my fault if those people shoot each other.”
THAT particular pattern was typical of his Governorship, and, even more ironically, the reason his current “spokesperson,” Kerry Healey lost her own race for the Governorship when he decided he was too big for Massachusetts.
Timothy Kincaid
May 11th, 2012 | LINK
I agree that it seems like an unlikely thing to forget. But memory is a peculiar thing; things you might recall might not register with someone else.
Personally, my memory is crap.
I once had a conversation with someone who had worked for a time in the same building. He said, “Oh wow. I’ll never forget when you caused the bomb scare”. I just stared at him blankly.
“The bomb scare. When they evacuated the building and the bomb squad came. You know, the BOMB SCARE!”
And it took me a moment until it all came back. I’d completely forgotten.
Jim Burroway
May 11th, 2012 | LINK
It took you a moment, but it all came back to you.
If we’re to believe Romney, from the time he read about it in the Post and the time he and his aides got him onto Fox Radio to talk about it, it never came back to him. If we’re to believe Romney.
If he still doesn’t remember, then we have a MUCH bigger problem, I’d say.
Priya Lynn
May 11th, 2012 | LINK
And once again, its not believable that he didn’t remember when he also said “I know we weren’t concerned about his sexual orienation”. He can’t know that if he didn’t remember.
Rich Poppen
May 11th, 2012 | LINK
I suppose it’s barely possible that someone could forget holding a screaming classmate down and hacking off his hair.
If someone accused me of that, though, my response wouldn’t be “I have no memory of doing that.” It would be “That’s so far out of character for who I was even in my teens that I couldn’t have done that unless I had an episode of insanity that I’ve forgotten.”
If it’s *in* character for who you were in your teens, the adult response is “Though I don’t remember it, regrettably, that’s consistent with who I was then. I did a lot of things I’m ashamed of, and if I did that, that’s something else I’m ashamed of. I hope people will understand that I’ve grown up a lot since then.” To blandly say “I don’t remember” and *chuckle* about the incident is the response of a sociopath.
anteros
May 12th, 2012 | LINK
i had a horrible nightmare last night… romney and a bunch of arrogant jocks threw me to the ground, held me down, jeered and called me all sorts of hurtful things as they slapped me around and cut my locks off… nobody responded to my cries for help. i want to cry when i think that this actually happened to someone and that it took years for an apology to be made and that the main bully makes nothing of it all while he runs for president. It was a long time ago, but 18 year olds aren’t kids and his wishy washy “apology” suggests that he’d have fun doing that sort of thing again if he knew he could get away with it.
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