It's Not the Principle, It's the Prejudice
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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
Email address of Attorney General prosecuting 18 year old Florida lesbian
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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The Northern California branch of the Presbyterian Church (USA) has basically told the church’s court that it can go pound sand. And in mostly united voice. (LA Times)
Ben in Oakland
May 17th, 2012 | LINK
I had thought that the pcusa had already dealt with the issue of homosexuality, but apparently not.
Richard Rush
May 17th, 2012 | LINK
For myself, and I suspect for many of us, it doesn’t matter how much they embrace us now. It wouldn’t matter even if they offered us special benefits as reparations for the centuries of persecution. We still won’t join their churches. That’s because we have already closely examined Christianity, and concluded it is unbelievable. And one motivation for that closer examination was seeing all the ugliness perpetrated in the name of religion. Otherwise, it may have been easier to just go along to get along, as I suspect many people do.
I would respect them more if they embraced us as a result of reasoned thinking, rather than deciding that their old policies are “inconsistent with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.” It begs the question: what took them so long to discern that inconsistency?
(I grew up primarily in the PCUSA.)
Timothy Kincaid
May 17th, 2012 | LINK
Richard,
While it may play some role in their thinking, I don’t see this as a decision much driven by evangelism or a desire to convert non-believers. Rather I think they are making this statement as a practice of their own beliefs.
I found it interesting that this was not an orchestrated response. The same-sex married couples did not show up to plead their case. They had already lost in court and there had never been any instance where a presbytery had defied a church court ruling.
No one expected this result. No one was making a big press event. They just went into their meeting and to everyone’s surprise 80% of them said “no, we will not reprimand Spahr. We agree with her.”
Old Skooler
May 17th, 2012 | LINK
If you want to be cool you would learn to ditch political ideology and relize that belonging to a political party is EXACTLY like being involved in a religon. The cycle of propaganda and indoctrination are EXACTELY the same. Before you look down on those who believe in God or other religions just recall that you to can succomb to the same kind of cycle if you turn into a brainless lemming like so many are today. I’m gay but would never support gay marriage because I decided for myself that it’s not what I can endorse with a clean conscience. That’s Not hate or self-hate. It was a decision made based on my experience And my beliefs. It doesn’t work and isn’t the thing that’s going to make gay couples happy the way activists are promising. According to sites like this gay people are not allowed to disagree with other gay people. That we are supposed to all drink the Democratic parties Obama flavored Kool-Aid. I’m to smart for that and if you really love yourself you learn that those who deny the ugliness among themselves are the true liars and cheats and people you need to guard yourself from. They will never admit the obvious even when it’s obvious. To tow the line of rhetoric at all costs is unwise.
Rick Loesser
May 17th, 2012 | LINK
Old Skooler: “… to smart for that…” but not “… too smart for that…”. Perhaps you can provide a reasoned argument against same-sex marriage. I haven’t yet come across one and would be interested in finding one. Thanks
Regan DuCasse
May 17th, 2012 | LINK
@oldskooler:
The problem is that one’s religious and political affiliations ARE freely chosen and mutable ideology.
Yet, homosexuality gets treated as if it’s in the same category.
Politics and religion both have long bloody histories of wholesale human and civil rights abuses, where homosexuality does not.
Yet, it’s described to the masses as if homosexuality has had destructive influence on whole societies, instead of the other way around.
They refuse to acknowledge that homosexuality is universal to ALL human life and history, quite stable and unchanged regardless of the human culture.
Therefore, THE irrefutable evidence that it’s an innate and morally neutral human trait, not cultural choice.
The same cannot be said about politics and religion.
It’s politics and religion that get Constitutional protection, regardless of human rights abuses throughout all human history, and it’s gay people who are bit, by bit, being excluded from the protections of the same.
Religious belief, and some politics have always clashed with human advancement in those things that have made our lives the most livable and productive. Politics and religion fear losing control of the masses.
Control, they aren’t entitled to in the first place.
Gay people are victims of politics and religion, the way many other persons have been who were weaker in human hierarchy.
Especially women, and what religions believe should be artificially enforced gender roles. The detriment of which is denied and ignored.
So, it’s been a good thing to reject a great deal of the more irrational, brutal and unreasonable aspects of religious belief and enforcement. Equality and fairness in justice because a person is a HUMAN BEING first, has proven itself the best course over and over.
That is to say, the Constitution and Bill of Rights has protected us in this country better than the Bible ever did.
Jarred
May 17th, 2012 | LINK
It doesn’t work and isn’t the thing that’s going to make gay couples happy the way activists are promising.
Excuse me, but isn’t it the right of each and every gay couple to decide for themselves whether getting married will make them happy?
And seriously? I know of no gay activist who has promised me that I’ll magically become happy if I can just get married. Plus, you know, that would be assuming I’m not already happy. Which begs the question: What does “happiness” really mean in this context anyway?
Timothy Kincaid
May 17th, 2012 | LINK
Old Skooler,
I’ve noticed a theme in your comments: you write primarily to rant at the ideas and beliefs of other gay people. Mostly they are ideas and beliefs that have no relationship to actual gay people but exist primarily in your imagination.
To be blunt, I don’t believe that you are gay yourself. I have access to your earliest comments – those which did not get posted – and I believe that this is something that you have added so as to “fool” us into posting your comments.
Your efforts to stir up response probably have not gone the way your expected, have they? I suspect you thought that you’d be confronted with angry hate speech, but instead people are patiently responding with logic and argument.
I suspect that as this is not your goal, you’ll soon move on. But in the meantime, please do pay attention to what our readers are saying. You might discover that the stereotype which you have been harboring is far far from reality.
Eric in Oakland
May 17th, 2012 | LINK
” I’m gay but would never support gay marriage because I decided for myself that it’s not what I can endorse with a clean conscience.”
Why is that, and what do you mean by “endorse”?
“That’s Not hate or self-hate. It was a decision made based on my experience And my beliefs.”
What experience? I feel sure that the “beliefs” you reference are fundamentalist religious beliefs, but your mention of “experience” is puzzling. Did you have relationship problems that have soured you on commitment and trust? If so, they could not have been experiences foreign to straight people or straight relationships. We are all human after all.
” It doesn’t work and isn’t the thing that’s going to make gay couples happy the way activists are promising.”
Doesn’t work in what way? And if you think marriage “doesn’t work” for gay couples, do you think it DOES work for straight couples? Why? Also I don’t understand why anyone would think someone would get married to become happy. Presumably, if you are in love and have found someone worth being committed to (who feels the same about you) you would already be happy.
Timothy Kincaid
May 17th, 2012 | LINK
Erik
This is the sentence that clued for me that our grumpy antagonist is not whom he is claiming to be:
” It doesn’t work and isn’t the thing that’s going to make gay couples happy the way activists are promising”
There is so much familiar in that statement. Well, familiar if you know nothing of gay activists and are active in conservative Christianity, that is.
It’s straight out of the sermon on Sodomy Sunday.
The phrase “the thing that’s going to make gay couples happy” relies on four premises: 1) gay couples are unhappy, 2) gay couples are longing to become happy, 3) “activists” are promising them happiness via gay marriage, and 4) there is something else which indeed IS “the thing that’s going to make” them happy.
And, of course, the preacher’s next words are “but only Jesus brings real happiness”!
Our cranky fellow here know nothing about gay people. He knows what he’s heard in the pews and imagines that because it was said in a church by a preacher that it must be true. And he’s not beyond a little deceit in the service of God.
Now I’m not saying that The Old Skooler doesn’t have same-sex attractions. He may well be part of the ex-gay movement or even some homosexual who is isolated from the community in some small town desperate to parrot what his neighbors say.
But he isn’t gay. Not in the community sense.
.
Eric in Oakland
May 18th, 2012 | LINK
Timothy,
Though I am willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, I had similar suspicions but for slightly different reasons. I have corresponded before with people involved in the Ex-gay lifestyle. Something that invariably comes up is the claim that all of the bad things they experienced and problems they had (eg. drug and alcohol abuse, meaningless sex, lack of love, lack of self respect, depression, poor health, etc.) while being out of the closet were due completely to being gay. It seemed to me that this person might have been alluding to something similar with his mention of experiences and gays seeking marriage to gain happiness.
Furthermore, his statement that gay marriage doesn’t “work” followed by saying it won’t make gays happy struck me as very odd for a gay person to say. It seems to imply that we have a different reason for or a different purpose for marrying compared to straight people.
Ben in Oakland
May 18th, 2012 | LINK
But wedo have a different agenda, Erik. We want to destroy marriage, divorce children from their biological parents, lead people into false doctrine to damn their souls, bring down western civilization, and have a mean appletini at brunch the following morning.
Joel
May 21st, 2012 | LINK
I don’t see how God’s will can be voted on. Interpretation may be fallible, but does that mean voting on interpretation get you the correct answer. Sure it MAY get you closer to the correct interpretation, but last I read, the majority of people are NOT going to be swept to heaven in judgment day.
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