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
Gay Man's Murder Sparks Massive Rally
The Daily Agenda for Tuesday, May 21
Connecticut Scouts simply announce that they are accepting gay scout leaders
Church of Scotland allows ministers in relationship
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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Blake
September 28th, 2012 | LINK
They’re ignoring the parts they don’t like because it fits in their conservative worldview and the worldview of the people they’re trying to bilk. To Conservatives the media is full of liberals and is in cahoots with liberal organizations to make sure that liberal causes are only portrayed positively. That’s why NOM’s Blog’s opening paragraph is:
They’ve so convinced themselves that the media is against them that any evidence which contradicts what they want to see in an incident MUST be due to the media purposefully misleading the American Public in support of a liberal cause.
Blinded by their own prejudices, yes, but I wouldn’t say they’re purposefully being deceitful.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t care for the direction the media is going in our country, but I don’t see the conspiracy theory that conservatives do nor do I see NOM purposefully misleading it’s donors. Playing to their prejudices, perhaps, but when the prejudices at the organization parallel the prejudices of the donors, is communicating within that prejudiced worldview really what’s unethical in this situation?
Michael C
September 28th, 2012 | LINK
Hi Blake, NOM is not some dude blogging from his mom’s basement. They are a well funded and expertly crafted machine. They knew full well that this particular incident was NOT an act of religious “persecution” but chose to run the article anyway.
Why would they do this?
Does the term “fanning the flames” ring any bells? What the court released internal NOM documents have shown us is that NOM is extremely calculating. They know exactly how to excite their base while skirting responsibility for being intentionally deceptive.
tavdy79
September 28th, 2012 | LINK
Here’s an idea: a website with a list of all the falsehoods and half-truths made by NOM and their various talking headsmover the years, along with evidence of why they’ve been dishonest. The lies could be searchable by things like date, method (speech, publication, fundraising email, etc.) and type of lie.
Regular writers on reputable blogs (BTB, Towleroad, PHB, Bilerico, JMG, etc.) could be given the ability to create entries whenever they write about yet another example of NOM’s deceitfulness, linking through to their blog(s) for a more thorough dissection of the statement.
I just checked and nomlies.com appears to be available.
Blake
September 28th, 2012 | LINK
Hey Michael,
They may be large but I doubt they have a diversity of worldviews.
Also well run and well funded organizations make mistakes all the time. Have you been watching the Romney Campaign or the NFL lately?
This is how I imagine it happening:
First outrage that churches have been vandalized.
Then outrage that they perceive the media to be burying the connection to teh gehys.
Then their Conservative Worldview makes them assume that the burying is proof of a liberal conspiracy to make “gays look good” because that’s what they perceive to be a goal of the media.
If everyone who vets the post has the same worldview then, well, why are they going to object to the post?
An organization full of folks who are predisposed to seeing gays being hateful might make such a mistake. As would an organization full of people who all think the media purposefully misleads them. The organization in question is full of both.
I remain unconvinced that they were willfully lying. And I think we should all try to place ourselves in their mindset before we try to analyze their actions. A little bit of doubt as to their motivations is at least due to them in this instance. They are not evil incarnate. They are just humans.
Michael C
September 28th, 2012 | LINK
I agree, Blake, that they are as legitimately fallible as any of us. The problem with them is that they don’t care whether they are telling the truth or not. They keenly understand the impact of inciting fear and anger. I follow the NOMBlog and noticed long ago that they don’t actually write most of their articles. They predominately cite portions of existing articles. They have become experts of avoiding culpability.
I recognize that your comments are based on giving the NOM staff the benefit of the doubt, but I think you may be insulting their intelligence.
Lindoro Almaviva
September 28th, 2012 | LINK
I have been saying thgis for a while, we need to put NOM’s actions and words against SPCL’s published criteria for naming hate groups. I keep saying it, they are within an inch of meeting most of the criteria and it needs to be put into a nice looking spreadsheet.
Michael C
September 28th, 2012 | LINK
Blake, I hope your perspective of NOM is more accurate than mine. Re-reading my comments, I am struck by how jaded I come across.
When NOM either posts the actual details of the story or allows the correction to be made in the comment section, you and all BTB readers will get my full apology.
Blake
September 28th, 2012 | LINK
Wellspoken Michael; I have a feeling we may be waiting for that apology for a long time.
Rob Tisinai
September 28th, 2012 | LINK
It’s true that people can offer factual misstatement without lying. I accepted that possibility in something I posted about NOM just yesterday.
But when NOM displays a pattern of posting false statements that go uncorrected, or are even repeated, after they’ve been pointed out, NOM loses the benefit of the doubt.
Timothy Kincaid
September 28th, 2012 | LINK
Oddly enough, NOM somehow read the stories without catching the headlines
“Man charged with damaging Buffalo churches, leaving anti-gay messages”
It sounds to me like this was some nutjob who was inspired by the “Innocence of Muslims” video (which portrayed Mohammad as, among other things, homosexual) and thought he’d do the same thing with Jesus. It seems that he wasn’t defending gay marriage, he was calling Jesus the worst slur he could thing of. But whatever his motivations, he wasn’t part of NOM’s “opposition”.
Fortunately more Minnesota voters read the Star Tribune and watch CBS news than scan the NOMblog.
Timothy Kincaid
September 28th, 2012 | LINK
Michael C,
I’ll keep my weather.com page set to Hell. If it should ever report a snowstorm, I know that your apology will be soon forthcoming.
Sammy
September 28th, 2012 | LINK
One need only listen to the radio spots that NOM is broadcasting in Minnesota to know that they willfully distort facts. They reference the Regenerus study as an idictment on same-sex headed households when it didn’t even examine same-sex households.
TomTallis
September 28th, 2012 | LINK
NOM has a long history of telling falsehoods and having them pointed out to them. They coutinue to do it, so I think that it’s completely accurate and absolutely necessary to point out their lies as such.
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