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
The Daily Agenda for Monday, June 17
The Daily Agenda for Sunday, June 16
The Daily Agenda for Saturday, June 15
The Daily Agenda for Friday, June 14
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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Jim Burroway
October 3rd, 2012 | LINK
Can I be a part of the poll?
Burgers.
But I don’t know how to properly score it, because my favorite burger is from a local restaurant called BK’s, which is a Mexican restaurant (or, more accurately, a border restaurant) that specializes in Sonoran-style hot dogs. Which, by the way, are out of this world. But when I don’t get hot dogs, I go for their burgers.
By the way, nobody at BK’s eats tacos, although I think they might have them on the menu. What I learned from my summer exchange in Mexico is that tacos are not food. They are snacks that you make from leftovers. Or they are just an easy way to wrap up meat in tortillas when you are on the go. So I’m not the least bit surprised by the finding that Latinos prefer burgers over tacos. Makes perfect sense.
Lucrece
October 4th, 2012 | LINK
I hate tacos and Mexican food in general. I’m a Paula Deen kind of spic.
Michael C
October 4th, 2012 | LINK
I find tacos difficult to eat. The shells always break down the middle and fall apart.
Maybe I’m just doing it wrong.
Timothy Kincaid
October 4th, 2012 | LINK
Michael C
Don’t use the crunchy Taco Bell type of tortillas. Unless you have fresh tortillas, lightly fry the corn tortillas you get in the store in vegetable oil just until they are soft and warm (don’t over fry or they get first leathery and then turn hard and crunchy like a tortilla chip. Make sure your oil is hot first or you’ll end up with a tortilla with the consistency of a wet paper towel.
Or save yourself the trouble, come to LA, and hit up ANY of the hundreds of Mexican food trucks.
Timothy Kincaid
October 4th, 2012 | LINK
And… I have a recommendation.
For a snack, fry up a corn tortilla, spread it with peanut butter while its still hot, and roll it up. It sounds disgusting but it’s delicious.
Michael C
October 4th, 2012 | LINK
You’re right, Timothy. That does sound disgusting.
Priya Lynn
October 4th, 2012 | LINK
Michael said “I find tacos difficult to eat. The shells always break down the middle and fall apart.”.
I use the crunchy Taco bell tortillas that Timothy recommended against. To help stop the breakage problem, cook the hamburger/sauce but leave it with a bit of moisture in. I take 4 tortillas, fill them with hamburger first, then cheese and sauce. 1 minute or so in the microwave on medium power and they’re at eating temperate and the moisture from the hamburger seeps into the bottom of the shell making it flexible so it usually won’t break when you eat it.
Although I like tacos quite a bit, hamburgers are still my favourite.
Michael C
October 4th, 2012 | LINK
Things like blue cheese, foie gras or fried egg would be horrible in a taco. That is why I think I’ll stick with hamburgers. Mind you, I wouldn’t put all of those things together on a burger…
Timothy, given your odd ideas of when to use peanut butter, have you tried the Elvis burger?
Robert
October 4th, 2012 | LINK
the issue we have here is a misuse of the terms “hispanic” and “latino” which might explain the polls results. Hispanic refers to non Latin countries, such Spain and Portugal, whereas Latino refers to individuals from Latin American countries like Mexico Puerto Rico and the like.
The use of these phrases as interchangeable is wrong, they are not. They describe entirely different communities tha simply share the same language base due to colonization of the latin countries by the hispanic country Spain.
One should be more careful in the usage of these terms as they mean different things.
Timothy Kincaid
October 4th, 2012 | LINK
Michael C, I’m food adventurous, but I’m still holding off on the Elvis Burger. Can I claim my invention is the “Elvis Taco”?
Lucrece
October 4th, 2012 | LINK
That’s completely false, Robert. South and Central Americans define themselves Hispanic as well.
The Portuguese and those of such descent are not considered Hispanic, rather Ibero American.
A cursory glance at Telemundo or any local South American channel will enlight you as to what terms are actually used.
I personally prefer to be addressed as Hispanic since Latino carries heavy ethnic and racial stereotyping in the US, where Americans suddenly see all of us as Central American mestizos or South American mulattos, erasing the Asian (look at Peru with its heavy Japanese descendant population, or Cuba’s Chinese descendants) and European descended Hispanics.
Timothy Kincaid
October 4th, 2012 | LINK
I just found out that today is National Taco Day
Robert
October 5th, 2012 | LINK
Lucrce,
When I lived in Spain I was told in no uncertain terms that they were not Latino, they were Hispanic and NOT LAtino. I lived there for over a year and was informed this by people from all different regions. And the definitions of Hispanic and Latino are in fact what I wrote. You have a different view, good for you.
Not to mention that the word hispanic comes from the word hispania the Iberian penninsula of Spain and the word originated in aprox 1548, and the word latino, by definition, is a person native or inhabitant of latin America, or of latin American origin. That word wasn’t invented until 1946.
Now, people can use a word any way they wish, but words do have actual meanings, and can be used erroneously to quell prejudice, much as you yourself suggest in your own idnetifying, you do it for reasons not related to the actual meaning of the word.
Trying to change the meaning of a word that’s been a classification of race since the 1500′s is awfully bold, you can say they mean other than what they do, but the dictionary and the scientific community would have to disagree.
I’ll stick with what my friends told me in Spain, and what my other friends have told me as well, and I’ll stick with the dictionary and the scientific community.
You can continue to say I am completely false, but looking up the words does help, and just because today some would rather call themselves one thing because the other “carries heavy ethnic and racial stereotyping in the US”, doesn’t mean the term is being used correctly.
Until you can change the actual long standing definitions of the words, I’ll hold to what I know.
Timothy Kincaid
October 5th, 2012 | LINK
Until fairly recently, “Latin” in America also referred to people from oh-so-exotic Southern Europe. A “Latin Lover” in a silent picture was as likely to be Italian as Mexican.
Robert
October 5th, 2012 | LINK
The only reason I mentioned the difference in terms is that it would explain, perfectly, the reason Hispanics may prefer hamburgers to tacos. Tacos are indicitive to Latin America, not the countries classicly refered to as Hispanic countries, like Spain. Hamburgers are historicaly common in Hispanic countries, like Spain, whereas Taco’s are not. Tortillas are a common item in cultures that derived from native populations such as the Navajo or other “indian” (in the America’s version of Indians).
Lucrece
October 5th, 2012 | LINK
Tacos are not remotely common in Venezuela, Argentina, Colombia, Chile, Uruguay as far as I’m concerned from personal experience. Mexico and some neighboring Central American people do not substitute for Latin America. Tacos outside of Mexico are as much an exotic cuisine for family outings for South Americans as they are for Spaniards.
Timothy Kincaid
October 5th, 2012 | LINK
Robert,
In order for your distinction to “explain, perfectly, the reason Hispanics may prefer hamburgers to tacos”, there would have to be a very large Spanish-American population, large enough to skew the poll by more than a dozen points, AND NBCLatino would have to be using your terminology when they conducted the poll.
Neither are true.
NBCLatino was just using the terms interchangeably. I think that was pretty obvious from the first sentence in their series of stories on the survey:
“This is the first of four stories on Hispanic attitudes as captured by a survey of 400 U.S. Latinos.”
Blake
October 5th, 2012 | LINK
I thought tacos were a tex-mex bastardization; wouldn’t that make them American?
Priya Lynn
October 5th, 2012 | LINK
How do you say “Taco” in Spanish?
BrianQTD
October 5th, 2012 | LINK
Just a side note: the “scientific community”–most of it, anyway– is very skeptical that racial/ethnic categories have useful biological meaning. I was a bit puzzled by the appeal to science.
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