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
Posts 
Posts via daily email:
Hyhybt
January 4th, 2013 | LINK
“It can no longer be said that the battle over civil marriage is between the gay community and people of faith.”—Frustratingly, it can be and is said, both within the gay community and people of faith. Sometimes it’s just carelessness for the sake of convenience, just as I might phrase an argument from a male point of view for simplicity, without intending to exclude women, but all too often it’s deliberate.
Christians (for that’s the faith I’m most familiar with, though the same surely applies to others) against gay anything, deny vehemently that those who think there’s nothing wrong with gay relationships cannot be “real” Christians at all. Gay people who have an axe to grind against religion, however legitimate it may be in itself, would rather stick with a broad attack against anyone and anything associated with religion than to recognize that, in doing so, they’re hurting and pushing away people who are or would be their allies on practical matters. It’s all very depressing.
jpeckjr
January 4th, 2013 | LINK
There are other religious bodies that oppose marriage equality but, for organizational reasons, or because they don’t have any money to donate to have their logo included, or simply because they don’t want to be associated with with Mormons, or Catholics or Muslims, would not lend their name or logo.
Absence may not indicate disengagement.
Some group of highly conservative clergy is being organized in Illinois to “speak out against this misguided effort.” But, since they don’t have a national staff to pay, they aren’t sending out fundraising letters.
Snowman
January 5th, 2013 | LINK
I’m honestly surprised, given the pro-Christian (and often specifically pro-Catholic) bias of NOM, that they would allow any Islamic organization to work with them. For that matter, I’m surprised that any Islamic organization WOULD work with them. It’s a given that NOM and a lot of its allies are generally opposed to Islam in America and most Muslims are very aware of this.
jpeckjr
January 5th, 2013 | LINK
Here’s what I really think: NOM needed money to send out the letter. So they said “Any organization giving $xxxxx or more will have their logo at the top of the letter.” And these are the five organizations that had the money. NOM is all about using gay marriage as an ATM.
cowboy
January 5th, 2013 | LINK
Oh oh. When I read the tiny print on this letterhead BTB has provided I see the Churches claim marriage is: “…faithful union of one man and one woman…”
The LDS Church still, to this day, practices polygamy in their Temples. They do still perform ‘sealings’ of one man to multiple women. Albeit the women have been dead but they still perform this ritual. This is not by some renegade offshoot or disenfranchised sect…it is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (the Mormons).
An LDS man can have another LDS woman married to him in the Temple if his first wife has passed on. So, this “one man one woman” is only in this life but doctrinally it is a lie or being disingenuous.
And so, the LDS Church should be wary of where they put their logo.
Michael C
January 5th, 2013 | LINK
Snowman,
“I’m honestly surprised… that they [NOM] would allow any Islamic organization to work with them.”
NOM will use anyone/thing they can to create animus toward non-heterosexuals. During their wildly successful “DumpStarbucks” campaign, they pushed heavily in predominantly Islamic countries. They even boasted about using Muslims to try to hurt Starbuck’s overseas sales.
It is also their goal to propagate the idea that every religious person in the world is anti-gay.
Hyhybt
January 5th, 2013 | LINK
jpeckjr: possibly… but while I don’t recall seeing logos before, they used to get together much longer lists.
Soren456
January 5th, 2013 | LINK
I’m surprised to see the Mormon logo there. I thought they were being way more circumspect on the topic lately, since their feelings were so badly hurt after California.
And I wonder where the Jewish representation is, because it certainly exists.
Steve Kindle
January 5th, 2013 | LINK
Nice item on the (ahem) wide support of NOM. I am doing a series responding to NOM’s Q&A from their website in my blog, clergyunited.blogspot.com, if I may plug this here.
markanthony
January 6th, 2013 | LINK
@Michael C.
NOM wrote about Starbucks being vulnerable in its international markets, but their Arabic and Turkish site have the same number of “dumpers” as their English site. I think the whole muslim/international angle was just a way to make the project seem like success to their donors.
Ben in Oakland
January 6th, 2013 | LINK
As always, you can reject the entirety of conservative Christian belief, and this bothers no one but the most rabid of fundamentalists. But announce that “Gay is OK”, and suddenly hundreds of years of interdenominational battles are no longer important.
Timothy Kincaid
January 6th, 2013 | LINK
Guys: this was not the National Organization for Marriage. While NOM was praising the group (and may have even been in some way involved with its organization) this is a separate effort.
My bad. I should have been clearer.
Tor
January 6th, 2013 | LINK
As someone raised in the LCMS, I am shocked that they would sign a letter with any other denomination, particularly with non-christians. LCMS is notoriously anti-ecumenical. They won’t even share communion with other Lutheran denominations – except maybe one or two other super-conservative Lutheran sects.
jpeckjr
January 6th, 2013 | LINK
@Timothy Kincaid. Then, as I understand it, this letter was posted on NOMBlog but did not originate with NOM, but from some other source.
Now I’m wondering if the logo’d organizations even gave their permission at all. Tor’s note about the LCMS is pertinent.
Curiouser and curiouser . . .
Timothy Kincaid
January 6th, 2013 | LINK
jpeckjr,
As I understand it, the churches issued it and NOM reported it. The Trib also notes the letter so I’m thinking that it is sad, but legit.
Hyhybt
January 9th, 2013 | LINK
Thanks for clearing that up.
Leave A Comment