March 25th, 2013
CNN is calling it “the Portman Effect”:
One day before the Supreme Court hears a high profile case on same-sex marriage, a new national poll indicates that the percentage of Americans who say they have a family member or close friend who is gay or lesbian is on the rise. And that increase matches a jump in the percent of the public who support legal same-sex marriages
According to a CNN/ORC International survey, 57% say they have a family member or close friend who is gay or lesbian, up 12 points from 2007.
“The number of Americans who support same-sex marriage has risen by almost the same amount in that time – from 40% in 2007 to 53% today – strongly suggesting that the rise in support for gay marriage is due in part to the rising number of Americans who have become aware that someone close to them is gay,” says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland.
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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.
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.
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.
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"
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.
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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.
TampaZeke
March 25th, 2013
The moral of the story?
COME OUT, COME OUT, WHO/WHERE EVER YOU ARE!
revchicoucc
March 25th, 2013
When I was called as an openly gay person to be pastor of a church in a small town in southern Minnesota, I immediately became the most out person in town. There were other LG people (don’t know about B and T there). But I told the whole congregation, so I was really out. Left there 5 years ago.
Recently, that congregation voted to be “Open and Affirming.” I called a friend there who said, “You helped us get here. We learned being gay was just another way of being human. The vote was overwhelmingly in favor.” So they came out as supportive. The two ways of being out are related.
Charles
March 26th, 2013
Well, I came out to friends and family in 2007. The best thing that I ever did for my mental health.
Timothy Kincaid
March 26th, 2013
In our very divided culture, we know the ‘us’ but we live our lives, enjoy our luxuries, devote our worship, toil at our labor, and celebrate or mourn our life milestones without ever involving ‘them’.
It’s easy to hate them. Or misunderstand them. Or simply ignore them. All of us agree, they are vile people. Of course they have propaganda and media to try and convince us that they are good decent people, but you know it’s all a lie.
They are immoral, they are haters, they want to destroy our families. They are not merely misguided; it’s not just that they have been raised poorly and fed lies; they willfully choose their evil attitudes and life choices.
Until we meet them and come to know and love them. Then we find that they are human and, unlike what our political, religious, and cultural leaders have told us, very much more like us than different.
And that is true both ways and on a wide range of us-them divisions.
Regan DuCasse
March 26th, 2013
Demanding to vote against a distinct demographic of people you DON’T know, and refuse to, is an even WORSE impetus for Constitutional amendments.
If you’re going to enact virtually immovable law, you damn well BETTER know who you’re doing it against, why and what for!
And OWN it when it blows up in your face.
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