Box Turtle Bulletin
News and commentary about the anti-gay lobby“Now you must raise your children up in a world where that union of man and box turtle is on the same legal footing as man and wife…”
News and commentary about the anti-gay lobbyJuly 17th, 2011
TODAY’S AGENDA:
International AIDS Society World Conference: Rome. The IAS kicks off its Sixth Conference on HIV Pathenogenesis, Treatment and Prevention today in Rome. The conference is being held in partnership with the Istituto Superiore di Sanità (Italian National Institute of Health), which is the leading technical and scientific body of the Italian National Health Service. The biennial conference attracts about 5,000 delegates from all over the world, providing an opportunity for the world’s leading scientists, clinicians, public health experts and community leaders to examine the latest developments in HIV-related research, and to explore how scientific advances can inform the global response to HIV/AIDS. The conference will continue through July 20.
AIDS Walks Today: San Francisco, CA.
Pride Celebrations Today: Budapest, Hungary; Charlotte, NC (Black Pride); Colorado Springs, CO; Peel, ON; Portland, OR (Latino Pride); Reading, PA; Rochester, MN; and San Diego, CA.
Also Wrapping Up Today: Bear Week, Provincetown, MA.
TODAY IN HISTORY:
APA Refuses To Meet With Gay Rights Groups: 1963. One of the top goals of the early gay rights movement was to get the mental health professions to remove homosexuality from their list of mental disorders. As long as homosexuality remained listed, governmental agencies and private companies had all the excuse they needed to discriminate against gays and lesbians. In 1957, Psychologist Evelyn Hooker began publishing the results of a series of tests which demonstrated that gays and lesbians who weren’t patients of mental health professionals were indistinguishable from heterosexuals. Before then, the mental health community thought that gays were mentally deficient because all of the prior research had only studied people who were confined to mental hospitals or were seen in clinical settings.
Despite the strength of this new evidence, it would still take many years for it to sink in. In 1963, the American Psychological Association was preparing to meet in Philadelphia for their annual convention. Leading gay activists, under the banner of the East Coast Homophile Organizations (ECHO) also planned to meet in Philadelphia at the same time, and proposed a meeting with members of the APA. But the APA convention’s organizing committee declined the invitation. In a very brief letter to leading gay rights activist Frank Kameny and the Washington, D.C., Mattachine Society, the APA simply said, “This problem” — yes, the APA saw the meeting as a problem — “has already been considered by the Convention Committee and it was decided that it was not in the best interests of the APA to meet with you, nor to publicize your meetings.”
Another nine years would pass before Kameny and Daughters of Bilitis New York activist Barbara Gittings would appear with Dr. John E. Fryer (as “Dr. H. Anonymous.”) on a panel discussion on homosexuality with the American Psychiatric Association (the other APA, which is the keeper of the list of mental disorders known as the DSM). That appearance nearly a decade later would wind up being a key moment leading to the elimination of homosexuality as a mental illness.
If you know of something that belongs on the agenda, please send it here. PLEASE, don’t forget to include the basics: who, what, when, where, and URL (if available).
Latest Posts
Featured Reports
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
“Google” is a trademark of Google Inc.
© Box Turtle Bulletin. All Rights Reserved.
Posts 
Posts via daily email:
kelly
July 17th, 2011
And now the gay agenda is micro-managing textbook content through the legislature. They must be stopped.
Jim Burroway
July 18th, 2011
“Kelly”, whoever he or she is, is now on moderation for multiple abuses to our comments policy. Furthermore, “Kelly” provides a fake email address with his/her comments, which indicates that he/she wishes not to be held accountable for his/her actions.
If “Kelly” wishes to post comments which comply with our comments policy — regardless of whether her comments agree or disagree with the posts or with others — we will release those comments from the moderatio queue. Trolling behavior however is not allowed.
Furthermore, by his/her own admission, he/she was also been banned from other web sites for engaging in similar actions and has actively tried various tactics to work around those bans. Attempts to do so here will not be tolerated, and will result in reporting his/her i.p. address to his/her internet service provider for harassment.
Priya Lynn
July 17th, 2011
Right Kelly/elsa/evil Becky/omar/tom. Wouldn’t want reality to be taught, that might lessen the oppression of LGBTs.
Ben In Oakland
July 17th, 2011
As opposed to the heterosexist agenda micromanaging history text books in Texas. that’s ok.
Kelly/becky, you sohuld a) realize that history is written by the victors 2) start answering osme of your claims.
Here’s are a few questions for you: yes or no:
Are you a shill for the anti-gay industry?
Whom do you work for
do you believe that marriage equality eviscerates heterosexual marriage?
Corey Mondello
July 17th, 2011
DONT BUY PRO-EQUALITY HYPE ABOUT OBAMA: July 16 2011 “Administration still wanting the power to exclude or discharge servicemembers for being gay..” (http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/article/635253/)
Soren456
July 17th, 2011
In many ways, we owe our lives to Evelyn Hooker. She deserves far more recognition among us than she ever gets.
iDavid
July 17th, 2011
Thanks for that tidbit on the APA only monitoring inmates and psyche cases as their basis for their past stance on homosexuality. Well it’s not just a tidbit. ;) Your undying info sure helps putting together the “million little pieces”.
Leave A Comment