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 lobbyFebruary 5th, 2015
In November 2014, federal courts ruled that Montana’s ten year old constitutional ban on same-sex marriage violates the US Constitution. Marriage equality has been in place since.
Montana’s constitutional ban (along with statutory bans) on same-sex marriage remains on the books. Depending on how the Supreme Court rules in June, it is possible (though unlikely) that the marriage ban could be reinstated.
However, some Montana legislators decided to preempt the Supreme Court, and remove the ban from the civil code. This likely has no legal impact on the state constitution, but could serve as a symbolic gesture of support for equality.
House Bill 282 was authored by Bryce Bennett (D – Missoula) and today the Judiciary Committee voted on whether to bring it to the full floor. By a tied vote of ten to ten, the Judiciary Committee tabled the bill. It will not go to the full house at this time.
I do not yet have the vote breakdown. However, there were six Democrats on the Judiciary Committee and fourteen Republicans, which indicates that there was significant bipartisan support.
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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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Richard Rush
February 6th, 2015
We may be expecting too much too soon. As of April, 2014, twelve of the fourteen states that still had anti-sodomy laws at the time of the Lawrence v. Texas decision in 2003, still have them on the books. To Montana’s credit, they were one of the two states to remove them since Lawrence (although they would deserve more credit if they had removed them prior to Lawrence).
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/21/anti-sodomy-laws_n_5187895.html
Eric Payne
February 6th, 2015
Further commenting on Richard Rush’s observation, not only do several states still have sodomy laws on the books, there are some states in which arrests are still being made: I personally spoke with a Virginia police officer two years ago, following a lead I received in e-mail correspondence (a friend of a gay man I know was arrested in Virginia Beach), I was told: “(We) make arrests enforcing the laws on the books. If that law’s been overturned, the judge lets them loose.”
And on July 28, 2013, it was reported by USA Today:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/07/28/louisiana-sodomy-arrests/2595071/
Priya Lynn
February 6th, 2015
Eric, I would think those men would have an open and shut case suing the sheriff’s office for harrasment or false arrest.
Eric Payne
February 7th, 2015
Priya… you’d think so, but no.
When one of the men, later, filed suit against that Sheriff and the state, it was dismissed. That judge ruled there were no grounds for the suit because the man wasn’t actually prosecuted for sodomy, which would have been a violation of his constitutional rights. The fact he wasn’t prosecuted actually, in this judge’s mind, enforced that the criminal justice system works. The man was arrested for suspicion of a crime, but the prosecution ended because there had been no crime. That’s what police are supposed to do.
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