Box Turtle Bulletin

I LOVE YOU PEOPLE!

Will’s pulling out of his strep coma and he just told me he met his fundraising goal. When I asked who put him over the top, he said, “Some people I don’t know.”

That’s you folk!

Thanks so much. We pulled in just over $300 in a matter of hours. I’m grateful. Will’s grateful. And the people you help will be grateful.

Speaking of Will, I should let you know that his nephew has recovered just fine from his accident. Thanks for your well-wishes and support. As I mentioned, there are seven kids in that family and we hosted varying combinations for two weekends. Will’s youngest niece left us with this portrait.

I’m on the left.  Read the rest of this entry »

Oklahoma Infant Chooses Homosexuality

So explains The Onion:

…”My selection of a sexual preference was the product of a great deal of self-reflection,” said the newly homosexual infant, who added that he reached his decision completely on his own and was not influenced by his genetic makeup or any circumstances beyond his control. “If my sexuality means I get bullied at school, or that I end up feeling unloved and shunned for my entire life, or that I don’t receive equal protection under the law, then obviously that will be my own fault.”

Reynolds reportedly acknowledged that heterosexuality would have had some benefits, such as the universal right to marriage, the ability to adopt children without fear of scrutiny, and the feeling of being validated by his religion. However, the 16-week-old infant said that, in the end, he had decided to identify with a small minority that lacks many basic rights.

“Who knows? Maybe I’ll even change my mind at some point,” said Reynolds, explaining that he can, at any time, freely choose whom he is attracted to. “If I wake up one day and don’t want to be gay anymore, then I can just switch to being heterosexual, easy as that.”

“After all, it’s not like I’m stuck with this decision for the rest of my life,” Reynolds added.

HELP!

My partner Will is on antibiotics for strep and he’s laid low on the couch. He’s still doing the AIDS/LifeCycle next week, though, and he’s ACHINGLY close to his $5000 goal. Could you please help push him a bit closer? This is the last chance before the Ride. You’d have undying gratitude, not just from us, but from all the folks you’re helping, too.

NOM Gets Economics Wrong. Again.

Feeling wonkish?

The UCLA Williams Institute (I’ll call them “WI”)  is predicting an economic boost of $54-103 million in new spending for Illinois if the state legalizes same-sex marriage.

NOM’s Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse does not agree:

The people and legislators of Illinois should not count on extra revenue as a benefit from redefining marriage. These forecasts are based on an elementary economic error as well as highly dubious forecasts. That is why the “Gay Marriage Economic Miracle!!!” predictions have not worked out so well in the past.

I’ve learned Dr. Morse doesn’t have strong analytical skills, but this is her field, so I hoped for more this time. She did not deliver.

Dr. Morse describes the “elementary economic error”:

The same-sex couples of Illinois would have spent that money on other things: vacations, theater tickets, home decorating, pets, cars, doctor bills. Every dollar spent on weddings is a dollar taken away from some other industry!!

Not…exactly. Despite the italics and double exclamation.

Morse’s point is based on simple economics — simplistic economics, rather. The idea is that when people receive income, they either spend it or they save it, and if they save it, then banks lend those savings out to businesses and other consumers to spend. So every dollar is spent one way or another, and every dollar of income spent one way is just a dollar that can’t be spent some other way.

But consider this: What if the economy’s not so great? In a climate of fear and uncertainty, households usually try to cut back their spending. And businesses have little incentive to invest or expand. Dollars go unspent. You end up with usable but shuttered storefronts, functional but empty factories, and qualified but unemployed workers.

Economists call this the liquidity trap. A perfectly sensible decision by consumers and and businesses to spend less and save more (be more “liquid”) results in lower spending overall, “trapping” the economy in a recession unless we somehow find a way to boost spending back up.

A few signs can tell you if you’re in a liquidity trap. When interest rates plummet, it means businesses must not be competing hard for bank loans to finance expansion. That’s the situation now. Also, it’s not a good sign if businesses are sitting on mountains of cash rather than putting it to productive and profitable use. That, too, is our situation now.

The experts at the Williams Institute, however, do understand the liquidity trap. First, they estimated the number of same-sex couples likely to marry, factored in the average cost per wedding in Illinois, and then made this adjustment:

Also, only spending that comes from couples’ savings would truly be “new spending” for the State’s businesses, rather than money diverted from some other expenditure. To take these factors into account, as in previous studies by the Williams Institute, we estimate here that same-sex couples spend one-quarter of the amount that different-sex couples spend on wedding arrangements.

Emphasis added. In other words, they figured same-sex couples would use savings to pay for about a quarter of their wedding costs, and this is the only spending they counted.

[Note to Dr. Morse: When you’re rebutting someone, and they’ve already preemptively struck down your primary objection, then you need to deal with that instead of pretending it’s not there. Failing to do so is either dishonest or sloppy.]

Dr. Morse does score a few hits by pointing out the gap in WI’s 2008 prediction for the state of Iowa, and its 2011 follow-up report.

• In 2008, WI predicted 2917 Iowa same-sex couples would marry in the first three years after it became legal, but in 2011 reported that only 866 had done so in the first year.

• In 2008, WI predicted sales tax revenue of $2.7 million per year for the first three years, but in 2011 reported it was only in the range of $850,000 to $930,000 for the first year.

As Dr. Morse says:

In addition, the gross but unacknowledged discrepancy between the inflated prediction of 2008 and the ecstatic report of success in 2011 cries out for explanation.

Fair enough. I’m disturbed that WI didn’t explain or even acknowledge the discrepancy, too. But Dr. Morse continues:

That explanation is simple: the Williams Institute seriously over-estimated the number of same-sex couples who would marry.

Well, it’s not quite that simple, especially if you’re trying to discredit the Illinois predictions.

First, as Dr. Morse should recall, the economy tanked a few months after WI issued its 2008 report. Marriage rates fell across the country (from 7.3% in 2007 to 6.8% in 2009), and it’s not unreasonable to think long-established couples delayed their ceremonies until the world settled down. In addition, the average spent per wedding dropped in Iowa, too.

I suppose it’s possible we’ll have another once-in-a-lifetime meltdown next year, but unless Dr. Morse is counting on it, those factors don’t apply to Illinois.

What WI really got wrong in 2008, though, was wedding tourism — the number of non-Iowans who would come to the state to marry. WI thought 54,723 out-of-state couples would do that, and this number was so far wrong it’s almost comical.

With some trepidation, then, I checked to see how much wedding tourism WI had factored into its Illinois forecast, and the answer is…

0.

That’s right, zero. WI learned from its mistake, and this year when it predicted a $54-103 million boost from legalizing same-sex marriage in Illinois, it didn’t factor out-of-state couples into its calculations.

That’s a huge correction from the Iowa analysis. Now, you’re free to remain skeptical of these estimates (as a former Ph.D. candidate in economics, I’m skeptical as hell!) but at least be an informed skeptic. Who knows whether Dr. Morse doesn’t understand that this correction occurred, or she understands but is ignoring it to buttress a false case against the Illinois forecast. It’s the standard NOM question: incompetence or deception? All we can know for sure is that if you want a rigorous, well-informed analysis…don’t go to Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse.

Nigeria House of Representatives Passes Anti-Marriage, Anti-Advocacy Bill

Nigeria’s draconian legislation which not only criminalizes same-sex marriage and all other forms of domestic arrangements and even displays of affection, but also outlaws all advocacy on behalf of LGBT people, has passed the lower House of Representatives last Thursday, according to the Associated Press:

Lawmakers in Nigeria passed a bill Thursday banning gay marriage and outlawing anyone from forming organizations supporting gay rights, setting prison terms of up to 14 years for offenders.

Nigeria’s House of Representatives approved the bill in a voice vote, likely sending it immediately  t0 President Goodluck Jonathan for him to potentially sign into law in Africa’s most populous nation. Whether he will approve it remains unclear, and both the United States and the United Kingdom raised concerns over a measure that could put foreign funding for AIDS and HIV outreach programs in jeopardy.

The bill was introduced in Nigeria’s Senate in September 2011. After several more provisions were added and penalties increased, it sailed through in December. (The full text of the bill, as passed by the Senate, is available here.) The Senate’s bill doesn’t just ban same-sex marriage; it imposes criminal penalties of ten to fourteen years imprisonment for entering into a marriage or civil union, conducting or witnessing a ceremony, or even performing a public display of affection. It also imposes criminal penalties for anyone who would provide services or advocacy on behalf of gay people. The relevant portions of the bill as passed by the Senate include:

5. (1) Persons who entered into a same sex marriage contract or civil union commit an offence and are each liable on conviction to a term of 14 years imprisonment.

(2) Any person who registers, operates or participates in gay clubs, societies and organisation, or directly or indirectly make public show of same sex amorous relationship in Nigeria commit an offence and shall each be liable on conviction to a term of 10 years imprisonment.

(3) Any person or group of persons that witness, abet and aids the solemnization of a same sex marriage or civil union, or supports the registration, operation and sustenance of gay clubs, societies, organisations, processions or meetings in Nigeria commits an offence and shall be liable on conviction to a term of 10 years imprisonment.

The bill also broadly defined “civil union:”

“Civil Union” means any arrangement between persons of the same sex to live together as sex partners, and shall include such descriptions as adult independent relationships, caring partnerships, civil partnerships, civil solidarity pacts, domestic partnerships, reciprocal beneficiary relationships, registered partnerships, significant relationships, stable unions, etc.

In other words, any two adults living together can reasonably be accused of violating the law and being subject to spending the next fourteen years in prison.

It is not clear whether the House version of the bill is identical to the Senate version. If it is, then the bill’s next stop would be the desk of President Goodluck Jonathan.

Ex-Gay Survivor Survey Shows Harms, Lasting Impacts Of Sexual Orientation Change Efforts

Beyond Ex-Gay, the online forum for former clients of ex-gay ministries and therapists, has released the results of a wide-ranging survey of the experiences reported by 417 ex-gay survivors. To date, there has been little effort to examine this particular group of people. Conducted by Jallen Rix, therapist, ex-gay survivor, and author of Ex-Gay No Way: Survival and Recovery from Religious Abuse, the survey is by no means definitive. Due to its convenience sampling techniques, is not capable of describing the experiences of all those who have participated in ex-gay programs and therapies. Nevertheless, it adds an important component to our overall understanding of those who have attempted to undergo a change in sexual orientation because the voices of those who have participated in these programs have mostly been absent in the debate. As Rix explain:

All too often, the public eye is drawn to the “squeaky wheel” in terms of the reparative therapy/ex-gay debate. Usually this means the people that make the craziest claims, and the most outlandish presumptions get most of the attention. Indeed, those who happen to be leading such “ministries” are often looked to as so-called “experts in the field” when they rarely have any real sexuality education or training. Unfortunately, those who have been damaged by these organizations are left as a footnote, or don’t get mentioned at all. This gives the public a skewed view of what’s really going on in the ex-gay movement.

Because of the nature of the convenience sample in this survey, the numerical results should be taken as illustrative rather than quantitative. But the picture that emerges is that the motivation for entering ex-gay programs is predominately religious. The top three results for why people tried to change their sexual orientation included “To be a better Christian,” “I believed it was what God wanted me to do,” and “I feared I would be condemned by God.” After that comes such responses as a general desire to fit in, cultural pressures to conform, and a desire to please family and friends. But beyond the numbers lie the written responses of survey participants which illustrates the huge variety of their experiences:

I so wanted to be “normal.” I didn’t believe that God could possibly accept me the way I was, given that I myself couldn’t. Conventionally “feminine” religious women who focused their entire lives around being a “good wife and mother” seemed to be happy and at peace (unlike me); they were respected and valued. I thought that if I could only be like them that everything would be fine.

Because I have a messed up childhood filled with emotional, mental and some physical (but no sexual) abuse, and I saw connections between my experiences and the experiences that the ex-gay community claims cause homosexuality.

I was a student at a Bible College and saw no ministry future if I was “tainted” by this situation. Some of my motivations were self and then it was forced by family and church.

After coming out and becoming a GLBT activist, the GLBT community bullied the living Hell out of me for seven years prompting me to re-enter ex-gay therapy.

I was told to be gay was sinful, and Exodus was promoting “are you gay and not happy” – check out Exodus Int. That it was my gay life style that was making me sad and depressed. That to label oneself as gay would mean a life of promiscuity, depression, drug and alcohol abuse, AIDS. I heard about Matthew Manning through the 700 Club, later to find out he was a fraud and was removed from the 700 Club website.

I was told I had demons, and even had someone “name” those demons who were “tormenting” me.

No one forced me, and even my pastor said that I didn’t need Exodus, that if I was in Christ I was a new creation, and all the rest was, is, and will be forgiven by God.

My pastor at the time implored me to deal with this. I had no desire to change my sexual orientation. This was upon his insistence.

It’s these written responses that I find to be more informative than the numbers. Question 8 asked why they quit the ex-gay movement. The top answer, by far, was that they failed to become straight. But one disturbing answer given by nearly a quarter of respondents was that they had had a nervous breakdown. Again, the written responses are more interesting:

I saw that NOBODY was being changed, and some of those other guys had a lot more faith than I did. The only ones I ever met who claimed to have been changed were the leadership. And one of them was always hitting on me.

I watched the movie Latter Days, and cried heavily as I saw how much I desired homosexual love, how repressed, self-loathing and judgmental I had become, and how much I may need to give up to live honestly.

found all the therapy didn’t work. I wasn’t changing my orientation. My desires did not change even into my forties. I started being sexually active and found the world did not come to and end.

Over time, I began to feel like the people involved in the ministry were on some level deceiving themselves. I appreciated their desire to draw nearer to God and resolve conflict from our past, however, beyond that, I felt like my local church community was far more effective in growing me spiritually – not to mention the fact that I wasn’t becoming ‘straight.’

I tried to kill myself

My “exorcism” scared me so much, I did everything to prove my “change” and get away from those people.

Contemplated suicide as a next logical step in measures to keep my gay feelings in check. At that point I realized I needed to change to make being gay a friend rather than an enemy.

Once I realized that I wasn’t going to be able to become straight, I started hoping that I would get in an accident or get a disease or something so I could die because I was so unhappy but didn’t want to go to hell for suicide. Eventually I didn’t care if I would go to hell and I was suicidal. I knew that something had to change.

Basically, the nagging pressure that my relationship with my dad made me gay, and because I was believing that, my actually good relationship with my dad started to fall apart because of it…. and also, the main reason, if it was so wrong, why didn’t God heal me?

I saw Brokeback mountain which showed exactly how bad it could be if a gay man married a woman.

Our denomination underwent a drastic reformation out of legalism; and, in accepting the reality of grace, discovered that I was still gay. Grace didn’t change my orientation. I had to admit my negative preconceptions about being gay and Christian were wrong. I realized I could be a gay Christian without regrets.

I was taken to a deliverance service by well meaning Christian relatives – and had what I can only describe as a true deliverance experience, on the other side of which I quit believing that changing my orientation was necessary.

I was in Love in Action and they told me my time in the program was up. It didn’t work and I finally gave up trying to change.

Only a relatively small minority of this particular sample, less than ten percent, say they weren’t harmed by their participation in the ex-gay movement. Nearly half said they were “harmed a lot” or “devastated” by the experience. Nearly half said that they were still effected “a lot” or “all the time” today by their experiences. The kinds of harms respondents described were all over the map:

I think the most damaging piece was the reinforcing of the sexual binging and purging. It has made it difficult in my current relationship at times. I continue to fight old patterns although that continues to lessen over time.

As an intersex bodied person I was constantly pressured into having “corrective” surgery on my genitalia so I could fit into a certain gender role as a heterosexual. I also developed an eating disorder.

Multiple suicide attempts, two psychiatric hospitalizations. Diagnosed severe type 2 Bipolar disorder and moderate PTSD by multiple doctors in two different states. Ex-gay therapist had told me the symptoms from these illnesses were caused by my “sexual confusion.” After ex-gay, I dealt with substance abuse, impulsive and dangerous behavior, and unsafe promiscuity. Entered several unhealthy relationships, including one physically abusive one.

I feel that the ex-gay movement caused me harm by screwing up my sense of love and intimacy completely. I became very promiscuous, because I felt that if I am going to be sinful, I might as well go all out. I also came to believe that there is no such thing as romantic love between men, only lust. In other words, it pushed the exact opposite values that should be placed on sex and love. To this day, I find it hard to have romantic relationships with guys that go beyond physical, let alone commitment! Lastly, I’m surprised you do not have substance/alcohol abuse on your list, because I did that as well because of my experiences.

I abandoned my faith b/c I could not find a way to live with being both gay and Christian

Not just harm to myself, but also harm to my husband who is asked (by his wife) to not undress in front of his wife, who is asked not to touch his wife sexually, who is asked not to be a heterosexual man and husband. I am not the only victim here. How about my husband and all the spouses of the “ex-gays”??? Exodus and others don’t want to address that…

Developed sexual addictions in a way to try to fit the mold of ex-gay “healings” Before ex-gay ministry, I didn’t have any sexual experiences at all.

Giving a moral inventory (sharing a very personal experience related to a sexual encounter) in front of all the parents at a friends and family weekend caused embarrassment and a look on my parents’ faces that I will never forget.

My situation is difficult to determine harm or reward. I suffered from low self-esteem before sexuality developed. I did have to withdraw from college because of Scientology experience, and I did attempt suicide twice – once directly because I feared my orientation would be discovered. I would add that Evergreen was somewhat helpful as a first step of coming to self acceptance.

The second-to-last response above hints at a possible participation in Love In Action’s “Friends and Family Weekend.” I can’t imaging undergoing the appalling shaming that went on at that event.

The last response above leads to another question I find interesting, and it’s one I’ve heard  asked at a couple of ex-gay survivor gatherings: “What good, if any, came out of your ex-gay experience”? About a fifth of respondents in this sample declined to give an answer, and another tenth answered that there was no benefit. But of the rest, most say that they are now better able to accept themselves, talk openly about sexuality (after all, that was a key component of the ex-gay experience), and they felt that they were part of a community of similar people:

Surprisingly, I was able to finally accept myself. I spent several months during therapy thinking of how much of a failure I was. Once I began to realize that all that it had been doing was making me hate myself, I said “Enough is enough. I refuse to spend anymore time like this.”

I suppose that I needed to see for myself that changing my sexual orientation was not possible, nor was it necessary. In other words, I had to try everything that I could find before I ‘gave up’ and admitted being gay, and ‘give in’ to living the “lifestyle” of a gay man.

I learned that I couldn’t pretend, I couldn’t “act” my way through the world 24 hours a day. I learned that there had to be somewhere that I could be real. I met a lot of really broken, but beautiful disasters. It was my first community and I liked living with others in intentional community. I have something of substance to say on this subject and actively participate in the ex-ex-gay movement.

Out of my ex-gay experience came motivation to further pursue a career in counseling and psychology to ensure other youth and young adults do not have to experience what I experienced.

I thought I was the only gay Christian, so when I found out about Exodus, I was relieved to not be so alone. I enjoyed many friendships!

Nothing- well, I did get married and have 2 wonderful children because of all of this- so I am very thankful for my children.

I witnessed first hand how privilege works in church and society. The more others believed I was a masculine heterosexual, the more valuable they treated me and the more doors opened socially, professionally, and religiously for me to serve and be a full fledged member of the group. Seeing this play out, helped me to get glimpses of similar oppression/reward systems for many group. I understand the world better because of the oppression I faced.

I learned valuable discipline. Not to mention that to keep it up, I had to dive into some pretty deep theological waters. It forced me to develop my intellectual faith.

For the first time, I met other GLBT Christians and we could talk about what it’s like to be Christians with same gender attractions.

My friend, trained in healing therapy, specifically through Living Waters and Andy Comisky himself, did help me identify problem areas in my life and places of brokenness that needed addressing. Contrary to what she taught me, however, the problems weren’t centered in my being gay.

I met some other guys who were also having the same issues I was, and it was nice to know I was not alone.

For the first time I was able to talk openly about my sexuality.

it helped me coming out of the closet and develop more mature friendships – growing spiritual intimacy with God

It provided my first contact to others who I knew certainly were also “gay”. Although they may not have been the best representations of what gay men should be, at least I didn’t feel alone. It also forced me to confront my sexuality (which I had really been avoiding) and come to terms with the issues between it, my faith, and my family.

It was the stepping stone that allowed me to come out to myself.

My group leader, was very understanding and accepting about other issues in my life, in ways that helped me *a lot*.

To a degree, it provided a sense of community, and diminished the sense of isolation.

Met other gay people and started dating in a safe space

Many of these responses illustrate what I’ve said before: they are us, and when you go to an ex-gay conference, you are attending one of the gayest events in that locality. For many of these people, being in an ex-gay ministry, ironically, is their first introduction to other gay people and the intentional community, as one respondent described it, that they formed. I think that this is what makes their stories so compelling to me. It’s not to say that their experiences weren’t all that bad after all. But the idea that ex-gay ministries can actually be a stepping stone for many toward their full acceptance of themselves as LGBT people can’t be a comforting thought to very many of those ex-gay leaders.

The Daily Agenda for Thursday, May 30

No comparison.

TODAY’S AGENDA (Theirs):
NOM/Ruth Institute’s “It Takes A Family” Conference: San Diego, CA. Propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels was responsible for implementing Nazi Germany’s “big lie,” which was, more precisely, a whole series of big lies. What made his “big lies” so successful was that there was sometimes of smidgen of, well, not truth exactly, but truthiness — that kind of a “truthy” quality that results when someone speaks from the gut and not the facts about something that just “feels right.”

Now I don’t know why I think about Goebbels whenever anti-gay extremist Robert Gagnon comes to mind. Well, I sort of do. Somewhere along the way, someone made a comparison. I don’t remember who made it, or whether they said one was worse than the other, but I do remember the comparison. And ever since then, the link was made in my mind: Gagnon, Goebbels; Goebbels, Gagnon.

What I do remember about that linkage was thinking that there’s nothing even remotely fair in the comparison — not even close. But I also remember the argument that, like Goebbels, Gagnon, too, depends on a huge pile of truthiness to support some of his more outrageous positions. I think that we can safely acknowledge that particular intersection of similarity between the two. Not that I’m comparing Goebbels to Gagnon. After all, Goebbels was part of Hitler’s inner circle, a trusted confidant who served an evil regime that sent some twelve million people, including six million Jews, to their deaths. Gagnon is an Associate Professor of New Testament at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, and is on the board of directors of the hard-core ex-gay breakaway group, Restored Hope Network. There’s just no comparing the two. But if someone held a gun to my head and forced me to compare them, then obviously one is way worse than the other, no question about it. But I really don’t see the point in pressing it.

Gagnon, too, has acquired a habit of linking wholly unrelated things in peoples’ minds. But when people accuse him of comparing wholly unrelated things and saying one is worse than the other, he denounces them for saying that he made that comparison. He calls them incompetent, duplicitous, things like that. Like, for example, that time when he wrote this email to other anti-gay activists last month where he defended the use of the word “perverse” to describe gay people:

…Bestiality is an even more unnatural form of sexual practice since it is cross-species. Adult-consensual incest is also a particularly perverse form of sexual practice since it involves sex with someone who is too much of a familial same. But Scripture treats homosexual practice as even more severely unnatural because the male-female requirement for sexual relations is foundational for all that follows (so Genisis and Jesus) and because sex or gender is a more constituent feature of sexual behavior than kinship.

Now I read that to mean that Gagnon thinks homosexuality is worse than bestiality and incest. Just about everyone else did too, although one BTB reader was able to closely parse the wording and say, no, that’s not what he meant. Gagnon himself sent me a rather nastily worded email in which he said (while addressing me in the third person, like someone who can’t look you in the eye):

Jim Burroway of the duplicitous “Box Turtle” site accuses me of saying that homosexual practice is worse than bestiality even though I specifically state (and he even twice quotes me as saying) that bestiality is worse (homosexual practice …is regarded by Scripture as worse than incest, comparing adult-consensual for both; I do stand by that; it is a point easy to demonstrate from Scripture). His inability to read for context is hardly surprising. Misinterpretation is a staple of the “Box Turtle” site.

It goes on from there, but you get the drift. He also complained to Jeremy Hooper, who first posted the excerpt from Gagnon’s earlier email. Hooper re-read that excerpt again and wrote:

An earlier version of this post’s headline said Mr. Gagnon repeated his belief that homosexual practice is worse than bestiality. I believe that is, in fact, what Mr. Gagnon was implying when, after mentioning both bestiality and incest in the fourth paragraph above, he claimed in a third, clarifying line that “Scripture treats homosexual practice as even more severely unnatural.” I’m not sure why anyone would interpret it differently. I mean, when a writer mentions two notions and then uses a “But… even more severely unnatural” setup to round out his thoughts, the logical reader believes he or she is referring back to the points that immediately precede that closing.

Mr Gagnon, however, claims my read was “incompetent.” This being the case, I will gladly limit his belief to just incest, since he has on many different occasions claimed that “homosexual practice” is worse than than inter-familial practice. I don’t mind making this change (while leaving Gagnon’s full text to your own interpretation) because I hardly see how it’s better for Gagnon’s cause.

I’ll leave it to Gagnon to give the final word on whether he thinks homosexuality is worse than bestiality or incest — or both or neither. But I can’t shake the observation that he sometimes likes to mention bestiality when discussing homosexuality — for what reason, I can’t say. I mean, the two have nothing to do with each other, and even Gagnon has argued elsewhere that, Biblically speaking, homosexuality isn’t as bad as bestiality. But if that’s what he believes, then why does he even bring it up? Why does he invite comparisons of homosexuality to bestiality and not, say, dodge ball? Why isn’t he writing anti-bestiality tracts instead? “Good Lord!,” he could write, “It’s even worse than homosexuality!” I’ll leave it for him explain and for you to decide. All I can say is that for whatever reason he enjoys linking the two.

I bring all of this up because Gagnon is among those who will be speaking this weekend at a conference with the unwieldy title, “It Takes A Family To Raise A Village.” The student conference kicks off tonight at the Town and Country Resort in San Diego, and continues through the weekend. It will be conducted by the Ruth Institute, which itself is the “think tank” arm of the National Organization for Marriage. Another scheduled speaker is Mark Regnerus, the disgraced author of the discredited so-called “gay parenting” study. Regnerus will give two talks: one on “The social science evidence on why hooking up doesn’t make people happy,” and another on “Understanding same sex parenting studies.” I presume the second one will be delivered without a trace of irony.

As for Gagnon, he will also give two talks: “Jesus and marriage” and “Paul and homosexual practice,” in which he may or may not link bestiality and homosexuality. If he does, then I may find myself writing about Gagnon and mentioning, in passing, Goebbels, even though — and I’ll say this again in case anyone misses it — I don’t really see any legitimate reason to link the two.

TODAY’S AGENDA:
Pride Celebrations This Weekend: Aarhus, Denmark; Alkmaar, Netherlands; Angers, France; Bradford, UK; Boston, MA; Buffalo, NY; Cambridge/Kitchener/Waterloo, ON; Davenport, IA; Dayton, OH; Dresden, Germany; Göteborg, Sweden; Honolulu, HI; Kiel, Germany; Lille, France; Lorraine, France; Los Ranchos, NM; Oxford, UK; Queens, NY; Regensburg, Germany; Salt Lake City, UT; Santa Cruz, CA; Shanghai, China; Sonoma Co, CA Springfield, MA; Staten Island, NY; Tulsa, OK; Washington, DC; Waterford, Ireland; Winnipeg, MB; York, UK.

AIDS Walks This Weekend: Beaver Lake, NY; Boston, MA; Long Beach, CA.

Other Events This Weekend: Connecticut Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, Hartford, CT; Rainbow 5K Run/Walk, Indianapolis, IN; Cinépride LGBT Film Festival, Nantes, France; Gay Days Disney, Orlando, FL; Film Out, San Diego, CA; AIDS Lifecycle, San Francisco to Los Angeles, CA (Sponsor Rob Tisinai here!); Inside Out Toronto Film Festival, Toronto, ON.

Paul Guilbert and Aaron Fricke

TODAY IN HISTORY:
Male Couple attends Senior Prom: 1980. Aaron Fricke was a high school senior when he publicly came out as gay, stated dating Paul Guilbert, and asked him to the Cumberland (Rhode Island) High School senior prom. The year before, Guilbert gad tried to attend the junior prom with a male date, but he ran into opposition from both the principal and his father. This time, Fricke took the lead, but, as before, the principal refused to allow the couple to attend, saying the move “upset other students, sent the community abuzz, and rallied out-of-state newspapers to consider the matter newsworthy.” It also earned Fricke five stitches under his eye when he was attacked in the hallway.

Fricke filed a lawsuit in Federal court, charging that the school district was infringing on his First Amendment right to free speech. “I feel I have the right to attend,” he told the judge. “I feel I want to go to the prom for the same reason any other student would want to go.” The judge agreed (PDF: 60KB/7 pages), and not only ordered the school district to allow the couple to attend, but to beef up security in case there were any problems. And on this day in 1980, Frike and Guilbert attended the prom, slow-danced to Bob Seger’s “We’ve Got The Night,” and the case of Frike v. Lynch became an important legal precedent for other gay couples across the nation since then.

Fricke later wrote about his experiences in Reflections of a Rock Lobster: A Story about Growing Up Gay. He also collaborated with his father on another book about coming out, Sudden Strangers: The Story of a Gay Son and His Father.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS:
Christine Jorgensen: 1926. She was born in the Bronx, and described herself as “frail, tow-headed, introverted little boy who ran from fistfights and rough-and-tumble games.” She also went by “George.” After a stint in the army following World War II, her identity as a woman was overwhelming — and her physical development as a man was underwhelming. As she attended dental school, she began taking the female hormone ethinyl estradiol on her own and looked into sexual reassignment surgery. At the time, the only surgeries being performed were in Sweden. But at a stopover in Copenhagen to visit relatives, she discovered Dr. Christian Hamburger, a Danish endocrinologist and specialist in rehabilitative hormonal therapy. Denmark’s Minister of Justice allowed her surgery to take place.

Christine’s surgery wasn’t the first of its kind, but that’s how it was portrayed on December 1, 1952 when the New York Daily News carried the front-page headline, “Ex-GI Becomes Blonde Beauty.” Within months, she was a national celebrity, and became the most written-about person in 1953. She tried to use her celebrity as an opportunity for education, which turned out to be a huge task. She acted in summer stock, toured the lecture circuit, wrote an autobiography, and made countless radio and television appearances. She was engaged to marry John Traub, but that engagement was called off. In 1959, she announced her engagement to Howard J. Knox, but the couple was unable to obtain a marriage license because Jorgensen’s birth certificate still listed her as a male. By the time they ended that engagement, Knox had been fired from his job over the publicity. Shortly before Jorgensen died in 1989, she said she had given the sexual revolution “a good swift kick in the pants.” She died of bladder and lung cancer just a month shy of her 63rd birthday.

If you know of something that belongs on the agenda, please send it here. Don’t forget to include the basics: who, what, when, where, and URL (if available).

And feel free to consider this your open thread for the day. What’s happening in your world?

Bachmann Won’t Run

This nearly nine minute video somehow, as if by magic, will feel like it sucked nine hours out of your life. So here’s what she said in a nutshell:

[Heroic background music] I will not running again in 2014. I could run, and I’d totally kick his ass if I did, but I just don’t feel like it. But if I did, I’d win. Totally.

And this has noting to do with that ethics investigation into my presidential campaign finances either. Which is totally bogus.

So yeah. I’d win. I ain’t chicken. Just don’t feel like running. Obama’s not running again, and he’s a socialist dictator.

And… Traditional marriage. Family Values. Obamacare. Margaret Thatcher. Ronald Reagan. Soviet Union. Socialism. Dodd-Frank. Muslim Jihad. Political correctness. Evil Jihadists. Israel. Iran. Benghazi. IRS. Balanced budget. Destruction of our entire economic system. Mainstream media. Dishonest mainstream media. Disparaging mainstream media. My wonderful husband. God. Jesus. Blessings. Fortitude. Blessed Nation. God Bless. God. God. God.

And more pork for my district. And I’ll still be crazy for the next 18 months. And I’ll keep being crazy long after I’m gone.

Auditor of “Gay Parenting” Study Warns of Christian Right’s Corruption of Social Science

Last June, the journal Social Science Research published a controversial study by Mark Regnerus which claimed that children of gay and lesbian parents fared worse than children from other family configurations. BTB was the first to publish a review which demonstrated that the study was seriously flawed and the data was intentionally manipulated in order to draw conclusions that the data itself simply could not support. While Regnerus acknowledged a few of the studies flaws, he defended it on the whole and quickly became something of a spokesperson for anti-gay activists who were battling marriage equality in Federal court.

The massive controversy over the study’s flaws and its questionable rush to publication led Social Science Research editor Kames D. Wright to assign a member of the journal’s editorial board, Dr. Darren E. Sherkat of Southern Illinois University, to review how the paper and how its publication was handled. In that audit, Sherkat found problems with the study’s conclusions, its funding sources (nearly $700,000 from the Witherspoon Institute), conflicts of interests with the study’s reviewers, and the auspicious timing of the study’s publication, just ahead of the 2012 elections when marriage equality ballot initiatives were to be voted on in three states and a marriage ban in a fourth. Additional documents release last March revealed that Witherspoon Institute was more heavily involved with the contorted data analysis which led to the study’s false conclusions. Those documents also revealed that Witherspoon Institute president Luis Tellez exerted pressure get the study published before the marriage cases reached the Supreme Court.

Dr. Darren Sherkat

This morning, the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Intelligence Report published an interview with Dr. Sherkat, who explained further what he found when he examined how the journal handled the Regnerus paper. Sherkat described the pressures that editors face in filling their journals’ pages with content, and the slipshod way that many reviewers approach their work. Those factors are just a few which contribute to a general lack of rigor in social science journals, says Sherkat, and he warns that “conservative Christian scholars” are taking advantage of that opening:

Peer review is not perfect. The majority of people don’t do a bad job out of any kind of malicious intent. Having said that, Mark Regnerus is not alone. There are a large number of conservative Christian scholars in sociology, in political science, in family studies, and it’s surprising how many now are rising up into the top ranks. I’ve watched Mark throughout his career rise up through those structures that help to elevate conservative idea creators who are committed to the ideology of the Christian right and who are bright enough and hard-working enough to establish themselves in secular education. Regnerus has contemporaries who came up with him who today are also at prominent universities throughout the country.

Sherkat describes Regnerus’s method for identifying “gay and lesbian parents” as “simply a farce.” He also says that Regnerus “has been disgraced. All of the prominent people in the field know what he did and why he did it. And most of them know that he knew better.” But Sherkat worries that the funding of studies like Regnerus’s by conservative think tanks is creating an unlevel playing field:

One thing that’s disturbing to me about the Regnerus study is that Regnerus received a large amount of money from these foundations and this creates a very different scholarly and intellectual atmosphere. It creates a playing field that’s not level. Someone like Regnerus is now able to go out and buy his own data, if we’re to accept data of this quality.

Even if we were to say it’s high quality data, he is able to get a million dollars’ worth of influence — he was able to generate that kind of funding from these conservative foundations in a way that other intellectuals are not able to do. All of the traditional sources of social scientific funding have dried up over the last 20 years and there’s nowhere to go to get money, but these guys have it. There are talks in Congress about cutting the entire social science budget at the National Science Foundation. That is chilling, because then we’ll be completely reliant on people like Mark Regnerus and Brad Wilcox [of the University of Virginia] and Christian Smith [of Notre Dame University] and people like that for our information about potentially crucial or controversial issues.

Pride in Russia, Putin Style

Last Saturday in Russia, activist Nikolai Alekseev and a small group of compatriots held yet another banned Pride event in Moscow in front of the State Duma. Two days before the announced (but banned) event, the police visited Nikolai’s home to warn him from carrying out the protest and published their warning in the paper.

Amazingly, today Nikolai and his team have released a video made from several small cameras pinned to activist’s clothing showing what “Pride” looks like in Putin’s Russia — one big, homophobic mess, complete with Orthodox onlookers praying and what appears to have been a punch thrown at Nikolai as he was dragged to the police van.

According to the video, 39 activists were arrested. With my extremely weak college Russian and the help of Google, some of the signs protesters held up said things like the following —

“Homophobia – cover for dictatorship!”

“Homophobia is killing!”

“Discriminating against the minority is oppression of the majority.”

“We don’t need homophobic legislation. Children need nurseries, kindergarten, education.”

That last sign refers to recent legislation, passed in state after state within Russia, banning homosexual “propaganda” from minors. Recent polls indicate that over 70% of the Russian population favors the ban — much like, say, the U.S. in the 1950s. Nikolai has been called the Russian Harvey Milk but he reminds me more of Frank Kameny, for whom announcing “gay is good” was a bold and brash thing to do.

I was really struck by the two young women in the video shown holding up this rainbow flag which reads “Lyubov’ sil’neye” or “love is stronger than.” They were arrested moments later.

The Daily Agenda for Wednesday, May 29

Vincent Autin and Bruno Boileau will become France’s first married same-sex couple.

TODAY’S AGENDA:
Marriage Equality Begins: France. Last weekend, there was a massive anti-gay protest in the streets of Paris against the newly-enacted marriage equality law. That protest was marked by violence, as about 200 protesters, many of them masked, engaged in running battles with police while throwing bottles, rocks, fireworks and flare, and beating up photographers and TV news crews. The Independent reported, “Although a hard core of about 200 hard-right youths started the fighting, many hundreds of other, soberly dressed, middle-class protesters cheered them on. Priests in long cassocks observed the battles without attempting to intervene. Other, more peaceful demonstrators stood in lines or circles nearby holding hands, praying and singing as tear gas and red smoke from flares swirled around them.”

But all of that sound and fury ended up signifying nothing, as today France will mark its first same-sex wedding as Vincent Autin, 40,  marries his partner, Bruno Boileau, 30, in Montpellier’s town hall. The wedding will be attended by 600 guests, including two cabinet ministers and 130 journalists — which means they won’t need to hire a photographer! “It could be intimidating,” Boileau said, “but we will try to retain the spirit of the goal — equality for all. That Mister or Miss Anybody can get married in the town hall.”

Pride Celebrations This Weekend: Aarhus, Denmark; Alkmaar, Netherlands; Angers, France; Bradford, UK; Boston, MA; Buffalo, NY; Cambridge/Kitchener/Waterloo, ON; Davenport, IA; Dayton, OH; Dresden, Germany; Göteborg, Sweden; Honolulu, HI; Kiel, Germany; Lille, France; Lorraine, France; Los Ranchos, NM; Oxford, UK; Queens, NY; Regensburg, Germany; Salt Lake City, UT; Santa Cruz, CA; Shanghai, China; Sonoma Co, CA Springfield, MA; Staten Island, NY; Tulsa, OK; Washington, DC; Waterford, Ireland; Winnipeg, MB; York, UK.

AIDS Walks This Weekend: Beaver Lake, NY; Boston, MA; Long Beach, CA.

Other Events This Weekend: Connecticut Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, Hartford, CT; Rainbow 5K Run/Walk, Indianapolis, IN; Cinépride LGBT Film Festival, Nantes, France; Gay Days Disney, Orlando, FL; Film Out, San Diego, CA; AIDS Lifecycle, San Francisco to Los Angeles, CA (Sponsor Rob Tisinai here!); Inside Out Toronto Film Festival, Toronto, ON.

Daughters of Bilitis Convention Program.

TODAY IN HISTORY:
Daughters of Bilitis Hold First National Convention: 1960. When Del Martin and Phyllis Lyons co-founded the Daughters of Bilitis in 1953, the tiny group only had eight members (see Oct 19). Seven years later, and the Daughters were large enough to hold its first biennial convention at the Hotel Whitcomb in San Francisco. The DoB’s press release announcing the convention was met mostly with silence, with a few sprinkles of condescension here and there. The San Francisco Chronicle’s Herb Caen typified the latter when he who wrote, “Russ Wilden, if nobody else, will be interested to learn that the Daughters of Bilitis will hold their nat’l convention here May 27-30. They’re the female counterparts of the Mattachine Society — and one of the convention highlights will be an address by Atty. Morris Lowenthal titled ‘The Gay Bar in the Courts.’ Oh brother. I mean sister. Come to think of it, I don’t know what I mean.”

The convention drew two hundred women and the San Francisco police, who checked to make sure the ladies were wearing ladies’ clothing. As the Daughters had long emphasized outward conformity in the hopes that it would put larger society at ease, they were already prepared for the “inspection.” Del Martin brought the police inside inside to verify everyone — the women, anyway — was wearing dresses, stocking and heels. After the convention ended, Helen Sandoz ended her report in the DoB’s newsletter, The Ladder with a note of thanks to everyone who attended, including those who were undercover: “Thank you, DOB, ABC (California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control); Vice Squad, professional folk… thank you all for letting us see you and letting you see us.”

Gay rights advocate Jack Nichols (see Mar 16) and Frank Kameny (see May 21) on the picket line in front of the White House.

Second White House Protest: 1965. If a tree falls in the woods and nobody’s there, does it make a sound? That’s the kind of question that may have been on the minds of members of the Mattachine Society of Washington, D.C. following the first ever gay rights protest in front of the White House the month before (see Apr 17). The group decided not to publicize the hour-long protest in advance because they didn’t want to give the police time to invent a reason to block their demonstration. But that also meant that there were no reporters or news cameras there either. As far as everyone outside the little group knew, it simply didn’t happen. But as Frank Kameny, co-founder of the Washington chapter recalled, the protest “went so well that we immediately decided to do a repeat, with advance publicity.” This time, they decided on a three-prong approach to get the word out: a news release was sent to major news outlets, an explanatory leaflet was mimeographed and handed out to passersby during the demonstration, and a follow-up release went out to news media after the protest ended.

Thirteen people showed up with picket signs, and this time there was considerable press coverage, including brief mentions in The New York Times, The Washington Star, the Associated Press, United Press International, and ABC television, whose East Coast viewers saw a line of respectable men (in jackets and ties) and ladies (in heals and skirts), protesting according to the dictates handed down by Kameny (“If you’re asking for equal employment rights, look employable!”). This protest would establish a pattern for future gay rights protests for the next four years.

“Polyester” Premieres: 1981. The John Waters film Polyester made its debut on the silver screen. Divine once again stared, this time as Francine Fishpaw, a suburban housewife whose world is thrown into chaos when her pornographer husband declares he’s been unfaithful, her daughter becomes pregnant, and her son’s accused of breaking local women’s feet as part of his fetish. Nineteen-fifties heartthrob Tab Hunter appeared near the end as lounge-suit-wearing Todd Tomorrow who swept Francine off her sweep and proposed marriage — only to plot with Francine’s mother to embezzle her divorce settlement and drive her insane.

The film was notable for a unique technological breakthrough: it was presented in “Odorama,” in which theatergoers were handed scratch-and-sniff cards so they could smell along with the action. One of those odors was feces, leaving Waters delighted with the thought that his audiences actually “pay to smell shit.” Despite the film’s positive reception — it even got a positive review at The New York Times — it remains a scandal that Polyester has yet to earn any major cinematic awards.

Barney Frank Comes Out: 1987. Barney Frank became only the second member of Congress to confirm that he was gay, and the first to do so wholly voluntarily, when he told a Boston Globe reporter:

“If you ask the direct question: ‘Are you gay?’ the answer is yes. So what? I’ve said all along that if I was asked by a reporter and I didn’t respond it would look like I had something to hide and I don’t think I have anything to hide.”

Rep. Frank said that the disintegration of Gary Hart’s presidential campaign earlier that month over reports of his extra-marital relationship with a young model, and the recent revelation that Rep. Stewart B. McKinney of Connecticut had died of AIDS, had prompted his decision to come out. Of McKinney, Frank said there was “an unfortunate debate about ‘Was he or wasn’t he? Didn’t he or did he?’ I said to myself, I don’t want that to happen to me.” On May 31, the Globe reported that most of his constituents were unperturbed by his announcement, and many were unsurprised.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS:
Nancy Cárdenas: 1934. The poet, playwright, journalist, theater director and social activist was born in Parras, Coahuila in Mexico. She became a noted radio announcer at the age of 20 before turning to the stage. Her interest in literature became apparent in the 1950s when she participated in a public reading program, Poetry Out Loud followed in the 1960’s with the publication of her one-act play El Cántaro Seco (The Empty Pitcher).

In the 1970s, she became an acclaimed theater and film director. Her 1970 film, El Efecto de los Rayos Gamma Sobre las Caléndulas (The Effect of Gamma Rays on Marigolds), was a critical hit, earning the Theatre Critics Association Award. It was also very controversial for being gay themed. She drew death threats and the film was protested by the brother of then-President Luis Echeverría, which was no small thing: President Echeverría had been the hardline Interior Secretary during the 1968 Tlatelolco Massacre, when the Mexican government opened fire on protesting students ten days before the 1968 Summer Olympics. But such was Cárdenas’s influence that not only was the film shown in the Mexican capital, but in a theater on Insurgentes no less — Insurgentes being one of the principal boulevards in Mexico city. It was a huge success.

It was during a 1974 interview on the public affairs television program 24 Horas when she came out as a lesbian. That act made her the first publicly declared lesbian in Mexico. That year she founded El Frente de Liberación Homosexual (FLH, the Gay Liberation Front). In 1975, she co-wrote with Carlons Monsivais the Manifiesto en Defensa de los Homosexuales en México. On October 2, 1978 as part of a commemoration of the Tlatelolco Massacre, she headed the first Gay Pride march in the Plaza de las Tres Culturas. She continued her advocacy throughout the 1980s through her plays, poetry and public statements. She died in 1994 of breast cancer.

Gene Robinson: 1947. When he was elected Bishop of the Episcopal Church’s Diocese of New Hampshire in 2004, he became the first openly gay, non-celibate priest to be elevated to the episcopate. His election was so controversial, he wore a bullet-proof vest during his consecration. In a BeliefNet interview the day after he gave a prayer at the opening of President Barack Obama’s inaugural celebrations, he talked about his journey toward coming to terms with his sexuality:

I’ve been the reparative therapy route. I did that. My own experience is it doesn’t work. I think what it does it that it teaches gay and lesbian people to become so self loathing that they are willing to not act in a natural way, and deprive themselves of the kind of love and support that makes life worthwhile, that makes sense of our own lives and being. I can’t be supportive of that. It only underscores the way the church has gotten this wrong. God doesn’t ever get it wrong but the church often does.

Bishop Robinson formally retired in January, 2013.

Rupert Everett: 1959. It was his 1981 role as a gay schoolboy in the stage version of Another Country that proved to be his break, opening the way for his screen appearance in the 1984 film version with Colin Firth. In 1989, Everett moved to Paris and came out as gay, which he said may have damaged his career. Wags would say that the 1987 flop Hearts of Fire may have been a factor. But his appearance in the 1997 film My Best Friend’s Wedding and 2000’s The Next Best Thing showed that his career wasn’t entirely over — although it did appear that he would forever be typecast as the heroine’s gay best friend. In 2009, he told the British newspaper The Observer:

The fact is that you could not be, and still cannot be, a 25-year-old homosexual trying to make it in the British film business or the American film business or even the Italian film business. It just doesn’t work and you’re going to hit a brick wall at some point. You’re going to manage to make it roll for a certain amount of time, but at the first sign of failure they’ll cut you right off… Honestly, I would not advise any actor necessarily, if he was really thinking of his career, to come out.

Melissa Etheridge: 1961. Her debut album was completed in just four days after her record label rejected her first effort as too polished. That stripped down album, titled simply Melissa Etheridge, not only defined her sound, but it yielded a hit single, “Bring Me Some Water” and a Grammy nomination. In 1992, she won her first Grammy for Best Rock Vocal Performance on the strength of her third album, Never Enough. Her breakthrough album, 1993’s Yes I Am, was certified Platinum and garnered her a second Grammy for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance for her single “Come to My Window”. Her 2006 song “I Need to Wake Up” was recorded for Al Gore’s documentary An Inconvenient Truth and won an Academy Award for Best Original Song.

She came out publicly in 1993 and has been a committed gay rights advocate ever since. She is also a committed advocate on behalf of the environment and breast cancer research, having herself undergone chemotherapy for breast cancer in 2004 and 2005. On an interview with Dateline NBC, she discussed her recovery and her use of medical marijuana while undergoing chemo. In 2011, she announced her separation from her wife, Tammy Lynn Michaels, after seven years together. They have two children, fraternal twins, who were born in 2006. Etheridge also has two children from her previous long-term relationship with Julie Cypher.

David Burtka: 1975. He began as an actor, appearing in a guest role on The West Wing and How I Met Your Mother. It was that appearance which fed rumors that Burtka was romantically involved with one of the series’ stars, leading Neil Patrick Harris to publicly acknowledge in 2006 that he was gay. In 2010, Burtka and Harris, who have been together since 2004, became fathers to fraternal twins, a boy and a girl. Birtka has cut back on acting to run a Los Angeles catering company and work as a full time chef.

If you know of something that belongs on the agenda, please send it here. Don’t forget to include the basics: who, what, when, where, and URL (if available).

And feel free to consider this your open thread for the day. What’s happening in your world?

Our Opponents Do Not Understand Their Own Argument (and that’s how they like it)

I’m starting to think opponents of same-sex marriage talk to their followers and themselves the way I talk to my dogs.

Long ago I began saying to my Shepherd-mix Lucas, “Who is you? Who is you? You is you!” while roughly scratching his neck or flanks. It has no meaning but it doesn’t need one. The tone of voice is all that matters. It’s just a reassuring noise I make.

Maggie Gallagher offers much the same in the National Review, answering the question, “How does same-sex marriage affect marriage’s relationship to procreation, given infertile couples may marry?”

She begins with a pre-emptive warning:

I have made this argument repeatedly. I understand you either disagree with it or can’t hear it.

I see a third option right away: I can hear what she’s about to say, but I don’t disagree with it, because I don’t understand it. It has no meaning, and I’m no longer sure it’s meant to. I can’t say I disagree with something that’s no more than a meaningless reassuring noise.

Here it is:

Childless and older couples are part of the natural lifecycle of marriage. Their presence in the mix doesn’t imply anything about the relationship between marriage and procreation. They’ve always been there.

Let’s start with “the natural lifecycle of marriage.” What on earth does she mean? So many undefined terms: natural and lifecycle and even marriage — does she mean individual marriages or the institution itself? Alas, she merely drops this proposition as if it were self-evident when it’s really just opaque.

Perhaps (and this is the only sense I can make of it) she means it’s not unusual for specific married couples to go through periods of time in which they have no children, and then do have children, and then are too old to procreate. But of course that would have nothing to do with the question she claims to address, which concerns couples who are infertile or old for the entirety of their marriage, for whom these traits are not merely part of their marriage’s “lifecycle.”

And of those couples, can you truly say:

“Their presence in the mix doesn’t imply anything about the relationship between marriage and procreation.”

Of course not. Their presence “in the mix,” their eagerness to marry, the joy we feel for two 75 year-olds experiencing new love — all these things tell us that marriage is not solely about procreation, or even necessarily about procreation at all. Her statement to the contrary is so clearly false that it makes even less sense than me telling Lucas, “You is you!” which at least has the virtue of being true.

Finally, this:

They’ve always been there.

I have no idea what she means to establish. This is the part making me wonder if she’s referring not to individual marriages but to the institution itself, in which case…two things. First, she needs to back waaay up and explain what she means by the natural lifecycle of marriage as an institution. And second, she needs to recognize that if infertile and old couples have always been part of that institution, then procreation has never been a necessary part of the institution.

So her entire paragraph is meaningless. In her next paragraph, she goes further and establishes that even she doesn’t understand what she’s saying.

I went around saying for years “marriage matters because children need a mom and a dad” nobody ever said: that’s not true because infertile couples can marry. Never, not once. Sexual union of male and female who are co-parents in itself points to affirms, and regulates an ideal.

Of course no one has ever given Maggie that reply. It would make no sense. However…if Maggie were to say, “The only reason marriage matters is because children need a mom and dad,” it would be perfectly appropriate for us to answer, “That’s not true because infertile couples can marry.”*

And in fact, we do say such things to her. In fact, that’s the point of the question her whole argument is supposed to be answering.

And here’s where we get to Maggie’s fundamental flaw. She fails to see the enormous difference between these two statements:

1. Responsible procreation is an important reason for marriage.
2. Responsible procreation is the only important reason for marriage.

The first statement is true, but doesn’t rule out marriage for old, infertile, or same-sex couples.

The second statement might rule out such marriages (and if so, then all such marriages), but no one actually believes it — not even Maggie Gallagher.

Folks like Maggie, though, tend say #1 and then pretend they’ve established #2. It’s the only way they can make an argument people might agree with, might find plausible if they don’t look at it too closely, might endorse as long as it stays at the level of reassuring noise.

So I’m struck again by how Maggie opened her article:

I have made this argument repeatedly. I understand you either disagree with it or can’t hear it.

That’s ironic and appropriate. We’ve answered her argument repeatedly, but she literally cannot hear it. Why not? Because she does not understand her own argument, and until that’s fixed, she cannot possibly hear our reply.

*We might also point out the she’s never been able to prove or even offer evidence that children need a mom and dad. The closest she’s ever come is to show kids do best in a stable, loving home with two committed parents.

The Daily Agenda for Tuesday, May 28

TODAY IN HISTORY:
First Pro-Gay Film Released 1919. The German silent film Anders als die Andern (“Different From the Others”) tells the story of a famous concert violinist, Paul Körner (played by Conrad Veidt, who later appeared in Casablanca as Major Heinrich Strasser) who falls in love with his student Kurt Sivers (Fritz Schulz). Both men experience disapproval from their parents, and Körner becomes the subject of a blackmail attempt. The real-life Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld, the famous German sexologist and gay-rights advocate (see May 14), makes several cameo appearances in the film. In one scene, he explains to Körner’s parents that their son “is not to blame for his orientation. is not wrong, nor should it be a crime. Indeed, it is not even an illness, merely a variation, and one that is common to all of nature.”

Hirshfeld’s appearances appear directed more toward the audience than the characters he’s speaking to. In one flashback scene, when Körner first meets Hirschfeld’s character after discovering that an “ex-gay” hypnotherapist was a fraud (some things never change), Hirschfeld tells him, “Love for one of the same sex is no less pure or noble than for one of the opposite. This orientation can be found in all levels of society, and among respected people. Those that say otherwise come only from ignorance and bigotry.”

The acting is stilted, as is common for that era, and the plot is fairly predictable. Körner reports Bollek for blackmail and has him arrested. In retaliation, Bollek exposes Körner. Both men wind up in court, and both are found guilty, despite Hirshfeld’s testimony on Körner’s behalf (and another soliloquy for the audience). The judge has mercy on Körner however, and sentences him only to one week. Disgraced and shunned by his family, Körner kills himself. Sivers also tries to kill himself, but Hirschfeld intervenes. “You have to keep living; live to change the prejudices by which this man has been made one of the countless victims. …Justice through knowledge!”

Many prints of the film were burned by the Nazis after they came to power in 1933, and censorship laws prevented its general viewing. Only small fragments of the film survives today. Here is a clip which includes on of Hirscheld’s cameos (beginning at 3:10):

Ma Vie en Rose: 1997. The Belgian film Ma Vie en Rose (“My Life in Pink”) premiered in France. It’s the story of a young child named Ludovic (Georges Du Fresne), who insists that she is a girl and talks of marrying her best friend, a boy who lives next door. When the film opened in the U.S., it received an R rating by the Motion Picture Association of America, even though the film has minimal sexual content, minimal violence, and mild language. Nevertheless, the film was critically acclaimed and won a Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLqW8jZ9veE

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS:
Kylie Minogue: 1968. She began her career on Australian television as a child actress before beginning her singing career in 1987. Her first hit single, a cover version of “The Loco-Motion,” remained as number one in Australia for seven weeks. For whatever reason, she somehow managed to become a gay icon. “I am not a traditional gay icon” she once remarked. “There’s been no tragedy in my life, only tragic outfits.” But there was one touch of tragedy: in 2005 she was diagnosed with breast cancer. That sidelined her career, briefly. By late 2006 she was touring again, and the video for her 2010 hit “All the Lovers” firmly re-established her presence in video bars everywhere.

If you know of something that belongs on the agenda, please send it here. Don’t forget to include the basics: who, what, when, where, and URL (if available).

And feel free to consider this your open thread for the day. What’s happening in your world?

Sports history made

Yesterday a milestone was passed. Robbie Rogers, the first openly gay man to participate in a prominent North American pro league, stepped onto the field at the Home Depot Center south of downtown Los Angeles as a substitute for the LA Galaxy. The audience roared.

While soccer is a relative new-comer to American professional sports, an influx of immigrants from countries where the sport reigns supreme along with generations of AYSO youth have raised its profile. And the uptick in interest in Los Angeles generated when David Beckman joined the team seems not to have dissipated. (LATimes)

Midfielder Robbie Rogers entered the game to a rousing ovation in the 77th minute, becoming the first openly gay male athlete to play in an American professional team sport. The Galaxy signed Rogers to a multiyear contract Saturday after acquiring the rights for him in a trade with the Chicago Fire, and the 26-year-old Huntington Beach native had five touches, one tackle and three completed passes in the final 13 minutes.

The Galaxy beat the Seattle Sounders 4 to 0.

The Daily Agenda for Monday, May 27

Navy recruitment poster by JC Leyendecker, 1917

I remember, as a child, going to the cemetery of my hometown with my relatives — my parents, grandmother, great-grandmother and great-great aunt — to decorate the graves of other family members. That’s what we called what we did: decorating the graves, for what my older relatives called “Decoration Day.” I always thought it odd that my older relatives called it that.

I also remember that before we got to our family’s grave sites, we passed, a circular drive near the cemetery’s main entrance. At the center of that drive stood a Civil War statue surrounded by the graves of Union soldiers who had died more than a hundred years before. It turns out that Decoration Day — and that is what it was called — began in the years immediately following the Civil War, as something of a spontaneous national observance in both the North and the South. After the Spanish-American War, Decoration Day became the day to honor all of those who gave their lives regardless of the war they fought in. It wasn’t until after World War II that the day became known as “Memorial Day,” and over time and then only slowly did that name replace “Decoration Day.” It wasn’t until 1967 that the day was officially declared Memorial Day by federal law.

As a Federal Holiday, Memorial Day is set aside to remember those who gave their lives for this country. It also marks the unofficial start of the summer season. Americans aren’t the only ones getting a start on summer today, as today is also the Spring Bank Holiday in the United Kingdom.

TODAY’S AGENDA:
Pride Celebrations Today: Chicago, IL (Bear Pride); Pensacola, FL.

Other Events Today: International Mr. Leather, Chicago, IL; Inside Out Toronto Film Festival, Toronto, ON.

TODAY IN HISTORY:
65 YEARS AGO: Homosexual Ring Broken Up: 1948. A veteran University of Missouri journalism professor was arrested and charged with sodomy as Prosecutor Howard B. Lang, Jr. described to reporters fantastical tales of “mad homosexual parties” in Columbia, Missouri. According to the Associated Press on the day of his arrest:

The prosecuting attorney said he had issued a warrant for the arrest of E.K. Johnston, for 24 years a member of the faculty of the university’s school of journalism, after a long investigation into abnormal sex orgies here and other central Missouri cities. Two other men were held in the Boone County jail on similar charges. They are Willie Coots, a gift shop employee here, and Warren W. Heathman, 35, Rolla, Mo., an itinerant instructor for the veteran administrations’s farm training program.

Lang said both had signed statements, implicating Johnston as a principal in what he called a homosexual “ring” at Johnston’s apartment which Coots had shared for the last 15 or 16 years. At least of score of University of Missouri students and other residents here, Lang said, also are implicated in the ring. No charges have been filed against any one except Coots, Heathman and Johnston, but several are being held in jail for investigation or as material witnesses.

Heathman, Lang reported, told a near-fantastic story of “mad parties” at Johnston’s apartment and at a cabin near Salem, Mo., in which as many as 30 members of the “ring” gathered to boast of conquests and to indulge in homosexual practices.

Johnston was fired the next day. He initially pleaded not guilty to the charge of sodomy, but after the other two testified against him, he changed his plea to guilty in exchange for four years’ probation under a $2,000 bond. Terms of the probation included “cessation of homosexual practices.” The others also pleaded guilty and were placed on probation.

20 YEARS AGO: Russia Decriminalizes Homosexuality: 1993. President Boris Yeltsin signed a decree which repealed the law forbidding male homosexuality on this date,. Since 2006, Moscow gay rights advocates have attempted to commemorate the anniversary of this historic event by conducting a gay pride march in Moscow. And every year, Moscow authorities have suppressed the march, usually violently. This year was no different, as police arrested at least thirty marchers in Moscow.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS:
Chris Colfer: 1990. If you watch Fox’s “Glee,” you know him as Kurt Hummel, the fashionably gay kid who is routinely bullied in school. He had auditioned for the wheelchair-bound Artie Abrams, but the show’s creators were so impressed with Colfer that they created the role of Kurt especially for him. Colfer, who is gay himself, says that he was accepted by his family but often bullied in school. You can see Colfer’s video for the “It Gets Better” project here.

If you know of something that belongs on the agenda, please send it here. Don’t forget to include the basics: who, what, when, where, and URL (if available).

And feel free to consider this your open thread for the day. What’s happening in your world?